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India and United States' Mutually Beneficial Economic Relationship; 151,000 Jobs Added in October; Hurricane Tomas Slams Haiti; Inside the Meltdown; Pelosi Will Run for Minority Leader; Gotta-Have Gadgets; Ft. Hood Shooting Anniversary; Monopoly Turns 75
Aired November 05, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: My good friend, it is great to see you. Thank you so much.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you, sir.
VELSHI: And you have a great afternoon, Tony.
I'm Ali Velshi. As Tony said, for the next two hours today and every weekday, I'm going to guide you through that maze of information coming your way. Together we'll learn what's going on around the world and at home. I'll give you access to folks who can best explain what it means today and the impact it will have beyond today. And I'll showcase the best in innovation and philanthropy and public education. My mission is to help you figure out what's going on around you, fits into your life.
Let's get started right now. Here's what I've got on the run-down.
What's happening to the million or more Haitians living in tents as Hurricane Tomas roars through today with powerful winds and potentially deadly flooding rains?
With new U.S. jobless numbers out today, we're taking a look at the India factor. The pros and cons of outsourcing and the country's surging economy. It's no coincidence that President Obama is headed to India today.
It's time to start thinking about that holiday shopping list. This year it's all about electronics. We have the hottest new tech toys to show you.
But first let's talk about jobs. After months of job losses some good news on the U.S. jobs horizon. 151,000 jobs.
Mark, take a look over there. That little green bar right at the end. Look at that coming after months of job losses. But let's pull it back out and show you how this has looked since the beginning of this recession which was in December of 2007. See a little bit of green on the board there? After that it was all downhill. Look at that.
All the way through 2008, until the beginning of 2009, President Obama took office then. We were losing about 700,000 jobs a month for about three months, and then things started to get better toward the end of 2009. We even saw one month with some gains. And look at that into 2010. Really started to improve. And then look what happened. It flattened out after those census workers were hired, it flattened out. And now we have seen a gain of 151,000 jobs. The devil is in the details. So let me take this apart for you.
One of the first things, it has to get your attention, is that of those 151,000 jobs -- 159,000 came from the private sector. How can that be? How can you get more jobs from the private sector than you actually had jobs created? That's because there were government jobs lost.
So if we're gaining jobs, what kind of jobs are we talking about? Now there's an argument as to the quality of these jobs. I'm going to bring in some folks a bit later to help figure that out. But let me show you where the gains and the losses were. We'll see if that graphic comes up.
But health care jobs, new positions in retail and food services had gains. Some categories had losses. 26,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were lost. Another 14,000 local government jobs were eliminated.
Another big number out there, and that's the unemployment rate, itself. It stayed steady at 9.6 percent. So how are we talking about this good news with an unemployment rate that hasn't moved? Well, we need about 150,000 jobs a month just to keep that unemployment rate steady. If we want to lower it, some experts say you need 200,000, 250,000, 300,000 jobs to make a dent in that unemployment rate. You need it for a long time to bring our unemployment rate down to about five percent, which is where it was before this recession started. That's a lot of jobs. A lot of numbers that I'm showing you.
These are people, these are not numbers. 15 million people remain unemployed in this country. About 40 percent of them more than 6 months on unemployment without a job.
Christine Romans, my colleague in New York and co-host of "Your Money," is with me now for more analysis on this.
A lot of numbers, Christine. We and everybody else in this country wants it to be good news. What does it mean to you?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It is good news, ail. It's a move in the right direction. 151,000 jobs overall. And you're so right to point out this is the first sort of real private sectors job growth, growth in the economy that can't be attributed to the census or something else or federal government hiring.
It shows that companies are getting a little more confident and also shows that they are getting demand to hire workers.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: I mean, they cut to the bone. But it is this longer term unemployed number that is still a problem for this White House and for now the Democrats who are ascendants in Congress, right?
This long term unemployment problem and the length that people are out of work.
Look at this, Ali. This is the average number of weeks that people are unemployed. Just look at the last two bars there. From January 2009 to the present.
So from January 2009 to the present, you can expect to be out of work about 20 weeks. Now you can expect to be out of work almost 34 weeks. We in this society have all thought you needed to have three months of savings for a rainy day. Well, it's raining for more than half a year for some people, and there are real concerns about their skills and being able to enter back into the workplace.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this.
ROMANS: Even as we're seeing some excitement over here where the private sector is starting to create jobs again.
