The Buzz - BuzzWorthy Radio

BuzzWorthy Radio: Allen Wastler!

Allen Wastler is the Managing Editor of CNBC.com and the author of the CNBC.com blog, Two Way Street With Allen Wastler. He is responsible for all editorial content for CNBC.com—with bureaus in Europe, Asia and the US.

Prior to joining CNBC.com, Wastler was Managing Editor of CNNMoney.com, a joint venture between CNN and Time Inc, where he was responsible for all editorial and content production. Before his tenure as Managing Editor at CNNMoney.com, Wastler was the Managing Editor of CNNfn.com where he headed all editorial operations for the site. Wastler was also a regular commentator on CNN’s weekend business shows and frequently appeared on CNN networks to comment on breaking business news.

About the blog, "CNBC Two Way Street with Allen Wastler" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/22784508)

What’s happening at CNBC.com? Two Way Street is the place to find out. Managing Editor Allen Wastler writes about the latest goings on - technical and editorial - at the Web site and at the Network. He also answers your questions (well, some of them – just don’t ask about the cigar: a man needs a little mystery and at least one vice) and points out some of the media issues hanging in the headlines.

Duration:: 29m
Broadcast on:: 26 Aug 2009
Audio Format:: other

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Each W group, no purchases are employed or prohibited by law, see terms and conditions, 18 plus. Lope told the radio. Come get you live. It is buzzworthy radio, where you can get the latest buzz. I'm all your favorite chums and stars. Buzzworthy. Start. Now. Yo, what's up? This is Kevin Rudolph. You're listening to buzzworthyradio.net. Check out my single "Let It Rock" and check out my album in the city and so is now. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Buzzworthy Radio on this Wednesday, August 26th, 2009. It is 9.35 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. We're going to be joined by Alan Wasler. He is the managing editor of CNVC.com. He'll be joining us in about 15 minutes. We're going to be talking him in the 10 minutes segment, so make sure you stay tuned for that. The phone number to dial in is 646-595-4228. We're going to be talking to him about gastric bunkers, the stock market, and the healthcare reform. Speaking of healthcare reform, I wanted to take a moment right now to offer my condolences to Senator Edward Kennedy's family. He passed away today, complications of the brain cancer. He goes 77. The last of the Kennedys did pass away. It's very upsetting. It is very upsetting to hear, even though that they were expecting it, they knew the coming because we knew that his uncle isn't doing so well. It still hurts. It still hurts to hear about the death of this great man, this great senator that was with us, a younger brother of slain John Kennedy. It's not just his death that upset me. It's just the fact that this summer has been nothing but of that. It really does bother me. It really does bother me that we just had this for the entire summer. I just don't understand why that is. It just hurts. It really does hurt, but my condolences goes out to the Kennedy family right now. It really does. At about 950, we're going to be joined by Alan Wasser, managing editor of SanBC.com, so stay tuned for that. I wanted to give you some updates of what's coming up right now. This is our last show for this week. I'm going to be actually making a commute to Los Angeles for the rest of the week, and we'll be back until next Monday night. No shows, though. Not on Monday, but I will be back Monday night, and I believe I will schedule something for that coming Thursday. Next Thursday, I'll probably be scheduling something next Thursday night. We're going to do a Los Angeles recap of what went down and what I attended as far as the young and the rest of the events, and the 36th Annual Detent Emmy Awards. We're going to be doing a recap of those. Make sure you stay tuned for that. I'll have information on that very, very, very shortly. Probably, I'll have more information of when I get back and when it will be scheduled inflated, so make sure you stay tuned to the website at buzzworthyradio.net for more information on that front. Yes, we're going to be chucking across the country over to LA and having a good old time over there with the young and the rest of the events on Friday. The wine on dinner takes place at the Sheraton Hotel, and then on Saturday, Daniel Goddard and Joshua Marl will be having their own event. Also, Saturday morning, that Saturday morning, the Golden Beautiful has their breakfast and their luncheon on that same day, so also make sure you guys check out that for those who are attending both of those events, or actually all three of those events. So definitely looking forward to seeing some familiar and some new faces just coming again. So I'm excited, I'm excited to get down to the mid-degree over there in our landing. It's going to be great to be back there, even though I was there like back in March, but it's going to be great to pay a little bit of representation, do some things over there. So I'm excited, I'm looking forward to it. And also, congratulations are in order for Aidan Turner and his wife Megan, they welcome a baby girl, and they welcome to this girl over the past weekend. I want to make sure I have my dates right, the 21st, actually with last Friday. So wonderful, wonderful news, wonderful news right there. I am getting the information about the baby right now is, wow, nine pounds, thirteen ounces. The little name comes from Megan's father, Larry Marshall, who died just two weeks ago after a year finding