Return to Transcripts main page

Glenn Beck

Which Candidate Has Best Economic Plan?; Did Over-Medication Cause Heath Ledger`s Death?; Author Says Looks Matter for Presidential Candidates

Aired January 23, 2008 - 19:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, the American economy getting prices. Can any of these candidates` stimulus plans make any difference at all?

Plus, movie and TV writers still on strike, but why haven`t any of the Democratic candidates joined them on the picket line? Are they laying low so they don`t upset their Hollywood contributors? Hmm.

Heath Ledger dead at 28. Prescription medication found by his bed. Horrible tragedy caused by a common American problem. Is America becoming a brave new world that`s just over-medicated?

All this and more tonight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Hello, America.

A brief break from the panic on Wall Street today. With most still holding their breath to see how yesterday`s cut in interest rates plays out on the global stage, financial matters dominating the headlines and the days leading up to Super Tuesday, and all the primaries and all of the candidates talking about how their plan is the right one to get our economy back on track. Here`s "The Point" tonight.

Small payouts to individuals is not the way to go. Savings and growing small businesses is. And here`s how I got there.

I know your eyes might just gloss over a little bit at the thought of a lesson on the economy, and I`m not really the guy to give it. I`m a schmoe. But I`m a simpleton, so I make it very simple for you. I think it is easy.

The whole notion of economic stimulus is to get people spending money, right? Helps turns the gears in the machine that is our economy. Everybody agrees on that. Where candidates disagree is in whose hands should we put that extra spending power? I think, to translate English from bull crap, it would be whose vote can I buy?

Some want to put cash right back into the pockets of the poorest Americans, which sounds great and, you know, whatever. But history has taught us that those people spend that money, that newfound money quickly. There`s no meaningful change in the larger economic outlook, and that part of the sentence is the most important.

What makes more sense is to put spending power into the hands of the small business owners, not giant multinational corporations. Oh, no. I`m not in bed with Exxon or any big oil companies. I`m talking about companies like Bill`s Hardware or Stanley`s Plumbing or Mom`s Diner.

This is the real power behind our American economic machine. Seventy percent of all business in America is done by small business. Seventy percent. By giving small business -- businesses tax breaks and incentives, they`ll reinvest in that business; they`ll expand; they`ll hire new employees. If we give small businesses greater opportunities in this country, they can create new opportunities for more people to participate in the American dream. Now, if that sounds like it makes sense, it`s because it does.

Tonight, here`s what you need to know. Economic stimulus can go one of two ways. We can give the quick cash to the people who will do quick spending and make no lasting impression on the economy. I don`t know about you; I`ve never worked for a guy who`s close to food stamps, but maybe you have. This is the fast-food fix for a fast-food nation.

Or we could try to wake up and be a little different. We can try something a little more nourishing. Revitalize small business who will invest and expand, not just causing a brief spike in economic activity but having the lasting effect, creating jobs and giving greater spending power to more Americans.

Guess which one I prefer. I know. Looks like the fast-food one but, believe it or not, no.

Here to help me take a look at the plans of all of the candidates from both parties is Chris Edwards. He`s a director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute.

Chris, I just -- I want to go through -- give me -- take me from the best plan to the worst plan on the four major candidates. Can you do that?

CHRIS EDWARDS, DIRECTOR OF TAX POLICY STUDIES, CATO INSTITUTE: Yes. Absolutely. I think, you know, Mitt Romney has probably the best plan. As you touched on, focusing on businesses is the key here. Not consumers. Consumers will spend their money quickly. But it won`t cause producers to expand production. And unless those producers think that there`s a long- term market for their product.

BECK: OK.

EDWARDS: So Mitt Romney wants to cut the corporate tax rate down to 20 percent, which would be a fabulous cut for American business. They would expand production here in the United States. That`s good for everyone.

BECK: And you know what? I don`t know if anybody else feels this way but I remember being a kid and seeing Chrysler go down. And I remember as a kid thinking, I wish we had somebody like Lee Iacocca that would run this country like a company. That would look at it as a turnaround project and say, "You know what? I turned around Chrysler. I can turn this country around."

Romney is probably the best positioned guy to be able to do that.

EDWARDS: I agree with you. He does seem to understand the international economy and the importance of competitiveness, although I must say that George W. Bush was the first MBA president, and he`s done a lot of stuff wrong. He hasn`t balanced the budget like corporations do.

BECK: OK. Now, the next up is who?

EDWARDS: Well, the next up, I think, is McCain. McCain has a smaller corporate rate cut. For example, he brings the corporate rate down to 25 percent.

But I would point out that, even at 25 percent, Europe, the average corporate rate in Europe is even lower at 24 so, hey, we can beat France and Germany.

BECK: Yes.

EDWARDS: Let`s bring our rate even lower than Europe to get those jobs going.

