We begin though with a former high flying stock in turmoil. Shares of chipotle down again. The cdc says its investigating another more recent outbreak of a different strain of e he co e. Downgrading the stock to neutral. The shares are down 4 . Jane wells has the latest. Jane . Hi. Quoting a customer on the website saying i dont know how much more of this i can take. Yet, they still dont know the cause for even the previous outbreak. The latest outbreak, five new cases of people in north dakota, can, and oklahoma falling ill between november 18th and 26th. They all ate at chipotle. This is a different strain from the original and larger outbreak that began in late october. That sickened nearly 50 people from coast to coast, forced the closings of dozens of stores in oregon and washington which were then thoroughly cleaned. There was a norovirus outbreak in boston this month. This tl was a outbreak in Southern California last summer. Its a lot of stuff. And one reason the ceos have changed food safety and handling protocols and last week on mad money tried to calm nerves. I will say though that we can assure you today that there is no e. Coli in chipotle. We have thoroughly tested our food and surfaces. Were confident that it is a safe place to eat. He may be right as the latest outbreak happened before he made that Statement Last week. So are you scared to eat there . We posed that question on cnbc. Com. Over 13,000 people have so far weighed in. Slightly more than say yeah, and theyre no longer going. There look at that, 9 said theyre scared to eat there but they still eat. There i can tell you the lunch lines, not as long as they used to be. Back to you. All right. Thank you very much, jane. One key issue for chipotle if they ever get control of the crisis is reinstating the integrity of the supply. It is national. It is far flung. It is complex. Lets bring in john grey, associate professor of operations at Ohio State University actual lishgs the Ohio State University, Fisher College of business who specializes in supply Chain Managements there anything here, mr. Grey that, suggests you to that these repeated outbreaks may be the operations of someone who intends to do chipotle harm . Of course, i dont know. I doubt it. These supply chain of chipotle is extremely complex, thousands of stores, lots of local suppliers. In order to not have the issues occur, you need 100 compliance of every individual throughout the supply chain even when its difficult to do so. I would expect these are Quality Control issues, Quality Control challenges that hopefully they can get their handle around soon. I would be a little surprised fit was tampering. Would you eat there . I probably still would. You know, the probability of being at the store and getting the contaminated burritto is fairly low. Actually, ive always they dont have the hand will around it. I always felt like a lot of the things drift with lack of attention. And because the company is spending so much attention on quality right now, as soon as they start to figure out the root cause, it will be safer than other outlets. Professor, when i read about this situation, theres a lot of comparisons to the tylenol scare. That was actually deliberate sabotage by someone who purposely caused trouble with tylenol and put poison within there. So thats i think one reason why people are so focused on whether or not there is a possibility that is some kind of sabotage. Are you suggesting that it would be impossible for someone to do this on purpose . Absolutely not. No. I think it probably be a difficult way to sabotage the supply chain. Its such a difficult supply chain to maintain given the massive amounts of suppliers and store operations that i think its more likely a Quality Control issue. No, its not impossible. Is that is the complexity of the supply chain the reason, i would think obviously, that theyve had such a hard time putting their finger on what the source of the problem s it could be different shorources in different outlets. There are a lot of complex supply chains that dont have the problems. But one thing that the ceo is choosing to do is actually centralize the tomato supply chain which doesnt feel good when you want local ingredients and what not. But one main benefits of that is better control from a single operation or maybe not a single operation but many less operations. Again, to not have this happen in a Food Supply Chain where you have hundreds of local suppliers, thousands of local suppliers, you need all of them to be complying all the time. And so i think its a contributing factor. To that point, i think a lot of people may not realize supply Chain Management in a global world is so complicated, there are full on professors when you get an mba, you can get an exclusively supply Chain Management. When i look at the situation, is it am i exaggerating when i say im surprised it doesnt happen more often considering how often we see problems with manufacturing, for example, or things that cant get produced because they had trouble source ago poort from different partsst world and country. Yeah. So first of all, let me point out, Fisher College of business is one of the best places to get your mba in supply Chain Management. You gave me that opening. Thank you. To your other question, yes, maintaining 100 compliance and adherence to the procedures required to prevent this from happening are difficult within a single manufacturing facility owned and operated by the company as Johnson Johnson found out in ft. Washington. There are other examples out there as well. Then when you throwin different cultures, which is china and india and sourcing from those locations, mom and pop shops, everybody is balancing cost, delivery and compliance and sometimes compliance takes a backseat. Very