Stocks Closing Price on friday. Michelle, how was your weekend . It was great. How about yours . Fabulous. Good, good. In global news, chinas Statistics Bureau says the countrys economy is showing clear signs of stabilization. Among the reasons, policy support and some improvement in global demand. Chinas economy is said to be on track to meet the governments 2 on 13 growth target of 7. 5 . U. N. Inspectors in syria are now heading to the site of the alleged poison gas attack. Syria has supposedly agreed to allow the inspectors to visit the site. This comes amid calls from western powers for military action. Well have more from john harwood in just a few minutes. Here in the u. S. , dozens of wildfires burning this morning across the west. One of the most severe is raging out of control in the mountains of northern california. The latest reports say the giant wildfire has charred 15,000 acres within Yosemite National park. A live report from scott cohn who is on the ground there in the next hour. Joe. Lets check on the markets this morning around the world. Talk about the u. S. First. Kind of a healing week last week after a couple of rough ones. But not a lot of great action today. If you are hoping for a rebound in the averages, down about 18 points or so. As far as energy prices, well take a look at the oil boards right now. Weve got not a whole lot happening. 106 or so. The dollars been quiet recently as the euros been around 1. 33. Theres the tenyear at 2. 82. A lot of people going to watch obviously what happens there. A lot of the equity action on what happens. 2. 82. We can take that a little bit more than when we were thinking about it. Been there. Kind of getting used to it. It all takes time. Theres the 1. 33 on the euro. A 98. Time for the Global Markets report. Louisa is standing by in london. I saw you when i walked in the place today. I saw you up on the screen. Good morning. I am. Im not pretending. I am here. Im pretty quick. Despite the fact that it is a market holiday here in the uk, right . So theres no trade taking place for ftse traders. They might still be lying in bed taking it easy. Its apparently called the august bank holiday for no apparent reason. We have a number of Bank Holidays scattered here and there in the uk. Given the uk is such an important market in europe, the stocks europe 600 a little lower. We were called a couple of points higher, just taking some momentum from both u. S. Trade as well as from asian trade on friday, managing to see both markets closing out in positive territory. This morning, though, just coming back a bit, falling a few points lower. Our main european markets showing you exactly this emerging. And indeed, weve seen more selling taking place in the italian market, down by approximately some 2 or so. Seeing some additional selling there. And in particular, some of the larger financials were seen selling in. Xetra dax down by 0. 3 and the ibex 35 off by 0. 6 . The troika taking place this week and the notion of whether greece will be needing a third bailout. I know youve been talking about it as well. Some of the latest from chancellor merkel ruling out a greek haircut, but seemingly leaving the door for aid open. And then youve got the finance minister talking about how they dont want to have to go through new austerity measures if they were to see another round of aid. To the upside, weve got health care, telecomes, real estate and then the buck stops there. The euro stops there, i should say, with the rest of the sectors trading in negative territory. Banks off by 0. 9 . Just coming back down a bit. And the bond markets. Again, were talking about the yields heading north and how long this story can continue. Well, by the looks of things, not forever. Were seeing some buying in the bonds today and buying in the u. S. Tenyear. We continue to look at the broader stare about it money flows from emerging markets continue to come out of these markets, where is that money going. And is some of it going to be placed back in some of the traditional safe haven Asset Classes such as the german bond fund. The yield at 1. 9 . Gilts now yielding 2. 7 in the corner. And youve got the tenyear italian yielding right around 4. 3 . So just being sold back by a tad. Showing the currency markets. Flattish trade. Euro dollar Still Holding on to that 1. 33 mark. Were a little lower, if anything, but it is a quiet day given the bank holiday here in the uk. Weve been talking to viewers on Worldwide Exchange about bavarian cuisine, which is a completely separate chapter given the runup to german elections. Did you know liberkesse, it looks like bread, but its meat. Directly translated, it would be liver although it doesnt have either one in it. I did not know. Now you know. Yes. It will come in useful. Yes. Very much so. Louisa, thank you. Who . I dont know what im doing. Boreson. Im thinking of julia borsin. Youre colleagues. Colleagues arent safe. Its everybody. We have some other news to bring you. The Financial Times reporting that Goldman Sachs putting employees on leave. The error is likely to have cost the bank tens of millions of dollars. Goldman accidentally sent thousands of orders for options contract after a systems upgrade that went awry. While were talking about Goldman Sachs employees put on leave, did you see this story over the weekend about the Goldman Sachs managing director, jason lee who was put on leave and is now accused of rape in the east hamptons. Did you see this . I did. Its pretty unbelievable. It is. Married guy, parties with these folks, and then 20yearold a big party in their backyard. Everybody apparently they were in the pool maybe without bathing suits. All sorts of things may or may not happened, but a toyearold involved. All