Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Box 20131120 : vimarsana.com

Will be maintaining its ultra easing Monetary Policy for as long as needed. In particular, the target for the federal funds rate is likely to remain near zero for a considerable time after the asset purchases ends, perhaps for a time after the threshold is crossed and at least until the preponderance of the data supports the removing of the. The big question, of course, is when the taper begins. As for his life after the fed, ben bernanke says he looks forward to speaking and writing. Beyond the economy, well get a number of key corporate results today. Quarterly results are due from deere, jcpenney and lowes. In the meantime, we have a little bit of Corporate News for you. Yahoo is increasing its stock buyback by another 5 billion. It will be selling notes that mature in 2018. About 200 million of the proceeds will be used for the stock buyback. Shares rising on the news in after hours trading. Ceo Marissa Mayer speaking at its salesforce. Com meeting last evening. We dont think were treating ours as mobile first. When you look at whats happening with the mobile trend overall in our industry, its clear that it is a and you can ride it through the invention. Yahoo like many companies, has to constantly reinvent itself. The scary part about reinvention is it happens with platform shift. Theres a little bit of financial Industry News for you this morning. Jpmorgan holding a Conference Call with analysts after yesterdays announcement with that mortgage settlement with the government. Jamie dimon explaining that most of the toxic numbers were inherited. Bear stearns, did not had not happened that way, it was a house on fire. It was imploding. We did it because we had to. We never expected this to happen. Pete williams caught up with attorney general eric holder, talked about the government settlement. One of the things that we worked on through this settlement was the possibility of the criminal investigation woon would not be precluded. That investigation will continue and it is possible that individuals can be held criminally liable. Well, guys, there you have it. A little bit of back and forth. But i think the larger story here is were going to see either more settlements of magnitude of these types of numbers, at least, whether it comes to bofa or this critical yam case. I think this is a template and theyre going to be looking for something to make yields in the future. Thats been something the company has always been reluctant to do. One quick note, and we talked to analysts about this yesterday, the 13 billion headline number is and sounds like a very big number. And i dont want to be dismissive of it. But in truth, after taxes and after you break down how the number is calculated, it is probably half of that number in total. So much of it is going to come in the form of different relieves and other things, that its hard to put a true number. That that 4 billion that goes back to consumers may be in things that they give out in lowering Interest Rates or refinancing the different things. So its still 13 billion. And its not necessarily over. It still opens them up to the potential for a lot of additional fines. We should keep an eye on all the other bank stobs stocks. If you think this is the temporary plate, you have bofa, wells fargo and did you ever hear of these banks that sold mortgages that were valued far in excess of what the peoples home were valued at. I had to even think about that to figure out how they got to that. They sold the mortgages before the housing bubble burst, so at the time, that was was the houses were. A lot of them had mortgages they couldnt keep up with. Maybe they had balloon rates or other issues. But jpmorgan knitted criminal wrongdoing. If you twist someones arm enough, they will say uncle. They basically admitted to a list of facts which was somewhat different than a true theres a lot of nuance in this. This is clearly, as we all know, a highly negotiated exactly. And when youre negotiating with the government, i suggest that you say yes, sir, thank you, may i have another or else youre going to get more than just one more. But it does give a lot of fodder to the critics. The critics dont need additional fodder. When you have people outside the capital with you know, you really have a mob mentality here. I was just stunned what they agreed to some of the things. What i heard from bernanke i liked. Im just glad everything is going along as planned. What is the number for unemployment that were bargaining . 6 point well, we heard from him when we get there. Were just going to keep it we may still say easy and then when we get to 5. 5 , we may and then we get to 5 and then when we finally get to zero based on what were doing and everybody in the country has a job, oh, so he knows there is knew yansz here, too, because they dont believe in some of the jobs numbers. But they seem to see this steady dropping in the rate and theres no bumps in the road and the problem is they dont believe early unemployment is as low as the rate suggests. Do you know in this current economy, can we get 6 again . I dont know. But remember, john hillsenwrath and others have been saying part of what they may do is keep rates low so it gives them a little cover to go ahead and taper, just to say its not because theyre trial to i dont think its coming any time soon, though. But theyre trying to emphasize that tapering isnt tight tightening. I think they might do 10 billion in december. I think they might, too. I didnt decide that. I didnt think that until you said that. Remember seinfeld . But in case you were worried and now im seeing that opposite day occurs in what i say now. By the way, there will be no more sarcasm from me. Youre being sarcastic right now. No, im not. Remember i talked about private equity. You know how much i defend private equity, when i was sort of taking a New York Times viewpoint and saying, well, geithner has joined the