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Jobs Added to U.S. Economy But Unemployment Rate Remains Same; Stock Market Stays Static After Labor Dept. Announcement; On the Hunt for Joseph Kony; Spinning the Job Numbers; Answers to Your Financial Questions; Obama Speaks on Jobs report

Aired March 09, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Live from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, it is 12 noon here. 9:00 a.m. on the West Coast. I'm Suzanne Malvueax. I want to get you up to speed for this Friday, March 9th.

New numbers out today point to more solid progress in the jobs market. The Labor Department says employers added 227,000 jobs in February. That's better than most economists expected. But the unemployment rate did not budge. It is stuck at 8.3 percent.

Republicans, they were quick to criticize President Obama over the jobs report. They say it shows too many Americans are still out of work.

That report, good news for the White House, however. So how are the Republican candidates spinning the new jobs numbers? Mitt Romney, he says it's just not enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This president -- how many months ago was it, 37 months ago -- told us that if he could borrow $787 billion, almost $1 trillion, he would keep unemployment below eight percent. It has not been below eight percent since.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

MALVEAUX: This is the city of Homs in Syria. This is where the person who posted the video says the protesters are battling the Syrian army in the streets now. Now, opposition groups say that more than 60 people were killed today in fighting all over the country. The woman who heads up the U.N. Humanitarian mission, she was in Homs this week. Today, she is urgently asking the Syrian government to let those aide workers go in, help people who are caught in the fighting.

Eight militants are dead in Pakistan today. Pakistani intelligence officials are telling CNN that they suspect a U.S. drone strike. They say four missiles blasted the militants' hideout right along the border with Afghanistan. The U.S. military is not commenting yet.

So those four murderers, pardoned by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, are going to remain free. That's right. The state supreme court has upheld the controversial pardons granted to those guys and more than 200 other convicts. A victim who was shot by one of those killers says he feels threatened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY WALKER, SHOT BY DAVID GATLIN: I think once somebody tries to kill you and they don't succeed, he's always a threat -- he or she is always a threat. I've been advised that if I see David in any of my immediate area or whatever, that it would -- I should probably take that as a threat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Whitney Houston's family is now speaking out. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Houston's sister-in-law, Patricia Houston, talked about the late singer's struggles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: Did you think that drugs would end up taking her? Did you think that?

PATRICIA HOUSTON, WHITNEY HOUSTON'S SISTER-IN-LAW: The writing was kind of on the wall. I would be kidding myself to say otherwise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: It was a shame. Whitney Houston found dead last month in a Beverly Hills hotel. The cause of her death has yet to be determined.

Jobs: it's one of the biggest issues in the country and the presidential campaign. All of us are thinking about it. We want to go behind the numbers of the jobs report today. The Labor Department says that employers added 227,000 jobs last month. But unemployment rate still at 8.3 percent.

I want to bring in Christine Romans to break down the numbers. You've got a pretty cool new tool that lays out the whole thing.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I know.

MALVEAUX: Walk us through it, Christine.

ROMANS: It's really exciting. Well, you just laid out the headlines. So, let's go inside the jobs numbers and find out where the jobs are. Anybody can get this on CNN.com and take a look yourself at the different sectors, the different areas and charts and graphs that show what the labor market looks like for you where you live. 233,000 private sector jobs were created. Suzanne, that's important. Two years now of private sector job growth. That means companies and businesses are adding jobs. It's not the government propping up the economy anymore through stimulus and census hiring and all that.

In the government, by the way, 6,000 jobs were lost in the public sector. And we are expecting more public sector job loss, quite frankly, as budgets are cut in states and as the federal budget will eventually begin to slim down. But that's better than last year. 22,000 jobs on average last year were lost in the public sector.

I want to look at where the job creation was. Health care jobs, 61,000, Suzanne. Leisure and hospitality, 44,000. Transportation and warehousing, I mean, I could go on and on. Go to CNN.com so you can see this yourself. 31,000 in manufacturing. Mining saw more jobs, and all kinds of jobs in mining are hiring. Construction, though, job loss there.