VELSHI: OK, let me ask you this. Private sector. 159,000 jobs adding up to a total this month of 151,000 jobs gained. All we heard about is how this government is the enemy of jobs and that the private sector can't create jobs under this administration. But these jobs are October job numbers.
ROMANS: Right.
VELSHI: Nothing happened in September or October that would make business say, oh my goodness, the government's changed, I'm going to hire jobs. So why do we see a job increase after we thought that it's the government that's stopping job creation.
ROMANS: And in fact, when you go back to December 2009, you've seen 1.1 million private sector jobs created.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: Slowly, but surely, one foot in front of the other. The private sector was still growing and having to add jobs. It comes too late for Democrats who had a hard time capitalizing on any kind of message in this White House, had a hard time capitalizing on any kind of message that there were jobs being created because everyone knows somebody, Ali, who has lost a job. And that inspires a lot of fear that's hard to get over in this economy.
There's still this fundamental truth, though, that this is a two-speed recovery where you're starting to see corporate profits, the stock market, certain things doing better and private sector starting to hire in some areas.
You know, there's a shortage, Ali, for I.T. and medical coders and medical therapists and there are shortages in some parts of the economy and some parts of engineering, too. I know you know this very well. They're looking for petroleum engineers. They pay very well. But there's still this very big chunk 6.2 million people who have been left behind at least and that's a real policy problem and a message problem for this White House even if the economy recovers next year.
VELSHI: And that 6.2 million you're talking about, that's the 41 percent of people who have been unemployed for six months or longer?
ROMANS: That's right. That's right. And it's a hard position to be in to be out of work for six months or longer and trying to get your foot in the door when the economy may be moving ahead of you. I mean, that's why we're seeing a lot of concern. It's also a concern for unemployment benefits. That's going to be in the next big fight, right, with this new Republican-led House.
Are they going to keep extending unemployment benefits so people can cope? Or is the "we don't want anymore spending" going to take over and you're going to start having -- did you know, Ali, that in Indiana there are jobless benefits offices that have hired armed guards, because there's such concern about how the level of anxiety at the jobless offices across the country that we had at the end of the year.
VELSHI: And that's understandable. This is your lifeline. Your job is your lifeline.
ROMANS: That's the sign of time. That's the sign of time.
VELSHI: Christine, good to see you.
ROMANS: That's right. Look for that fight to keep up.
VELSHI: We'll talk about this extensively this weekend as well on "YOUR MONEY," Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m.
Christine and I are going to tackle -- we'll break down the jobs and we'll have some talk with some people who know a lot more about this. Christine is also the author of "Smart is the New Rich." Her great book, which is on the book shelves now.
All right. Haiti maybe the worst place on earth to deal with a hurricane. Hurricane Tomas is dumping huge amounts of rain for hours on end. Chad Myers joins me with the latest when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Hey, some breaking news we're getting in for you right now. We are hearing -- CNN is hearing that Nancy Pelosi is making a decision to run for minority leader. She will run for minority leader.
As you know, she has obviously lost her job as speaker after the Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives. But you do have to run for these positions. There are assumptions as to who might get things. But Nancy Pelosi came under a great deal of criticism including from some people who are running as Democrats who said if they were elected, they would not vote for her as speaker again.
Nancy Pelosi, we are learning, will run for the minority leader position in the Democratic Party. As you know the minority party gets a minority leader. The majority party gets a majority leader and a speaker. We're get more on that for you as soon as we have it. Now here's another story that I've been telling you about. It's a middling storm, but it's in the worst possible place. Tomas the on again/off again hurricane. It was stronger, then it was very weak, then it was stronger again. It's lashing Haiti. As it squeezes through the windward passage, that's the passage between Haiti and Cuba.
Cuba doesn't have too much to fear. The biggest thing in the part of the danger zone is Guantanamo Bay, and it can take care of itself. Haiti, as you know, is a very different story. More than a million Haitians are still in tents ten months after the poorest nation in the hemisphere was shattered by an earthquake back in January.
Aid groups have managed to get some of those people into stronger shelters, but many people are actually refusing out of fear that they will lose their few meager belongings or be stopped from going back.
And then there's cholera. We've been telling you about that for a few weeks. An intestinal disease that's spread by contaminated water and food. In recent days, it's killed almost 450 Haitians and it sickened thousands more. Flooding from Tomas would almost certainly spread cholera farther and faster.
Chad has been following this very closely for the last few days. I want to talk to you a little bit more about this, Chad.
