Were at 1849 on the s p 500 right now. Were ever so slightly back above water and were going to keep an eye on how the rest of the month plays out. Its the worst start to a january since 2001. But we are in the midst of earnings season and the earnings have not been horrible. No. And the beige book today was constructive. Bank of america. And b of as earnings were pretty good. Single digits feels like a long time ago as well. Thats a victory, yes. Also on todays show, 30 people that could change the future of amazon. They are 30 amazon employees in delaware who are voting today on joining a union or not. They would be the first unionized workers of the giant etail etailer and they could change the business model. Get a reaction from the Biggest Union leader in the world today richard trumka. Small group but big story. Big implications. And he doesnt like the dollar but he does like bitcoin. He doesnt much care for janet yellin or ben bernanke or anything having to do with the Federal Reserve, but, of course, im talking about former congressman ron paul. He will be here. You do not want to miss this. Always entertaining and enlightening intrerview with ro paul. Lets look at the markets. The dow 126 points just sitting at that 16,500 mark. The nasdaq is adding 30 points above 4200. The s p 500 is up about 10. That weak start in 2001 for the first half of the month that we mentioned also saw a rally in the second half. Well see if recent experience holds. Lets kick it around. Whats going on today . Joining us in the the Closing Bell Exchange aaron gibbs, keith fitzgerald, Peter Anderson from Congress Asset management, Gerard Fitzpatrick from Russell Investments and we welcome back Rick Santelli. Glad youre feeling better. Welcome back, pal. Erin gibbs, youre the earnings maven. The market is obviously liking what its hearing right now. I think now after some of the cash flows coming out of the beginning of the year, were starting to focus on earnings. Right now for q4 were looking at 5. 6 eps growth which brings 2013 to 5. 3 . All in all, a good year, but i think what we really focus on and why we can look at these the market, what its doing today is that right now earnings estimates for 2014 are almost at 10 eps growth. So we still have a possibility of double digit gains for the year. Peter, i want to know where the 10 correction everyone has been calling for is. Well, i dont think youre going to see that in a while. You know, im still optimistic. This time last year i was optimistic going into that year, and this year i still feel the same way. You know, history shows that people are concerned a little bit about overvaluation versus perhaps even a bubble. But history shows we can have a sustainable rally here given still the accommodative policy and also the relatively high unemployment. Those two things together can give us a Good Foundation for more upside, and id say 10 a looking pretty good for the year. Keith fitzgerald, obviously the fed is getting ready to taper this month, and there goes the free candy, the beginning of the end for the free candy for the stock market, but the market is still going higher, and youre still puzzled by why the tenyear is not above 3 right now, right . Well, i am. Traders are not letting go of this, which means theyre suspicious. I know, i used to be one of them. I still am in a lot of ways. This says the fed is going to put liquidity in. Until we take 30 billion or 40 billion off the table, we still have an artificial market. Inflate everything, who knows when its going to end, but im going to go along with the ride with 8 to 10 this year. Dance while the music is playing. Gerard, do you agree this is an inflated market . I think it is somewhat inflated. I think if you look at where the market would be in the absence of the fed, quantitative easing would be much lower. You have a very supportive fed. We have had fantastic equity returns and you still got treasury yields at 2. 9 right now. Wed expect that they go up to 3. 4 . So a slight increase consistent with a stronger economy but not a dramatic increase in treasuries. Why . Its because the fed wants those Interest Rates down lower. Theyre likely to be supportive and theyll manage taper carefully making sure that the economy is strong, Interest Rates are low, mortgage accessibility is strong and the housing is strong. I expect treasury yields just modestly higher. Rick, you have been saving it up for a few days. What do you make of the rally weve been having in equities and the fact the long yields are Still Holding steady here . I found it a bit gratifying that at least, you know, the equity market seemed to have paid a bit of attention to important data points. You know, we didnt have a terrific day on monday and that was after a very not terrific employment report, but retail sales wasnt bad. We had some data today, empire, not a lot may be made in gotham, but it still was pretty decent. Inflation picked up a bit and that isnt a horrible thing as well. If there wasnt the Balance Sheet issues, if there wasnt the training wheels issue and we just looked at things on the surface and blurred our eyes, things dont look bad. Im dealing in the world and dealing with the cards that were dealt. If you look at an intraday, fives, tens, and 30s, you learn everything you need to know. 5years are still a bit elevated. The flattening i think is important. The markets are saying based on some of the data the fed is a bit behind the curve. That makes sense. You look at the hyg, the etf for the high yield market, and its basically at the highest levels since the end of october. So the whole risk on, everything is moving along. Were just going to have to wait and see how it plays out as we continue to reconcile the economy with stocks, with Interest Rates. Keith, i understand the point about this being all just the feds hand in the market, but you have to acknowledge there are some important some transformational developments right now going on in the u. S. Economy. I mean, weve got an oil deficit thats