of a sudden theres a lot of naked people and theres a guy in trouble. Jason lee. That was a famous martial arts guy, too. This is a different guy. Unrelated guy. 37yearold guy worked in the equity he was an m. D. , though. Big deal. Managing director. You know what . I dont know anything about it. I dont know any more than ive read. All i know, that it was a pretty wild it was a pretty wild party. Thats what it sounds like. The last two weeks in august in east hampton. Is it really . All i know is you cant you cant get there from here . Right. By the time people get out there on the twolane road, theyre ready to drink. Bitter mood, yeah. They are ready to drink. Theres not enough alcohol. And then the alcohols trying to get out there, too. If you want to ride uber, its Something Like a 100 minimum. Take crown transportation if she goes to east hampton, believe me. Helicopter. You can only land at certain times. But this has nothing im surprised you brought it up, though. Yeah. Why do you say that . It has nothing to do with Goldman Sachs. Its just a guy. Its a guy. He works at Goldman Sachs. We have a business story about goldman. Were a business network. Hes a managing director of Goldman Sachs. It just seems like a personal are you suggesting ive taken the show to a tawdry place . No. I just dont think it goes any further than this unfortunate oh, right. This isnt somehow related to the firm. Met on wall street with money who drink a lot and end up in troubled spots is not an uncommon thing. Its a story you with tell over and over again. Exactly. Allegedly. Rape is bad. Very bad. You want to talk about microsoft instead . What happened there . Segue there. This is business, right . Yes. Microsoft will take on googles motorola mobile unit this week. Its the second of two landmark trials between the companies. The jury trial starts today in a federal court in seattle. It will decide whether motorola breached itself with Technology Used in the xbox game console. Did you see what david pogue wrote about ballmer . I thought it was insightful. I thought it was critical. Everything over the last 13 years. I looked at it and looked at net income and number of employees and revenue and everything eliminatise. The one thing that stuck out, obviously, was that the stock was still down from where it was in 2000, but thats the same with any its a 6 billion market cap. That was the blue chip sort of mania that put coke at 50 times earnings and General Electric at 60 a share and all of these stocks were way overbought and overloved in the late 90s. You look at just how he managed the business itself. It is a what do they make . What do they do in revenue . What do they make per year . I think two or three times what they used to make when it was a 600 million company. I dont know. They provided software for pcs. They battled the open like linux, whatever, they sort of prevailed there. The question is whats going to happen with the company in the next ten years . To me, give them credit for managing the earnings of the company over the last decade, but that was based on the innovation of the decade before that. So there was sort of a decade of innovation. They reaped and sowed the benefits of that. But ibm, while it did sort of navigate the waters and didnt die with the mainframe, it didnt become the leading serve engine. It didnt become the leading pc Software Maker either. Its like the innovation seems to spring up with new companies. I mean, microsoft, you know, was revolutionary, and then google was revolutionary, but google didnt do facebook. You know, its like each of these had come along. So was it a basic mistake to decide that he wanted to transform the company into some kind of device and Services Company instead of just acknowledging this is what we are . Or the classic Harvard Business school study is, you know, you dont selfdestruct and reinvent yourself over and over again. Youre going to die. Anybody that feels bad for him just needs to know hes worth a lot. Not bad for him, but ballmers 57 years old and got 10 billion. I think hes a nice guy. I dont know whether anyone would have when you mention google, i look at that company and say they figured out search. Then they did maps. Then they did android. Now the google glasses. There seems to be a sense of repeated innovation. Other than search, what have they had a huge home run with . My working assumption is that android eventually brings in it is getting huge market share. I dont know. Microsoft would have been tough. And theyve continued to, you know, their revenue numbers have continued to go up. Its a massively Profitable Company that i thinks been i really want that driverless car to work out so badly. You do . Yes. It would be so great. I like driving. Hes got a driver. He never has to drive his car either. I like that, too, but theres so many implications, production and Parking Spaces needed in the country. Im not basing any of my future excitement on a driverless car. Singulairity . Yes. I want to be a cyborg. That must have been after my time. This is night rider. Hasselhoff . On the floor with the cheeseburger. Although hes a very nice man. In other legal news, donald trump and his forprofit Investment School facing a 40 million lawsuit filed by a new York State Attorney general. The a. G. Accuses trump of engaging in illegal business practices. Eric schneiderman says that trump, a former executive in the Trump Institute made false claims about classes at the School Including that trump had hand picked instructors. What do you think of that . I dont know what to think. I didnt know he had a school. So trump says its a political stunt. It is. Which wouldnt be i have no doubt. Which wouldnt be above this a. G. However, theres