Quickly I want to bring you up here to professional and business services. 82,000 jobs created there. That was the biggest jobs gain in the economy. And because you are a political junkie, my friend, I'm going to show you this. All right? Are you ready?

MALVEUAX: Yes.

ROMANS: This is through the last six months of the Bush administration, then the beginning of the Obama administration, every one of these red bars are jobs lost. And every one of the people inside of those jobs -- of those bars is a jobs lost and a family that is going to be thinking about the economy on the campaign trail. This is slow not - not, a setback here, slow improvement. And now we have three months in a row, Suzanne, 200,000 plus jobs creation.

MALVEUAX: I love that chart because it takes the politics out of it and it just gives you the raw numbers and you can see what happened in the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It does look like there is slow and steady progress.

So, we'll see how everybody spins it during the primaries of the caucuses. That is the real deal there.

ROMANS: And you can go to CNN.com. So nobody can spin you, people. Go and see all the numbers yourself. Do whatever you want with it and see the numbers.

MALVEAUX: Thanks, Christine. Have a great weekend.

Want to check on how the markets are reacting to the jobs report. Alison Kosik, she's joining us from the New York Stock Exchange. First of all, give us a quick update. What do the markets look like, what's driving the stocks today?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know what, Suzanne, you'd expect a bigger bounce with such a strong jobs number. Stocks are modestly higher. The Dow is up about 40 points. You know, I talked with one analyst that says there's this feeling that the market wanted a better number than 227,000 because the economic data that's been coming in showing that the economy is getting stronger. You look at manufacturing, it's revving up. Retail sales are better. Even there's improvement in GDP.

So, while that jobs number came in in line with expectations, the thinking, at least for the market, is that job creation should be a little stronger, too to match the signs of the overall improvement in the economy.

And then this analyst told me, you look behind the curtain of this jobs report. He says you know what? There's really nothing spectacular in it. He says about half of the 227,000 jobs that were created are in industries like food and support services. But the problem here is that those are low-wage jobs and those workers aren't going to go out and, let's say, buy a house or buy big-ticket items. So, they won't necessarily move the economy forward any faster.

Although Wall Street sees this jobs report as a solid report, no doubt about that -- you know, this analyst tells me at this point it's not a turning point. And Wall Street really want toed see more momentum at this point. You know what, just there's no pleasing Wall Street. Suzanne?

MALVEUAX: Okay. No pleasing Wall Street. Thank you, Alison. Have a great weekend.

Here's a rundown of some of the stories we're covering first. Hiring is up, but the unemployment rate is still holding steady. President Obama is talking jobs. He's doing that at the bottom of the hour. We're going to bring you his comments live.

And then buying black. An African-American couple buys from only black businesses to are a whole year. Yes, hard time finding toys and even toilet paper.

And a manhunt for Ugandan warlord intensifying as millions logon to YouTube to view a documentary that points the finger at one man for many atrocities. We'll going to have a live report from Nairobi, Kenya.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right. You may have not heard of the name Joseph Kony before. But in the last 48 hours, he's become a household name. He's a Ugandan warlord blamed for torturing, killing and brainwashing children and families in central Africa.

His name is suddenly everywhere because mostly of a 30-minute documentary posted on YouTube. More than 65 million people have clicked on to this doc.

So, why has Joseph Kony's story electrified the world online and now in a way we've never seen before go viral? CNN's Brian Todd, he's got the story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's a warlord who experts say is responsible for the kidnapping of up to 70,000 people, many of them children, operating first in Uganda, now in three other African countries. He and his militants have killed and disfigured tens of thousands of villagers, forced young boys to become child soldiers, forced girls into sexual slavery.

Joseph Kony (ph) and his so-called Lord's Resistance Army have been doing this for a quarter of a century trying to overthrow the Ugandan government in favor of a regime based on the Ten Commandments. He's on the run from African forces and their American advisers, but Joseph Kony is getting more attention now than ever.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop the rebel group, the L.R.A., and their leader Joseph Kony.

