TOP SHELF on Happy Hour:
We're making sense of these tea party protests. Thousands of anti-tax, anti-government, anti-spending protesters showed up from sea to shining sea. The protesters mostly fired up about spending trillions bailing out corrupt and poorly run companies.

They're also angry about the wealth redistribution policies that helped get President Barack Obama elected, and which are still helping him score high job approval ratings.

Funny thing is, they say most protesters out there are working class, middle income Americans so they're presumably on the plus side of that income redistribution equation. Hmmm...

It's true that state taxes are rising and federal taxes are falling for most of the folks at these protests. Perhaps all those reasons are why the protesters failed to attract larger numbers. Nothing like the tens of thousands of protesters at the G-20 summit in London a few weeks ago.

For example, in Hartford, Connecticut, police estimated 3,000 people showed up at the state capitol.

20 years ago an estimated 40,000 converged in the same spot, to protest against the personal income tax.

But it doesn't matter that turnout was modest at most protests across the country.

Their argument is worthy of debate nonetheless. Smaller government, less spending on entitlement programs, and lower taxes. I mean who likes paying taxes?

Stocks gained today ahead of more earnings. What are the markets telling us about all this? Tea parties be damned?

If that doesn't sound like a lot, maybe here's why:

Massachusetts is getting more than a billion dollars in gift money from Washington just to balance the budget.  That’s $3 billion for Medicaid expenses, $438 million for fixing and building highways in the state of Massachusetts, $135 million to have clean water, $320 million for mass transit, $209 million for "poor students", another $209 million for food stamps, and a $19 million relief fund for laid off workers.

Not to mention all those earmarks from the budget bill.

California, Georgia, Texas, New York and other hotbeds of tea party protests are also, of course, getting their billions and billions of federal dollars from the stimulus and from Obama's budget.

Should the tea party protesters tell their politicians to reject all this federal help? Give it back!!!!

Shelly Roche from breakthematrix.com is a tea party supporter.  She joined me today for The Diamond District

TOP SHELF on Happy Hour:

I'll say it once again: companies need to stop firing people for no apparent reason.  Today's exhibit "A" comes from Dean Health System in Wisconsin.

The company laid off 90 workers including one nurse who was in the middle of surgery!  Dean Health says the surgery was minor and the patient wasn't affected.  But the hospital admits the manager who summoned the nurse from surgery to tell her she was laid off violated medical protocol. You think???

But this story gets even more mind-boggling!  Dean Health says it's firing people to get ready for health care reform!  We thought President Obama's budget and stimulus were going to create health care jobs, not eliminate them?!?  Health care is about the only field growing. Remember trends forecaster extraordinaire Gerald Celente, said that too. 

Dean Health's president says about the layoffs, including the nurse in the middle of surgery, "We're taking these actions, not because we're in poor financial health but to prepare us well for the future."

Ok, so Dean Health is doing fine, they've potentially got some money coming their way from health care stimulus, and they couldn't find a better thing to do with their staff than lay them off in the middle of surgery, not to mention a recession?  I've said it before, I'll say it again: stop firing people corporate America!!!!

One of their key findings involved China selling off American dollars and debt. Apparently the war gamers found a way for China to hit us where it hurts. Yale Professor Paul Bracken, one of the participants, joined me today in The Diamond District.

TOP SHELF on Happy Hour:

Congratulations to the navy for rescuing Captain Richard Phillips, and here's to Captain Phillips himself for his heroic actions. Now America needs to develop a detailed strategy for safeguarding commerce through this immensely important corridor for global trade. The world transports 80% of all international freight by sea.

Make no mistake… These pirates are the bloodiest the world has ever seen. They are growing stronger, and more aggressive. But you'd be surprised to see who some folks are blaming for the rise of Somali piracy. A columnist for the London Independent is blaming... us.

"Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris?"

Another columnist today said pollution is causing pirates to abandon fishing for killing and extortion.

He says, "Corporations and governments have been using Somalia and other developing countries as dump sites for nuclear and toxic wastes from the west."

