49 Percent Have Not Heard of Occupy Wall Street
ROMANS: All right, welcome back. This morning's "Roman's Numeral," the number in the news today. The number is 49 percent.</s>COSTELLO: Uh-uh.</s>COSTELLO: The number of men in the world.</s>VELSHI: That's good. That's a good guess.</s>ROMANS: Actually, it's a lot of different things. But it's actually, today, the percentage of people who say they have never heard of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Right? That's according to the ORC International poll, which means 51 percent have. Right? More than half have. If you are wondering how this compares to other things, say, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, a poll last month found that 42 percent knew of him, had an opinion of the Fed chief.</s>VELSHI: More than Occupy Wall Street?</s>ROMANS: So more people know of the Fed chief.</s>VELSHI: And the Occupy Wall Street people will tell you that the only reason 49 percent of people know it is because they feel like a lot of mainstream media has avoided the issue.</s>ROMANS: They have been after you a little bit about that, haven't they?</s>VELSHI: Yes. We haven't avoided the issue. We got a tweet three minutes ago saying, why aren't you covering the arrest in Boston. I felt like saying, well, why don't you watch our TV show because we actually are. So a lot of people just tweet that they hate the mainstream media, even though the mainstream media is covering this quite effectively. And credit to the Occupy Wall Street folks, they have been going on so long about this, it's unignorable.</s>COSTELLO: I thought it was very interesting that more people know about Occupy Wall Street than the Fed chief.</s>ROMANS: That just shows you the movement is really resonating.</s>COSTELLO: -- Alan Greenspan was the Fed chief for ever and ever and ever. Like, nobody would ever know Ben Bernanke, really. That doesn't surprise me. But that's because you're --</s>COSTELLO: We asked you to "Talk Back" on one of the big stories of the day. The question for you this morning, are you sold on the president's jobs plan? This from Edward, "The close to trillion dollars that was allocated in the first jobs bill didn't create a lot of jobs. The government cannot create sustained economic value. Businesses need to create value. The government needs to create an environment for business to thrive, not throw money at a problem for political sake. Estimates in the first round said it took about $250,000 to create one job. We would be better off giving that money to people who need it." This from Renee, "What is wrong with the rich paying more taxes? Men and women all around the country are willing to work hard for their earnings and pay the taxes that come with them. Why is it OK for millionaires to not pay as many taxes when there are thousands of people in need of jobs"? This from Dennis, "I'm sold on it. And most Americans are sold on it. The problem is the GOP members of Congress aren't sold on it, and they won't be until they're voted out of office. The world is quite aware that our GOP protects the healthy on the backs of the once-middle class." And this from Ann, "Yes, I am sold on the president's jobs plan. This will give the economy a much-need boost. We need the infrastructure repairs desperately and construction workers need jobs. How many bridges have to fall before we do something to make them safer? Pass the jobs bill." Facebook.com/Americanmorning. Keep the conversation going. Most polls do show that, I guess, 75 percent of Americans are for the president's jobs bill, and that's kind of reflected in our comments this morning.</s>ROMANS: Why does he keep saying he's taking it straight to the American people, that he wants to take it straight to the American people, but the people in the House and the Senate who are the ones that decide whether it happens, so I don't know where that --</s>VELSHI: Well, if it became a ground-swell movement, if folks sort of said let's really push our congressman on it, but that doesn't seem to be happening at the moment. So while polls indicate people are in support of it, they're not really doing anything to enforce their --</s>COSTELLO: Well, I think the president was hoping voters would put pressure --</s>VELSHI: Right.</s>COSTELLO: -- on Congress to do something.</s>VELSHI: To get it done, right.</s>COSTELLO: But that's not quite working.</s>VELSHI: Coming up ahead in the next hour, you still do have a choice. We'll tell you the top-five jobs you can jump to if you want to get into an industry that's growing.</s>ROMANS: And how are the Chilean miners doing? All of them talking about selling movie rights, making millions, free sunglasses, and never having to work again. Life out of the mine, much different. We'll have a special update on their lives one year later. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. It's 57 minutes after the hour.