quickly. Do you find it curious that as i do that other chain restaurants seemingly have not had this problem and that it is not necessarily unique to chipotle but is focused there. Panera doesnt seem to have it. Wendys doesnt seem to have it. They dont sell the same food but they certainly sell lettuce and tomatoes and ground beef. Yeah. Unfortunately, i dont have any insight into why chipotle and why not other vendors. I will say, again, that i feel like in their marketing materials seems to be focused more on quality than a lot of those other ones that you mentioned. But perhaps the mindset of day to day compliance is not engrained as much as it should be or the complex fresh food local supply chain may be a contributing factor as well. All right. Excellent point. John gray, associate professor of operations at the Ohio State UniversityFisher College of business. Stocks in a nice rally. The dow and s p 500 are at session highs. The dow is higher by 132 points. S p 500 higher by. 3. A gain of 14 points. What is leading the way . Energy, materials and teches, the days best performing sectors. Typical as weve seen lately. The market doesnt seem to be able to move higher unless we see commodities moving higher. So in commodities, lets show wlau is going on. Brent is higher by 1 . Gold is lower by 7. 50 per ounce. Were watching twitter and square both stocks are high they are hour. The ceo of those two companies, jack dorsey, holding a live online chat right now. John fort has been following it for us. What is he saying and what kind of questions getting . Hes a man on a hot seat. A little early to be able to tell what you the questions are and what he is saying. Its just begun. He is doing that chat on product hunt which outside of sill con valley might seem odd. Its a site where an app where people can good in to find out cool new gadgets and apps. You can vote on the best ideas. Lately the 2yearold startup is voting products, becoming more of a community ashgs place where people can go to share ideas and read live chats, think of it like read it, rappers snoop dog are doing live chats soon. So is stewart butterfield. I would look at this a little light going on stage at a conference. Theres a lot of competition for talent still in san francisco. Dorsey needs to recruit for two companies. There better be some distance for it. Dorsey is so press ford time running two companies as twitters executive chairman, can you hardly find a slot in his schedule to meet according to the wall street journal. What exactly is he doing on this forum . He is looking at products . Is he looking for engineers . Is this a place where he could come under fire because hes taking questions . Theoretically, he co. The format is very much like ask me anything. If yuoure the subject of a liv chat, can you come on. Can you go to product hunt and look back at past live chats and also look at who is coming up in the future. And stewart butterfield, snoop dog are among the more popular upcoming chats taking place. People reserving. You can see 1 thou people are looking forward to one chat versus another. All right. John, thank you very much. John fort reporting from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Many are worried about our nations ability to keep paying out Social Security. Well this could be the best case yet for getting rid of Social Security. Replacing it with investment accounts. Well discuss. That the dow transports are down 20 this year. What does the road ahead look like for this group . Well have your 2016 playbook. Youre watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. The only way to get better is to challenge yourself, and thats what were doing at xfinity. We are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. And this includes our commitment to being on time. Every time. Thats why if were ever late for an appointment, well credit your account 20. Its our promise to you. Were doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. Because we should fit into your life. Not the other way around. Welcome back to power lunch. Conagra shares are higher. Profits beating estimates. Revenue fell short. Results were adversely impact bid stronger dollar but they got a boost from lower commodity costs. Paychex is lower. They post aid mixed quarter. Missing on the top line. And shares of nike are moving higher. Athletic giant gearing up to report earnings after the bell. Tyler . The fate of Social Security has been an on going debate for generations paflt and certainly yet to come. And wall street journal oped today, Jeremy Siegel explains his sorry Social Security return. And how little return they provide in comparison with other investments. He gave an example. After the 329,640 he invested in Social Security throughout his career, he will only receive about 840,000 of inflation adjusted benefits over his lifetime. Thats about onethird, he says, the 2. 27 million he could have accumulated had that money been invested in a plain vanilla stock index fund. So what is the benefit of Social Security anymore . Jarrod burnstein joins us now. Michelle will join in this conversation as well. Jarrod, i read the story. I know professor siegel. His numbers are pretty compelling. Whats wrong with his numbers . Well, i think his numbers are correct. I dont find them compelling at all. I think what professor siegel discovered is something that Everybody Knows which is that Social Security is a very progressive system. Middle and lower income people take out more than they put in. Higher income people like mr. Siegel, theyre net contributors. And thats the definition of a progressive system. The reason its so effective, it is actually offsetting the poverty, abscent Social Security woeshgs have 40 poverty rates among our elderly population. Because of the