TODD: That's thanks to a new video called "Kony 2012", a half hour long, it's gone viral, tens of millions of views on YouTube in just a few days. The filmmakers used the hacktivists group Anonymous and others to blast it out over the Internet. They sent tweets to celebrities like George Clooney, Rihanna, to American lawmakers. The film highlights Kony's atrocities partly through the eyes of a former child soldier, who according to the video saw his brother murdered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) I saw my brother once again, I don't --

(CRYING)

TODD: The video is produced by a nonprofit activist group called Invisible Children. Filmmaker Jason Russell's goal to gather momentum for Kony to be captured and brought to justice at the International Criminal Court.

JASON RUSSELL, FILMMAKER, "KONY 2012": He's been getting away with murder and what he does is he brainwashes them, makes them kill their parents, slaughter people, cut off people's faces.

TODD: But some say this popular crusade is misleading.

(on camera): Critics say the film manipulates the facts ignoring the Ugandan military's human rights abuses and its war with the L.R.A., ignoring the fact that Joseph Kony and its forces have been significantly reduced to number (ph) in recent months and have committed far fewer attacks.

(voice-over): The head of Invisible Children response.

BEN KEESEY, CEO, INVISIBLE CHILDREN: The scale of (INAUDIBLE) violence has decreased, which is a good thing. And it's a result of this effort.

TODD: Analyst Richard Downey applauds the group's effort to call attention with Kony. But -- RICHARD DOWNIE, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: I take issue with their approach, very much focused on the white Westerners' ability to parachute in and solve a problem that Africans are unable to deal with themselves.

I think by portraying Westerners as the only people who can crack this problem of Joseph Kony -- it's simplistic, it's naive and it's a little bit condescending as well.

TODD: Invisible Children issued a statement saying hey're not naive, never claimed a desire to save Africa. They just want Western youth to do more than just watch.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in David McKenzie. He's in Nairobi, Kenya. And also Barbara Starr from the Pentagon because American troops are in central Africa to help hunt down Joseph Kony.

First to you, David. This half-hour documentary - it's unbelievable. It's the hottest thing on the Web right now. You're talking about 65 million clicks and counting. This is a problem that's not new. People have been dying in the hands of Kony for more than a decade. How are the people there in Africa responding to this?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's split down the middle, Suzanne. There are some who really applaud this effort to get Joseph Kony, this notorious warlord out there into the public space. For the youth around the world to take notice of what he's done and what he's doing.

On the flip side, people say, well, it's a bit little too late. One official told me from Uganda, you know, great message, 15 years too late. This should have been dealt with a long time ago. And in effect, Joseph Kony is a spent force hiding out in the forests of central Africa. Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: And David, let's talk about this a little bit. Because some people bring up the fact that there's been relative peace there for the last six years or so. This Lords Resistance Army has not been attacking, and Kony has not really been around much.

. Is it possible that this -- might this call to go get him, go after him, might embolden him, make him afraid or even make him panic and start going after children, going after families again?

MCKENZIE: Well, that's one analysis. I don't think it's quite correct. Basically northern Uganda has been peaceful since at least 2006, Suzanne. I've been to those areas. When I've been there, it was winding down. Now it's completely peaceful. People have left those refugee camps that were caused by the LRA.

But then he has gone on -- Joseph Kony and his groups into the DRC, into the Central African Republic, also parts of Southern Sudan and continued to create havoc. But in the last sort of year, year- and-a-half, there has really been a push by the Ugandan special forces, now pushed also by the U.S. forces there as advisers to stop him.

I don't think that this campaign will embolden him or make him want to kind of make spectacular successes because of his new fame, as it were. I think what is more likely is that he's going to continue hiding in the bush, in the deep jungle, in the eastern parts of the Central African Republic trying to avoid being captured.

The one tricky aspect is that this is a simple message that's put forward by this group, but this is a complicated issue. And really it's not up to the youth of the world to capture him. It's up to special forces and their teams to get him.

So what they can do, it's sort of up for debate.

MALVEAUX: Well, let's bring in Barbara to talk about that.