cancer, says Turner, and the name of the daughter is Celia Larren Turner. I like that, I like that, C-L-O-C-I-E-L-A, and then Larren, L-A-R-R-Y-N. I like that, that's really, really cool, really, really cool. So congratulations to Aidan and Megan, wonderful, wonderful news. And also, Twitter, like Ronald Nani Beorlin on Twitter at RealNaliaB. Now, news, the Boston Globe basically did a report. Girl, I love you, I do love you, but you had a bad weekend, baby. But I think, you know, you got to look back at it and laugh, you know, if you could laugh at it, it's great. I think that's wonderful. I know she did, but home girl had a mess of a weekend when she was in Boston, Massachusetts. Not only getting into an accident, a little car accident, a fender bender, I know she could have think they almost flew out of the car, but at least there was no injuries and you weren't speeding and you did have your seatbelt on, thanks, the heavens for that. It could have been a lot worse. Not only that, but then you did a nice little love of the star, Spangled Banner, when you sang at the game, you can't listen to yourself. I've done that actually many times on this show. It goes without saying. I've always listened to myself of what I'm saying on this show. I mean, you're really supposed to, but you're also really not supposed to, because if you listen to yourself, that's when you get sidetracked and go, "Huh?" Exactly. And then you wind up forgetting your next point. So that's like my advice. Listen to yourself, but don't listen to yourself. If that makes sense, that makes sense. And the crowd loved her. I know they would have anyway, so that's really, really good. I'm so happy things did and on the best and they want her back. So I are looking forward to that. And yeah, make sure you check her out on Sunday. It's going to be an interesting, I think it's going to be an interesting telecast. I know that Vanessa Williams is an ET interview that is up on the ET website, et.com. And Jim Ramonovich, who we had on the show last Wednesday, did an interview with CNN. So we're finally now going to see the voice on camera. It airs this Friday. So make sure you guys check that out on this Friday on CNN. You'll be seeing a video interview with Jim Ramonovich talking about the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, which airs this Sunday, August 3, 2009. The Emmy Preshow airs at 7 p.m. Eastern with the inside is Lars Spencer and ET Kevin Fraser. See, I remembered it now. Kevin Fraser. They will be doing the Emmy Preshow. I believe there will be a few faces that I know will be getting interviews on the Preshow. A couple of which will be Crichelle Stouse, Nelson Branko from The Subsupport and Date Time evidentials Jamie Giddens. So it's going to be interesting. It is going to be a wonderful time. I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of these people for the very first time working in this sof business. And I've never met them before, but I spoke to them at them. And I think very, very highly of them. I met Nelson already and I I love the guy to death. I really do. And now I'm interested in seeing everybody else too. So it's going to be it's going to be interesting putting our heads together. Finally, all that knowledge in one room. I don't know what to say. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of like, wow, really? Is that really happening? So, yeah, it'll be it'll be nice to have a nice little collaboration with a lot of people. So I'm looking forward to that for the most part. I'm looking forward to seeing and interacting with everybody who has done their sights forever longer than what I've been doing mine from and, you know, garner experience for them and taking it under my wing. Because, you know, there's always room for improvement. You know, there's always room for improvement. Never stop when you even think you found your niche. Keep on going. Keep on going. Do you? Find out. Find out more and incorporate that as best as you know how that's what that's what I think it is. You know, so it's going to be interesting. Interesting for that. So I'm anticipating that day. Now, I have to I have to tell you something. Why is it that good things happen to those that don't have it? I read this morning. I got up on Twitter. I got up on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter at those with the video. I was on Twitter this morning. Someone had posted and I believe it was Janice Kay. She had posted that if you own a Camaro, you could get a free Papa John's pizza if you are a Camaro owner. What is up with that? I was so upset. I mean, really, I mean, I wish I own a Camaro right now. So I could get a free pizza. I want a free Papa John's pizza. I love Papa John's pizza and it's so funny, I'm bringing it up now because we had Michael Papa John on the show and we were talking about his last name and it does feel like the piece. But oh my gosh, man, it's just it's awful. I would love that and I wish now that I had a Camaro. I really wish I had a Camaro now. That's just, I feel like now I feel like going out and trying to find somebody who has a Camaro and just like taking it out for a spin, you know, go to my local Papa John and try to get a pizza. That's just awful. That's a shame and it's old for today. Papa John's will offer a free large one topping pizza. See, that makes it worse. Now you're giving a large one topping pizza. Now, see, this this really now honks me off because only when you think of a free pizza, you won't get the topping on it and now I would have gotten it with Papa John. Oh, and one topping pizza on Wednesday, August 29, 2009 to Camaro owners. To redeem Camaro owners must arrive at their nearby