romney, or gingrich instead he told me the pork chops are really good. a smart man indeed. doesn't want to scare away presidential candidates in the future. that's the news for now. we'll be back at 10:00 eastern time. "your bottom line" starts right now. times could soon be changing in your life. good morning, everyone. i'm christine romans. this may be your year to move up or move out of your job into something better. we're going to tell you how. plus, they served their country and now they're coming home. we'll look at the job challenges and opportunities many veterans face. and the great prepaid debit card debate from russell simmons to suze orman, the good, bad and ugly of the celebrity branded cards. we begin with jobs and how to get big business to make more of them. to hear the corporate members of the president's jobs council explain it, the problem is not creating jobs, it's creating qualified workers.

ge's ceo jeff immelt who runs the council for the president told him his week, again, there is no silver bullet to create jobs now. and at the white house, executives worried about the quality of america's work force. >> we're desperate trying to hire more people but it has to be people who have the technical skills to meet the jobs we need and it gets harder and harder to find them. >> that's facebook's chief operating officer. she noted there are 3.2 million job openings in america that are today going unfilled. nick chris tof a pulitzer prize winning columnist for "the new york times" and lee gallagher the managing editor of "fortune" magazine. welcome to both of you. the fact is conversation in board rooms is not how do we put the long-term unemployed back to work, it is how can we get a better work force in this country because we have a lot of opportunities and frankly, a lot of options elsewhere? >> sure. i mean, i frankly think that this kind of a council and this kind of job owning doesn't accomplish very much for the

unemployed. i think calling on companies to hire people as sort of a patriotic duty, to source domestically than abroad, at the end of the day i think companies will do what is in the interest to their bottom line and the way we get more jobs, more to do with improving education. >> right. >> training, with dealing with the housing mess, so that consumers have more money that they can actually spend in the economy, rather than trying to talk it through. >> what you hear, i mean when you see the president sit down with corporate leaders, the president say how are we going to create jobs and corporate leaders say how will you give us a better work force and in the middle there's this big, wide expanse of wait a minute, we still have a lot of people who need solutions today, not when we can some day fix the education system? >> absolutely. and i mean, i think very few people are actually talking about one of the crucial burdens on the whole economy and one of the real impediments to getting people spending again and that is the housing mess. >> right. >> and we've got to resolve that and to do that we have to write down principal. >> we can do more to fix the whole job thing by fixing the housing thing than talking about

at the president's job council. >> absolutely. we have to get consumers spending again and they aren't spending when their mortgages are under water. it's a huge drag on the entire economy, and, you know, i think the white house hasn't done enough on that, but clearly the business community hasn't done enough either. >> i want to talk to you more about the competitiveness issue. har varred surveyed nearly 10,000 alums and nearly four out of ten said they think this country will be less competitive over the next three years, in three years, and that's going to mean lower wages, lower benefits, for workers. sounds pretty pessimistic and all of the news flow frankly is pessimistic about american competitiveness which makes me wonder maybe this is the bottom? i don't know. >> there's a massive shift that is happening at the epicenter of all this. this predates the financial crisis. we're going from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and that's been happening for a long time, it's still happening. so many of the jobs, when the job market does come back, the jobs are going to look different. they've been transitioning for a long time and what that means is there's so much more importance

and emphasis now on education. >> some of those service jobs, though, are not going to need high education. when you look at the fastest growing jobs in this country, cashiers, retail clerks, jobs that you can't send a kid to college on, right? so it's a two tiered service sector, one where the knowledge based economy are paid great and a very large number of jobs are created where they're not going to replace the wages and benefits of the manufacturing jobs. >> if you look at the sectors doing so well right now, though, tech, what's happening in silicon valley, they can't find people anywhere there, those are education driven jobs. the economy will come back when demand comes back. as nick said, companies are not just going to create jobs because it's their civic duty. there has to be demand. we don't know when that's going to happen. >> let's talk -- i want to talk about the big business wish list, right? they want less regulation, they want offshore drilling, they want lower taxes and simpler taxes. i'm going to show you what the tax code looks like or the antiquated version since 1913. it was 400 pages in 1913. it's now 72,000 pages.

you can see when you get to the right of that screen, they would like that simpler and they would like to lower their tax rate. is that the answer? making business less tied up in red tape? >> well, we raise taxes in the clinton administration and had a huge increase in jobs. we lowered taxes in the george w. bush administration, and had very anemic job growth. there is clearly some long-term relationship between marginal tax rates and economic growth. but it's a pretty weak relationship. >> thank you so much. nice to see you. the u.s. unemployment rate 8.5%. america's recent vets are coming home to an unemployment rate that will shock you. next. i had enough of feeling embarrassed about my skin.