The hope we've had is that it would squeeze as clearly as possible through the windward passage, but it's going to hit Haiti. It's going to get parts of Haiti. Even if a storm is not there.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, right. You know, we always try -- we try not to, although we always do focus on where the eye is.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: And the storm is a hurricane so it probably has an eye. We haven't been able to see it for a while because there's so much cloud cover. So that's where the worst winds will be.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: But there certainly will be winds all the way through Port-Au- Prince, all the way through the southwestern peninsula here and into the city, itself.
VELSHI: And as you've said, these are winds that the rest of us would laugh at, but when you're living in tents, it could flood, it could do far more damage in Haiti.
MYERS: I believe the word you just said, flood, is more of a threat. And so will be mudslides.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Because this place is truly a topographic nightmare when it comes to rainfall. All the way around Port-Au-Prince, here's the city right through here. And then there's a -- the ship port would be right through here. Look at the mountains coming down through here. And then this is a bowl. So any rain that falls in the bowl is going to funneled and run all the way down back into the ship port. But that's where the people are living. And in fact, many of them are actually sleeping in some of these rivers, streams because they can get fresh water.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Or at least they have some kind of water --
VELSHI: But that's going to be a dangerous point.
MYERS: Exactly.
VELSHI: All right. Let's bring Andrea Koppel into the conversation. You remember our old colleague, Andrea, was a CNN correspondent. She is now with the Red Cross, and she is on the phone with us from Port- Au-Prince.
Andrea, good to speak to you under not great circumstances, though. What's the situation on the ground in Haiti?
ANDREA KOPPEL, AMERICAN RED CROSS (via telephone): Good to talk to you, too, Ali. Well, I can tell you right now that the sky is almost clear here in Port-Au-Prince. I'm overlooking the downtown community of Petionville right now. And there are kids in the streets playing soccer. You could have heard a pin drop earlier in the morning here. It's midday. And now you're hearing the sounds of the city back to life. There are cars driving everywhere.
The heavy winds that Chad was alluding to that we were all very concerned about appear not to have hit Port-Au-Prince, at least to the extent that we thought they might. The Red Cross, the American Red Cross has been doing a lot of disaster preparedness work for the last eight months, preparing communities. Chad was alluding to some of the mudslides that we've feared. We've been sand bagging mudslides hill sides. We've been digging ditches around these tent cities. We've been teaching people how to have an early warning system in place. And the good news is we can report right now midday on Friday is that that appears to have saved a lot of lives. We are not out of the woods yet.
VELSHI: Right.
KOPPEL: This storm, Tomas, is expected to last through the day, but right now, we have a couple of assessment teams out to the west of the capital in Leogane and Les Cayes, and the reports that are coming back into the Red Cross are quite good. There's flooding, but again, the tents, the tarps and certainly in terms of any loss of life appears to have been minimal. So we're in a holding pattern right now.
MYERS: Andrea, the storm is just now due west of Port-Au-Prince. That means that your winds are going to shift direction. They were for the most part coming over the mountainside that you're talking about, Petionville. And then now as they come straight in from the harbor, there's going to be rain to your east and it's going to be moving on down as flood water into the city.
You said kids are out playing already?
KOPPEL: There are children. I'm looking at them. Right here in the middle of the street kicking the ball around. You've got little shops, markets, that are lined up on the side of the street that are out there. I mean, the thing to remember about the people who live in Port-Au-Prince and in this island nation is that they're used to tropical storms. They're used to heavy rains. Obviously our concern is there are people who are living in tents.
We have seen heavy rains come through Port-Au-Prince and through Haiti since the earthquake in January. It's a mess. It's mucky. But the important thing is that people are able to, as the day goes on, and things dry out, continue to live there and continue to remain healthy.
VELSHI: All right, Andrea, good to talk to you. Thanks. We'll keep in touch with you. And thanks for giving us an update on what's going on in Port-Au-Prince.
It does sort of say to you, doesn't it, that when you've been through the worst, I guess if you're not dead, you get stronger.
MYERS: Yes. Great work by her and even for the Red Cross for being here in general. But this is not over. There will be rain bands that come in.
VELSHI: There are still rain bands all the way down.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: There are almost rain bands down to Panama. So when this low gets up here, there will still be rain bands coming in to Port-Au- Prince.
VELSHI: All right. We've got it on the ground. We'll keep a close eye on what's going on.
Thanks, Chad.