Because, Barbara, as we know, the president sent about 100 military advisers to Uganda just back in October to help the local forces hunt down Kony. Are they making any progress?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are on the ground now in a number of locations, Suzanne, some very remote areas. Uganda, as David pointed out, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, about 100 troops working as trainers and advisers. But the areas sometimes are quite unsettled. So they're combat equipped but their mission is to help these African military forces go after Kony.

This is a result of some congressional laws being passed, some action in Washington to try and pressure some progress to get this man who is responsible for some of the worst atrocities on the African continent.

I would just very quickly point out, though, there is a broader U.S. military strategy at work in Africa. They worry that these kinds of groups are very destabilizing, from Somalia across North Africa all the way into Nigeria, in the west. There are al Qaeda groups, al Qaeda affiliates and some of these thugs and terrorist groups like Joseph Kony.

It leads to destabilization, it leads to terrorists being able to move into these areas and take advantage. That's kind of the broader mission that the U.S. military is on. Train and advise the African militaries and make them really able, with equipment and technology, to go after some of these guys -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thank you. Thank you as well, David.

Stay with CNN. Next hour we're going to talk to a young woman, a teenager who has been involved with the group Invisible Children since she was just 14 years old. Young people and social media, they're propelling the hunt for Joseph Kony and they're putting it into the spotlight. She's passionate, she's plugged in, she's going to join us shortly after 1:00.

Now buying black and only black. See how a Chicago family's one- year pledge inspired a movement.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: In today's "What Matters" segment, my guest had one goal, to buy only from black businesses for an entire year. But what started off as an experiment became an important lesson in the choices we make as consumers. Maggie Anderson, she is the CEO and co-founder of the Empowerment Experiment, she's also the author of "Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy."

Also joining us here in Atlanta, Georgia Tech economist Danny Boston.

Maggie, I want to start off with you. It's interesting, because you read your story and you had kind of a rough year, I would say, trying to find anything from toilet paper to, you know, a security system. What kind of obstacles did you face?

MAGGIE ANDERSON, AUTHOR, "OUR BLACK YEAR": Well, actually when we conducted this experiment, we did this thinking that it would be a lot easier than it turned out to be. We just wanted to put a little bit more of our money into underserved black communities. We thought that it was just a matter of awareness.

We assumed that just like in every other community there would be black-owned grocery stores, department stores, hardware stores, drugstores, places where we can buy stuff for our kids.

What we found was that was not the case and that in many black communities, those stores do exist but they're not owned by the local black entrepreneurs. So what results is that the hard-earned wealth of those consumers and those communities exits the community.

And that leads to the high unemployment and a lot of the social crises that my people suffer from disproportionately. So it was a tough experiment but what we learned was that if we can find those few quality businesses that we do have and support them, we can really create some economic power in our community and start to turn these job numbers we're talking about around.

MALVEAUX: And give me a few examples here, because you had to travel pretty far just to find groceries.

ANDERSON: Oh, yes.

MALVEAUX: You talk about how sometimes your husband was kind of hungry waiting for the food. I mean, what did you actually go through?

ANDERSON: Couldn't find -- we learned a lot about this phenomenon, about the food and retail deserts. So fortunately there was one black-owned grocery store in all of Illinois. It was about 20 miles from our home. We supported that grocery store, it was this perfect place. It had fresh produce, fresh meats, fresh fish, great groceries.

That store closed down in the middle of our experiment. So after that, we had no option if we were to abide by the experiment for fresh food for groceries. So we had to basically live out of gas stations, convenience stores. So my children were eating Cheerios for dinner and baloney and fake fruit punch. We couldn't find toys for our girls.

So for that year we got books from African-American authors. And we found black-owned book stores. But toys we could not find. We couldn't find milk. It was pretty bad.

MALVEAUX: That's kind of hard to believe when you think about that. Sure. And this has become really an empowerment experiment.

ANDERSON: Right.

MALVEAUX: Take on your critics, if you will, some who say, well, buying just black, that's a form of racism. How do you respond to that?

ANDERSON: Well, this is how we put it. First of all, what we're doing, what we're advocating is not that Americans go out there and completely exclusively support black businesses.