Papa John's restaurant in their Camaro to order and pick up their free pizza with one pizza per Camaro and one visit per Camaro. Oh, man, oh man. Maybe I should. Maybe I should find somebody who has a Camaro like right now and just drive up to my Papa John's restaurant like after this show is over and just get that free pizza. I really think that's what I should do. Ah, man. Those are the breaks and not just that. I'll just have this is something else too. I was reading something on Yahoo on Yahoo.com and in London, there's these things called put pockets and I'm like, what's a put pocket? And if you know what a pickpocket person is, it's the reverse of that. Basically, a put pocket is now you're putting money into their pockets instead of taking the money out of their pocket. Like, geez, I wish they come over to the US. We're the ones in the recession. Don't do it in London just for visitors. Do it in America. We're the ones that are having the money problem. I mean, geez, which people would come come over here and do that. I mean, some people have been one does have like over 30 bucks close to 40, 50 dollars found in their pocket and the fighting is it's reformed pickpockers that are putting the money in these people's pockets. So I just thought it was interesting yet funny yet upsetting that it's not happening here in the US. We need the money. We need the money. And if you can send some money over to the White House, I tell you, it's been a crazy, crazy year. And you know, a lot of people are wondering are we going to get out of it? And I know that there have been people that have been telling me that they don't think it's going to happen. We're probably going to be in this for quite some time. And part of me feels that they are right. But part of me also has faith in the system. You know, I really do and I know a lot of people frown on that. And if you asked me that about two years ago, I would have said the same thing. But I am, I'm just like, you know, it's got to get worse before I get better. So just hold them out. Just hold out the hope, you know, holding out that the recession will come to a close. Hopefully within the next couple of years, if at least it can sooner than that. But, you know, like I said, it's going to get worse before it gets better. You know, everybody's losing their jobs, you know. And, you know, I'm pretty lucky. You know, I'm pretty lucky that at least I have something. Yeah, we have to cut back hours because of it. But, you know, be thankful that you are working. Be thankful right now that you are working. If you have cut hours right now, be thankful you have a job where you could do something. Yeah, you might have to cut back all things. Absolutely. Everybody has to cut back on things. A lot of people get to cut back on stuff that they love to love to do, love to travel and all that. But at this point in this day age, you have to do that. You have to cut back in order to make allowances. You've got to make allowances. So I'm very, I'm very, I'm very happy, very, very lucky with what's going on at this point. So in the next couple of minutes, I'm going to be doing that out on the wasler. We're going to be discussing that as well. So definitely stay tuned for that. I did it in the next couple of minutes. So, absolutely. So, who else is excited for this weekend? I know that it'll be my first time meeting Roger Newcomb. Oh my goodness. I can't believe it. I just realized that. This will be my first time meeting him. I cannot wait for this. I cannot wait for this. And I believe we are joined by our guests this morning. He is the managing editor of the MBC.com. Mr. Alan Wasler is with us right now. How are you? How are you doing? Good. Good. Thank you for being here with us this morning. No sweat. No sweat. I love this. You love it, huh? Yeah. I mean, I love talking about business news and what's going on. I mean, you know, it's rare I get to do it. Well, well, there you go. And here's the perfect outlet for that. Absolutely. While we got you here, I definitely wanted to, again, I just wanted to express my condolences to the Kennedy family we found out today, Senator Ted Kennedy did pass away today from brain cancer. He was 77. Very, very, very upsetting. Very sad. Very sad. You know, I got the privilege of covering Senator Kennedy back when I was a baby reporter. We're on Capitol Hill. And he was an amazing legislator. And he was amazing for his ability to actually work across the aisle and engage Republicans as well as his own Democrats in discussion. Really pause. He was in the positive government to building consensus. And I think that's what will be missed. Yes. I believe so, too. Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, Ted Kennedy family out there, my condolences go out to you. And let's let's talk about the cash truck clunkers thing. I'm seeing that right now in my town. It took a little while, but it's now here. What do you think about this cash truckers thing? Do you think it will be successful? And will it have any long term implications for this economy right now? Well, short term, I think, I think it's done some good things, okay? Not just in the auto sector itself, but for consumer confidence as a whole. I think it's sort of instilled, you know, a positive vibe out there. I think the jury is still out on whether or not it's going to be an overall success, especially long term. And, you know, this is something a lot of people in Wall Street are worrying about right now. Basically, when I go shopping for a car, I tend to do it in October, November, December. And the reason is the dealers tend to have their clean out inventory specials then. They're more inclined to deal. So the question