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got it? get it. good. introducing new etrade pro elite. ♪ there are more than 2 million american veterans who have served since september 11th and too many of them are now coming home from the toughest job of their life, to find the toughest job market of our generation. cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr explains. >> reporter: military veterans crowd this washington, d.c., job fair, hoping to find work. among them, young veterans aged 20 to 24. a staggering 30% of them are unemployed.

the job picture is not getting better. >> we're scheduling interviews for that today. >> reporter: marines corps lieutenant colonel ken crabtree, a financial specialist, is leaving the marines later this year and already he's looking for work. >> with the current economy, i definitely don't want to leave the chance i'm just going to fall into a job. >> reporter: understandable anxiety for all veterans. last month the unemployment rate for male veterans who served in the current wars, was nearly 12%. much worse for female veterans, 21%. the national average is 8.5%. so crabtree's first stop, like most here, learning to write a resume that highlights military skills that will interest a potential new employer. >> it's a process. >> reporter: former the marines kevin smeegle runs veteran job fairs for the chamber of commerce, he says vets must be savvy. >> they need to start thinking about where are the jobs, not just thinking about going to their hometowns, but where are

the states where there's low unemployment. >> reporter: to improve things, experts say business must commit to veterans. the white house has called on the private sector to hire or train more than 100,000 veterans or spouses by 2013. >> this effort here is one tool in the tool kit. >> reporter: the veterans affairs department sponsored this job fair. it required each employer here to be ready to offer at least 25 jobs to veterans, a total of 6500 jobs are available. interviews are on the spot. 27-year-old former marine alex ellis may have gotten the break he badly needs. he left the marines corps in 2007 after serving in iraq. the only job he's been able to get since, part-time security guard. >> you go up to a booth, tell me about that. >> i just ask if they were hiring police officers and they said that they were. and they handed me the paper and said if you fill this out, we

can get you in for the physical and the written test on february 4th. >> reporter: he's been checking out what's available here, with local law enforcement agencies. navy veteran aaron isaac is about to get called in for his own job interview. >> i have high hopes, because i mean, you already know like the interview, if you already have the interview, then that means they like you. all you have to do is go in there and show them why they like you on paper. >> barbara starr joins us now. double-digit unemployment for these vets. what kind of military assista e assistance, job assistance and training, is the military, the government providing for these folks? >> >> in terms of the military what they're trying to do is get these veterans, these young people, right before they leave the military, to start thinking more about their future. get them organized, where do they want to go, what kind of jobs are they looking for, get a resume together. but a lot of it is falling on the va once these guys are out of the active duty, to provide

some of that job counseling and try and help with job placement. a little good news that young man we saw at the very end, aaron isaac, he got back to us and told us he wound up leaving the job fair with, indeed, a job offer from a federal law enforcement agency. >> that's fantastic. and you know, here's the thing. i mean a lot of the job coaches for the military, they point out for people coming from the military, the leadership and the skills you get in that toughest job you'll ever love or the toughest job you'll ever have, they translate, that leadership translates to the private sector. one thing we found is there are so many companies who have vets in them who are looking for that leadership and are actually seeking out, the key is connecting them. the companies and the veterans. >> oh, absolutely. you know, just think of one example that we keep hearing about, so many of these veterans have been drivers, driving the heavy duty armored vehicles out in the war zone for years. they come back, they can't get a

commercial driving license that they need if they want to work for transportation company where there are jobs, so the teamsters union, for example, stepping in, trying to help young vets get that certification, get that licensing. >> excellent. barbara starr, thanks for your report. if you are a company actively looking right now to try to hire vets, please let us know. you can send us twitter, go on facebook, find us, let us know because we want to talk about you and what you're trying to do. hate your job, want to try to find a new one? this is your year to do it. we're going to show you how, next. [oinking]

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all right. this is finally the year to upgrade your job. recruiters, hr managers, career coaches are telling us 2012 is the year to make the move. 79% of workers plan to look for new opportunity as the economy impro improves. this is according to a survey by fpc, a national executive search firm. if you want to move on, up, because you're unhappy with your job, feel you can can do better elsewhere, listen up, caroline

started a coaching firm called six figure start and here to tell us what we've been hearing, for the first time in three years, this is your time, you can do it. this is the year if you didn't want to rock the boat two years ago this year there's another boat to jump into. go ahead and rock a little bit. >> this is absolutely the time. the market is improving. you're seeing that in the media and i'm hearing it anecdotally with companies and organizations i'm working with. >> we know there are 3.2 million job openings. we wish there were more. it's in business services, utility, health, transportation. you identify health care, environmental, digital tech. tell us where to look. >> those are industries growing, but everybody is hiring. so just remember the job search is individual, which means there's a company that you're interested in, and it's not in one of those industries that we just said, health care, environmental, it doesn't mean they're not hiring. you want to check that. >> i think there are jobs available that aren't actually posted in some cases. you've got a lot of managers who are stretched super thin. they've been telling me, we're ready to hire, as soon as we get one more big order. they're on the edge of hiring.