been a number of lawsuits brought by students who said this whole thing just doesnt work. I didnt even know he had a school. I knew he had ties. About a year and a half, two years ago, there were a number of stories written about this. Learning a trump way. No, but it was when i believe some of the lawsuits started. Anyway, at some point we should have trump respond or have the a. G. Come on. Or have both of them on. At the same time. That would be like icahm and ackerman. Its early in the morning. It happens. Oh, right, ackman. How very nice of you to do that. Just to pretend. But trump and snyderman, that would be awesome together. How do you say this washington news. Lawmakers debating what to do about this awful situation in syria. John harwood joins us im trying to figure out, john, so youve got chemical weapons. Youve got gas. Where does it get you to use it . I dont thats the thing thats so puzzling. I dont know what this did for, allegedly were now saying that the rebels probably didnt have the capacity to do it this way, and it was obviously done by someone. So were i think weve known all along it was probably assad, but what was the point . I dont get it. It turns the entire world against you. Reporter well, on the one hand, you can strike terror in the hearts of the people youre fighting. And on the other hand, if they thought, in fact, that the world was not going to respond, it would have sent a message that the regime could do whatever it wants. But what weve seen as the situation has evolved over the last few days is that leading powers in the west including the United States have decided that they cannot ignore this. Thats why weve got the u. N. Inspectors looking today, we dont expect too much from that because of the way the evidence degrades, you know, pretty rapid fashion. But youve got france, the uk, the United States all seeming on a track towards striking the regime. Dont know how quickly that will come. And the challenge is going to be how do you limit that, and how do you prevent that from an openended involvement in a war that clearly president obama and the United States military does not want to get involved with in a deep way. The public apparently has no appetite for any other conflict . Russia immediately said, you know, dont you people dont need another adventure in the middle east like iraq and iran. Obviously saying the same thing. Its really tough. Its really tough for the president to try to walk. Reporter its more than tough. And you saw assad in an interview with a russian newspaper yesterday saying warning the United States that you get involved again, theres going to be a failure like all your interventions in the past. Clearly the lessons of long and protracted wars have weighed heavily on the president. This is a president , after all, who got into politics, opposing the iraq war. Says he doesnt oppose all war, but he opposes dumb wars, and its pretty clear from his language and body language and the entire stance of the United States over the last several months that he believes it would be dumb for the United States to enmesh itself in this conflict. And so that being the case, how do you have a surgical targeted strike . Thats what theyre trying to figure out. John, reading more and more about it, the issue doesnt seem to be necessarily just syria anymore, but this idea that the president , probably in retrospect, made a mistake when he used this phrase, the red line. And now if you dont enforce it, you have told the entire world you dont stand for what you mean. Reporter exactly. Thats exactly right. This is not about syria anymore. This is about everything else. Thats the problem. Reporter yes. Youre right about that. And i think the president probably regrets having used the red line phrasing, but part of the implication of this situation is iran, which has sort of become the overlord of the syrian regime, how do they view statements by the United States that we will not permit them to have a Nuclear Weapon if were willing to tolerate this use of weapons of mass destruction . That appears to be part of the logic of why the United States is going to take some action here. Richard haass, the Bush Administration state department official, said the administration has to enforce the norm against weapons of mass destruction actually being used. And part of the reason for that is to maintain credibility with iran. And in the times today weve got to go, john but its apparently Common Knowledge or its thought to be Common Knowledge in egypt that the u. S. Has an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, and theres pictures of the president with one of those long calleda bed people on the street Common Knowledge. Americans are with the Muslim Brotherhood and supporting terrorism. They killed osama bin laden, but theyre with al qaeda in terms of egypt, which is just bizarre. Reporter it doesnt really make any sense when you think that the administration acquiesced in the removal of morsi, but on the other hand, the United States doesnt want the Egyptian Military to absolutely crush dissent because thats a prescription for long civil war that would be very destabilizing and call into question the future ability of egypt to maintain its obligations with israel and everything. Yep. Hotspots all over the place over there. John harwood, thank you. See you later. Reporter you bet. Were going to get in a quick break here. When we return, why one insider says forget about Larry Summers and janet yellen because tim geithner could be the man to follow ben bernanke. First as we head to break, lets check on the National Weather forecast with the weather channels alex wallace. Alex. Good morning to you. Its going to be a hot one across the upper midwest. A