becomes, you know, people probably would have done that anyway this year. Did you prompt those people to buy their cars in July and August instead of October, November, December? And if you did, does that mean, you know, come the winter months? Are the dealerships going to be empty? Nobody's buying anything again? And, you know, basically you're starting at Square One with the auto sector where, you know, you didn't really increase sales. All you did was move them from one part of the year to the other part of the year. And that's something people are going to be watching very carefully, I think. Absolutely. And in your impromptu opinion, I was just saying this earlier, do you? And a lot of people have been saying this to me that you don't think that the economy is going to get better? And, like I said, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Do you think overall in time we will see an end to this recession? Well, you know, eventually time will heal all things. You know, the question is, how long? You know, the big debate on the economy right now is you basically have two camps. You know, one is sort of the shiny, happy people camp that are looking at recent data points and they're saying, you know, hey, you know, all that stimulus money that was authorized, only about 20 to 30 percent of it has actually hit the streets. You know, you're going to see the bulk of that money hit and fall in various types of programs, you know, highway construction, educational improvements, dollars for dishwashers, you know, take off on the cash for clonker things in different industries. So you're going to see all that money hit. You've seen corporate America wind down their costs a lot, so their profits are going to be a lot better. They're going to spend a little bit more. You're seeing credit. And so things, the fundamentals are going to be there. We're going to take off. That's the shiny, happy people crowd. Then you have, you know, the sour puss crowd, which is saying, no, the data points that you're seeing right now is, you know, number one, a lot of this is subsidized by the government, you know, cash for clonkers. That's government money out there. That's a sugar high, you know, in housing, the reason you're seeing the housing numbers pick up is a lot of foreclosures have hit, you know, were sold and that popped up the numbers a little bit. And also you had that help for first-time home buyers program. That's more government money that sort of, you know, worked on the low part, the low income part of the scale, you know. And those people might have trouble meeting their payments going forward. So, you know, how long will that stimulus that bump happen? And so the sour puss, oh, and they also say we're going to see more foreclosures because a lot of banks have been holding them off the market and they're going to flood the market again with foreclosures. So that sour puss crowd is saying, what you're seeing right now is, if you picture a W, you're seeing the middle part of the W right now and the second dip is coming. There are the double dippers and that's going to say we're going to go back into recessions, it's going to be a double dipper session, and it's going to be miserable at least for another six months. So those are the two camps you have right now, the good and the bad. Absolutely, absolutely. Let's talk about this summer rally as they call it. The stock market has been on a climb this summer. Is this for real or well another talent turn to be around the corner? What are the experts saying about this? Well, that goes right back to that double dip I was talking about, because the market's going to foreshadow that a little bit. Now right now, if you look at, they call them on Wall Street, the technical analysts, and they measure the graphs and they do their rulers and they figure out angles and stuff like that. Right now they sort of say that maybe the market has out distance itself a little bit. If you look at projected earnings to where the stock prices are trading right now, that maybe stocks have gotten generally a little bit too expensive and you'll see a pullback a little bit. A lot of people are saying that, they really differ on how much of a pullback will there be. Some are saying, "Yeah, it'll be minor like 2 to 5 percent." Others are saying it'll be a little bit more drastic. We'll see that there's a lot of money on the sidelines right now. Summers tend to be low volume anyway, but right now there's a lot of money on the sidelines, A, because it's summer, B, because it's been a pretty tricky market for the last nine months. However, there's a lot of people who make their money, their portfolio managers, hedge fund managers. These are people who at the end of the year are going to have to turn around to their clients and say, "I made you money or I lost you money or I sort of did it with the market." Come fall, they're going to have to look at how they performed and if they didn't have money in the market sort of taking advantage of this rally, they're going to be under a lot of pressure to get money back into the stock market to try to produce a return for their clients. So you might see a little bit more run-on of the bull. On the other hand, September tends to be the month when a lot of bad news hits in September, October. They've been responsible for a lot of black days, if you know what I mean. So one way or another? Absolutely. Here's a question that I definitely wanted to know from you. At health care reform, I know that everybody is getting a little bit upset on our president right now in regards to this. What do you think about this, what's going on as far as we have some stock into what President Obama wants