other low lives the darkside, right. I was making a point that, wow, when romney was running, they were the worst people in the world. But now that hes defeated romney, now geithner can go join the same industry. People are picking that up saying i was bashing private equity. Some of our viewers well, no, its people lying in wait on the other side that know most of the time they know wa youre saying and they dont care because they will remove thv remove this much. That was the private equity guys. I guess. I dont know. Have you not watched the show before . Have you never seen me . Have we not read any we should have all im saying is you have to worry about what you say and you have to worry about the opposite of what you say. Because they were use either one. And this internet world is like the wild wild west. If the New York Times has one letter wrong in someones name, they feel it and these people that blog, these people that follow, these people that tweet, they can write whatever they want and nothing will ever goes back. I know what youre going to tell me, that apparently home depot is taking business from lowes. Yes. Lets get to lowes. 47 cents a share. Missed the expectation. Also the year is below where instead of home depot, which at least hit expectations, the year is 2019 and the company is talking about, what, 215. And theyre a penny shy here. That would mean that the Fourth Quarter would probably not hit 33 cents. They dont sell more during christmas, do they . No, they dont. Now, look at samestore sales. The comps were strong, just not as strong as we saw from home depot. Theyre up 6. 2 . Is that right . Yeah, third quarter, up 6. 2 . Thats weird considering that total sales of fiscal year up 6 . Okay. So they they did say its not a terrible number. Its just relatively speaking compared to what we heard from home depot yesterday. That was a stronger report. And you can see that reflected right now in the stock. Its indicated down. It is a negative 48. 60 to 49. 90. Its like a bad pattern. A bad what . Its like a bad pattern. Home depot always has better earnings. It used to be when it used to be the opposite. A kinder, gentler lowes but the past couple of years, its been frank people love frank. Anyway, all right, lets check on the markets this morning. Yesterday, what i said at the top of the show was i you know, i really do think a lot of this has to do with the fed. And you dont think theyre going to taper. But fed minutes come out today and yesterday the market was unable to hold on to its gains. We are going to wait and see. If people are right and theres a lot of soers about bernanke, people are starting to think that this huge move weve seen in all the markets is getting into bubble territory and maybe fed induced. And if the fed shows they may start to remove some of the accommodation if he wants to set the situation up to begin the taper himself. And whats the terminal pricing liesman always talked about . And that is where people the minute starts its like wh when do you remember when paulson said, i have a bazooka. You dont need to use the bazooka. But you have to convince them that youre willing to use it. They price it to the termi l terminal. Have you got a bazooka in your pocket or do you just like me . Anyway, well see whether the markets are turn around after being down 20 in the premarkets after losing about eight i think points or so yesterday. Oil. Take a quick look. Even if the globe does recover, oil may have seen some of its best levels. We cant get guys come in. We had one guy yesterday. Barely. We have to look high and low for people that think oil is not coming back up. The tenyear, this one well be watching when the minutes come out, 2. 72 . It almost reflects that thats that strong jobs number that we had above 200 when people were looking for 1. 350. It stayed up above 2. because they think they are on track to do some tapering. 1. 35. Cabo is looking good again. Finally, take a quick look at gold. Its been struggling to get back to the 1300 level. Its time for the Global Markets report. Ross westgate is standing by. How old is Little George now . Do you have any updates . Thats basically all you have to talk about over there, isnt it . Not a lot of other things happening in your yeah. No, we havent gotten any updates, actually. Maybe well get one at christmas with a family photo. Oh, my god. The minute you see that, you have to send it over here. I will do that. And picking up your conversation about bazookas, i think the biggest and baddest bazooka is draghis program. Hes talked about it and it may never be used. Its very successful to bring back in spanish and italian yields from those spreads. But it may never see the light of day. Well never know how big it was or how effective it might be. Thats the way it should be. I like that. We have a time bazooka now. We may keep rates at zero till the hereafter, until were all dead, apparently. After we go past 2020 and 2030, i think then we go to our next life, whatever we come back as. Might still be zero, but it is amazing. Thats a pretty big bazooka wsh isnt it . Yes. How does that work . Can you borrow it and know youre going to make a profit . Doesnt that create a lot of speculation and money . It does all sorts of things. But theyve had Interest Rates in japan now for 10, 15 years, havent they . Well see. Yeah. Its a huge experiment, joe. No one knows where its going to finish. But investors have been able to ride it. Here is the down day. We are at the low of the moment. 7 to 2 is where we stand at the moment. Not huge losses. The ftse was down 70. 4 . We heard from the bank of england, as well been they expect inflation to come down temporarily. But they reiterate this point saying even if we hit our target of 7 , it doesnt mean were going raise rates. We can look at the trade at that point. Growth and inflation. We still dont need to do anything. Handling home at this point that rates will stay low even if they hit their target. The cac 40 is down 0. 