Hey, listen, ever wonder why we're really in the financial mess that we've been in the last couple years? There's this brand new movie that I want to tell you about. It's called "Inside Job."
You've got to see this. Stay with me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So help me God.
MATT DAMON, ACTOR: By the time George W. Bush took office in 2001, the U.S. financial sector was vastly more profitable, concentrated and powerful than ever before. Dominating this industry were five investment banks, two financial conglomerates, three securities and insurance companies, and three rating agencies. And linking them all together was the securitization food chain. A new system which connected trillions of dollars in mortgages and other loans with investors all over the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: And that's the voice of Matt Damon narrating a new movie called "Inside Job." It's a movie that highlights what happened in the financial meltdown. It's an excellent movie. It's being widely released November 12th. Here's part of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAMON: In the old system, when the homeowner paid their mortgage every month, the money went to their local lender. And since mortgages took decades to repay, lenders were careful. In the new system, lenders sold the mortgages to investment banks. The investment banks combined thousands of mortgages and other loans, including car loans, student loans, and credit card debt to create complex derivatives called collateralized debt obligations or CDOs.
The investment banks then sold the CDOs to investors. Now when homeowners paid their mortgages, the money went to investors all over the world. The investment banks paid rating agencies to evaluate the CDOs. And many of them were given a AAA rating which is the highest possible investment grade. This made CDOs popular with retirement funds, which could only purchase highly rated securities. This system was a ticking time bomb.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: I talked with Eliot Spitzer -- he's in the movie -- about this movie on my weekend show "YOUR MONEY." He's the co-host of CNN's "PARKER-SPITZER NOW," but he was the attorney general in the time leading up to this mess.
Listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Eliot, you as the attorney general in New York were actually the face of opposition to this. You were a guy who was trying to shine a light on things that were being done in the financial system that were bad for consumers. This seems to even be worse than the stuff that you were dealing with.
ELIOT SPITZER, HOST, "PARKER-SPITZER NOW": Well, it's a continuation of exactly what we were shining a light on. We began, in fact, full disclosure, I appear in the movie and the role I play is to basically say, look, Wall Street is too in many respects a Ponzi scheme. Wall Street is rife with conflicts of interest that the consumer will always get the short end of the stick and brokers and the folks at the top will take away their multimillion dollar bonuses, doing anything they can to pad their own pockets. Don't trust them. When we made those cases years back, the opposition was furious. It was powerful. It's precisely what Charles Ferguson describes in what I think is a spectacular movie. It's a must-see movie for every person in the country to understand what happens. He shines a light on the power of Wall Street and the out right falsehoods and lies emanating from Wall Street and the academics to butcher. It's a corrupt system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: And you can watch more of that interview and my interview with the director on "YOUR MONEY," Saturday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern.
I think you should make it a point to see that movie.
Hey, we got a big announcement from Nancy Pelosi about her future. Dana Bash is on the story. We'll talk to her right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: As you first learned here on CNN, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just made an announcement about her future plans.
Our senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is on the story from the House -- from the Capitol.
Dana, what we have got?
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, since we reported that the speaker's office has sent out a notice to all Democratic members informing them of her decision. And also they've put out a formal statement. And I want to read you part of what that statement says, Ali.
"It says many of our colleagues called with the recommendations on how to continue our fight for the middle class and have encouraged me to run for House Democratic leader. Based on those discussions and driven by the urgency of protecting health care reform, Wall Street reform and social security and Medicare, I have decided to run."
Now, Ali, I can tell you that I have been on the phone with multiple Democratic congressmen this morning. Both from the moderate side of the political spectrum and elsewhere. And you know, it has been very interesting. There have been multiple moderate Democrats who increased pressure on Pelosi not to do this. Not to run.
For example, Dan Boren, he is a conservative Democrat from Oklahoma. I talked to him morning. He said, "I cannot in good conscious support Nancy Pelosi as our leader." He said he wants another Democratic alternative. Another moderate Democrat said the same thing. That is Jim Matheson of Utah. And what he and others told me that they were concerned that there would be a potential recruiting problem to get other Democrats to run, to try to take the House back or at least increase the minority in the next election. There's certainly a mixed feeling in this. And I will tell you, as soon as we got Nancy Pelosi's tweet or when we got it, I was actually on the phone with a Democratic congressman. He wants to remain anonymous, because he doesn't want to talk about internal discussions. But he has been working the phones talking to a lot of Democratic members, and he told me that it's not just the moderates who were concerned about Pelosi, it also was some of her fellow progressives who weren't so sure it was the best thing for her to run because of the fact that they have suffered in over 60 losses and because of the future. Very, very interesting.
