CNN Appearance - Monday Morning

PursePundit to appear on CNN American Morning with William Cohan, Author of House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street - Monday morning around 7 am, to talk about Obama's message to Wall Street. Tune in!

CBS Evening News - "Does Wall Street Need More Women?"

The segment on the "Women in Fund Management Report" aired tonight on CBS Evening News! I big thank you to Kelly Wallace and the producers at CBS.

Click HERE to see the segment, to read the transcript and to leave a comment on the CBS site. ( especially if it is a nice one!!)

"If there had been a critical mass of women over a period of time at the decision-making tables, would we be in the place that we are in today? I don't think so," Zehner said.

Let me say it again. I truly don't think so. This in one woman's opinion and last time I checked everyone is entitled to one and I am proud to say mine is based on a lot of evidence. (sorry I am a little cranky about some of the mean, unsupported comments I received) For those who disagree I would love to see their report that would suggest otherwise. I showed you my evidence, now please, show me yours.

The reality is we will never know if the "greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression" could have been either avoided or tempered if we had more balanced board rooms, risk management teams and leadership. We will never know. But can we all please agree, at least, that those in power did not do that great of a job? Can we please just acknowledge that it is a fact that the vast majority of people in decision making seats are men and perhaps, just perhaps that by adding women - smart women, wise women, insightful women - in critical mass, we might improve the quality of decision making. I am not saying women are smarter then men, or more moral, or or.... what I am saying is that diversity of thinking, of perspective, of backgrounds improves decision making. Read the evidence. This is not 'feminist propoganda' as one person commented, this is logical. It makes sense.

For the record.............

I believe in a more balanced world and not one were our collective futures are being shaped by those that represent only 1/2 of the population. I believe there are smart, talented men AND women and both deserve to have their seat at the table. I believe we have the hope of a better future if the best minds are asked to solve our world's problems and not just the best minds that are part of the 'club' or of one gender.

A heartfelt thank you to CBS for putting this evidence out there in the world and for allowing one women with a deep passion for gender balance, to share her views.

CNN American Morning Segment - Invest In Women

CNN American Morning Segment - Invest In Women

Ok..I am very technically challenged. Please click here to see the segment... Oh there was so much more I wanted to say! YES I was wearing my Wonder Woman Girl Power T-shirt! Why? Because Gloria inspired me.... Off to London.

CNN plus Investing in Women

I am so grateful to be back on CNN American Morning tomorrow to talk about Women and the Financial Crisis. (aprox 730 am) Though I am not sure exactly how the conversation will be framed, I am praying that I will have the opportunity to state that the time is NOW to Invest in Women and Women led solutions. An example of what that means will be the story of a woman from DC whose life was changed because of a program she went through that helped her transition from being a waitress earning $11,000 a year to her first office job and now one that earns her $50,000 a year. Investing in Women means supporting initiatives, programs, solutions that enable and allow women to fully participate in our society. Investing in Women means helping women to overcome the barriers that are keeping them and their families in poverty. Investing in Women means being asking why are women so underrepresented in positions of power and influence and working to have them there in critical pass so we will know, one day, what women's leadership truly looks and feels like. Investing in Women is saying ENOUGH to the status quo and using our economic clout for positive change. Investing in Women is acknowledging that the world will in fact be a better place if men and women worked in partnership to make it that way.

Theme Parks, The FED's latest move, CNN and London

I am on the plane home from 5 days in Orlando with the family. (posting now in the am) Judging only by the lines at the Theme Parks, you would never know there is a recession going on. By 11 am at Hollywood Disney the wait for the new Toy Story ride was 90 minutes long and the fast passes were all gone. Though it was a wonderful way to celebrate my daughters 9th birthday can I say, I am way OVER theme parks. From now on I will look forward to real vacations, though the American Idol Experience was totally righteous.

The FED – what a move today. They formally told the world what Chairman Ben has been telling us forever, that he will do everything in his power to pull us out of the recession. He will use every tool in the chest and the chest is deep indeed. Bet on Ben has to be the new trading and investment mantra. The announcement caused a huge rally in treasuries and in gold, and a falling US dollar. Quantatative easing is the new 'must know' financial term. What are the downsides of this strategy? Click here...