3 today. Theres one stock outperforming, tf1, which is the french broadcaster. Very happy because last night, france qualified for the world cup, the football world cup, soccer world cup if you pursue it next year. The ftse mib in utley down around spdz 4 business. European banks are back in favor with u. S. Investors. T. Rowe price and blackrock are investing some in of the biggest lenders in the third quarter. Banks slightly weaker. Some people say maybe they missed the boat, they should have done it with draghis omt or theyre early because the growth still here isnt necessarily that strong. Up 0. 1 froeth in the last quarter. Thats where we stand in europe. Back to you. Ross, thank you very much. In the meantime, back here in the United States, president obama will be meeting with representatives from the National Social of Insurance Commissioners today. As you might expect, they are expected to talk about issues with the implementation of the health care law. Many commissioners have been hesitant to embrace obama care say they are to determine whether to rerace current policies. The pl preside the president saying they could keep those, but its a difficult path to get from here to there. Speaking of health care, the project manager of health ca care. Com says up to 40 of the technology needed to run the website has not been built. The deputy chief Entertainment Centers may not be ready until mid january. Coming up, how do you feel about your job . Why happiness could have a lot to do with where you live. All right. Plus are ae form plan from the top tax writer in the senate. As we head to break, lets get a check on the National Weather forecast. Who do we have over there . We have alex wallace. Good morning to you. Tracking some showers right here in the middle of the country throughout the midwest. You can see from the downpours moving through northern missouri. This is all going to track its way east. Chicago, youre getting into this rain later on this afternoon. Around st. Louis, as well, could see some of those showers. Now, the other story were tracking is cold air on the move. Its plunging its way through the planes. Temperatures will be dropping between now and then. Its pretty significant. And anyone east of this needs to be looking out. This cold air mass is going to be working eastbound as we head into the weekend. We have a cold front in the eastern half of the country, eventually heading off the east coast and that sets the stage for this weekend to be much, much colder for a lot of area. More squawk box coming up next. Welcome back, everybody. Right now, its time for the executive emg. The nations largest cell phone carriers are rejecting the idea of a kill switch for stolen smartphones. Samsung electronics have proposed making a switch that would make stolen or lost phones inoperable. They want to make that a standard feature. But the Wireless Industry says kill switches are not the answer. Guys, this is a big, big deal and this is something that youre starting to get Law Enforcement officers involved with. Apparently one out of every three burglaries in the United States is involving a cell phone or a a Conspiracy Theory among some,. Law enforcement specifically is that the reason why the Telephone Companies dont want to allow this type of feature is not the hacking issue. Its that they sell insurance. Millions if not billions of dollars worth of insurance on your phone. And i think its billions. If thats the case, they have a clear reason not to do this. You look at those, if the hacking issue is real, the idea that i could just shut if people could start shutting peoples phones down, that would be a real how do they start using your phone if like they could never figure out mine. Mine is 1, 2, 3, 4. I have trouble remembering it. Wow, that is a good sxuecure password. Apple may have figured this out first, if you have your fingerprint. No one is going to figure out 1,23, 4. How would you get into mine to make a phone call . Id have to turn your phone off. Huh . I could try to turn your phone off. If i stole my phone, how could you use it to make phone calls . Typing in 1, 2, 3, 4. No one knows that. How do they figure that out . What if i had a really good or if i did 4, 3, 2, 1. What if i had a good one . Im not worried about it. But the whole point is, if you couldnt actually make these phones work, nobody would ever steal them. It would have to be a standard that every phone had. The problem with it thinking its an apple iphone and i cant steal it doesnt stop thieves from trying because theyre not going to know if you have one that they cant get into or not. You can shut your phone down right now. If you ever want to use the find your phone feature or erase your phone if you lose your phone, but you need to have your user i. D. And your password. Now we know th11, 2, 3, 4, is yr password you know, it might change it now. I might go 5, 6, 7, 8. Youre using your noggin. All right. Congress is now trying to jump start stalled efforts for reform. Senator max baucus has unveiled a draft that will allow Foreign Corporations to bring business back into the United States. Bachus would impose immediate. The tax code itself is pretty complicated. I guess the question becomes is this something that could even pass given how frayed relationships are in congress . This one, you know, its very its like trying to give something to everyone. Thats the appeal of an overall flat tax is that you would get the lobbying out of it. The hellish twin center of Central Planning and government Central Planning is corporate cronyism. If you do something with a lot of moving parts that allow some companies to hire lobbyists to gain the deal that they get, its not we need to do it in a way where theres no way to gain. We have to bring it back somehow because its just sitting over there. Even if it goes to shareholders or dividends, some of it is going to help the economy here. We have to make it not advantageous to build facilities abroad. But to do it this way, this is like a half measure to sort of well, were going to let some of it come back. Other stuff is going to be taxed immediately. Thats going to employ more lawyers. Youre right that a simpler plan is a better one. Its an incredibly difficult time to try and get the two sides to cooperate. It shouldnt be. Bachus has said hes not standing for reelection next year. So you have a limited amount of time to it shouldnt be. Because you just said 7. 