VELSHI: Give me some context. Historically, typically when somebody is a speaker and they lose that much, they have, in the past, stepped down. Was this expected or is this unusual?
BASH: The conventional wisdom leading into the election was that if Nancy Pelosi lost the speaker's gavel, lost the majority, that perhaps she would just leave. She would leave the Democratic leadership, maybe even leave Congress. But she obviously decided not to do that.
She has been -- I'll just give you a little color -- inside her office, she's been working the phones for two days straight and sort of -- I gave you the negative side. But there also is a positive side for her. And that is she is a huge fund-raiser.
Ali, she raised over $50 million this election season for her fellow Democrats. Obviously many of them lost, big loss, but she has built up a reservoir of support among her colleagues. And everybody, even those who said that they didn't really necessarily want her to run, they said that if she decided to run, there's no question she would have the votes.
VELSHI: Is there any logical opponent whose name is coming out?
BASH: Great question. Among the moderate Democrats, the conservatives who say that they just think this is a bad idea, the one name that I've heard is Congressman Heath Schuler from North Carolina. He's not formally said he would challenge her. We're waiting to hear from his office. But those who know him and those who have talked to him said that it is possible that he would challenge her.
However, reality check here. That moderate caucus, even the so-called blue dogs, they got crushed in this election. Their caucus so much smaller. They don't even come close to having the numbers to be able to topple her.
VELSHI: All right. Some people may only know Nancy Pelosi from ads and things like that, but she's a formidable, formidable force in Congress. So this will be an interesting evolution of this situation.
Dana, thanks very much for bringing that to us, and thanks very much for giving it to us first. That's where you heard it first here on CNN.
All right. Jobs were such a big issue during this campaign. If Americans jobs are indeed going to places like India, what does that mean for the Indian economy? I got a couple of people standing by to help explain what India means for us, where India fits into the world and this economic recovery.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: President Obama's next week or so is going to be taken up by a trip to Asia. First stop, Mumbai, India. Air Force One will be wheels down there tomorrow. We saw it take off a couple hours ago. It's a long trip.
Mumbai is the country's commercial capital, the richest city in India. Jobs and trade are going to top the president's agenda, according to the White House and some comment he made before he left. One of the first events is speaking at the U.S./India Business Conference. Now, from Mumbai the president then heads to Delhi, that's the capital. New Delhi.
India is a big American ally. So let's look at the country in a little more detail here. India's population is now nearly 1.2 billion. That's second only to China. It has a young country -- it's a young country with a young workforce. The median age is about 26. Compared to 37 here in the United States. India has 15 official languages. The most widely spoken is Hindi. English is considered a subsidiary official language. But more people speak English in India than there are Americans in total.
Religionwise, India's majority, Hindu is practiced by over 80 percent of the population. Thirteen percent Muslim. Again, more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan, the neighbor. Also represented, two percent of Indians are Christian, another two percent are Sikh.
Economically, India is on fire. It's GDP last year was $3.6 trillion, making it - in dollars. That makes it the fifth highest in the world. The EU is number one The U.S. is number two, China is number three, Japan is number four, India is number five. Check out India's GDP growth rate. That's what we often look at. It's averaged more than seven percent growth per year since 1997. We'll be lucky if we hit two percent here in the United States. So, India is growing very quickly.
But most Indian workers are not rolling in dough. The average annual household income is just over $3,000. Here in the U.S., it's above $50,000.
Now, let's put this in context. We saw the U.S. jobs report this morning. 151,000 jobs were created in the United States in the month of October. When you break that down into what kind of jobs were created, they were primarily in temporary jobs, health care and service jobs. What you didn't se was the creation of engineering jobs or software jobs. The kind of jobs folks say are being outsourced to India.
I want to bring, my colleague, Christine Romans, back in here and also Nariman Behravesh. He's the chief economist of Global Insight. He's in Lexington, Massachusetts. Both of you, welcome to the show.
First of all, Christine, there was something leaked out somewhere that said this trip was going to cost $200 million a day, and the president shouldn't be doing it. Since then, the White House has come out and said that it's nowhere close to that. But the bottom line is, is this a cost or is this expense -- is this an expense or investment, the president going to India?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is an investment. The president - it's the right region to be in right now to repair what -- there are some concerns on what the United States has been doing on the way out of its economic crisis. Most recently, with the Fed, injecting all this stimulus into the economy. There's some concerns from the Chinese in particular about that.
