Mac moment. It is a key check on the help of the global consumer. Figures come out later this week. And the president will leave for south africa this morning. He will be attending Memorial Services for nelson mandela. George bush and Hillary Clinton will join the president and the first lady. Jimmy carter and bill clinton will fly separately. They will join dozens of other dignitaries and tens of thousands of mourners at the service being held in johannesburg. That is your morning brief. It was a subtle weekend. Particularly in bitcoin. That will be a feature during the week. Futures are up. The 10 year yield is that 84. The currency market is on the move. Crude is at 111. The 30 year bond tries to migrate higher. 103. 05. It was really quite important to see strong keep it going. We scoured the papers. Some of the Biggest Tech Companies are joining forces. They are demanding reforms on the nsa surveillance program. Names include cap apple, google all of the Silicon Valley companies. They highlight the need to reform practices. After president obama told msnbc that he plans to propose curbs on the nsa to guard against snooping. Facebook says to mind my business. What is the story here . There is tension between what the government is trying to get and forcing them to unveil or reveal some of what they have been doing. They are trying to hold back on releasing too much information. Do they have my emails . I think that they do. Madeleine albright says that they have been this has been going on for years. The french were listening to phone calls. This is not new. Edward snowden has put this out there and everyone is panicked. They may think that there e mails to eharmony . Sadly, they are not that interesting. Page out is taking a of bill ackmans playbook. They have accused herbalife of being a pyramids create scheme. They are approaching investors. They are projecting that they pulled their money from ackmans firm. They have lost up to 500 million. It is risky and he responsible. They win and and hired a firm to fight this battle for them. If they are out there and speaking as investors, this is truly a war. Give me a break. Will take said he this trade to the end of the year. Will his investors . Theres a difference between a trade and investment. This is his passion. They could be putting pensioners money into them. Should he be telling them what to do . In your reporting, is there anything here that is illegal . No. Unethical . Definitely. They all declined to comment on this. This is the latest. Our last story we go to the other side of the wall world. The biggest protest since the orange revolution. It is all over the front page. They toppled a monument to vladimir putin. The outrage stems from their position to turn down an integration package. Theyre bolstering ties with russia. Aine has some did Financial Difficulties of their own. Iswhat i find interesting how divided the ukraine is. It is knowledge everybody is for europe. There is a real division. There is a certain tilting away from russia. Anger is pouring out ray now. Currency markets are on the move. There was noise out there. Important economic data. It is the five days of debate. Congress races to the christmas break. The Affordable Care act simply will not go away. Congress confronts the reality. New, stunning the doubledoubles. Washington, our chief washington correspondent. You want to talk about the deficit. This will not go away. Are people actually concerned about high deductibles . You certainly have a lot of republicans who will talk about it. There talking about the problems with healthcare. Gov and they are also talking about the way the rubber meets the road. The prices that they are paying for premiums that are out there and the deductibles are going up as well. This is another talking point for them. They have criticized the Health Care Law. We will have several members on capitol hill and this is one of the questions they will have to answer. Rollout, theo the website is operating better. They will make this point over and over. Lawmakers actually have a deadline of their own to sign up for the Affordable Care act. How is that going . There is actually a different website. Technically, they are members of a Small Business. That is the congress of the United States. They are operating off of the d. C. Exchange. The deadline is december 23. December 9 is the deadline for members of congress understaffed to sign up for individual plans. They want to be forced to eat their own cooking. Many are signing up. Many are finding that they are having problems. Theyre also getting sticker shock themselves. The speaker of the house complained about his premium ebeling. To know what the deductibles will be for a senator from West Virginia . I can tell you that john boehner selectable is going to be 1000. That has gone up. He is a 64yearold smoker with a stressful job. ,f you are on a family plan also your age members of congress will be judged on their age. That is something that all americans have had to confront. Senator cruise has a wife at goldman sachs. On her plan. 20,000. Our guest host this hour we wanted to bring you clarity on the Affordable Care act. He is the ceo of evergreen cooperative of maryland. David kirkpatrick is with us as well. He will talk about bitcoin. Tell me where we are. Whether republican or democrat, these to vegetables deductibles how does anyone live on an 8,000 deduct ball . These are unusual. We have a whole range of deductibles. Some are gaming the system. What do the blues main . Blue cross, blue shield. People in maryland have had low premiums. They attract people looking for the sticker price. Aremost reputable firms going with higher premiums and load up bowls. Our silver plan has a air t and hundred dollar deductible. This is part of the problem with the plan. It is really complex. You are a physician. Could you explain how a family with two or three kids gets through the week with a 4000 or 5,000 deductible . There is a limit on the deductible. That is total outofpocket. It is still extremely expensive. However, the