BECK: The thing I don`t like about McCain is the guy has never proven that he understands taxes. He always...

EDWARDS: Right.

BECK: He`s always going in the other direction. He understands cutting spending, honestly, like very other -- few other people in Congress. I mean, you have to go to Ron Paul to be better at cutting spending, but he doesn`t understand the other side of it.

EDWARDS: It`s true, although I must say in this campaign on both sides, there`s flip-floppers on both parties on this side.

BECK: I know. I don`t trust any of them.

EDWARDS: I do -- I do think, though, that McCain strongly believes that running these massive and constant federal deficits from overspending is creating these large and moral costs being pushed on the next generation.

BECK: Yes. He`s right.

EDWARDS: He really believes that in his gut, which, you know, others don`t.

BECK: Real quick. Let me just get to the last one, because I`ve only got about 20 seconds now. Who`s the worst spending plan?

EDWARDS: Well, the Clinton plan. She -- she tries to -- she just kind of spends a lot of money in a 1970s style way. She tries to micromanage the economy.

BECK: Hasn`t somebody on her staff said, actually, I believe this is a quote: "We don`t even know how we`ll pay for all of this"?

EDWARDS: Well, that`s it. I mean, the idea from the liberals` point of view is to blow $150 billion and not pay for it. So it`s simply -- we`ll be borrowing more money to give people money to buy, you know, more TV sets and cigarettes and the like in the short run. That doesn`t do anything for the economy.

BECK: It kills me, because these are the people that were talking about the huge deficit, and we can`t afford the tax cuts.

EDWARDS: Exactly. There`s a lot of ironies here. For years economists told us that savings was good. Now savings is bad and spending is good.

BECK: All right. Chris, thanks a lot.

EDWARDS: Thank you, Glenn.

BECK: I want to switch gears to Fred Thompson. Apparently, it`s a little easier playing president than running for president in real life. Fred Thompson withdrew from the race yesterday, hoping that his country and his party had, quote, benefited from the effort that he made. He heads back now to Hollywood and into his home of Tennessee. But I`m wondering who benefits from him now leaving the race.

Chris Wilson is Republican strategist, CEO of Wilson Research Strategies. I asked this question on the air on radio today, Chris. I said if you`re a Thompson supporter, who are you going to?

The answers were pretty much the same. It was either Giuliani or Romney. There was one person that said that they were going to go to Ron Paul. Not one in my audience -- but my audience is different -- in my radio audience said John McCain.

CHRIS WILSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, it`s an awkward segue to move from stimulus to Fred Thompson`s campaign. But I`ll do my best.

BECK: That would be stimulants. Stimulants.

WILSON: But I really think there`s three parts to the Republican coalition, no matter which candidate you`re talking about. You`ve got the social issue voter, the economic issue voter and the national security voter.

When you look at Thompson`s coalition, it was a little unique in what he was trying to put together, in that you had sort of the conservative voter that wanted to be -- vote for an establishment candidate but just didn`t like John McCain.

And so from that, you`re really going to see -- and I think this was illustrated somewhat qualitatively on your radio show. You`re going to have the social issue voters are going to go to Huckabee, the economic voters for Romney. And then you`re going to have that sort of national security establishment-type voter that was originally with Thompson that is now going to move to McCain.

BECK: Oh, McCain?

WILSON: Right.

BECK: I have to tell you. I just don`t know. I don`t know the -- we were talking about this a lot on the radio show today. And the audience was, you know, but it`s my eight million friends that listen. So, you know, what do I expect?

But we were all talking about I think it`s mass suicide on both sides of the aisle. If this is McCain/Clinton, I think there are liberals that are like, "Oh, you got to be kidding me."

And on the Republican side it`s like, "I can`t pull the lever for McCain." I just think we just -- maybe this is what unites the country. We just -- liberals and conservatives come together and go, "Your choice sucks, too."

WILSON: Well, maybe. There is a lot of that. And Glenn, listen to your show. I can imagine your audience knows a little bit about how you feel about McCain. Maybe they were afraid to call in.

BECK: They might have been. They might have been. But I mean, you know. Ron Paul people think I hate Ron Paul. I had him on for a half hour today, and the Ron Paul people were like, "Wait a minute. You`re not an evil four-headed monster."

I`m like, I can talk to Ron Paul about the economy all day long and be cool with it. It`s where we go astray on other things. If Thompson endorses -- he`s probably going to endorse McCain.

WILSON: I think so. It`s a foregone conclusion.

BECK: Does that even matter? You know anybody who was like, oh well, Fred Thompson told me to vote for John McCain. Does it matter in today`s world?

WILSON: No, it doesn`t. Certainly not after the way this campaign was handled. I think it could have mattered. I mean, this is the story of the Fred Thompson campaign is what could have been. Sort of the potential that was.

