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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.

UNION LEADER SAYS 401Ks TOO RISKY FOR RETIREMENT

JONATHAN HOENIG: Well it's the state pensions that are incredibly risky Cheryl. I mean, 31 states already have schemes like this; they're 80 percent underfunded. You don't think there's going to be a taxpayer bailout? Of course there is, but more than just risky, this SEIU official's comment is insulting. I mean, it's basically saying that no, no, no freedom doesn't work. People are smart enough to make money, but too big of idiots to actually know what to do with it. No, no, no they need government to do their thinking for them and I tell you, she talks about the promise of guaranteed retirement income. I'll tell you what's guaranteed with these state-run programs; bankruptcy and enslavement, but that's the cradle-in-the-grave entitlement program the left just loves.

TRACY BYRNES: No, because you can pretty much guarantee that you're not going to have any money at retirement if you allow your state to invest your retirement funds. Look, we see what's happening with Social Security. We put government in charge of anything and it seems to just miraculously disappear into space or go towards seven dollar muffins somewhere at some conference somewhere. We've been talking about this for years on this show. States can't manage money properly. Why would I want my retirement money with them?

SALLY KOHN: Well look, what this SEIU official is saying in essence is, that we've taken retirement security, which is part of the way we prevent senior citizens from being poor, and I won't quibble at the fact that Social Security's done a darn good job of keeping people from being poor in our country when they're older. So it worked in that sense and saying and look instead of saying let's give all that money to the people who have saved for retirement and giving it to the banks so that they can turn a profit and if the banks fail, then people lose their retirement. Instead of saying, let's have professional money-managers manage that retirement security, I think that's a good idea and it's a good idea for people to have security.

WAYNE ROGERS: I love Sally's remark about the bank's professional money people. Those are the same people that are running the state pension plans Sally, for goodness sake. They can't even pass a budget, much less meet one. The government has a historical, I mean, you'd have to ignore all of the statistics in the world to say that that's a better idea. The government doesn't run anything well. You've got more states and more municipalities bankrupt today and underfunded pension plans and individuals should have the right, whether they make that decision wrong or not, for their own. Like Jonathan says, if you have the freedom to make that decision, it's your money not theirs.

JOHN LAYFIELD: Look, Social Security has eradicated elderly poverty. That is absolutely true, but the problem is in the late 1960s Lyndon Johnson and his congress said quote, "there is so much money there we will never spend it". So they started writing IOU's and it is now bankrupt. The reason it eradicates poverty for the elderly is because it has become a Ponzi scheme. It is a pay-as-you-go scheme. The municipal pensions right now; they are not being funded period. You have politicians who are saying we can fund these pensions or we can spend more money getting reelected. They are stealing this money out of municipal pensions and that is the problem here going forward. They're all bankrupt.

IS OCCUPY MOVEMENT TO TAKE DOWN BIG BANKS HURTING THE 99 PERCENT?

TRACY BYRNES: These are the guys that are getting laid off. Look, they need some sort of leader because all they do is constantly shoot themselves in the foot. The 99 percent are the bank tellers, are the people that work at the branches. Branches are being closed. Banks are trying to downsize and get it together. They're the ones that are getting laid off. Protesting at a Bank of America shareholder meeting is not going to get those jobs back. Not to mention Cheryl, these protests hurt the small, local businesses. There were shops down on Wall Street; you know places people went for lunch that had to close down during these protests. They are, again, hurting themselves.

JONATHAN HOENIG: The only jobs, Cheryl, that Occupy Wall Street is creating is that of police officers. There have been about seven thousand arrests in the last eight months with this group and I mean they don't even understand where wealth comes from. Wealth comes from voluntary trade aka corporations like Bank of America, but Occupy Wall Street is against that. They're for nihilism. They're for government intervention at every opportunity. The only thing they could create is a squalid, you know tent-city, where no one works and everyone starves.