different plans are more affordable. These are the high deductible plans that have low premiums. There are a lot of plants with modest preview mims plans with modest premiums. The number of people coming and makes a big difference. Of our initial group, 40 of enrollees are under the age of 40. Younger compared to you, only. Clearly, it is complicated. What does this have to do to become less complicated so we can understand . Good question. I am all for a singlepayer system. We will not be there for many years. Realistically . You will probably need a navigator. There are navigators in each state in each county. It is not as easy as top velocity, but if you go to healthcare. Gov, it is working better now. You can follow it fairly well. A better system even as deductibles are shot for a minority of americans. David is with us on bitcoin. Lets get to the busy morning of company news. Lets start with we will hold off because we want to save our time for any and sears. Investors are pulling their money out of sears. What is the next move then . This is bloomberg surveillance. Good morning. He will become the ceo of American Airlines. I think that will happen in the middle of a question from stephanie ruhle. Doug parker of u. S. Airways. This is bloomberg surveillance. I am tom keene. It is my birth day and i wanted stephanie ruhle. Get her onair. Im trying to do my best to get ready for the show. Made itrs know, tom very clear that there would be no mention of his birthday. He is talking about all morning. Under no circumstances will we discussed my birthday. It is front and center. Youre going to black rock . Eric will be there. Lets talk about any lampert. He may be loosening his grip on sears. He has controlled the company for nine years. Shares have sunk on the news that his hedge fund has cut its holdings. He may know how to invest, but he may not know how to run a company. That has been a big question. Most investors are pulling out. He has had to make some big new moves. Landdsy spun off end. People are talking about what his next move is. It will be hard to find someone to buy it. If you look at what has happened, it has been a disaster. Why the excess exodus . They were locked up for five years. He could not do anything. Their fortune has fallen. Now, investors say they wanted to redeem their money. They had one year to get back the money. That is what is playing out right now. David is with us. A bloomberg contributor. This is the structure. It is neither bricks and mortar. It is impressive that somebody would try to save them. It is interesting about lampert. I have a friend who is an investor. He says that now is the time to the money into his head fund. Hedge fund. I do not know of anybody can save these retailers. Look at what is happened to best buy. It is a time of extraordinary destruction and disruption for a lot of traditional industry. Retail is after the music industry. In your world, it is a force. I am alwaysry saying that retail is obvious now. The ones that are coming soon, we have not honed in on. What is it about the way that he has run this company that has not worked . He may not look at a company and see flaws. That should be on the showroom floor. He runs different divisions. They compete against each other. They are pitted against each other. This is a retail corporation. The show remain concept has taken off. He is under investing in the company. My favorite status from isi. Their holdings are at 1. 51. 1. 04 on kmart. Compare that to home depot. And macys. If you go to sears, it looks that. Tom, if the Retail Experience is about desire, is there anything you desire in sears . I have not been in sears and a million years. That is my point. They have incredible appliances. But those appliances, would you buy them elsewhere if they were cheaper . Do you say that you want to get them from sears . Their dishwashers are their own brand. They are quite excellent. I recently brought one. We have a lot to talk about. Were talking about bitcoin in just a bit. Stephanie was just telling us about how much she paid for the Christmas Tree. That takes us to our twitter question of the day. What is too much to pay for a Christmas Tree . Tweet us. 12. I got a big tree. A 13 foot Christmas Tree . 12, december 23. What a grant. This is bloomberg surveillance. Lets get you some company news. Starting with the Biggest Airline. Executives of american and us airways will sign einar final merger documents. The new company will be called American Airlines group. It will sell under the ticker sick symbol aal. D money on new models. They will also roll out new models. Is considering floating its british operation. Call for them to lift their Minority Stake in u. K. Retail. That is todays company news. That is fraught with symbolism. A big deal in the United Kingdom as the Shanghai Bank tries to figure out what to do. They have already come out of the u. S. In a big way. Theyre tied to china. Lets get to a symbolic must read. Stephanie ruhle is joining us. This is some volatility. There was a piece in the wall street journal wall street mothers stay home. The number of women with stay athome spouses have climbed nearly 10 fold since 1980. This is according to census data. Seeing more and more powerful women with stay athome husbands. They are on diaper duty. You have lived this. The key phrase that you say there this was skewed to very successful. There are a lot of people struggling and making half of the salary. It is not working. Even for a lot of these women, is it working . , i was a stayathome mom a wall street mom. Head of thes the household, can he be the one picking up kids . I do not know. It is kids. Do you weigh your code paid for by yourself. Do you want your coat paid for by yourself . That is what im saying. Do you want it paid for by yourself, from your husband . There is nothing in that store that fits me. It would fit you. Enough of that. All right, lets move on. Later on, lets say you are a bullish on bitcoin. How do you get one . We send matt miller on a mission to find out. This is