And I think, from that standpoint, because the campaign ended in the way that it did, coming in third place in South Carolina, no, the endorsement is nothing more than a helpful boost to McCain, and it kind of puts, I think, Huckabee in an awkward position, thinking that he should have gotten that vote.

BECK: All right, Chris. Thanks a lot.

WILSON: Thank you.

BECK: We`re going to move on to the sudden death of actor Heath Ledger. A high-profile -- high-profile example of how everybody in this country is over-worked, stressed, sleep-deprived and why prescribing medication to cure all ills is not the right answer but the one we always seem to turn to.

And investors are bailing on the stock market in droves. Where are they going? We`re going to follow the money in tonight`s "Real Story."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, cyber-hacking isn`t new, but holding hack utility companies for ransom, that is new. And apparently, it is happening overseas. Could it happen here? What are the details? What are the ramifications? Is it pay up or lights out, in tonight`s "Real Story"?

But first, Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment yesterday afternoon. A bottle of sleeping pills was by his side. Probably typically Hollywood story. I don`t mean to be callous about this at all, but we are waiting for more conclusive tests.

Those close to Ledger are confident that his untimely death was purely accidental. But we`ve heard this story over and over again. What is tragic about this story is his age, but also the root of the problem is far too common. The problem is that we`re all stressed out in America, and our solution is over-medicating usually, and it is a deadly combination.

Last November, Ledger gave an interview with "The New York Times" and confessed to being stressed out a little too much. He said, quote, "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I just couldn`t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."

Sound familiar to you? I felt that way for the last two years. In fact, those words are the exact words I said to my doctor right before Christmas, except it had been for a month I hadn`t slept for more than two hours.

Countless Americans, much of my own staff, are helping wind down after a long day of responsibilities by hopping what some call the A-train, relying on prescription sleep aids like Ambien to not help them sleep but force them to sleep so they can get up the next day and start the vicious cycle all over again.

Unless we demand that doctors spend more time treating the cause of our problems and less time tossing pills at our symptoms, Heath Ledger`s death will not be the last.

Dr. Gail Saltz, she`s an associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Gail, what`s so freaky about this is I had this conversation with my doctor.

DR. GAIL SALTZ, ASSOCIATE PROFESS OF PSYCHIATRY, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: Yes.

BECK: Except I said to him, "I do not want Ambien. I don`t want any kind of drugs. What else can I do?"

And he immediately said, "Well, there is melatonin, and there is exercise."

And I`m like, "OK, tell me about the melatonin." I mean, we really do look for the easy way, and so many people are doing this.

SALTZ: Well, we are unfortunately a quick-fix society. And we, you know, aided by insurance companies who don`t really want to pay for long- term treatments like psychotherapy, which when you`re suffering a lot of stress, when you`re going through a divorce, when you have a young child, when your career is overwhelming and, certainly, if you can`t sleep, could be immensely helpful but takes time, takes money and takes hard work on the part of the patient.

BECK: Well, I tell you, I mean, I got to the point -- and I took Ambien for four days because my doctor said, "You have got to break this cycle."

SALTZ: Yes.

BECK: "You`ll sleep more than two hours a night." And I just wanted out of the Ambien scene at all. But I got to the point to where I was afraid to go to bed at night, because I knew I would just -- I`d toss and turn.

SALTZ: Yes.

BECK: And there would be nothing on the other side. And I know I`m not alone. We`re riddled with people that I work with that are exactly like that.

SALTZ: Yes. Well, Glenn, this is exactly what happens to people. They have a bad night where they`re worrying about some things, and then they lay there awake. And it`s a very uncomfortable, lonely feeling. And then they start to be worried the next night that the same thing is going to happen. And, of course, it`s a self-perpetuating process.

With that being said, many people who have sleep difficulties do so because there is an underlying diagnosis, and it may be major depression. It may be an anxiety disorder. It may be -- actually, be a medical problem.

And so, rather than getting a sleeping pill to start with, you really need to see your doctor and get promptly evaluated. Sometimes you should be referred to a psychiatrist for a proper evaluation. And it`s important to know that, in addition to melatonin and exercise, there really are sleep hygiene things that you can do to start to correct a pattern. But it`s true, that you don`t sleep all the way...

BECK: Yes.

SALTZ: ... you can bring on a psychiatric situation.

BECK: He told me that one of the tricks is you got to go bed at the same time. You`ve got to have -- you`ve got to have a pattern. You`ve got to do it. Force yourself all the time.

SALTZ: And of course, people don`t like to do it. They don`t like to do it. They want to keep doing things the same old way and yet have the benefits, which is why they take the pill.

But it`s true that, if you go to sleep at the same time, if you use your bed only for sleep, you don`t bring work to it, you don`t have other stimulation going on, you make a soothing environment, all of these things can really be quite helpful to re-establishing a pattern.