Also because look at India. India is a democratic ally, a buffer in a region where you'd have the Chinese who are ascendant, and when you talk about also all of those people in that country with a $3,000, you know, household income level, American CEOs salivate at the idea -- not so much anymore about the labor arbitrage, if you will, which is, you know, moving American jobs there. They want a middle class there they can sell their products to. They see a huge middle class for products that could create jobs in the U.S. That's what the president has to do. He's got to make the pitch to buy our stuff so we can make some jobs here.
VELSHI: So, you fished it right into Nariman's world. And that is, Nariman, we have for so long, we don't associate India with the same problems we associate China with in terms of sucking jobs out of the United States.
But the fact is call center outsourcing, engineering outsourcing, innovation has gone to India. How does the U.S. benefit from all of these jobs that have left the United States that we have not found a way to replace but have helped these other countries, particularly India, become more prosperous? How on earth can we do what Christine just said? How do we prosper from Indians getting rich?
NARIMAN BEHRAVESH, CHIEF ECONOMIST, GLOBAL INSIGHT: I think that's part of the whole mission here. And what we have is a rapidly growing economy that's still fairly closed in the sense that there are huge opportunities.
And I think one of the things the president and the business leaders accompanying him hope to accomplish is opening up the Indian market. It is a big market. Rapidly growing market. And in particular, we think there's going to be some focus on opening up the retail market and defense market.
Another very important statistic that distinguishes India from China is consumer spending is 60 percent of the Indian economy. It's only 35 percent --
VELSHI: Wow.
BEHRAVESH: -- of the Chinese economy.
VELSHI: And Nariman, that's often a sign of an emerging economy, is it not? When people were earning more money than they thought they would be earning and they spend it on things that make life better for them?
BEHRAVESH: Absolutely. You mentioned the Indian call centers and outsourcing. But if you go to those Indian call centers, what kind of hardware you see in those call centers? A lot of U.S. hardware. Hewlett-Packard, Dell, so on. We're benefiting from the existence of those call centers as well. It's not all one way.
VELSHI: Christine, here's the thing. When we think about the jobs that go to India or for that matter China or anywhere else, why -- why does that happen? Some of it is low value, you know, low labor costs in some of these countries, but why are we not attracting the bright minds that India has to the United States? We were doing that for a few years when the tech bubble was hot.
ROMANS: Well, I think we are still. I think this is still the destination for a lot of innovators and certainly when you look at our college system, our university system and people still want to come here. And this is still where the patents are happening.
But there are exciting things happening in other parts of the world as well, Ali. The thing about the outsourcing that has been so interesting from the very beginning people would say, look, it's just these low-wage jobs, we don't need those jobs anymore. We have other higher-value jobs here that we want to focus on for what the United States does.
But you've seen the level of expertise of the jobs that are being done, that are being exported or outsourced get higher or higher. There are architects, there are engineers, not just call center but people who design call centers and people who do the networking for call centers.
So, there's also research and development that's being developed elsewhere, and that's something that's a concern to people who worry that we haven't found the thing to replace it yet in this country. Research and development, this is something you're very interested in as well. A lot of innovation comes from the factory floor. A lot of factory floors have moved. So, what about the innovative spirit of this country? A lot of that come from the factory floor, manufacturing --
VELSHI: Does that --
ROMANS: -- and we're losing that. The president wants to make sure --
VELSHI: I -- go ahead --
ROMANS: The president wants to make sure -
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: -- sure.
BEHRAVESH: Yes. Which are the most innovative companies in the world? It's still Apple, it's still Cisco. It's still a lot of the American name brands. We're still ahead. We have to keep staying ahead. No question about it. It's a challenge. And China and India catching up to some extent which is fairly normal, Japan did for a while as well. But it doesn't mean it's all over. We have a challenge and have to keep going.
VELSHI: For China and India, for instance, for 100 years they tried to profit, and in some ways in recent years, very successfully. Other countries being faster growing.
How do we retool to do that? Is it an acceptance we are not necessarily going to keep our lead against the rest of the world, but we can certainly profit? And our citizens in the United States can profit from other places growing faster. How do we do that?