fallen considerable in real terms just in the last couple years. We have a current account deficit that has collapsed. Theres going to be a lot of upward sort of secular pressure on manufacturing in this country, on some of the related industries that are supporting all this. You can tell a story about strength thats going well beyond what the fed is doing . Yeah. Now youre getting into my ballpark because one of the things people have forgotten about in this entire mess is the chips may be down, but you dont bet against america. Weve got clever, resilient people here. We have a brilliant manufacturing base, and weve got a tremendous technology insight. So all of those sectors, particularly when you get to medical tech and hightech and protective tech are going to be very, very good if the capital stays available. Theres an underlying current here that really is actually very exciting and very appealing not just one year out but three, four, five years out. Werent you just saying this was all inflated and you have to grab on and hold on for dear life . No, no, no, no. You go along for the ride. The situation is such you want to pick the best companies. That never goes out of style. If you have good management, good products, and Real Services selling into global markets, thats never a bad bet. The question is whether the fed is inflating the overall markets because those companies are not only defensible but they are things you can use to get ahead when the markets really do recover in earnest. Never enough time but thank you for your thoughts on this, another rally day in the markets. Investors will get another reading when railroad giant csx reports earnings after the bell. Morgan brennan joins us with a preview. Thanks, kelly. The street is looking for earnings of 43 cents for csx, looking for quarterly revenue of 3 billion. That would be up about 4 over a year ago levels. Overall for the entire year looking for the entire year looking at slightly higher earnings than 2012. Now, weve seen csx top estimates in each of the first three quarters of 2013, but the company did caution that q4 could be, quote, more challenging. So a few things to keep in mind. First, intermodal expected to be a bright spot in earnings. Intermodal growth for rail traffic hit record highs last year, especially in eastern markets where csx has been benefiting. That segment offsetting years long decline in coal volumes. Thats weighed on csx. Several analysts telling me that decline may be flattening out. Other factors to consider, a banner crop year could bode well and, of course, the energy boom. Which has meant crude by rail but also more transport of materials like fracking sand. And dont forget, csx ceo michael ward will be on the closing bell at 4 00 to discuss the numbers. Back to you, kelly. All right. Thanks very much, morgan. He certainly will, bill. Yes, he will. We look forward to that. Well have the numbers for you as soon as they come out. Now, look at the market. Rally day. This feels very much like 2013 again. All over again. Here we go. They bought the dip that was created on monday and havent looked back so far. The dow very close to the highs of the day. Were up about 130. Were up 125 right now with 50 minutes left. Walmart may be beating amazon on one important front and thats staying free of unions. Amazon employees are Holding Union collection electielection. Who better to spoke to the vote than aflcio president richard trumka. Thats coming up next. Also, seaworld stock has been down roughly 20 since the controversial documentary blackfish was released in july. Coming up ceo jim acheson will lay out his strategy for countering this pr nightmare. Also ahead can you tell who is who . I was going to say, it took me a second actually. Jimmy fallon and Bruce Springsteen lampooning Chris Christies bridge scandal. We want to know what impact you think that parody could have on prolonging bridgegate or does it seem less serious . Your best tweets on this subject coming up. Keep it right here. Youre watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. [ male announcer ] this is betsy. Her long day of pick ups and drop offs begins with arthritis pain. And a choice. Take up to 6 tylenol in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. All aboard. And shift through all eight speeds of a transmission connected to more standard horsepower than its german competitors. And that is the moment that driving the lexus gs will shift your perception. This is the pursuit of perfection. Bulldog out with the old out with the old and in with the new mattress discounters year end Clearance Sale ends monday puppy whats this red tag mean . Bulldog through monday, save up to 40 on clearance mattresses. Puppy oh, heres another. Bulldog that means up to 300 off serta, posturepedic, even tempurpedic. Puppy i found another red tag bulldog what where . Puppy right here, silly. Hahaha bulldog tickles mattress discounters year end Clearance Sale ends monday. Mattress discounters theres a group of employees at amazon that are trying to do something that employees at walmart have been unable to do, and that is unionize. Jon fortt, whats going on here . Its only 30 people right now, but how important to the company potentially . Well, kelly, it is very important i would say. Mainly because of whats to come. I was able to speak to a spokesman from the Machinist Union this morning. He made it pretty clear, this is just a first step. If they win here, theyre going to look at other workers in that delaware facility to organize, other workers elsewhere beyond that also. This is all happening with amazon growing really at breakneck speed. Amazons full and parttime workforce more than quadrupled from 2008 to the beginning of last year. If amazons moving into areas like grocery, well, thats an industry that tends historically to be pretty union heavy. Take a look at safeway, a Major Grocery chain based in california. It says about 80 of its employees are unionized. You can contrast that with costco which has only 10 of its workforce unionized. Costco tends to cover no theye flexibility to change things on the fly. Amazon tells me i should check in with them in a little less than four hours to see if weve got a final tally on that vote. They also say their warehouse workers make 30 more than typical retail plus benefits. Well see if that helps them get their way in this case, kelly. Such an important one. Amazon shares under pressure today. We have reaction to that and a lot more with richard trumka, the president of the aflcio. Hes speaking at the United Nations today as well. Joins us here at post nine. Welcome. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Well get to the u. N. But lets talk about the state of workers in this country first. Amazon potentially seeing some of its employees unionize. What role, if any, are you guys playing in that . We support all of our affiliates when theyre trying to organize workers. This is an indication that workers in every sector, whether its the new sector, the old sector, blue collar, white collar, pink collar, no collar really do need representation and they want a union at their workplace. In this instance, a lot of it is about rules they do. They jerk people around for vacation, dont let people have adequate vacation. They dont give them the adequate respect they deserve and so they wanted a union, hopefully well get it for them, and it will be the beginning of organizing amazon so we can make it a stronger, better company. I was going to ask you what you could offer that amazon cant . Ill read the full statement, its not long, from amazon. In addition to the highly competitive wages, comprehensive benefits on day one, bonuses, stock awards. We offer innovative benefits such as career choice program. We prepay 95 of tuition fees so associates with pursue their aspirations whether theyre at amazon or elsewhere. So what are you going to do if they end up use unionizing . Let me give you this example of what a union does. My son when he was 3 years old came to me and said, dad, i want a quad, one of those recreation vehicles. I said no. What was my sons recourse . Not much. He had no power. My wife comes to me and says i want to buy a new car. I say, lets sit down and talk about this. Of course, we end up getting a new car because were a relatively equal bargaining power. What a union does is it gives worsee a strong voice and lets them approach the table with relative equal strength to their employer. Without one, youre like the 3yearold with no leverage. Youre quite right, your son has no recourse because hes your son, but an amazon employee has a recourse, they can find another job. Oh, come on. Im just saying. Thats one of the most nonsensical arguments i have ever seen. You have a bad job, an employer is bad, doesnt give you good conditions. Instead of trying to make them better and help your fellow employees, you should leave . Weve heard that for centuries. It doesnt work. What you should do is try to make the job better so every employee has some respect and dignity and everybody has a chance to get ahead. All the nice verbiage that amazon says there doesnt fly when it comes down to application to those employees and they will tell that you. Theres typically a Business Cycle aspect to the success people have at organizing a union. I wonder if the movement here with regard to raising some minimum wage and other states and other parts of the country doesnt tell us perhaps labor market is improving enough that workers feel confident, more confident today than in recent years certainly about organizing, about agitating for what they would like to see in terms of improved conditions. Theres no time when a workers organize. Sometimes its easier, but that he organize in good times and bad times. When its good times, employers say what do you need a union for, ill give you everything you want. In the bad times they say im taking it away from you. So they organize at both times. Is the market getting a little better . Well, were 7 unemployment. Unemployment insurance hasnt been extended. We just dropped 1. 5 Million People off the rolls. They got no buying power, no job. So its not Getting Better for them. Its not Getting Better for most americans. Were at 7 now, and thats higher than it was in the peak of the 2001 recession. So its toufgh for workers to sy its Getting Better when were still seven years later, were still above where we were at the peak of the someone recess. Your feel something that democrats need to play the populist card, if you will, right . Thats whats going to resonate with those workers who are feeling this income inequality that we hear about in our economy today. Well, what they need to do is create jobs. They need to invest in infrastructure. Look, our country has fallen apart. And this is what you were talking about at the u. N. Today, correct . Absolutely. And i made one important point when you want to compare where we are and what happens. I went to china a few weeks ago, all right . China and the u. S. Both decided a few years ago that they would have invest in highspeed rail. In 2007 we start our austerity program, we have not one mile of highspeed rail. China right now has highspeed rail that delivers more passengers than our entire Domestic Airline industry. They invested, we didnt. Theyre getting more competitive, we arent. The society of Civil Engineers gives us a dplus. Its a drag on the economy. It hurts us. So what they should be doing is investing in our country, creating jobs in the process, and we can take on who . American who is they . Everybody. The government especially, business, Everybody Needs to invest in the future and the nonsense we cant afford it. What we cant afford is austerity. When you dont invest in your country, you fall behind. Before we go, were running out of time but i must ask you about the rollout of obamacare and its impact on those workers who would be unionized by affiliates of aflcio. Youre not pleased with the rollout so far. Theres been mistakes made and whenever i say mistake