BECK: That`s why my wife falls asleep in bed all the time. That was unnecessary.

Let me -- let me just take you back to Heath Ledger for a second, because I`m not convinced that Heath Ledger was just on sleeping pills. And I -- you know, I don`t know. But how many times have we seen Hollywood celebrities -- I mean, we just saw this video of that Winehouse woman over in England.

I just can`t believe how many people just mix everything. I mean, they`re just dumping poison into their body. They`re on valium. They`re on sleeping pills. They`re on, you know, speed. They`re on crack. They`re on everything all at the same time.

SALTZ: Yes. Unfortunately, look, particularly in the celebrity world -- and I do want to say that we really don`t know what killed him at this point. I don`t want to speculate.

BECK: I don`t mean to draw -- yes, yes, yes.

SALTZ: But what I do want to say is that, you know, in the celebrity world, I think that, you know, there`s an amount of reinforcements for this very sort of fast lifestyle and for solving feeling states, states of anxiety, sadness, loneliness, or looking for the next -- or even boredom, to be perfectly honest with you. Like wanting the next thrill with some sort of substance and to allow yourself to be disinhibited with alcohol or whatever it is that you are using so that you sort of have permission, if you will, to act in a way you want, to feel the way you want. And, of course, this can have dire circumstances.

Some people are going to be genetically predisposed to taking that first, you know, binge drink or that first drug. And they`re going to be very quickly addicted and, unfortunately, as you can see, it is an extremely difficult illness to treat.

BECK: OK. Doctor, I`ve got to run. But I appreciate your thoughts and, you know, you just got -- you got to do what you got to do. You`ve got to do the right thing.

I have to tell you, when it comes to Hollywood, I think it might be counterintuitive, but they`ve got so much money; they have so much free time; they have so much fame. I really truly believe these celebrities are the most miserable people in the world. I feel bad for them. I do.

Agree or disagree? Go to CNN.com/Glenn right now to cast your vote.

Coming up, didn`t John Edwards learn anything from John Kerry? Expensive, prissy hair cuts do not win presidential elections, or do they? We`ll speak to the author of "Project President," next.

And, as global stock markets continue their gentle plummet downward, I`ll tell you where smart money is going in tonight`s "Real Story." Follow the money, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, I`d like to apologize to you right off the bat, America. I cannot be president, nor will I accept the presidency of the United States. I mean, you know, I`m a loud-mouth rodeo clown with quite a history but I also, you know, you know what I mean? I have more chins than hair, and I would also serve Ring Dings at state dinners. Oh, I would.

Believe it or not, America -- it`s sad but true -- elects candidates on their looks. It`s a big factor on how we vote. There`s a new book out, lays it all out. It`s called "Project President: Bad Hair, Botox, and the Road to the White House."

Joined now by its author, Ben Shapiro.

Ben, I have -- I have always said Abe Lincoln couldn`t be elected president today. I was just reading up on Ben Franklin. And he said himself, and so did everybody else in Congress the guy couldn`t speak worth a darn, but he was genius. We wouldn`t have elected most of our presidents.

BEN SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, "PROJECT PRESIDENT": I think that`s probably pretty true. I mean, one thing that Lincoln did have going for him. Yes, he was a really ugly guy, as you just said, and Democrats actually used to have a song in which they said, yes, he`s tall and he`s strong and he may be witty, but please, for God`s sake, don`t trust his picture.

But Lincoln was a bright guy, and he actually used that to his advantage. In the 1858 debate with Steven Douglas, for instance, Douglas accused him of being two-faced. Lincoln immediately responded, "If I had two faces, do you think I`d be using this one?"

So he turned his ugliness into an asset. And I think that that`s what, really, good politicians are able to do. They`re able to turn their defects into assets.

BECK: In the end of the book, you actually rate -- what is the -- what is the scale you use? You rate all of today`s candidates and their electability, based on what formula?

SHAPIRO: So what I do is I actually take seven separate factors, and I rank them on a scale of plus five to negative five. And the seven factors, you know, include suits versus boots. Suits being the kind of suit-y candidates from New York, business men. The kind of Mitt Romney characters. Versus boots, which Americans kind of prefer. People who are rural and cowboy-ish like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

From height to age, and I rank them all on these scales. And it`s interesting what comes out. I mean, the person who really gets slammed is Hillary Clinton, because her image is just a disaster.

BECK: She`s in -- she`s in the negative category, right?

SHAPIRO: Yes.

BECK: She`s, like, negative 40 or something, if I remember right.

SHAPIRO: Oh, yes. I mean, unfortunately, I sort of have to take her to task in a way that makes me look really partisan. But I`m not being partisan. It`s just that she`s really bad.

BECK: Really, it`s just science, America. So give them -- give them to me in order. Who`s number -- who`s the most electable just based on, you know, being a beer buddy and wearing boots and looks good, et cetera, et cetera?