BEHRAVESH: Well, to your point earlier, we do have some of the best universities in the world. We have to make sure a lot more Americans can go to those universities in the sense of qualified to go to those universities.
VELSHI: Particularly in engineering and technology and mathematics.
BEHRAVESH: Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's where primary secondary education and investment there is crucial to make sure that these kids are prepared to the best universities in the world.
ROMANS: We need science.
BEHRAVESH: India was feeding our tech boom for a long time with their engineers. We have a lot of companies telling us we wish American students were as qualified, and that's one of the challenges we face here.
Nariman, great to see you again. Thank you for being with us. Nariman Behravesh is the chief economist at Global Insight. And of course, my friend, Christine Romans. As always, you can watch us having more of this conversation this weekend on "YOUR $$$$$."
We're doing some "Globe Trekking" today with a look at human tragedies in three countries. We'll tell you what's happening, next.
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VELSHI: Time now for "Globe Trekking." We're starting in Pakistan. Authorities there reporting a second deadly mosque attack today. It happened in the country's volatile northwestern region. Four people killed, 18 wounded. That follows an earlier blast during Friday prayers that killed at least 67 people. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
Over the border in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber hit a crowded marketplace today in Fariab province, northwest of Kabul. His main target was the head of the provincial council. The official survived, but at least five others were killed.
And Cuban authorities confirmed there are no survivors from yesterday's plane crash in the mountains. It's was a passenger plane. The AeroCaribbean flight had 68 passengers on board. Pilots reported an emergency, then lost contact with air traffic control. It's Cuba's worst air disaster in more than 20 years.
OK. New technology hits the market so fast we can hardly keep up. You know from watching me I love technology. We picked a few of the hottest new items for you, after the break.
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ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I think we're falling for this trap. I've been hearing that if we don't wait until Black Friday to start shopping for the holidays, we're actually doing it now, it comes after Halloween. And I think we're falling for the trap right now, because The Big I right now are the hottest gadgets for the holiday season.
My good friend, Mario Armstrong joining me now, he's a Digital Lifestyle Expert joining me from our Washington bureau. Mario, great to see you. You know what, you're going to talk about it, I'll accept. You've got an Ipad next to you, what's that gadget?
MARIO ARMSTRONG, DIGITAL LIFESTYLE EXPERT, CNN: So this is going it be gift wrapped for you, it's on the way. To make sure that you show up on time, Ali, I've been talking to your producers. This is the world's first I-pad alarm clock. So basically, it's made by a company called I-Home, which is a leader in these kind of docking accessories for I-pads, I-phones, and things of that nature.
But this is the first time that I've really been impressed with the sound quality of this particular unit; the IA 100 is what it's called. It's about $199 bucks. But I have to tell you, when you power this baby up - it has four speakers, you can play internet radio, it has blue tooth capability on it, all types of fun apps that you can do with the actual alarm clock, itself. I have been impressed by this device.
VELSHI: Alright well, I'll tell you what I'm impressed with, what are you wearing?
ARMSTRONG: Ah, yes, so do we have any take off music? So I am wearing probably one of the coolest gadgets that you can get for the kid at heart, for an adult, or for the youngster. This is basically an electronic rock guitar t-shirt. This is not a toy, Ali, this is the real deal. For $29 bucks it comes with a mini amplifier that I have right here and I can actually play recorded guitar sounds. So I take my magnetic pick and I start playing. Right away -- and I'm rocking out.
VELSHI: That is incredible.
ARMSTRONG: It's incredible and it's washable. And this actually can be plugged into a stereo system or some other amplifier so it actually is real rock guitar sounds coming out of this interactive shirt.
VELSHI: I like that. Do that one more time. Give me a little tune.
ARMSTRONG: Listen...Let me see if I can get my led zeppelin on here. I got a lot of work to do as you can see.
VELSHI: Very good. I like that. Alright, you've got a couple more things I want to go through. What's that --
ARMSTRONG: Yes, this is at thinkgeek.com. My favorite -
VELSHI: 30 bucks?
ARMSTRONG: 30 bucks, my favorite geeked-out website. OK, also family photos and video is big but you're tired of carrying two devices, so I'm recommending this year to take a look at a camera called the Sony Bloggie Touch,
VELSHI: Yeah
ARMSTRONG: It's $170, shoots HD up to two hours, but also, Ali, what's really unique about this and different is that it will take still photos while you're shooting video. So you can see a great moment while you're shooting video and say, wow, that would be a great photo, I can take a 12 megapixel video of that photo while -
VELSHI: And it doesn't stop the video
ARMSTRONG: And it doesn't stop the video, which is amazing to me, and it connects to any HD television which will give you that great video throughput when you're trying to share it with family and friends on your HD TV.