SALLY KOHN: Incidentally, among the large banks, Bank of America from reports has more employees that qualify for public assistance benefits than any other large bank. So, of course these are the 99 percent being cut, but let's be clear; Bank of America, they're in a fraud scandal for signing eight thousand robo-foreclosures per month; for foreclosing on military families unjustly. They still have 200 billion dollars in taxpayer back-stops that they haven't paid back and you're going to blame the people, the families who have been foreclosed on? They show up at that meeting because they want answers and you're going to blame them for the job losses? That's ridiculous. They deserve a voice. We're talking about people who showed up peacefully at a Bank of America shareholders' meeting. These were families who have been foreclosed on and why is that when back in the day, people protesting the East India Company by throwing tea into the Sea, we called that patriotism, but this is somehow reckless. They just want a voice.

WAYNE ROGERS: This is all the problem of Congress. These people would be better off occupying Congress if you will instead of occupying the banks. The Congress caused this. They got rid of the Glass-Steagall Act. They allowed these banks to become investment banks and commercial banks and put them together; allowed them to get too big. That's what they did. It's the Congress's fault. Those are the people that, you know, we have four banks in this country that control 54 percent of the banking assets. That's a monopoly. These people are buffoons who are in the street. They should go read history and they should go down to the Congress and occupy Congress. They're wasting their time with the banks.

JOHN LAYFIELD: Well what that would be is what Wayne is talking about. You've got to deal with the real problem. Look, bringing up some emotional, detached argument about a military family that was foreclosed on is somehow saying Brian Moynihan is the devil because of that does nothing for this argument. It's just silly and the point is, what this administration has done, what this Congress has done, what the Fed has done, has made the one percent much wealthier and made the 99 percent much more detached, because you have banks that have gone 25 percent to 30 percent un-banked in this society, you have two trillion dollars in credit lines being withdrawn, and you have low interest rates, which means rich people who don't need money can get that money if they want. The poor can't get it anyway. Dodd-Frank has gone after completely the wrong part of this equation. It's a populous measure because they don't know what they're doing in Congress.

NEW STUDY REVEALS PUMPING MORE OIL WILL PUMP BILLIONS IN TO THE ECONOMY

JOHN LAYFIELD: Good Lord it's about time, yes. We're the only developed country without a comprehensive energy plan. Just 20 projects in the West would create 120 thousand jobs. Two hundred thousand jobs are waiting on fracking regulations in Ohio alone. We have no comprehensive plan. So we don't know how drilling, offshore drilling, arctic drilling, nuclear, renewable energy credits and fracking. We don't know how that fits into an entire system. That's why the Keystone Pipeline; nobody knows how it fits. That's why it doesn't get approved. We haven't had one for decades. It's the one thing that could create millions of jobs, but it's not being done.

WAYNE ROGERS: Well you are (going in the wrong direction) and that's it of course. This could result in a net to the economy of 383 billion dollars. That's an enormous number, so yes, it creates jobs; it creates work; it lowers our gasoline costs at the pump; it does all of the good things that should be done.

SALLY KOHN: I mean look, first of all, we are already at a crude oil production high since 2003. We have already lowered our domestic imports so look I think I must be the one who has more faith in America that we can invest in the jobs of the future and not just rely on pipeline jobs of the dirty past. I'm sorry to say it, but in this tough economy, just because something creates jobs, doesn't mean it's good. We want sustainable, good jobs that are also good for the country and good for our economic future.

TRACY BYRNES: But we're not at a crude oil production high. That's what they're selling out of the White House, but that is not true at all. There are so much oil to be gotten in this country and so many people to be working on it. What about all the people that are working overseas in countries that hate our guts because we consistently import oil from them. Why are we doing that when we need jobs here in the United States?

JONATHAN HOENIG: Yeah of course Cheryl. More oil would create more jobs, but to Wayne's point, it would also create wealth. I mean oil is like blood; you kind of literally can't have too much of it. It powers our whole economy forward. Anything that's done to curtail that exploration, including making investments which of course means government force, is the antithesis of wealth in this country.

WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?

TRACY BYRNES: U.S. government approves Chinese bank to take over U.S. bank. Get ready for more Chinese takeovers

JOHN LAYFIELD: Saudis going solar; First Solar (FSLR) about to heat up

WAYNE ROGERS: Buy American Capital Agency Corp (AGNC) for a safe bet with a 15.8 percent yield

JONATHAN HOENIG: Profit from silver selloff with ProShares UltraShort Silver (ZSL)