SHAPIRO: When I wrote the book, I actually said it was Mitt Romney. Now I would have to say that it`s probably John McCain. He`s really come from behind in terms of the beer buddy syndrome, which is why.

BECK: Over Barack Obama?

SHAPIRO: Over Barack Obama. Yes. This is one of the enduring myths of American politics, the idea that the younger candidate tends to win. Actually, the average age of presidential candidates born in the 19th century is 56. In the 20th century, it was also 56.

So we actually tend to prefer older candidates who are a little bit more experienced. If you`re too young and you look too fresh and you don`t have the political know-how, it`s going to be a real problem. And I think you`re seeing this right now, actually, with Obama versus Clinton. As soon as he gets in the mud with her it`s a real problem.

BECK: Is Edwards a little too perfect?

SHAPIRO: I think less than perfect. I think he`s a little too metrosexual. I mean, if one thing really killed him...

BECK: I don`t think I see him wearing man bag anywhere. Although it wouldn`t surprise me. And there`s nothing wrong with that, America.

SHAPIRO: Look, there`s the YouTube video of him pulling a compact out of his pocket when he`s, you know, in a TV studio and combing his hair for two straight minutes while "I Feel Pretty" plays in the background. So...

BECK: Ben, it`s a great book. Thank you very much for joining us.

Coming up, U.S. government fully invested in the digital age. But how vulnerable are we in an all-out cyber attack? Apparently, according to the CIA, it`s happening. We`ll find out about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Oh, well, thank goodness the Hollywood writers are going to return to the negotiating table this week in hopes of saving us from shows like "American Gladiators," and the return of my personal favorite, "Paradise Hotel."

But the real question is not when will they make their deal, but why haven`t the pro-union Democratic candidates spoken up on the strike? Where have they been?

I`ll examine all of that in a bit.

But first, welcome to the "Real Story."

A few years ago the biggest issue in the county was national security. Last year it was border security. A few months ago it was Iraq. Now, of course, it`s the economy. But what most people are missing is that these are not separate issues. They`re all connected.

We can survive a terrorist attack. We have done it before. We can survive a border crisis. We have done it before.

We can survive a war. We can survive a major recession. But we cannot survive all of it as at once.

It is easy to be distracted right now by the falling stock market, but the real story is that this is exactly the time that we need to be most vigilant. There is blood in the water, our blood. And those that want to take us down are circling. They have been for quite sometime.

A few months ago I did a "Real Story" segment, it was kind of out on the fringe. It was about a threat of cyber terror. Here`s the clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: What you`re seeing here is an industrial turbine. It`s just like one that our power plants use for electrical grids all across the country. It`s been taken over by a computer hacker.

There you see the turbine spins out of control, starts to smoke, and then it shuts absolutely everything down, taking whatever electrical grid it was powering right along with it. Fortunately, once again, this was just a test, but it`s another example of how ancient software being used for our power and our utilities was never created with the Internet in mind.

So how easy is it to hack into our critical infrastructure? Listen to this professional hacker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I woke up tomorrow morning at and decided I wanted to do that against a generator. I could. And it would not be that hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. Now, that hacker fortunately worked for the government. But at the time, I warned you that cyber attacks were a real threat. Well, now, we find out from the CIA that they`re more than just a threat. They`re happening. And once again, you`re likely hearing about it here first.

The CIA`s top cyber security analyst recently warned U.S. power companies that attackers have infiltrated foreign utilities, causing widespread multi-city power outages, and then demanded payments in exchange for turning the lights back on. Really?

The most surprising part of this story isn`t that this kind of thing is happening, it`s that our government is the one publicizing it. Maybe it`s just me, but I don`t think they`re normally in the business of advertising ways for terrorists to hit us.

So does that mean they have learned the lesson from 9/11 and they are concerned about cyber attackers and they are just trying to warn us that they could shut down our power grids, or is there something else at work?

Bruce Schneier is a cyber security expert and author of "Beyond Fear."

Bruce, this is -- this doesn`t feel right to me for some reason or another, and maybe it`s just because I don`t trust our government sometimes. Why is the CIA coming out and saying this, and yet, I have not heard this story anyplace else?

BRUCE SCHNEIER, AUTHOR, "BEYOND FEAR": Well, the story is real. I mean, certainly, our infrastructure is vulnerable. Lots of these control systems are very old. And as you said...

BECK: Wait, wait, wait, wait. I get that, but they`re saying that there have been attacks on multiple cities, shutting it down and demanding ransom. Is there any evidence of that?

SCHNEIER: I mean, not really. I mean, this was something said at a conference in New Orleans last week. There`s no facts. There`s no real evidence. The extortion angle, I`m not sure if it came from the CIA analysts or was embellished afterwards.