CNN. I am very excited to have been asked back again on Friday for another segment on American Morning. (show time as of yet unknown) What is ridiculously cool is that I proposed a segment featuring a success story from a Woman’s Fund, and with the help of the team from the Women’s Funding Network they are producing the segment! Tune in and better yet, send them an email of support after the piece. This story is about what happens when you INVEST IN WOMEN!!! Given the opportunity I am going to be calling on the administration to join thousands of donors who understand the power of this type of investment. Women’s Funds around the country have vetted solutions to our economic crisis and are ready, willing and able to deliver. If you want to learn more about what investing in women is all about please join us at the WFN Annual Conference in Atlanta April 30th. Click here for more information. It is going to be an incredible gathering, please join.

London. Friday I am off again, this time to London with my son to spend some time with family and friends and tour the sites. I should be blogging from overseas but just in case…. All the best and keep your seat belts fastened.

Soap Box, Money, and Bethany.....

Thanks for all the lovely emails and posts (Facebook) about my latest CNN appearance this morning. Some of you have been sending me your list of the various uses of BRILLO pads, which are very funny. When I was looking for a soapbox this morning before I jumped in the car that was all I could find to fit in my handbag. They are soappads! I brought them because what I thought we were going to talk about this morning was a broader conversation about leadership and money. I was going to get on my soapbox that the President and his sidekicks have to be much more thoughtful of how he (they) talk about money: how we use it, invest it, spend it, give it and save it AND who has it. The conversation was to be a response to this piece in the WashingtonPost - "A Week of Revelation" by Michael Gerson. The CNN producers had wanted to bring up the topic of 'class warfare' to the panel of 'experts.' Personally, I was particular miffed with this line in the NYTimes earlier in the week saying "the Affluent are top on the President's list of Losers." I can hope to understand why people are upset at the 'rich' but last time I checked 'rich' was something most people wanted to be. Yes the rich spend their money sometimes unwisely and many have made it in ways that have caused other people harm, BUT just as many, and I think more, employ people, run and built businesses, make sound investments, give away big dollars, and together pay the lion's share of personal income taxes. There is no one 'rich' and 'rich is bad/money is bad' is a message that we could do with out. Period. Most I know that are of means are accepting of paying higher taxes but they don't want rotten tomatoes thrown at them at the same time. One would hope that the President sees 'the rich' as part of the solution and not only the 'cause' of the problems. He needs to encourage those that can most afford to do it to spend, invest and give to help get our economy out of this mess. I have not heard that in a speech lately..... I vaguely remember the President Elect saying we are all in this together or was he only talking to the 98% of the population that make less then $250,000 a year.

A friend who I asked to read the OPED sent me these comments - "It is true that income inequality has increased over the recent past. But it is also true that the wealthy have paid a larger share of total Federal personal income tax revenues. Higher tax rates on the wealthy will reduce after tax income inequality. The important question is whether higher tax rates and perceived hostility to success will also reduce absolute tax revenues. If that happens, Obama's budget is unsustainable. Even if we don't reach the point of diminishing returns immediately, it seems clear that we will get there relatively soon as the social security and Medicare liabilities mushroom with the aging of the baby boom.

There are no responsible budget projections that suggest that this nation can pay the amounts of social security and Medicare entitlements created under current law. Yet, rather than address this directly, and reduce the entitlements as it is clear we must, the politicians rail against the wealthy and suggest that higher taxes on them will solve the problem, knowing full well that it won't. We demonize mortgage bankers who put homeowners into mortgages that would be a challenge to repay. How should we view politicians who lie and encourage us to rely on benefits that they know can't be paid."

On another note I have to highlight my friend Bethany's latest article. She just published a great piece on the private equity shop Fortress called "Over The Hedge". After making the move from FORTUNE where she was forever she is making her mark at Vanity Fair. You go girl... Click here for the article.

Transcript from CNN Live This Am! PursePundit Debuts and CNN!

I had the most amazing time on CNN this morning and they invited be back tomorrow... 6 am and 8 am. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they ask me to comment on Leadership and Investing in Women - two that you all know I am passionate about! Thanks to all my dear friends who have continued to support me on this journey in to the media world....

ROBERTS: Welcome back to the "Most News in the Morning." That view from one of our iReporters underscores America's economic crisis. This morning, we're hearing what Main Street thinks of the president's recovery plan. And we're talking with some of the sharpest economic minds in the country about what it means to you and your financial future.Economist Diane Swonk joins us this morning from Chicago, and here in New York investment adviser Ryan Mack and Jacki Zehner, founding partner of the Circle Financial Group.We welcome you, Jacki, for the very first time.JACKI ZEHNER, FOUNDING PARTNER, CIRCLE FINANCIAL GROUP:

ROBERTS: Let's go to you, first. And let me preface this by highlighting here a comment that was sent in to us by a viewer. Dave in Omaha, Nebraska, writes to us this morning and says, "Although the meat of the speech was very hopeful, I felt it was more like a pep rally. The only thing missing was the band and the cheerleaders. I still want to know how we will pay off this debt, how is this administration putting people back to work, and why do I have to help someone pay -- why do I have to help pay else's mortgage? I feel this was not addressed."These are questions, Jacki, a lot of people are asking today.