Back here at home, the markets slipped in and out of positive territory all day long in anticipation of a slew of hugely anticipated earnings reports. Goldman Sachs reported earnings after the closing bell today, beating profit expectations. It’s another bank to make money in the first quarter of this year, right behind Wells Fargo last week, but the stock fell in after-hours trading.

Possibly the most important thing that needs to be changed is the focus on short-term gains enforced by Wall Street.

Current and former CEOs like Jack Welch complain about this "short-termism." Some say Wall Street even rewards job cuts by pumping up the stock every time a layoff is announced.

Should corporate America ban or change the way they report quarterly results, to save jobs, especially important today, given how Wells Fargo's guidance moved the markets?

Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com joined me today for The Diamond District.

TOP SHELF on Happy Hour:

There's an old saying. "trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not words."

So we're hearing today that no banks are going to fail Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's stress tests. We're hearing that Wells Fargo expects to be $3 billion in the green. Yes, a bank will make money again. And we're hearing BlackRock's Bob Doll is advising wealthy investors to shift from safety plays like bonds into stocks. "The worst is behind us," he says.

But here's what American workers are seeing. They're seeing an auto task force filled with Wall Street heavies negotiating with the UAW for more benefit and wage give-backs, and more job cuts.
Workers are seeing Wall Street brokers and bankers finding new creative ways to keep their high salaries and bonuses, and profit from a stock market rally amid an historic job market slump. And they're hearing the Fed change its tune, saying there won't be an economic recovery this year, after all; that more jobs will be lost, that your home's value will plummet even more and that you'll face more state and local taxes to make up for this economic mess.

So we're at a crossroads. The stock market is telling us one thing. Populist anger may tell us something else. We're about to see how far and wide the rage has reached in America, in a possibly pivotal event. Those tea parties planned for next Wednesday across the country, some folks are snickering at them as a ploy by desperate right-wingers. But Republican leaders are actually getting snubbed by the organizers.

Metabolife was one of the greatest business success stories of our time, until reports of serious adverse effects including death, from the dietary supplement started to emerge. Congress weighed in with hearings.

The FDA banned Metabolife five years ago. And then former CEO Michael Ellis was sent to prison after pleading guilty to a single count of lying to the FDA about Metabolife 356.

Now Ellis is out of his prison. He joined me today along with FOX News Medical Contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, to explain how it all went wrong.

TOP SHELF on Happy Hour:
Today's billion dollar stock-for-stock deal between Pulte Homes and Centex sounds great for housing, but is it really? The housing market is open to all sorts of smaller builders who can put up houses here and there on a local scale. They continue to add to a market where there is already 19 million units of excess supply, a.k.a. lots and lots of unoccupied homes. The point is that the Pulte/Centex deal is OK news for the housing market, but it doesn't change the fundamental problems facing both companies: too few home buyers, too many homes, and too many builders.

The sector has a history of guppies eating whales, but that's unlikely to continue because most of the builders are simply too damaged. Traders were making bets today on who will be the next to merge. Interestingly, shares of DR Horton declined, possibly because it's simply too big and relatively healthy to be bought by anyone. Be careful building a portfolio with builders.
Bottom Shelf on Happy Hour: It's not just taxes for the rich hitting a slippery slope. Now prominent Democrats are calling on Treasury Secretary Geithner to expand his call for the heads of failing bailout banks, to include any American company that relies on business with the government. According to Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, this includes agri-businesses, health care providers and military contractors.

Reich writing in the Huffington Post, “All told, about one out of every five large American companies depends on government contracts, and a majority of these firms are losing money right now. So ... Off with their heads.”

That little rant of mine got a lot of responses from viewers. Some people thinking I'm nuts, but isn't business just collectively shooting themselves in the foot because as people lose their jobs, they don't spend and business suffers -- a vicious cycle.

My guest in The Diamond District today refuses to let her workers go, despite the costs.

Susan Marvin runs Marvin Windows and Doors in Minnesota and she joined me today for The Diamond District.