They said that this happened in multiple cities and there was at least one shutdown that affected multiple cities. We can`t figure out what that is.

There might have been insiders involved, so this might actually -- might not have been a cyber attack, but an insider attack. There`s a lot of rumor and not a lot of fact.

BECK: OK.

SCHNEIER: That aside, there are vulnerabilities. I mean, this is not a fake story. But the CIA leak seems really weird to me.

BECK: Do you know the -- I`m sure you do. What is it, SCADA or SCADA, or what? It`s a system that we use that was before Internet. I remember the story vaguely from October, where it`s so easy to hack in, you can hack in onto this thing almost by accident.

SCHNEIER: Well, the SCADA systems are used for controlling different processes, so it might register the water level in a tank in your community, it might be used to open and control a valve in a chemical plant or at a power plant. These systems are very vulnerable because they were built without security in mind. Again, mostly by accident and not on purpose.

There hasn`t been a lot in the real world. The one thing that actually happened is there was a SCADA system in Australia used to control something in a sewage plant. Someone hacked in, a kid, didn`t know what he was doing, and accidentally released a whole lot of raw sewage into a bay.

BECK: OK.

SCHNEIER: So that`s the sort of thing you have to worry about. And these are real. These are old systems.

BECK: Right.

SCHNEIER: And security wasn`t thought about when they were built.

BECK: OK. I agree that this is real. I`ve just never seen our -- you know, our CIA, our government, come out and do what they`re doing here, which is really breaking news on something and saying, look, this is happening, we`ve got to be prepared.

Is anybody moving in the direction to protect this yet?

SCHNEIER: I mean, there are lots of security systems that protect SCADA. They have to be installed, they`re expensive. Utilities aren`t going to do it on their own because there`s really no market incentive to do it. It`s something government has to step in.

Systems are also being upgraded, but even the upgraded systems, just like there are vulnerabilities in your network, there was an extortion attack -- sorry, there was a (INAUDIBLE) attack against CNN in the year 2000.

BECK: OK.

SCHNEIER: The Web site went down. So, even upgrading them doesn`t make the vulnerabilities go away.

BECK: All right, Bruce. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Now, if you want to know what`s coming, they always say follow the money. You want to know what`s really going on? Follow the money.

While everybody is focused on the money pouring out of the stock market when we talk about our economy, the real story is not where the money has -- is not going, it`s where the money is pouring into, and that is the bond market. Specifically, the U.S. Treasury bond market. I hate to be a geek here, but let me get geeky for a second, because you`ll understand why this is relevant to your wallet in about 60 seconds.

Interest rates on a 30-year treasury bond touched 4.1 percent today. Big deal, right? Lowest rate since 1977. And here it is in plain English and here`s what it means.

The U.S. treasuries are backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States government, and apparently there are some people out there who still think that that`s, you know, valuable some way or another. So they`re a safe haven investment.

People buy them as protection against all sorts of catastrophes. It is literally the safest place you can park your money.

If anybody thinks, oh, the world`s going to melt down, they`ll always say, put your measure in U.S. treasuries. But the more that goes into these bonds, the more expensive they get, and it`s supply and demand.

You might remember, if you remember anything from your economics classes, then you might recall that as bond prices go up, the interest rates go down. It`s like a seesaw, but when that seesaw gets all out of whack, like right now, it means that something is going on. After all, why would investors be willing to lock up their money for 30 solid years at an interest rate that might not even beat inflation?

There is only one logical answer. Because a lot of people think that`s a lot better alternative than anything else they see.

If you read between the lines on the bond market, investors are saying that all the stimulus packages, all the rate cuts in the world, not going to make any difference. They see dark clouds and tough times coming, and unlike the so-called experts that you see on TV on every other channel, these people are quietly putting their money where their mouth is.

Steve Cordasco is a financial consultant and host of "The Big Money Show" on 1210 AM "The Big Talker" in Philadelphia, which is our flagship station in Philadelphia.

Steve, let me show you a chart and you tell me what this chart it is and what it means. Let`s put the chart up here.

That`s the 30-year treasury yield, and it`s just headed all the way down to the bottom. Explain this.

STEVE CORDASCO, HOST, "THE BIG MONEY SHOW": Well, basically what it`s showing you is that, over that period since 1977, rates are coming way down on bonds, and specifically here in the short term, Glenn, the message that the bond market is sending there is there`s a lack of confidence. And the lack of confidence in the Fed and what the Fed has been doing over the last 10 years of lowering interest rates and manipulating interest rates to keep the consumers spending, it`s a lack of confidence in our political system in that the stimulus package that many are kicking around is just what it is. It`s a bunch of nothing to put short-term fix on really a long-term problem.

All the talking heads, as you mentioned, today and yesterday are talking about the stock market. Many of them looking to manipulate the stock market, hoping that somebody listens to them and goes in and starts to buy to move the market up.