bloomberg surveillance. Good morning. It is monday morning. With me, scarlet fu and stephanie ruhle. We have a data check. Emergingmarket stocks are rising. The big question comes down to what the fed will do next with regard to tapering. The yen has weekend. The jobs report is coming up sooner rather than later. We will be speaking later today and dissecting comments. It went back and forth over the weekend. It nudges away from what we saw on friday. The japanese data this morning was disappointing. Also disappointing, matthew millers search. Wall street gave credibility to bitcoin. Just one example. The currency surged and then tanked. Matthew miller is focused on this. In search of bitcoin. Can you actually get one . I have not gotten one yet. I have arranged a meeting. It sounds like age of deal. They kind of was. They were like, i am out, but i am getting some later this week it it is not a physical claim. Coin. It is the digital currency. Im going to do 12 days of bitcoin. I like to live off of the grid, anonymously. This is a virtual currency. You had to call people up to get one . I started trying on thursday to get one online. There are a number of ways to do it. You have to measure your bank account and Social Security number. I thought, absolutely not. I started trying to use bloombergs corporate inc. Account and Corporate Credit card instead. Did not want my information out there on the internet. That did not work either. We are clueless. How do you get bitcoin . There are a number of methods. Basedsiest one is quite coinbased. Com. That is the one that i signed up for. You had to give personal information . My boss told me to. It could it took four days. You could meet up with people and set up meetings. They are waiting for you at a coffeehouse . You never know what you pay until you get there. It varies so widely. 727 for theg at bitcoin. What is interesting is that, if you look at the price chart, it rockets up like a hockey stick and drops. If you look at the volume chart, it does the same thing. No one wanted to sell it. You wrote the facebook effect. If you were to write about bitcoin, where would you start. The point is, why it really matters. That i think makes the most important is that it is a nongovernment issued currency. This is the first time we have had anything like that. It is an evolution of the internet. That is the ultimate nongovernmental saying. It started in the u. S. , but it really is global. Everything that happens is global. It is a huge challenge for government. We have a new kind of money merge and. Emerging. David put that his report. It collapses almost half its value. That is not a currency, unless you are in zimbabwe. There is debate over whether it is a security or a currency. It needs a marketplace. Hold on. Maybe all of us are too inside. We are in the business and we follow it. Peter, i want to bring you in. Does this mean anything to you . It Means Nothing to me. We are sticking with existing currency. He says it does not matter. I empathize with that point of view. Are you going to try to live on bitcoin . I am going to try for a couple of weeks. A number of people have done this. There was a woman on forbes to did it for a week. A coatne is going to get on bitcoin. What are the denominations . You can buy it in fractions. There is some japanese name. You can do a lot of real stuff with it. You can buy things on the internet. It tanked last week. A service in boston where you can order food from 1000 restaurants and pay for it in bitcoin. I would never be one of those because you could get 10 for a hamburger, but only get two dollars for a hamburger. If you compare this to the internet, maybe it makes sense. I think that there is an easier way to get it. If you are a mathematician, you can mine it by solving a mathematical equations. That is how it is created in the first place. It is harder to understand by standard deviations, the older you are past 20. For me, it is almost impossible to understand. For tom, it will never happen. It is absolute malarkey. I stay with that. What are you doing next week . Youre going to find a bitcoin . Theyre going to sell me one. Thank you so much. Up, the new ceo of Time Warner Cable is going to receive a large golden parachute. Were going to look at some of the largest exit packages ever. Good morning. I am tom keene. Scarlet fu is with me and stephanie ruhle. Busy day. We have top headlines. 2 00 p. M. s economy slowed more than estimated last quarter. Gdp was 1. 1 . That was revised down from the first estimate. Business spending was weaker than initially thought as companies are cautious on their economy. Protesters poured into the streets of kiev. They fear that the president is going to bring the country into an economic bloc led by russia. This followed a rally where they tore down a statue of vladimir lenin. And a chance to own a piece of the sydney opera house. You can own a tile for as little as 90. You do not own it physically, but you can personalize it online, giving you virtual ownership. Fundraiserart of a to pay for the renovations. I would do that. People buy stars for each other, why not buy a piece of the opera house. There is a Birthday Gift for tom. Time for single this chart. What do you have . He is going to become the ceo of Time Warner Cable. There is work that the company will be acquired soon. Rob marcus has a big payday coming. He could go out the door with a golden goodbye. We wanted to take a look at what other recent severance packages have been. This is from the economist. Mel karmazin takes the cake. With 250away million. With 100e left million. Left with 60 million. He did a real turnaround job. We straddle the medical business with the business business. Look at those numbers. With a mix of your work in baltimore, is there a perception that this system is rigged . On compensation . Nonprofit, we do not pay huge ceo salaries. Looking at it from the point of view of her regular person in maryland, the system is quite rigged. If you can make it through equity gain, that is an alternative. They get thei