to do for this? Well, you know, the whole health care debate, it can get really complicated really fast. I try to urge people, you know, when it comes to thinking about health care, to sort of peel back the onion a little bit and it's a big onion now. But if you peel it back, you need to come back to the central question at the heart of the health care debate. And that is, should every American citizen have health care? Yes or no? If your answer to that is yes. And a lot of people, you know, argue whether or not it should be yes. But if your answer to that is yes, then that means you've got to figure out how to pay for 45 million people to have health insurance, okay? To do that, it basically boils down to three things. You either need to raise taxes, all right, to pay for it, or you need to cut costs, so it doesn't cost so much to pay for it, or you have to reduce the level of benefits, which, you know, is sort of like cutting costs. It just means, you know, we'll pay for certain things, hire deductibles, that kind of thing. So that's where, that's where, so when you hear the back and forth that we should have a single-payer system, no, we should have this, we should have that. All boils down to one of those three things. Now right now, the Obama program is sort of trying to hit on multiple levels of that. I sort of think, you know, having covered Washington, you know, way back when, yet generally an administration, when they want to try to get something done, they take a big handful of, you know, a big handful of legislative proposals, and then they throw it as hard as they can at Capitol Hill, and they see what sticks, you know? And so I think we're going to see little bits and pieces here, which, frankly, if you're a macro economist and you like doing things, you know, overall what makes sense, that might not help the situation at all. Because a lot of people argue the biggest problem with healthcare is you don't have competitive market forces visible in it. All right? Basically, most people get their healthcare through their employer. The employer's buying it, you know? But we're the ones who use it, you know? If you've ever had a tangle with your health insurance company, you know, there's a million forms for it. They tend to be unhelpful on the phone. You know, they won't pay for some things that they obviously should be paying for. I mean, it goes back and forth. If that was a car insurance company, what would you do? You just change insurance, you know? Change insurance. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's easy to flip insurance on a car. And, but it's hard to do on a healthcare plan. If we could do that with a healthcare plan, I think you would see health insurance companies react a lot more competitively, right? I mean, you know, that would be their business, you know? The problem is the way our system is right now, one, there's a lot of companies that make money off healthcare insurance, and a lot of people are employed by healthcare insurance industry. So that and all those folks have, you know, they're represented by lobbyists on Capitol Hill. They're represented by people, you know, entrenched interests. That's one thing. Two, if you switched off the employer-supplied one, that's a big change for a lot of people, all right? And one thing about human nature, we don't like change. You know, even if it might be better, you know, right now I get to see my doctor, you know, I get my bills taken care of, you know, and basically I'm alive. If you change that system, it gets to be kind of a problem. Also, if you make healthcare an individual choice for people, some people might not be able to make the right choice. They might not, you know, they might get some wrong choices here and there. So, you know, that that's a concern as well. But that's the basic health there debate, you know, and if people draw it back to those central questions. And we'll need to wrap up, please. Thank you. And really a good thing for society at large, but I don't know if that's going to happen. Exactly. All right. Alan Loeffler, everybody, definitely love to have you back on again, talk more business with you. Thanks so much. They love it. Take care. Take care. All right, everybody. That wraps up this morning's edition of Buzzworthy. I want to thank everybody for tuning in this week. We will be back next week with a 36 annual daytime every world wrap-up show as well as what else went on in California this week. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we'll see you guys next week from all of us here at Buzzworthy. Make sure you get the latest buzz with VWR. I'm the Bell Glee signing off. Take care. Hi, this is Dr. Blockstein and you're listening to Buzzworthy radio on blood. What? No, I can't do it like he doesn't. I just can't. All right, I'll try. It is buzzworthy radio for you to get the latest buzz on all your favorite shows and signs. Buzzworthy. God, that hurts my voice. Ryan Seacrest here. When you have a busy schedule, it's important to maximize your downtime. One of the best ways to do that is by going to Chumba Casino dot com. Chumba Casino has all your favorite social casino games like spin slots, bingo, and solitaire that you can play for free for a chance to redeem some serious prizes. So hop on to Chumba Casino dot com now and live the Chumba life. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW group. Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates, and gives back to the local community. As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Bellco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans, including our home equity choice line. 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