BECK: OK. But -- OK.

If I can explain bonds, I would explain it this way. And tell me where I`m wrong.

That if I had a bunch of money -- let`s say I`m, you know, a wealthy guy and I have a lot of money and I can pay off my car loan, or I can invest, I`ll look -- can I make more money on the stock market than I have to pay in my interest rates on that monthly car payment? If I can make more money in the stock market, then I just keep my interest rate going on my car and I don`t pay off my loan. What we`re talking about here is people locking up money for 30 years and putting -- buying into a treasury bond that is -- basically your investment here is getting you the equivalent of putting your money in a savings account.

That`s crazy normally, isn`t it?

CORDASCO: Absolutely, Glenn. You have two fronts here.

You are talking a little bit about Main Street and what a lot of Main Street investors are doing today. They don`t have enough money to pay off the debt.

We are a debt-laden society. The balance sheet of Main Street America is wrecked. That`s why a stimulus package is there to help you get through one or two or three more months.

The bottom line is this: this is the big money. This is serious money. And this is the money that is finding a place to go because there is no belief in the future right now of our system.

BECK: So what does this -- what does this tell you, Steve, of what`s coming down the road?

CORDASCO: Glenn, what it says -- over the last three, four months, you have been on this. You have been dead on with it. What this is saying is everything that you`ve been talking about, about how things could get ugly, this message is here, the market is telling us.

Money is flowing into bonds. It`s looking for a place to hide. And it`s predicting the future.

So we as investor haves to look and say, where do we want to position our money today? Oh, by the way, in case you don`t know it, the last 10 years, bonds have outperformed the S&P 500 for many of you that are sitting with a 401(k) hoping that your retirement`s going to be OK.

BECK: OK. Thanks, Steve.

That`s the "Real Story" tonight.

If you are sick of me talking about my book, "An Inconvenient Book," in stores everywhere, well, why haven`t you bought it? But the "Real Story" here is tomorrow`s your lucky day.

I`m going to release the first full-color excerpt from the global warming chapter tomorrow. You`re going to see graphs and funny little sidebars. You`re going to get the whole thing if you sign up right now for my e-mail news letter at glennbeck.com.

Again, it is completely free. You`ll also get a recap of everything we have been talking about here tonight.

Coming up, if you want more proof that Hollywood is completely out of touch with the American mainstream, look no further than the Oscar nominees. And where are those liberals with the strikers and the writers?

We`ll look into it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, if you`re just sick of the reruns and reality shows on television, then you must be watching television. I don`t know a soul who has been watching television. You know, except for this program. It`s been a very, very, very long tunnel, but there is some light at the end.

Hollywood striking writers and the studio executives have said that they plan to meet this week for the very first time since early December, when their talks collapsed. Who`s been paying attention?

You know, might be good news for those of us who are really sick and tired of reconnecting with our family. I mean, whew.

But the most interesting side of this whole fiasco might be the political one. I want you to think about this.

When was the last time that you saw a strike in our country where the Democrats haven`t lined up to deliver hot coffee on the picket lines and denounce the big, bad corporation for keeping the man down? Well, where is Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama now? Where`s John Edwards?

The writers are starting to ask this question and they don`t like the answer. Democrats just get too much money from Hollywood to risk screwing it all up. Or, do they like Hollywood`s money and their propaganda tools but they just don`t want to be seen around the Hollywood people?

Screenwriter and former Clinton/Gore staffer Chris Jackson told "The New York Post," "I was hurt by learning the truth. The DNC (the Democratic National Committee) are in bed with big business. They are for change when it comes to using marketing slogans... but they only use Hollywood to milk money out of us."

Michael Medved is a nationally syndicated talk radio host, a veteran film critic.

Michael, which is it? Are they just -- they don`t want to be seen around Hollywood because they know it`s really bad for them, or are they just getting too much money?

MICHAEL MEDVED, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, I think it`s a combination of all of the above, of course. The main thing is they gain absolutely nothing by getting involved in this very, very, very bitter dispute. It would be like getting involved between the baseball players and baseball management when the players went out on strike.

The main point about this particular strike is I think it`s actually good for the country. Because you mentioned reconnecting with family, Glenn. I don`t know anybody who feels like, oh my gosh, my life isn`t the same now that the writers are on strike.

BECK: It`s amazing.

MEDVED: I`m forced to watch the Glenn Beck show. You know? I mean, it`s crazy.

BECK: Michael, isn`t it amazing how I think even maybe 15, 20 years ago it would have made an impact on our life? I don`t know a soul that cares. I don`t know a soul that cares.

MEDVED: You are exactly right, and it`s because we have so many alternatives. We are in the middle of a fascinating political season. You talk about it all the time. I talk about it all the time.