progressive nature of the program, we only have a 10 poverty rate among our elderly. I think that is still too high. But Social Security does a great job. His point isnt about the progressive nature of it. He doesnt say whether he disagrees or agrees with that or not. The point is if you could use that money and put submit where else, any individual, rich or poor, and invest it instead of having the government handle it for you, you would have even more money. Tyler highlighted the stock return. Even if you just put it in u. S. Treasuries, very, very safe, he would have received more than a million dollars. So a poor person who gets Social Security could have more money if the system were different. Yeah. First of all, we have a basic disagreement. I think the point was that for him, from his perspective, its a program that doesnt pay back what he puts in. And thats because its a progressive program. In fact, the Social Security contributions are invested in treasury bonds. And that return is distributed. The reason you dont want Social Security to be awe function of the stock market, of equities is because of the volatile nature of that side of the market f you happen to retire in a down market, youre going to be much worse off. Social security is a vested guaranteed benefit. We dont really have anything like that in our system. What about his point regarding medicare sh jarrod . Or michelle, why dont you jump in here. Where the comparisons or the numbers are even maybe more dramatic . He says if i had put in what i put in to medicare tax which is not subject to that 118,000 cap, i could afford a 30,000 a Year Health Insurance plan very easily. I could afford a cadillac plan. I think on medicare, jeremy got a slightly better argument although i dont think that has to do with the mechanics of the medicare program. By the way, did you mention that Social Security cap is about 119,000. Once you pay the payroll taxes, you dont pay any more above. That i vote for making the system more progressive by lifting that tax max. The problem with medicare is that Health Care Prices just keep growing faster than inflation. Thats a system wide problem. Now weve actually done something to reduce the rate of health care costs. But thats where that comes from. If Social Security so progressive, why do the billionaires that come on cnbc admit they get Social Security checks . It doesnt sound progressive to me. You defend it as something that is supposed to help the poor and elderly. But its not helping just the poor elderly. Its helping people who dont neated help at all. Thats right. You make a good point. While it is a progressive program, it is true that in fact the highest income people get more back in dollars than the lowest income people. And thats because its a universal program. It was set up that way politically not to be a means tested strictly antipoverty program. A lot of middle income people depend on it. In fact, if you look at the income of the median elderly person, Social Security makes up more than half of their income. So this is something that low income and middle income people depend on. Absolutely true that wealthy people dont depend on it but they get it because of the universal nature. Thank you very much. To dominick now for a market flash. Shares of syngenta are up 3 . The companys chairman spoke to a swiss newspaper and said that syngenta is in talks with multiple parties for that possible takeover that weve been reporting. Right now monsanto and a company in china are two Companies Mentioned by name. They say they have not received a kron kreet takeover offer. Theyre keeping all the options open. The stock up is 20 this year partly because of the takeover speculation. Back to you. All right. Thank you. Transportation stocks big hit this year. The transports down 20 in 2015. Is the group set for a rebound next year or more of the same . Well have your Silver Lining in 2016 playbook next on power lunch. Surprise we heard you got a job as a developer its official, i work for ge what . Wow. Yeah okay. Guys, ill be writing a new language for machines so planes, trains, even hospitals can work better. Oh sorry, i was trying to put it away. Got it on the cake. So youre going to work on a train . Not on a train. On trains youre not gonna develop stuff anymore . No i am. Do you know what ge is . Now more than ever americas electricity comes from cleaner burning natural gas. And no one produces more of it than exxonmobil. Helping dramatically reduce u. S. Emissions. Because turning on the lights. Isnt as simple as just flipping a switch. Energy lives here. The dow is at the high of the day, up 133 points. 17,384. The s p 500 is higher by more than. 5 . Nasdaq is higher by. 25 . Oil is higher. Weve seen this relationship consistently over the last several months. When oil moves higher, to so does the stock market. Wti is higher by 48 . 36. 27 per barrel. The ten year yield is rising. Were seeing selling in treasuries. 2. 22 is where the ten year s gold closes in seven minutes. Lower by 6. 40. Well bring you up to date when it closes in a few minutes. As 2015 draws to a close, we break out 2the 2016 playbook. We look at what is ahead for transports. In 2015, transports got derailed by a strengthening dollar plunging Commodity Prices and slowing economic growth. Buckle your seat belts. 2016 could deliver more of the same. First, the railroad rut will continue. Weak volumes with will persist until the first half of 2016 as the commodity collapse continues to dampen demand and cheap diesel makes trucks more cost competitive. Railroads will have to curb cap ex after a record year of spending and consolidation buzz will persist as the industry seeks new ways to grow. Second, networks will get smarter. Automation will creep into trucks as Electronic Device