Obligations and the full faith and credit of the United States cannot be called into question. Among the catalyst, there was expectation that the fed could taper sooner than expected. Today, andre pinalto will speak at 8 45. Fed chairman ben bernanke will appear tonight at 7 00 p. M. The treasury auction of 43 billion in tenyear notes could be a key thing to watch for the markets today. If you take a look, the yield on the tenyear, 2. 76 . It has picked up steadily since fridays jobs reports. But that treasury auction is set for 1 00 p. M. Were watching oil prices and api will be releasing its latest Inventory Data this afternoon. Appeared rue, right now, over to you. Can you do that little electric dance for us . I dont know im not sure why we were playing eye its electric but you cant help but get that awful dance out of your head. Anybody that has been to a wedding in the last 15 years has seen that. Weddings, anyway, we have some Corporate News to get you caught up on this morning. Youre not going to believe this one. The Group Includes holders of more than half of the 34. 6 billion of preferred sars in the company. The plan reportedly being pitched as a way to bring tens of billions of dollars of private capital back into the capital. Treasury has controlled fannie and freddie, of course, for the last five years. Johnson johnson agreed to what could be a 4 billion settlement over hip implants. The deal could include thousands injured. A tentative plan must win court approval. Starbucks will be paying kraft food nearly 278 billion after it ended the grocery deal early. It includes damages and legal fees. Mondalieze will receive all proceeds from the starbucks kraft dispute. It seems like a lot of money. And dont forget, starbucks, coffee, a chain of coffee houses, 60 billion. Almost 61 billion. But still, wow. I saw that and i thought there was a dismal wrong. 60 billion, you said . 61 billion. Did you ever hear that howard schultz, the venture capitalist says i want to do coffee chains. What are you talking about . And allen goes home to his wife and said this guy came to me and he wants to do coffee shops. Its ludicrous. He did not invest and here we are. A lot of those i didnt, either. And anyway i wasnt asked. White house news, a top adviser is going to testify at a congressional hearing today about the troubled Health Care Website on the administration had originally said the chief Technology Officer todd park was too busy to appear appear, but late yesterday the white house confirmed he would comply with the subpoena to testify at a hearing of the House Oversight committee. The one that stood out to me as day in the newspapers was this Washington Post piece. Which says . That sources say theres no way this will be done by tend of november. And the industry insurance is working on contingency plans. We get some twitter people. People that write in and theyre smart [ explative ] some of them. They signed up 50,000. We lost 15 million. So within 25 years, we should break even. Break even on this. But its a problem. A million lost in california and if you cant sign up, youve lost. Think mow mad you would be, even if you are get ago better plan or whatever. The cost is huge. Theres a bill in the house and another one in the senate to try and to try and but the problem is even if those bills pass, its going to be nearly impossible well, i dont think you can undo it at this point. For the Insurance Companies, theyve spent months and months gearing up for this. Theyve sent out the letters. Even if these bills pass tomorrow, how do the Insurance Companies possibly get back to people before january 1 and say never mind, youre keeping it . We saw valley jarrett yesterday who spoke at the conference. Shes very hopeful that theyll get their act together soon. But of course they cite Medicare Part d and all the other programs where the beginning was so rocky, six months later or a year later its the question is whether this time its different. I dont know the answer there, though. Massachusetts was slow to start, she, by the way, no doubt the most powerful woman in the world, i think. I think you may be right. I was going to say merkel or potentially soon to be yellen. No. Shes been commenting on people. But i still think valerie is above merkel. How many people do they have in germany . This woman is powerful. Anyway, this is a weird one. If theres one thing about medical science, it definitely is an art, not a science. And we dont know what to do a lot of times with cholesterol and Heart Disease and what helps it and what you need to do. Now more people, i guess, could get statins, but other people dont need statins. So there are some new clinical guidelines being hailed as the biggest shift in cardiovascular disease prevention. The change could more than double the number of people who qualified for these cholesterol cutting drugs, the biggest selling drugs like lipitor. More could qualify, but a new guideline, the Panel Recommends abandoning the guidance, that you need a number, like below 100 or below 7 on for people at high risk. Instead, they just suggest a doctor assesses the patients risk more broadly and just prescribe a certain dosage of statins to those that fall into one of the four risk categories. The recommendations were jointly developed by the American College of cardiology and the american heart association. And 40 of people over 40 take one of these things. And i do not. Nothing. I dont take one. Everything ive got. I think maybe aspirin . Ro, no. You know what i do take . I do take like an adult one. And then i take a well, i might take like a fiber thing. Thats enough. Thats enough. One little thing called a fiber con and its for geezers. But it seems to be working. I dont always eat enough fiber and i want to get centrum . No, i dont take a centrum. Its just a generic. Thats what i you know, and i got the card and i told you yesterday, i have gone from a young guy who was getting a little old to an old guy who is actually still young. You should know that at least according to Mens Health Magazine that they say that even young men should take centrum silver over centrum. Do you . I do now because i read this article. They had a whole story about it. You think older than i do in a lot of different cases. And youre more mature in certain ways. You have. I watched you yesterday. The grand poobah of all interviewers with the big thing that said sorkin all day long. All these people coming in. It was weird the first thing they did was kiss your ring like that. Guys worth billions of dollars saying please, go easy on me. Arent you proud . It was a great time. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun and we made some news and we had some great, great guests. It was actually pretty cool. Still doesnt mean you dont need to complete your assignments, your ten favorite musicians or bands by friday to put on the website. Ive done my ten. Becky has done her count. I dont think you can come up with ten. I dont. I really dont think i think youre going to have to go to elmo or because he sings. No, no, ill get i you some. You have music interests . I do. You wont be impressed, but i do. We node to talk about this. The art world . Its not the bacon from hundreds of years ago and its not sigmund freud. No. Who is lucci and freud . He was bacons big frenemy of the day. Francis bacon, yeah, not the guy from a long, long time ago, from the 1960s, his painting, three studies of luccian freud, he was a contemporary of his who was a fred and a competitor. This series of paintings fetched 142. 4 million. That makes it the most expensive work of art ever sold. Christie sold 491 million worth of art and that did beat expectations. You know, theyre kind of cool. Instead of one of those its like you hated the ones that were and he died young. Do we know who got it . We do know who got it. And it was for his gallery well, we know would people who didnt get it. Both of them were buying, trying to get it. One for a client at a gallery and that is not a very flattering photo, a flattering picture. But at least you can read something into it. That other stuff, what was the one with the color here and a line and the color it was like the green or the orange. It begins with an r. Roscoe, mark roscoe. Brilliant. It was the color he slengted to put a line between. We did our interview and someone did a picture of him online of being there and there. Hes going after sothebys. I wonder if he sees the guy who is going to flip him off, right . Why would he be there . The sculpture balloon dog went for 58. 4 million. That sets the record for top price ever achieved at auction by any living artist. Wow, i guess. People that have money see 58 million in a different way than people that dont have the money, right . That must be true. Wouldnt that be enough for you . 58 million, you could invest it and not be so worried about your future. Dog . No. When gordon gekko is asking how much money do you need, the answer is always more. Teslas musk says fires will not be recalled. It is five times less likely to have a fire than gasoline cars. Musk, sitting down for a q a yesterday, among the other items we discussed, teslas stock price. I think the stock price was distracting. In fact, i went on record as saying that i thought the price was higher than we had a right to deserve. But to give us that valuation now is to have a lot of faith in our future execution. Among among the other headliners to put it on the table. We dont have a good legal justification for breaking up the Banking System, but if i could wave a magic wand, id break up the Banking System. Having there were so many other financial players who spoke and said, no, we need universal banks. And then all of a sudden ken comes out and says the exact opposite. And well, the opposite. Not the exact opposite. And it was interesting to hear someone in the financial business so critical of the banks. If you see the people with the big thing, almost like an altar. And it just says sorkin. Well, you know, we take what we can get. Thats what we looked at all day long. Is that your terrible . Is that identifying your table . That was next to each panelist. If you went farther to the right, you would have said griffin. It reminds me a little bit of the monolith in 2001. And i actually heard the thing that did all the apes around the thing and theres like stuff flying. Look at that. Keep going. I love this. You do an ape very well. I do do that. And i pick lies out of under my arms. And everybody is sort of they touch it and they want to be part of it. And it has a much higher meaning than just a thank you. Thank you. The check is in the mail. Thats what occurred to me yesterday while i was looking at it. Look at it. No one elses name. Next year you can come and jump in the ring if youd like. Which by the way, we need to talk about and we dont have time probably now, but what happened . Im from the midwest, number one. So i like chicago and does it count . Who bribed the architects for the new building . It says if a fire is architecturally significant theres no floors in there. The other one is 1100 feet higher where there are people working and windows and desks and everything. It was continue visual. Did you see what rahm said . I dont know. If it walks like an antenna, looks like an antenna and acts like an antenna, then its an antenna. Its 1776 minus 400 and the other one is i think its tough to count i think it has to be floors. You have to do it by floor. A livable, workable then why would the architects that make these decisions decide in favor of this tower . I dont know. There is some cultural significance. And we want it to be the tallest because of 9 11 and its the freedom tower, but still, if i was chicago it id be like, god, were second at everything . We dont we talk about the markets this morning. Weve been watching the futures today. We did see a bit of a selloff. It was Light Trading volume. There wasnt a huge activity. This morning, futures are indicated down by about 11 points. S p futures off by just over a point. Oil prices dropped significantly yesterday. Theyre up just 18 cents this morning. 93. 