The writers` strike hasn`t handicapped that in particular, and the truth is everyone was worried, oh, when Colbert comes back and Jon Stewart comes back, are they going to be able to survive without writers? What this shows is that this only impacts a very, very narrow segment of today`s entertainment.

And I think actually it`s a good thing if people understand and Hollywood gets the message, we are not central to the American experience. We are not the center of everybody`s universe, as we`ve pretended to be for so long.

BECK: Yes. Well, you know what? But they don`t really care about the American market as much as they used to. I mean, now everything is -- absolutely everything is global.

Let me bring up the full screen here of the Oscar nominations. Do we have this?

You know what? I have to tell you, Mike, I heard them at, you know, 8:30 in the morning come out with these nominations. And I thought to myself, I usually don`t care about the Oscars, but I really don`t care. There`s not a picture among them that I care about.

I think that is the first time in my life that Hollywood is completely 100 percent irrelevant.

MEDVED: Well, again, the writers` strike just emphasizes that.

I thought there was a great headline today, Glenn, in "The New York Times." And it said for Oscar nominations, blood and no country lead the way. They`re talking about "There Will be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men"

But the idea that people are going to go out and say, man, I want to go see "There Will be Blood," that`s the movie for me, I mean -- or "No Country"?

This is nonsensical. And again, these are good movies. Many of them are. I thought "Atonement" was a great movie. "Juno" was actually a powerful pro-life movie and it`s nominated for best picture. But the truth of the matter is the entire idea that the world -- the sun rises and sets over who`s going to be nominated for best supporting actor, I think, has never looked less credible than it does today.

BECK: Michael, I don`t think I have ever seen any industry go from mass appeal, mainstream, to niche. It`s usually the -- everybody tries to go the other direction.

Can they reverse this at all, or do they even care? I mean...

MEDVED: Yes and no. I mean, first of all, if you take a look at the movies that really connected with the public, they tended to be sequels like "Spider-Man 3" or "Harry Potter," or even "The Pirates of the Caribbean," the sequel which I thought was lousy.

The American people still enjoy a good time at the theaters, and right now people are still going to "National Treasure," which was a great movie.

BECK: It was fantastic.

MEDVED: A delightful film.

BECK: Yes. Yes. OK.

MEDVED: So the point is that there`s a difference between what they know makes money and what they think is really good...

BECK: OK.

MEDVED: ... which explains why they feel so guilty and end up being so liberal despite the money they make.

BECK: Mike, got to run. Thank you very much.

MEDVED: What a great pleasure.

BECK: Now I`ve got to move on to global warming. A new study suggests that there`s actually debate -- no, really. Believe it or not. I found it in "The New York Times."

I`ll explain in an inconvenient segment coming up next. You`re not going to believe this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, in yesterday`s inconvenient segment I told you how an EPA study of even the most moderate global warming legislation will cost us between $400 billion and $1.2 trillion every year by the middle of the century. And it will essentially do nothing.

Great, huh?

Take a quick look at the projected CO2 levels. The red line that you`ll see on this graph peaking out at the top is what we have if we do nothing at all. But if we spend trillions of dollars, we can get all the way to the other lines.

You might say, wait, they look an awful lot like just one line, which is kind of the point. There is more global warming news out today and the relation to hurricanes.

"USA Today" says that it`s part of a contentious scientific debate over how manmade global warming may affect the intensity and number of hurricanes. First I thought, wait a minute, debate? I swear I`ve heard environmentalists tell me, I don`t know, a million or trillion times, there is no debate.

But here`s what Al Gore writes in his book, "An Inconvenient Truth" -- "Brand new evidence is causing some scientists to assert that global warming is even leading to an increased frequency of hurricanes."

This is the way Al Gore does it. On one hand, he throws in the qualifier "some scientists say," but on the other he puts a giant killer hurricane coming out of a smokestack on his movie poster.

The new research indicates that global warming actually may cause less hurricanes to hit the U.S. Quoting the article, "Researchers link warming waters, especially in the Indian and Pacific oceans, to increased vertical wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean near the U.S. "Wind shear, a change in wind or speed direction, makes it hard for hurricanes to form, strengthen and stay alive." That`s a quote.

The headline of the story translates all of that. "Climate change could cut hurricanes." More global warming might mean less hurricanes. Amazing.

You know, I`m not saying that we should try to warm the globe as much as possible, but with so much new information coming out, maybe we should be careful not to cause more problems than we solve.

That`s what I talk about in the first chapter of my book, "An Inconvenient Book." And I want you to read some of it on your own for free tomorrow.

I`m going to, for the first time, tomorrow send you a taste of the global warming chapter in full color and you can check it out for yourself free of charge. Just go to glennbeck.com. Sign up for my free newsletter and I`ll send it out to you tomorrow. It will be in your e-mail box.

From New York, which will soon be under water, I hear, good night, America.

END