DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING "Cost of Freedom Recap" CONTAINS STRONG OPINIONS WHICH ARE NOT A REFLECTION OF THE OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON AS INVESTMENT ADVICE WHEN MAKING PERSONAL INVESTMENT DECISIONS. IT IS FOX NEWS' POLICY THAT CONTRIBUTORS DISCLOSE POSITIONS THEY HOLD IN STOCKS THEY DISCUSS, THOUGH POSITIONS MAY CHANGE. READERS OF "Cost of Freedom Recap" MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN INVESTMENT DECISIONS.
GOV'T TELLS STUDENTS "KNOW BEFORE YOU OWE": SHOULD THEY TAKE THEIR OWN ADVICE?
Melissa Francis: How ridiculous is this!? I hope they have a big Zerox machine and a whole bunch of papers sitting next to it. They need to Zerox this bad boy and hand it out to everyone in Congress. They got to calculate what they owe on everything they vote for-wouldn't that be great! But, for students this is a fantastic idea. I think they should also have to calculate whether or not they'll be able to pay it back based on the average income in the field they are going into to see if they will really be able to payoff this debt.
Wayne Rogers: No, this is not going to solve it. I mean did you see the form?! You'd have to be a moron not to be able to figure this out. I mean, it's got 15 different things doing a yes/no exam. These are for people who are going to college?! You'd have to be blind not to be able to fill this one out. Of course the Congress is blind, so they can't do it. It's full of some of these dumb questions, "Can I do this?" "Could you do that?" "Can I pay this?" I mean it's crazy! If you can't pay back your college you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. There are a lot of scholarships out there that go begging and people don't qualify for them. So, if you qualify, you can get into a good school, believe me.
Christian Dorsey: How can you criticize something that is the most important tool that has been given to students and families so that they can understand the true costs of what a higher education will bring to them. This is the only thing that has been done that I can recall in recent memories to assist families in making this very important decision thoughtfully. By the way, Congress knows full well the implications of everything that it does legislatively. Everything is scored from the Congress, they know the impacts despite the fact that they often perform the wrong way.
Jonathan Hoenig: Yes, student loans that the government has incentivized and created. Christian this is hilarious. The fact that you think that this one form, and literally, no joke-it took three arms of government to come up with this one form. It's not even printed on both sides. It's a one-sided form that the White House, the Board of Education, and the CFPB, which has a $500 million budget.
John Layfield: Christian is right. This is a major issue in our economy right now-the student loan debt. But, I got to take a little issue with "Congress knows full well.." You can stop with "full well." Congress does not know full well. Look, monogamy is good too, but I wouldn't have Tiger Woods and Paris Hilton endorsing it. I think it's the messenger that we got right here. Melissa, you're right on the Zerox machine, but good luck-these guys are about to go on a five week vacation.
Weak Economy Creating More Workplace Rivalries
Jonathan Hoenig: Absolutely. You know where there are no rivalries, the post office. In a free economy, all productive work involves competition. That's good, that's healthy. The motivation is about achieving something, producing something of value, and that's what's important. The desire and value of rivalry in the workplace shouldn't be about wanting to beat others, it should be about wanting to do the best that you can be. So, you shouldn't worry about being better than other people, you should simply worry about doing the best that you can. That's what healthy workplace rivalries are about.
Melissa Francis: I think a lot of workplaces have gone from lean to just downright mean. If you heard from some of these people who were interviewed for the article they said, "There's only so much room in the lifeboat." I didn't know we were drowning at work. It seems like we've gotten a little rough here.
John Layfield: Every kid doesn't get a trophy. That's one of the problems with society today. Everyone wants this kumbaya moment at work and Jonathan is right-it doesn't have to be that. People in competition does spur a better company. A bad economy is bad on companies overall, but you look at what happened with the Internet bust in the late 1990s. Companies with cash became great companies in the bad economy. Companies that are good companies become great companies and companies that are not are weeded out. It's very Darwinian as far as economics. But, as far as in overall society, a bad economy, not good for business.
Wayne Rogers: People competing with each other within the company. That's not good. That becomes personal and something that people are worried about. When people are competing with each other in the product area they are saying our product is a better product. That's good competition, that's the kind of competition that you want.
Christian Dorsey: If that translates to you trying to curve your favorability with the boss, that is not good for business, that is horrible for business unless you're running a T.V. show like survivor. What you want in your own workplace is for your employees to think about how I can be better tomorrow than I was today; better next quarter and better next year so that my company can grow. That's the kind of ethic that you want. You don't want this silly rivalry stuff where you think, "I look good if my co-worker looks bad."
New Home Sales Tank Sparking Fears of Another Recession
John Layfield: I do, and the reason is that this country is not built for long-term systemic unemployment-high unemployment. When manufacturing left the country, those jobs went into housing. When housing slumped, and there is still too much inventory, it's not coming back anytime soon. There is no place for those jobs to be created. Without a national energy policy or a job creation event, there is going to be high unemployment for the foreseeable future. That is the biggest headwind on this economy right now.
Melissa Francis: I think the numbers have been uneven more than just negative, and what it shows is that you can't manage this recovery and all the programs out there that are trying to stop the decline and prices aren't working. If you bottle up foreclosures for a period of time, they just come roaring back. We have to stop managing the housing crisis.
Christian Dorsey: The housing market is showing more signs of life, more encouragement than negative ones. We can't expect to see a recovery in housing until we have a recovery in the broader economy. For the last year and a half, federal government has done little for our economic growth and what we have is the anemic growth that we talked about at the top of the show. Until we get a little bit different about improving the overall economic outlook and the unemployment picture, then there's no way housing is going to be a robust driver of the economy.
Wayne Rogers: I think Christian is right. These are just numbers and month to month numbers don't mean a lot, you got to look at the trends all over. Besides the thing that is wrong in the housing market is not the fact that people aren't there and there aren't demands, it's that banks are not lending. They are not lending because they've got bad reports from their appraisers. Their appraisers are terrified to do anything because of the last thing and so they will make the same mistake and they'll put that in the file and the feds will say, "Uh oh, you can't make that loan." That's the problem with the housing market.
Jonathan Hoenig: Think about the promises that have been made for more government intervention in the marketplace. The shovel ready projects, the unemployment under eight percent, the housing fixes, the green jobs, the lifting $2 million people out of poverty; and none of it ever worked, yet we're being told that we should put more stimulus into the marketplace. The only thing they never talk about is economic freedom. Are we in a recession or not-that's kind of a package deal. According to the NLRB, the recession ended three years ago, so whether we're in a recession or not, means nothing. We don't have the environment right now for economic growth because we do not have economic freedom.
What do I need to Know?
John Layfield: Summer Olympics bring gold to Britain and (BP)
Wayne Rogers: Everyone loves "a comeback," buy (CELG) as it recovers
Melissa Francis: Markets go into a tailspin if Europe can't save the euro
Jonathan Hoenig: Taking a risk in Greece with (NMM) could pay off big-time
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