erin, first to you. from the economic experts you're talking to, i take it this was the right move, but it was an act of desperation. >> i think that's the right way to characterize it. the markets rejoiced. that's a big jump and puts the market solidly above 12,000. that's good news. i will say this, wolf. in talking to some investors, i talked to some people at pimco, the largest bond investor in america, they said the issue here is it's down the line when you start to wonder what happens. what the fed is doing is providing money for european banks who aren't able to get dollars other places. what the fed does is essentially print more dollars. a dollar's a dollar. whether in japan, kazakhstan or mexico. so, we are inflating the value of the u.s. currency to deal with the european crisis. for now, a good thing, but that could carry a heavy price down the road. >> richard, you're in london. what's been the reaction there? do they believe this will revolve the crisis? >> this is got nothing to do with re

live in london, erin mclaughlin. what are people protesting there, erin? >> reporter: to let you know where i am, outside st. thomas' hospital in london where some of the 400,000 public sector workers on strike have turned up to picket today. at the center of all this are the public sector pensions. put simply, government workers want public sector -- i'm sorry. government officials want public sector workers to contribute more to their pension and work for longer. with me is chris remington a union leader. chris har chris, what has brought you out here today? pensions decimated under these proposals. we will see how working life extended, benefits reduced. we will see -- two major -- the pension, does not go back into this, but into the treasury. we've been maligned by these proposals. >> reporter: how has this affected the strike today? >> every hospital entrance restricteded. we have got all in-patient sections reduced. anything non-emergency has been reduced even though we work very hard to make sure emergency and emergency coverage is available for pa

erin burnett is here at constitution hall. national security defense and yesterday because of the failure of the super committee, we know there's supposed to be $600 billion over the next ten years starting in 2013 defense cuts. so you've been looking at this part of the story. what do you see? >> you've got to add that to the cuts thaf agreed to. you get around a trillion dollars. what panetta calls a howling out of the force. i've talked to a lot of defense analysts today. we could see cuts of 100, 150,000. a new ground combat vehicle, so there would be real cuts, but there's also a lot of waste. when you look around the world, $1.5 trillion on defense, more than half of that on this country. we spend ten times more than china. six times more than russia. we spend a lot, so we can afford to make the cuts. >> i think yesterday, our pentagon spore respondent's piece, he said we spend more on defense in the united states than the next 16, 17 countries combined. >> it's amazing. when you look at it that way, we can make cuts. bu

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erin burnett has been covering the scandal and case against sandusky, among other things. first of all, what are your legal sources telling you? is this clearly a slam dunk case against jerry sandusky? >> you would think so, especially given the interview with bob costas. what we've been finding out is it may not be a slam dunk case and the reason for that is well, they say you really need two people to explain exactly what happened, so for example, with the case we've all talked so much about in 2002, when mike mcqueary, the assistant coach, saw jerry sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy, you would need not only mike mcqueary to testify, but also, that boy, to come forward and go in front of the court and that's very difficult to try to get the victims to come out and put their faces out there and testify. so you would need both mcqueary and that young boy in that one instance. obviously, there are eight cases and there could be more, but it gives you a sense of what you need to give get this to go all the way. >> and financially, financial liability this in this case. who i

erin burn set here in the situation room watching this part of the story. healthcare is a huge part of the economy. >> it is. obama's administration he estimating about 16% is about right that is -- you are now looking at the biggest chunk of the u.s. economy. a couple years ago, you might look at the number and talk about construction and housing but it really is healthcare and when you look at the jobs and what the stability has been, it has been in healthcare. >> how does it play out? assuming let's say the supreme court decides it's unconstitutional, the mandate, then what? >> so that's not good for health insurers. this is an alliance a lot of people didn't expect. >> blue cross, blue shield, alliance -- >> they get all these people coming into their health insurance role. they weren't against this. so you saw a little bit of that in the market today. the problem with the healthcare bill is it did not address the healthcare problem. where you see the biggest jump every year is not drug cost but hospitalization. so a lot of this hadn't dealt with the re

going in depth, 7:00 eastern, erin burnett, "outfront." we'll see you soon. >>> now, president obama stepping up the pressure, details of his phone call to the committee co-chair -- plus, my interview this hour with democratic national committee chair, debbie wasserman shultz. we'll talk about the debt, her friend, the wounded congresswoman gabby giffords and a whole lot more in the situation room. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories -- plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. and who ordered the yummy cereal? yummy. [ woman ] lower cholesterol. [ man 2 ] yummy. i got that wrong didn't i? [ male announcer ] want great taste and whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol? honey nut cheerios. [ humming ] and my job is easy. hide big things. you're good... [ crash ] [ laughing ] [ screaming ] [ tires screech ] and if you named your own price on car insurance, you could be paying for this yourself. so get allstate, you could save money and be better protected from mayhem like me. [ dennis ] shop less, get more, make one call t