ZEHNER: Those are really good questions. I actually think Nancy Pelosi was their cheerleading. I think all that was missing were the pompoms. But those are all my questions. It was a pep ralley. I like talking about hope and possibility, and I think the world needed that message and the markets so far are responding. He said, I'm in control. I'm going to do something, but what's the something?And actually, I thought he missed a big opportunity to talk about investing in America and a broader basis than just talking about Wall Street and the negatives of Wall Street. I think there's a much broader conversation that we can have about small business, about female entrepreneurship, about financial literacy, about a broad-based conversation about investment. And that was really missing.

ROBERTS: What do you think about all of that, Diane, because typically these addresses whether they be just to a joint session of Congress or whether they be actually titled a State of the Union Address, which is next one will be, are usually about grand themes and broad brush strokes. The details come later.

DIANE SWONK, ECONOMIST: Exactly. I think actually what impressed me was the one-two punch. Ben Bernanke was on his "A" game yesterday. And he really dealt with a lot of these issues earlier in the day in great detail. It was actually one of the most insightful, which doesn't say a lot.Q&A sessions that Congress has ever had with Ben Bernanke. But these senators actually finally got it. And I think that laid the groundwork. One of the comments that Ben Bernanke gave in response to that very issue on foreclosures, he said, you know, you could punish your next-door neighbor for smoking in bed by, you know, not calling the fire department when his home caught on fire, but if it burned down the whole neighborhood, how much does it help you?And I think that analogy is very important. And that's what the president has got to bring, is that analogy that we're on the same boat, and unless we're all in the same boat with our oars in the water rowing towards the same destination, we're all going to sink the boat.

ROBERTS: Ryan, let's turn this one toward you. Carolina, in *, Florida writes this this morning and says, quote, "After Obama's speech, I feel confident that he will bring us out of this economic mess. I was happy to hear some positive comments rather than all the doom and gloom that the American people are constantly being bombarded with. Thank God we have a new administration."Was it an appropriate amount of optimism that the president exceeded last night?

RYAN MACK, PRESIDENT, OPTIMUM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: I think it was great optimism. I think that his direction was very -- very optimistic and very happy about what tomorrow actually holds.One of the striking things he said, we are also suffering a deficit of trust. I think that in previous administrations, a lot of individuals had lost trust with an administration, so that actually leads to a lack of confidence in the leadership of this country. And him coming in and actually going back and talking about things about the GI bill, sent a generation of college students made the largest middle-class in history.So I want to have by 20-20 had the highest proportion of college graduates in this country. But then the devil is in the details. I'm going to put $31 billion in college affordability and Pell Grants and tax credits to make sure that individuals are going to school. And he also said, you know, enough of this not graduating from high school, you know? It's on you. We have to graduate from high school and make sure we're getting our...(CROSSTALK)

ROBERTS: That's an interesting part of the speech. But, Jacki, just in terms of this optimism, just saying it doesn't necessarily make it so. He's got a lot of work to do to actually get these programs into practice.

ZEHNER: Absolutely. But we also have a lot of work to do too. I love the messages about personal responsibility because at the end of the day, and this is my favorite quote, which I repeat again and again, "do what you can with what you have where you are". I think he has to empower people to be part of the solution, not wait for government to solve all our problems because they can't. And he said that, but I really wanted the exclamation marks behind that. I really did, because those are the conversations I'm having. People need to get together, share their problems, share solutions.Ryan and I spoke a lot about financial literacy, doing financial preparedness. You cannot have your head in the sand about this anymore. It's not going to get better overnight, but it is about people coming together, talking through problems, offering each other solutions, supporting one another in business, helping out. You can't -- we can't -- walk around like this( hands up and open) waiting for this the government hand-outs. It's just not going to happen. There's not enough money and we're selling our children's future.

Jacki, thanks for joining us this morning.ZEHNER: Thank you.ROBERTS: Great to have you here for the first time.ZEHNER: Thank you.ROBERTS: We'll get you back as well as Ryan.ZEHNER: Thank you. Thank you very much.