22. Youre looking at wti. This is something thats going to end up being a huge boom for consumers as youre looking at this being like a tax off the table as prices at the pump continue to come down. The tenyear note pushed up to 2. 868 . The yield is sitting around there at 2776 . Thats been a huge issue. Some fed members trying to talk it down yesterday, fwu market seems to be looking at what happened on friday with the jobs report and assuming that the taper is going to come sooner rather than later. Right now, the dollar is up against the euro. 1. 3414. And gold prices this morning at least right now are up by about 3. 1,274 an ounce. Right now, its time for the Global Markets report. Julia chatterley is standing by in london. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much. As you were saying, china market down 2 on a lack of details as far as reforms are concerned and, of course, lockharts comments from yesterday suggesting tapering may be a possibility in december. Thats taken the european markets down between 0. 5 and 1 points. The uk markets, i want you to keep that in focus as we flip to the currency markets. Sterling, weve had the latest details out from the bank of england this morning. Up employment, better than expected. Growth better than expected. Thats weighing on these markets because, of course, raising fears of a tightening rather than later. More broadly, sentiment is dominated by fed tapering, the timing of that, more data and the effect from barrels yesterday. But just whats going on in latin america . Well, we spoke to the govern of the Mexican Central Bank and asked him about the fed communication policy with regard to tapering. Both aring manage expectations with regard to tightening. Listen in. Tapering is not tidening. But more than anything from the point of view of the outlook that the fed has about output growth and inflation and if tapering meets to more normal situations, i think that would be good for the markets and for mexico. The Mexican Central Bank governor speaking there. And im going to hand it over to you guys before i get confused over any more tapering, timing, t words. Thank you so much. Coming up, why microsoft is changing the way it reviews employees performance. Those details when squawk box returns. I am today by luck. I put in the hours and built a strong reputation in the industry. I set goals and worked hard to meet them. Ive made my success happen. So when it comes to my investments, im supposed to just hand it over to a broker and back away . Thats not gonna happen. Avo when you work with a schwab Financial Consultant, youll get the guidance you need with the control you want. Talk to us today. Time now for the executive edge. Microsoft is dropping major parts of its socalled stack ranking employee review and combination system. The wall street journal reports that the Software Giant will no longer requires managers to grade employees against one another and rank them on a scale of one to five on. This is similar to what ge used to do with six sigma. I dont know if im going to get in trouble for saying this. I like the stacking idea. I think that employers and employees are theres not enough honesty about whats going on. People are not straightforward enough about where people actually stand. Nobody really wants to have this awful conversation, whether its on the good side or bad side. And this forced you to do it. I creates its own problems. But its honest and, you know, anyway its very subjective, though. And i would always say accountability is paramount. You look at this launch of this thing. Theres no accountability a lot of times. You absolutely need accountability. Anyone who has responsibilities. But the numbers system of whats the difference between a three and a four and a five . It reminds me of you know, the terrible thing in college where you would rank but otherwise, theres no way to im not saying its the best way to do it. Its suggesting that we seem to be moving towards the sort of review where everything is pc, nobody wants to tell anybody anything. When youre awful, you want to know. You do want to know. You want to know that youre a one . You tell me every day. No. I imply it. I make you get through calculations to arrive, but but he doesnt get to decide your pay. 2001 for saying and i appreciate that. I mean, i believe the no, this is the ring you were going to kiss. No, im fought going to do that. But i believe it was the preeminent being in the universe. Im grateful for that. In my book, and ive said this many times, you are a ten, my friend. Thank you, sir. Especially in those suits, the ones that are fitted and everything, the pants. Before you two start kissing, lets move on to the next story. Pressure is rising on president obama to adjust his problem plagued health care law. Many democratsic leader are calling on the white house to allow americans who are happy with their Health Care Plans to keep them. The most significant coming from president clinton. He said in part, i personally believe even if it takes a change to the law with b the president should honor the commitment to federal government and let people keep what theyve got. The reality is it could be very difficult to allow people who have been canceled at this point to be back on in the time in less than 45 days. I was fascinated by this because i tried to figure out the calculus that goes into the things that president clinton does. Hes been a big supporter of president obama in that speech he gave at the convention went a long way towards helping to reelect the president. But then there are times when he does definitely step off the reservation. When he called mitt romneys Business Career stellar. And i wonder why he picked now. But there are times when i think bill clinton genuinely loves the Democratic Party and cares about the Democratic Party and thinks, you are messing this up for a lot of people in 2014. Its not too late. You did the apology, its not too late to try and fix it. My question has to do with becky, did you learn how a bill is passed . Whenever obama changes something arbitrarily about the