We have got the answers and they may surprise you. And let the debate begin. Its a little fuzzy, roll the tape. There you go a new study says highspeed trading on wall street is hurting the small investor and even puts a price tag on exactly how much the little guy is getting killed. You know theyre talking about that one, sue, down at the new york stock exchange. How are you doing, sue . Great, ty. Indeed they are talking about that and we are going to talk bhort exact numbers on that study in just a few minutes. Stocks are steady. Talks continuing in washington. We are just down about 12 points on the Dow Jones Industrial average, 27 days until america goes over that fiscal cliff. The president just finished answering questions on the issue after meeting with governors at the white house and our political correspondent, john harwood is live at the white house and eamon javers is talking with key congressional players on those talks. John, first to you. Reporter the president talked to our colleagues at bloomberg and talked about the republican offer from Speaker Boehner on the fiscal cliff resolution. He said it was out of balance because the speaker has not agreed to rate increases but the president identified a twostep process by which he is hoping still to reach an agreement before the end of the year, if he can get republicans to give on the top rate. He said that first of all, we cant do a fundamental tax reform in the next two weeks. We simply have to have a down payment before the end of the year and then commit to tax and entitlement reform during the year of 2013. He also specified, and i think this is significant, that he thought 300 to 400 billion over ten years is about what you could raise by closing loopholes and trimming deductions. This is a this is a way to come to grips with how to get to the Revenue Target the president wants. Lets first of all listen to we have got a piece of sound from that interview. Lets listen to the president. When you look at how much revenue you can actually raise by closing loopholes and deductions, its probably in the range of 3 to 400 billion. Thats not enough tobalanced pl actually reduces the deficit and putts on a path to longterm stability. What i need, what the country needs what the Business Community needs in order to get to where we need to be is an acknowledgement that folks like me can afford to pay a little bit higher rate you if we combine that with a tax reform process and entitlement reform. Then we can get a 4 trillion deficit reduction package. You can begin to see, if you take 400 billion in deductions, combine that with a partial increase in the top rate, remember, the president proposed to get about 1 trillion from raising the top rate to 396, you can see how some of the elements of a revenue package come together. One other note from that interview, tyler and sue, was that the president was asked will you bring a big Business Executive into your cabinet . He said i would love to. Im in constant conversation. One of the challenges, though, is the confirmation process, which is difficult and forbidding for a lot of those Business Executives to go through. It is, indeed, john. From what you heard from the president today, do you sense that they are inching ever closer to a deal or are is the gap still as wide as it was on the sunday talk snows there is still a significant gap but i think the public gap is bigger than the private gap. What the white house is trying to do is break down republican resistance on the top rate as the entry way to getting a deal. And i think the president will fight very hard for that because he knows if he simply does nothing, the tax increase, tax rates will go up for everybody on december 31st and then he will be able to propose tax cuts for the middle class. Indeed. John, thank you. Ty, over to you. Sue, thank you vet. Go to the other end of washington now, capitol hill, where eamonoffers is standing by. The storyline on capitol hill is whether or not speaker of the house john boehner can hold conservatives, even as he is negotiating down the other end of pennsylvania avenue, as you say with president barack obama, the speaker making that 800 billion proposal yesterday, but that is not sitting very well conservatives up here on capitol hill. Take a look at this statement from senator jim demint of south carolina, conservative republican. He said Speaker Boehners 800 billion tax hike will destroy american jobs and allow politicians in washington to spend even more while not reducing our 16 trillion debt by a single penny. Thats jim demint you can the con s the conservative senator. I talked to mitch mcconnell, the republican leader up here. He didnt seem as bothered by the boehner proposal. He told me im glad that they are at least talking and harry reid said something very interesting to me, the Democratic Senate leader. He said that boehner might be in a position now where he has to choose between keeping the speakership and protect country, very tough stakes from harry reid, really putting you the pressure on Speaker Boehner. Tyler . We are hearing word that potentially new senator Elizabeth Warren of massachusetts may join the Senate Banking committee. Have you heard that . What does that mean . We have heard that. We have been able to confirm that independently. And it is something that the wall street lobby here in washington was expecting to see. They thought that Elizabeth Warren would angle into and be able to get it under harry reid. I think the question now from what kind of senator does Elizabeth Warren become . A lot of folks here think she will try to broaden her mandate a little bit outside of the wall street bailiwick and try to do something a little bit more mainstream with a little bit more broad appeal, a la Hillary Clinton in her first couple of months up here on capitol hill. They dont expect her to focus entire loin the Consumer Financial protection bureau, for example. They think she would like a larger beach head on capitol hill and i think that is where this is going. Thank you very much. Take it down to sue at