The truth is that $1 trillion is what we represent in buying power in this country. And less than 3 percent of that makes its way back into the black community. That's why we have high unemployment. That's why our schools are underfunded. And that's why our kids don't have local role models to look up to like we used to have.

The other fact is that black businesses are the greatest private employer of black people. So I do this because I need those businesses, because those businesses are going to counter unemployment in my community. What we're advocating is no different than buying American.

MALVEAUX: OK. We have got to let Danny jump in here.

ANDERSON: OK.

MALVEAUX: She brings up a number of important points here. But, first of all, talk about the state of black businesses during this time, the recession and the economic recovery. Are they disproportionately going out of business and suffering and what can be done?

THOMAS "DANNY" BOSTON, GEORGIA TECH ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: Well, not disproportionately. But it is a struggle for those businesses, black businesses and Hispanic businesses. We do a national survey of those businesses. Now up until the recession, black-owned businesses outgrew the businesses of every other group but they've been challenged as a result of the recession. In terms of the cutbacks in employment, they've had to cut back about 25 percent of their work force. But that's happened really across the board.

MALVEAUX: And explain to us, too, how the African-American community is actually buying and spending its money. I understand that 6 cents on every dollar goes to black-owned businesses. That's very small.

BOSTON: Right. That's small. That's what our surveys showed based on the national survey. We found that 6 cents out of every dollar that blacks spend goes to black-owned businesses. Now that's from consumers. But you also have to keep in mind that there's other purchasing that take place among black businesses, from black-owned businesses.

And many of the problems that Maggie encountered are problems that are associated with how the residential pattern, the location pattern of those businesses, because the businesses have followed the community out to the suburbs. And so in many central cities you find those deserts.

So even though the businesses are growing very rapidly, you have to look at the location pattern of those businesses to explain some of the problems that Maggie encountered.

MALVEAUX: All right. Danny, thank you. We're going to hang on to you for a little bit longer too, because obviously the president is going to be talking about the new jobs numbers. Thanks, again, Danny and Maggie, as well, appreciate your time.

Republicans, they were quick to attack the White House over the jobs report for February. They say it is just more proof that President Obama's policies are not working. We're going to hear from the president about those numbers live, just minutes away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Checking in on stories our affiliates are covering across the country, a Florida sheriff's deputy is praising three homeless men for helping him fight off an attacker. It was all caught on surveillance video. Police say the man attacked the deputy as he tried to arrest him for allegedly taking a customer's bag at a fast food joint.

A mobile pizza kitchen is filling the stomachs and warming the hearts of tornado victims. It's called the Love Kitchen. It's run by the owner of Little Caesar's restaurant. It set up shop in Henryville, Indiana, a town that was hit hard by last week's tornadoes. It plans to serve 25,000 pizza slices over the next several days. Good for them.

Finally, remember the solar storm that bombarded earth this week? It didn't actually disrupt flights or GPS systems but it did make a pretty cool northern lights brighter. Check it out. That's pretty neat. A storm chaser caught dramatic video of the northern lights over St. Cloud, Minnesota.

We are still waiting for the president. He's going to be speaking about the new jobs numbers. 227,000 new jobs created last month. And he's also going to be talking about the state of the economy in general. That out of Virginia. We expect that he'll be speaking momentarily. Going to bring that to you right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX : Still waiting for President Obama to speak about the new job numbers. Want to bring in Ali Velshi from Austin, Texas. We assume the president is quite pleased about this. He will say this is all an upward trend here. How significant is it that you've got month-to-month, back-to-back now jobs being created? Is it a trend?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very, very significant. Even conservatives who I spoke to this morning were not able to find a flaw in this thing. This is 17 months in a row of job growth in the United States. This month came in higher than expectations, 227,000 jobs created in February. Almost -- in fact, more than that number created in the private sector, virtually no jobs created in the private sector but no job losses there either. The bottom line, this is how we want growth, strong growth. It was a little less than we saw in January but some of that was seasonal. Wouldn't worry about that too much.

