July 2009

Until 5 a.m. this morning, I knew little to nothing about Vermont’s health-care system. I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning. It is hard to make heads or tails of all of the plans being discussed. Governor Jim Douglas of Vermont joined me this morning to tell us why Vermont’s health care system may provide a roadmap for reform in this country. See how the Governor overhauled ... read more

Amar Bhide, a visiting scholar at the Kennedy School of Management at Harvard University wrote this op-ed in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “Let’s Break up the Fed.” You may not agree with his hypothesis but the timeline he presents in the op-ed for how and why the Fed took on so much responsibility over the years is down right scary. I could not believe how many responsibilities were ... read more

This morning's show was one of my favorites. We had a great lineup of guests and talked about a range of issues from health care to the economy to financials to oil. It was what I consider a perfect mix. I had nothing to do with it. My editorial team and booking crew get all of the credit. The issues we discussed were things that I could have discussed for hours. Arianna Huffington of the ... read more

Every once in a while you hear about a personal story that reminds you why we live in the greatest country in the world. Angela Logan, a single mom of three, had a “construction fiasco” that resulted in a foreclosure notice on her home. She couldn’t afford to fix the damage and keep the home until she talked to her kids about the idea of selling cakes to make up the $2,500 dollar payment due ... read more

Finally, I finished the morning with an interview that I was really, really excited about. Putnam Investments CEO and President Bob Reynolds joined me for an exclusive interview. Bob spent most of his career, almost 30 years, at Fidelity before joining Putnam a year ago. He has a sterling reputation and he's been trying to rebuild a franchise that lose tons of assets. Today we talked about some ... read more

This morning's round table was about the CFTC's proposed rule changes to the oil markets. Ways to curb what they call speculators who some believe manipulate the market and add to the volatility in oil and as a consequence gasoline prices. The discussion about the risks to liquidity and consumer prices on a multitude of products was excellent. Personally, I learned a ton about it. This is a ... read more

This morning Lawrence McDonald the author of "Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers" joined me. It's a really interesting inside perspective that got very good reviews from the New York Times and has been on the best seller list's top ten in non-fiction. Lawrence was the vice president of distressed debt and convertible securities and actually ... read more

This morning Taser's Chairman & Co-Founder Tom Smith joined me in studio. My heart is still racing. He demonstrated how the new X3 model works and it almost gave me a heart attack. Tom responded to the earnings announcement and talked about insurance costs, the record number of lawsuits they fight annually and whether cuts in state and municipal budgets are impacting the bottom line. Look at ... read more

This morning Southern Company's CEO joined me for a First on FOX interview immediately after its earnings were released. David Ratcliffe talked about the current economic climate and why he and his team predict the economic recovery "will not be V shaped but a slow, gradual, methodical recovery." We talked about the health of the consumer and the industrial business. What manufacturing shut ... read more

This morning's roundtable on Bernanke was one of my favorite roundtable discussions. The guests were great. They didn't agree -- which comes with the territory -- but all had terrific points. The roundtable debated if Bernanke's town hall appearance and other public appearances are examples of a man campaigning to be reappointed as Fed Chairman in 2010 or the Fed Chairman's committment to ... read more