VELSHI: What does that cost?
ARMSTRONG: $170 bucks - Sony Bloggie.
VELSHI: Alright and you've got something called an nPower Peg. What is that?
ARMSTRONG: Yeah, basically this is the world's first personal energy generator. It's a kinetic generator - it helps you power your devices. We're all tired of not being able to have power. You travel a lot. You should absolutely have one of these. I'll get you one of these. But basically it uses kinetic energy.
So while this device is in a backpack, it's shaking, it's moving, it's building up energy. I can then plug in a USB cable and then plug up my devices to get that charge to that device. It's very powerful. $149 bucks at nPower Peg is the name of the company. They just came out with this.
VELSHI: And what is the connection, what does it connect to? In other words what can I power with it?
ARMSTRONG: Great question - tons of devices. Gaming systems, portable handhelds, not laptop computers or anything like that, it's mostly your handheld devices that you can connect to. But if you're the person that's tired of looking for wall outlets everywhere you go this is --
VELSHI: I'm always on the move so that will work. Do they have connections for cell phones or do you have to buy those?
ARMSTRONG: Great question because it does come -- when you order the device you tell it what type of connections you will need and it will give you certain tips, so it is a universal charger in that sense that you can buy different tips for different products if you choose to.
VELSHI: That is a fantastic idea. I love that. Good stuff out there. You know, when I take over the world, Mario, my whole platform is going to be universal like plug-ins for everything. It's going to be one thing.
ARMSTRONG: One thing. That's right, just one standard. It will be the Ali standard.
VELSHI: Yeah you know I'm going to win right? When I run for taking over the world on this platform.
ARMSTRONG: The only thing you're going to win is this t-shirt. You're going to get an interactive ThinkGeek T-shirt. That's what you win.
VELSHI: Take us out on that. I like that.
ARMSTRONG: Alright, will do. Alright Velshi.
VELSHI: Mario Armstrong, Digital Lifestyle Expert and for any of those products we talked about I know Mario gave you the links. Just go to my blog CNN.com/Ali and I will link to you to the Mario Armstrong - our guy with all the gadgets. I'll be right back in a minute.
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VELSHI: In today's "crime & consequence" the grim anniversary of a shooting massacre. One year ago 13 people were killed at Ft. Hood military base in Ft. Hood, Texas. At least 30 others were wounded when the gunman went on rampage. It happened at a processing center at the army post.
There are several memorials and award ceremonies going on today and tomorrow at the army base. Soldiers were released early today to pay tribute to the victims. Army Major Nidal Hasan is accused of the shooting spree. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist was shot during the massacre. He is paralyzed from the waist down.
Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. And the latest on the investigation found that Hasan allegedly asked the advice of radical Islamic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki to find out if killing U.S. Soldiers was legal under Muslim law. al-Awlaki says he met Hasan 9 years ago while serving as an Imam at a mosque in D.C. Hasan's attorney says his client is considering pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. We'll follow the story. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Monopoly, which you see here, is played all over the world in many versions in many languages. Today the board game turns 75 years old. More than 275 million games have been sold worldwide. It's available in 111 countries in 43 languages, more than half a billion people have played Monopoly. CNN Photojournalist Bob Crowley talked to the people who actually make the game to see why they think this classic is still popular.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Monopoly is the quintessential board game. It's sold in 111 countries and in 43 languages.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it's the best game to play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where monopoly is manufactured. This is the Hasbro games facility, it's the largest games and puzzles producer in the world. We produce up to 2 million monopoly games a year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My job is to make plastic parts for our games and toys. I'm sure everyone plays Monopoly. It's something that's just never going to go away.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been here 25 years. I work in the Monopoly line. All Monopolies are different. This is only 30 pieces in each pack. I think it teaches you part of life. You know, you make the right decisions in life - if you make your investments, how to save money, how to buy property. It's being part of history.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have more fun with the family, you get to talk with the family. Video games you sit there and do this all day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the final assembly line. This is where it all comes together. This is where the magic happens. It's just a way to bring the families together. Teaches about numbers, teaches you about competition, teaches you about relationships. Life is just too hectic now. It moves at a pace that we're not used to. This slows it down a little bit. It's the perfect family game.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