Some critics are saying that the 8.3 percent unemployment rate is stubbornly high and won't go down. There are reasons for that. The unemployment rate and the jobs created are measured two different ways, but remember, the thing that is important is how many jobs are being created. The only criticism here is we have a long way to go. We'd like to see double the number of jobs created but that is not likely to happen, Suzanne. Bottom line is, this was much better than this administration could hope for and it is a good strong jobs report which says this economy is continuing to grow.

MALVEAUX: Ali, is it an uneven recovery? Do you have some sectors rebounding and doing really well and others not so much?

VELSHI: Well, yes. There have been some sectors that were never hit by this recession, largely health care. That was one of the areas always growing. But we have seen over the last few months recovery in things like manufacturing. So it's even. Here's the problem, Suzanne. There's always this first problem.

We never recover as many jobs as we lose. Because people get more productive. Through technology or through the fact that your boss says you're going to do more work than you used to do because we fired your colleague. No. 1, we generally get more productive and No. 2, we are just not seeing the same types of jobs.

So companies are gun shy. They hire part-time, they hire lower-paying jobs. You never see the quality of jobs. That's why I'm here at South by Southwest, because some of the best jobs we're seeing are in technology. Everybody around here is trying to hire software developers. If you're a petroleum engineer or accountant you do well in this economy. A lot of these are service jobs, not as many hours or not as high wages.

MALVEUAX: Alright, Ali. It looks like you have a lot of people there at the CNN Grill. Looks like the place to be. We'll get back to you after the president's remarks.

Every glimmer of hope, I'm sure, counts as a win for the White House. How are the Republican candidates going to spin these new numbers? We have a breakdown for you.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the Help Desk, where we get answers to your financial questions. Joining me this hour, Jon Ulzheimer, the president of consumer education with smartcredit.com. Lynette Khalfani-Cox is founder of the financial advice blog askthemoneycoach.com. Thank you for being here. Lynette, your question comes from Osbourne in New York. "I have a 30-year fixed mortgage with a rate of 4.75 percent and a balance of $273,000. Is it worth refinancing to get a seven-year ARM with a lower interest rate?" He's talking about moving to an adjustable rate.

LYNETTE KHALFANI-COX, FOUNDER, ASKTHEMONEYCOACH.COM Right. The idea here is that you really won't know if it's quote, unquote worth it to refinance until you do a break even analysis. Really, what that means is that you've got to think of the cost of the refinance. Maybe it costs $3,000 to get the deal done. Then you have to divide that by the number of months that you're going to still be living in the house.

HARLOW: Right.

KHALFANI-COX: And figure out whether or not it's going to make sense for you to do it. Sometimes people do these deals and frankly it doesn't make sense. He's saying a seven-year ARM. If he plans to live in the house that long, it could make sense. Rates right now for people with high credit scores are well under 4 percent, but he has to do the math. We don't know yet how much the refi will cost to get done.

HARLOW: John, your question is from Pam in North Dakota. "My husband and I were recently called by a debt collector regarding a cell phone bill from a year and a half ago. We contacted the cell carrier, who sent us back to the debt collection agency again. If it's a legitimate bill we want to pay it so that we maintain our credit, but none of the people we reached out to have been willing to answer our questions. What should we do?"

JOHN ULZHEIMER, PRESIDENT OF CONSUMER EDUCATION, SMARTCREDIT.COM: Well, the fact that the original creditor won't talk to them means that they have sold the debt to the collection agency or the debt buyer. The consumer will not be able to pay the original merchant. They'll have to deal with the collection agency. Saving the credit, that bell has already been rung. The fact that it's with a collection agency means it's on the credit report. But that's not the end of the world. Do this. Offer a settlement. Usually about 20 percent of what they say you owe because they don't have the same skin in the game that the original creditor did, because they bought it for pennies on the dollar. Offer a settlement, get it to a zero balance as quickly as possible, and then you end any future collection activities, including collections calls.

HARLOW: Get it in writing as well. Always.

ULZHEIMER: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Thanks, you guys. Folks, if you have a question you want answered, send us an e-mail anytime at the CNN Help Desk at CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEUAX: Want to go to President Obama. He's in Virginia and he is talking about the new jobs numbers. 227,000 new jobs created last month. He's also going to talk about the general state of the economy. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)