the nyse. I have kenny poll carry, independent trader at the nyse with me. You made a note in your morning note that we are stuck this in range until we get progress. Look where we are, between 1400 on the downside you can and 1420 the upside. Today, done absolutely nothing, at 1404, 1406 all day, not a lot of action, not a lot of activity at all. People just in this wait and see mode, right . More chatter out of washington. I think a lot of people expecting the interview with the president , hear what he had to same the market got weaker after spoke. Down 18 point on the trading session now the volume disturbing now, because there is none. That just tells that you investors are, a, exhausted, and b, not going to make decisions until theres more clarity. Until there is clarity, this is what we will be stuck n might as well start the feast of the seven fishes. The lobster sauce. Recipe tonight. Listen, got celebrate something. Start somewhere. All right, kenny, thanks very much. Ty, back over to you. Thank you very much, sue. One impact of the upcoming fiscal cleave is the sheer number of companies announcing dividends, all in an effort atoavoid tax hikes set to kick in at the end of the year. More than 100 companies announcing almost 23 billion worth of payouts. There you see a scroll of so many of them. Those coming in the Fourth Quarter. Good for shareholders but really good for the big shareholders. Our wealth editor, robert frank, knows some of those big shareholders, those wealthy guys. He is there isnt just altruism and doing whats right for shareholders, charity does begin at home in this case. Maybe altruism with benefits. Lets take a look. More than 110 companies have announced special dividends of the Fourth Quarter, three times last years Fourth Quarter. It is all a race against the tax man. If we go over the cliff, tax rates and dividends can go from 15s for 43. 4 . By taking dividends before december 31st shareholders and ceos can save millions of dollars. Now, mickey aaronson, 89 million from the carnival dividend, giving him a potential tax savings of 25 million. Larry ellison, 199 million from the oracle dividend. His savings alone, 56 million. Tom frist at hca, the hospital operator, will get more than 350 million from that companys dividend, saving 100 million. Kkr and bain, also a big piece of that dividend. The king of all dividends this quarter, sheldon adelson, he gets 1. 2 billion from that sands corps dividend. His tax savings alone could be more than 340 million. Of course, as tyler mentioned, all Shareholders Benefit from dividends, many of the ceos and owners reduced themselves from these dividend votes but the companies tend to have higher insider ownership. The average inside ownership for these dividend payers is around 27 thats much higher than the overall average of 7 . Yes, tyler, good for shareholders but even better for the large shareholders. Back to you. This, of course, all driven by the tax hike. You got to say those people who say taxes really dont make that much difference, it does change behavior. Absolutely s seeing the market, not just in these dividend bus people selling stocks. Houses. Selling houses. Businesses. George lucas saving up to 200 million selling his company. So, you know, yes, we are seeing all that income going into 2012. That means the tax nan 2013 is going to get a lot less than they really expect. We dont know what it really means for the economy. More in 2012 than they otherwise would have gotten. Absolutely. Maybe after the first of the year with all these folk, see more spending on luxury items as well. People probably spend some. We hope so. Sue, thanks. Guys, we are watching shares of facebook today the social media giant unveiling a new tweak to its instant messaging app. Facebook up just about 2 . You dont even have to be a member to use this new app and Julie Boorstin is in los angeles with the three things you need to know this deal. Hi, julia. Hi, sue. Well, facebook is continuing its big push to make money on mobile users by offering its messenger app to billions of people around the world with phones and no longer limiting that app to facebook users. Heres the deal. First, mobile messenger is a free app for texting, group chat and photo sharing with no pertext fees. Just carriers regular data costs. Doesnt yet yield direct revenues to facebook but it is serving as a gateway to join the social network where traffic does translate to profits. Second, this is a big emerging markets play. Facebook is stream lining the signup process to appeal to the billions of people who dont have easy access to email or a computer but who do own phones. Third this is all about facebook doubling down on mobile where it is experience the fastest growth and now looking for profits to match. It could easily attach ads to messenger as it rolls out more mobile ads. Now, facebook is so determined to make it size for people to use messenger around lure them into social network, it is actually working with mobile carriers in india and indonesia to offer some discounted and free data just for use of this messenger app. Sue, over to you. Julia, thank you very much. Breaking the political stalemate on capitol hill, we are holding our congressional leaders accountable and urging them to get an agreement on that fiscal cliff. An expert lesson on the art of getting the deal done. Plus, wake up and smell the coffee, a bullish call today on Dunkin Brands and other players. We have the smartest flies cav nate your portfolio, when we come back. When we got married. I had three kids. And she became the full time mother of three. It was soccer, and ballet, and cheerleading, and baseball. Those years were crazy. So, as we go into this next phase, you know, a big part of it for us is that there isnt anything on the schedule. People becoming more conservative and i think that had an impact in had the growth in 13 all things being equal and in danger if this thing stringings out into 13 start to have problem what is 14 would look like. That was bank of america Ceo Brian Moynihan speaking exclusively