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. >> let's bring in erin burnett, the most of erin burnett outfront which airs at 7:00 p.m. eastern. you were listening carefully to that debate last night. pretty much of a consensus, they don't want the u.s. involved in italy, greece, spain or portugal when it comes to spending u.s. tax pare dollars. >> that's right. and politically, wolf, there is no other answer, right? you have to have a consensus. it's a very antibailout environment out there. jim cramer was asking the question, obviously felt differently than the candidates. when you just look at it, europe just matters too much to the united states and that's a big part of the problem. we can't just not help europe. 20% of our exports go to europe and are federal reserve is already assisting europe to make sure their banks function. our banks have unlg huge exposure to europe. it would be nice if it didn't matter, but it does matter to the united states and we will help them and are helping them and hoping it doesn't get to a point where anything further is required. >> ezra klein wrote a strong piece today in which

let's bring in our own financial expert, cnn's erin burnett, the host of erin burnett outfront. the markets taking a major tumble today because of what's happening in italy, is that right? >> that really is the reason why. europe continuing to not dealing with its problems. right around 388 points to the downside as the final trades come in. what's happening in europe is causing all kinds of problems. general motors came out and said we can't even put out forecasts for what we're going to do in europe and as a result, gm shares fell 10%. all ten industry groups fellower today. greece continues to be a problem and now, it's really italy. you mentioned the eighth biggest economy in the world. it is also the third biggest market for government debt in the world. if you look at the exposure that banks have, how much debt italy holds, you'd have to add up portugal, ireland, italy and spain to get close to that total. i think it's safe to say if you see real problems with italy, you will see real problems spread to bigger economies like france and that would become a domino effect tha

erin brockovich, thank you very much. the new book is "hot water." it's a good one. >> i always am in hot water. >> you are and we like that about you. morning headlines coming your way next, 46 minutes past the hour. it's progresso's new loaded potato with bacon. it's good. honey, i love you... oh my gosh, oh my gosh.. look at these big pieces of potato. ♪ what's that? big piece of potato. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. but don't just listen to me. listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. i was worried it would be hard to install. but it's really easy. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. yeah. you're not... filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. plug into the savings you deserve with snapshot from progressive. delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet they're closing thousands of offices, slashing service, and want to lay off over 100,000 workers. the postal service is

erin's joining us with a preview. what are you finding out? >> it's amazing. you saw there, victor booth, the merchant of death, selling weapons to people who wanted to kill americans down in south america, al qaeda, the taliban. he -- one woman spent 15 years tracking him, 15 years. she's the biggest expert in the world in terms of illegally trafficked weapons, kathy austin. angelina jolie's playing her in a movie. she's going to be our special guest. stunning. the ak-47 is the most trafficked weapon in the world. there are 100 million around the world. if you compare that to the u.s. competitor weapon, the m-16, there's only 5 million to 7 million of those around the world. the ak-47 jones by things like rocket propelled grenades and things that have gone missing in libya, we don't know where they are, whether falling into the hands of terrorists, used against commercial aircraft. it's amazing. you know to get a new ak-47, according to the sources i've been speaking to, it's 240 but to buy one on the black market where you can get it readily around the world

erin burnett's show, 7:00 p.m. eastern later tonight, she's going to have a lot more on this and all the other important news of the day. 7:00 p.m. eastern. >>> campaign blame game. who's behind the sexual allegations behind herman cain? and more on the greek bailout and g-20 economic summit. jack cafferty, jessica yellin is on the scene. they're coming up. and the white house faces a subpoena over its loan to a now bankrupt solar energy. dandruff. how it gives me a healthy scalp and great looking hair. but who used mine up? it was hines. seriously? you lying fool. [ male announcer ] head & shoulders: seven benefits, every bottle. [ man ] it's my new malibu. [ woman ] '57 bel air -- still have it. [ both ] our camaro. [ man ] chevy silverado -- third one. [ male announcer ] people love their chevys. that's because for 100 years, chevy has offered the best value in america. come in now and help us celebrate our centennial open house, november 1st through the 7th. and fall in love with your next chevy. ♪ at red lob

what did he say about this, erin? >> i asked him about the latest back and forth in this herman cain situation where wolf, as you know, herman cain accused kurt anderson, who advised anymore 2004, but now works for rick perry, anderson has denied it, but i asked newt gingrich what he would think if it turned out that someone in the perry campaign had been involved and he did in the mince words. >> i have no idea. i would say if it turns out that a republican presidential candidate deliberately went out and created this kind of a story about a fellow candidate, that they would pretty rapidly become a pariah among the rest of us and they better fire the people who did it. >> in the next 24 hours, wolf. he was pretty passionate about that and there's been a lot of back and forth. so the speaker talked about that. we also had a very frank conversation about his desire to cut tax rate to an optional flat tax of 15%. obviously, that is something that would be far from revenue neutral, wolf. i had done the math on rick perry

erin burnett "outfront." thank you. >>> in the presidential race in the united states republican herman cain's denial of sexual harassment is a bit more detailed today. more confusing to some at the same time. stand by to hear another large portion of his interview with our cnn sister network hln's robin meade. stand by for that. there is new evidence that her man cain is profiting politically in some ways for fr this enormous fire stomplt let's bring in joe johns reporting on the story. what are you finding out? >> it will be a while before we can draw conclusions about the long-term effect of the story on cain's campaign. republicans suggest cain is getting the benefit of the doubt for now. they are questioning whether he's under attack. simply because he's a black conservative. >> reporter: he's been all a over the place on the facts and the timeline but the message is he was falsely accused of inappropriate behavior and says people are out to get him. >> i absolutely believe this is an intended smear camp

sometimes they're smooth erin a movie. >> it was like a 1950s movie. some of those techniques were the old tried and true. when we talked with the fbi, they said some of the other things like anna chapman using that computer, she was using a mac laptop, and it was communicating with another computer that was in a van that was going around the city. in fact around that block and able to communicate. so there were more techniques that were a bit more cutting edge. so i think that's one of the reasons that they were concerned. obviously as the agent said, there are a lot of countries that still would like to be spying on the united states. >> and as you mention anna chapman, she's a hero at home, got her own talk show. for her, getting thrown out of the country paid. >> it did. she's interesting. she has that kind of -- she was doing a few lingerie ads, and she was in men's magazines, but she's been promoting herself, vaguely involved in some political stuff and i understand some magazines dealing with financial issues. so obviously she's, you know, prett