you know, maybe they're going to. how do you switch from one industry to another? >> well, easiest way to switch is to keep something that you do already constant. if you have a function that's translatable across industries, human resources, accounting, sales, marketing, there are a lot of skills that different industries need. if you can prove that you have that skill, you can cross undstry that way. >> a little research on the industry to move into. you need to know the language of the industry. >> yeah. >> you need to talk the talk. >> absolutely. they want to know you know their company, you know their industry and you can come in and do a job from day one. >> we know that there are voluntary turnovers on the rise. people are moving and we know that frankly, managers are worried about people moving and that's kind of a good thing if managers are a little bit nervous about losing you. you might be in a position to negotiate a little something better for you where you are right now. >> >> absolutely. the last few years you've heard of people taking on two three different roles, right? and now you can ask for a title

bump perhaps, salary bump to compensate for the fact you're doing more work. >> let's talk about long-term unemployed. you said something interesting, the job market is individual and you're not necessarily writing off the job market opportunities for people who have been out of work six months or longer. >> your job search starts now. even if you haven't found a job before, there are things you can do in terms of upleveling your resume, your on-line profile, reconnecting with your network, looking at new companies, new industries, something you've mentioned, some of those industries catch your eye. they're always going to be more opportunities and you can start from today and look for those. >> caroline, thank you. so nice to meet you. >> thank you. >> come back again soon. >> the great prepaid debit card debate is on. suze orman, russell simmons, tom joiner and more. all of these cards causing a stir. we're going to get to the bottom of it for you. that's next. lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older.

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card is simple. you add cash and subtract for each payment you make. it controls your spending and it avoids debt. simple. the complicated part is the long list of fees often associated with these cards. suze orman has put her name on one of these cards. it's a debate that began with the kardashians and their card. we talked about the kardashian sisters. they bailed out. there are cards from russell simmons and other celebrities, people who have a following. ryan, you say, point blank, these aren't illegal. there's nothing illegal. you say it's immoral. prepaid debit cards are immoral. why? >> first of all, in a capital is

tick society people have a right to go out and make money. they're perfectly legal. i say they're immoral is because they make the money off the backs of low income individuals, individuals who are poor who don't know any better. there are quite a slew of other alternatives available where they don't have to pay fees, establish credit and use as jump an easy alternative to get back into the system and don't have to insert themselves into an underclass of oh sight. >> i want to bring in john quickly. tell me about the fees associated with these cards in general. you know, zsuze orman, for example, she's kept the fees as low as she can. in general the fees run the gamut. some of these cards have very, very high feeds. >> i'm going to have to disagree with miss orman. we did a comparison with her card comparing to others on the

market. her card has 20 separate fees associated with it and that doesn't include the fee you're going to pay to western union for loading money on the card. the other is 17 for the rush card, 9 for the green dot, 7 for the little wayne prepaid and 1 for the american express. fees set up an inpenetritable minefield. if you misstep, through you -- >> so, ryan, who wants to use a prepaid card? its people who are unbanked or for whatever reason are not banking at a credit union or a traditional bank. for those who don't have much income, they're getting hit by fees too. >> suze orman said something

else very striking to me. they say if we can teach you how to use our cards responsibly, then we can minimize the fees. well, as much effort as goes into the effort to teaching how to minimize the use of the card and the fees, we can also teach individuals for free, again, we're not going to get paid this route by using the credit cards. >> i don't want it to dwell on suze orman's card. in terms of establishing a credit history, you know, and let's roll the sound bite from suze orman. she says she's entering a space -- she's trying to change things, work with one of the credit agencies to allow these to help you build a credit history. let's listen. >> the intention of this card is to change credit scoring in the united states of america. the intention behind this card is to give people the least cost-effective way for them to be able to pay online, to be

able to have a card to access things because it's very dangerous today sometimes to carry cash around. >> john, we want to be able to pay our bills on time with a prepaid debit card and have them know about it so it can help you and get you on the radar. that's a good way to be moving, right? >> well, it's a little bit arrogant for suze to suggest sh can change the credit scoring. here's the thing, they're not credit products. they're not extension of credit. they're a gift card essentially with a brand associated with it. they're not reported to the credit reporting agencies. transactions can be transferred to the transunion. fico is the one who controls the fico credit system, not transunion. that's the whole issue there. >> bottom line, ryan, round it out for us. if you want to not get into debt

and you want to be a responsible user of a card, what is it that you should be using? >> well, essentially you should go with a website like smarterchoice.org and put your zip code in. join banks where you have a know credit fee or go to annualcreditreport.com and get your credit report and start to establish a history. >> i can see you guys feel strongly about prepaid cards, all of them in general. thanks, guys. here's the bottom line with prepaid debit cards. be wary of them. they're useful if you want to give them to a collegebound kid, although ryan said he wouldn't give them to a college-bound kid but maybe a gift card or cash. there's a long list of fees that

could cost you way too much. you may get charged for checking your balance. there are often fewer protections than a debit card or credit card when you view it. listen to how "time" magazine boils it down. consumers who use prepaid debit cards as a substitute for mainstream financial products are relegated to an economic underclass that prevents them from borrowing or obtaining credit on the best terms, ouch. use a debit card from your bank or look to a credit union. if your debt is out of kroeshlgs go for help. go to nccf.org and find a credit counselor near you to get started. let's talk about this. job opportunities for vets coming home. is corporate america doing enough to create jobs here? are you specifically trying to hire veterans? we want to hear about it. tell us via facebook and twitter. the handle for the show,