with our becky quick on the impact of the fiscal cliff, repercussion does go well into 2014 inside now from one of the best known negotiation experts around, Harvard BusinessSchool Professor deepak ma hallow and author of i moved your cheese and genius, pleasure to have you here. Pleasure to be here. I you noticed from the notes, you said we begin a negotiation and taking this out of the political context and talk about largescale negotiations, per say you have to think two steps ahead. Why . Wh what does that give you . If you dont play out the negotiations and see whats going to happen week or month later in the event there is no deal, youre not going to pick the right strategy up front r the current negotiations, for example, both sides thinking about what changes after december 3 11st. If you can look ahead and see things are worse for you in january than now, may want to try earlier to get a deal before it is too late. One thing we have noticed a lot of this seems to be playing out in the president coming to the mic, the speaker coming to the mic is that posturing, part of the negotiation process or different because it is such a public situation . It is posturing and also understandable, the problem it is also a little bit dangerous, perfect sense for both sides to come out and take extreme positions to rally their base, show the other side they are not going to concede too much that they are tying their hands a little bit with their own constituents with their own base. The problem is when you eventually do have to go behind closed doors, the more strongly youve committed to not doing x and not conceding to y, when you get into negotiation, there may be no space left to reach a deal with the other sidism you need to balance it. Perfect sense to go out there and say i publicly commit to not doing that but you got to make sure there is enough slack, wickle room left, the two sides can come together and reach a deal. Professor malh. Tra, you argue in both sides, in theory and in logic, would actually have a better deal if they reach that deal before december 31. But my question four you there are also compelling reasons why neither side would want to reach a deal by december 31. And there are also those sort of illegal reasons that have to do with assigning blame to one party or the other around the politics of the situation. So, how do you deal in a situation where logic is not the only thing that matters . Well, the good news is logic is never the only thing that matters so you always have to take that into account. But all of the factors you mentioned are correct and what you need to do as an effective negotiator is figure out where it all nets out. So, for example, in the fiscal negotiations, when we get into january, it is true, the republicans will be in a bit of a worse position than they are than the democrats are going to be and the reason is partly because the polls show they are going to be blamed more for being over the fiscal cliff and also because the marginal tax rates are going to automatically increase, which means any lower tax rates president obama will ask for is tax cuts and not an argument you are raising taxes on someone. For all those reasons, the democrats have a lot of leverage in january but that does not mean the democrats should wait till january, what happens after december 31st is everybody can lose. The kind of pressure we have psychologically and politically right now to get a deal done before we hit 2013, that kind of pressure and deadline pressure and momentum youre not going to have after youre over the fiscal cliff. So every day that goes by after january 1st isnt going to look like that big of a deal and essentially, time will run out for both parties, you will have a lot of problems in 2013, they will take the lions share away from fiscal dealmaking, senate confirmation, have the debt ceiling, the longdelayed nuclear negotiableses with iran, going to have posturing for the 2014 campaigns. All of those things are going to suck out the moment up that we have right now. So, yes, democrats are not as bad off as the republicans, but that doesnt mean they should be waiting either. I know this is going to be a hard question to answer quickly, but i must ask it, if you were advising the president privately on what his stance should be and conversely, advising Speaker Boehner what his stance should be privately, in a nutshell, how would you tell those two gentlemen to proceed . All right, well, the nutshell is hard, as you mentioned what i would say to both sides you got to remember, in negotiations, you winning is not the same as them losing and in this case you what, that means is i think there is a deal to be struck prior to the marginal tax rates increasing for everyone, where president obama gets tax rates to stay where they are at current levels for people to under 250,000 in income and for those that are above, there may be a balanced approach where you do see some increase in marginal tax rates for people that make more than 250,000, but the rest of the money comes in the form of tax reform, phasing out of deductions, eliminating loopholes acre long the lines that john boehner is asking for. And so what i would ask them to do individually or collectively is stake out whatever positions you want but leave yourself enough wiggle room to be able to come up with a middle ground on that one issue and if you can use that as this first starting point for a compromise, then the rest of the negotiations ton sequestration, on the spending cuts, payroll tax cut, all of those become easier as part of a grand bargain. Last thing i would tell them, make sure if by december 31st you cant have a signed deal, you at least have all the elements of the deal in place you can in the right time the coming days and weeks, check each one off before its too late. Professor, maybe we should send to you washington, sounds like you might be able to get both sides together. Well, i will stand by my point and fee it happens. Thanks, professor. Appreciate it. In todays Yahoo Finance question, we asked bank of america Ceo