4 unemployment, the fed thinks that understates the real number. Right. Right. So why is it difficult for to us be doing things that would allow our own Domestic Corporations to flourish . Its not ruing the day in washington at this point. I dont think the republicans are even all that ever apart when it comes to what to do with corporate taxes. Obama says hes open to tax reform. It really should be happening. There is a deal that could be had there. Get something done. Theres something to be done. I wish something would be done. He talked to the 28 . He said that number. Its just how you get there. He said it and then he moved on to six different things. Joe and andrew, i know you two are both happy at work. So happy to be here. Happy to be together, happy to be with you. And right now, my i mean, whats your happiest pleasure . My foot is under the deck, your foot is under the desk and were what . What did you think it was . And weve been here all morning long holding feet. Well, you two are happy, but the question as to whether or not most people are happy ow could be based on where you live. A study by mste monster. Com fou that 50 of American Workers either dislike or hate their jobs. This was the highest level of Job Satisfaction among workers surveyed in seven countries. Canadians are the happiest workforce. Other happy workforces include the netherlands and india. America actually i think had the most people who loved their jobs, a really high percentage, more than 25 i think or maybe 22 who said that they would do it even for free. And it had the highest number of people who were uncontent in those jobs. These i dont like these kinds of studies. I just dont. A happiness index. Ive seen the way they calculate some of them where they come up with how happy are you . Im very happy. But they will look at the antidepressant usage, they look at the weirdest things and its a really subjective way. Then they come one some ranking. I forget, i remember there was some country where i wouldnt want to visit where happy place . Very happy place. And anyone can design a you went to school in colorado. But i think it says more about the psyche of people in that country. This survey, all they did was ask if you love your job, if you like it a lot, if you like it, if you are unhappy, it went down the scale. I think it was a straightforward question which tells you more about the psyche of people. What if you said yes and it sounded like yes . Who knows. I like it here. I dont like people saying things about new jersey, like you. Thank you. And i like cnbc. And i like squawk box. There you go. I like all three, too. One big happy family. But in putting my foot over there, i think i just unplugged something because i got it stuck in a cord and couldnt get it out. We werent really playing footsy. We dont to that. We hold toes. When we come back, were going to talk markets ahead of todays deluge of Economic Data and inventory. But first, congratulations to nbcs adam le convenievine. He has been named people magazines sexiest man alive. Way to go adam. Tdd 18003452550 trading inspires your life. Tdd 18003452550 life inspires your trading. Tdd 18003452550 where others see fads. Tdd 18003452550. You see opportunities. Tdd 18003452550 at schwab, were here to help tdd 18003452550 turn inspiration into action. Tdd 18003452550 we have intuitive platforms tdd 18003452550 to help you discover whats trending. Tdd 18003452550 and seasoned market experts to help sharpen your instincts. Tdd 18003452550 so you can take charge tdd 18003452550 of your trading. I have low testosterone. There, i said it. See, i knew testosterone could affect sex drive, but not energy or even my mood. Thats when i talked with my doctor. He gave me some blood tests. Showed it was low t. Thats it. It was a number. [ male announcer ] today, men with low t have androgel 1. 62 testosterone gel. The 1 prescribed topical testosterone replacement therapy increases testosterone when used daily. Women and children should avoid contact with application sites. Discontinue androgel and call your doctor if you see unexpected signs of early puberty in a child, or signs in a woman, which may include changes in body hair or a large increase in acne, possibly due to accidental exposure. Men with Breast Cancer or who have or might have prostate cancer, and women who are or may become pregnant or are breastfeeding, should not use androgel. Serious side effects include worsening of an enlarged prostate, possible increased risk of prostate cancer, lower sperm count, swelling of ankles, feet, or body, enlarged or painful breasts, problems breathing during sleep, and blood clots in the legs. Tell your doctor about your medical conditions and medications, especially insulin, corticosteroids, or medicines to decrease blood clotting. In a clinical study, over 80 of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. Talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. Get the blood tests. Change your number. Turn it up. Androgel 1. 62 . Stocks posting mild loss e at the close yesterday as the s p logged its first twoday decline this month. That speaks volumes. Joining us now is david wu from bank of America Merrill lynch joining us onset. Hes out with a new report on where the u. S. Recovery stands in the global context. Jeff, i havent had an update in a while. Now were getting into some i dont know if its nose bleed levels. Maybe the market was lagging for years. Should people start to say, ive had enough, im going to consolidate my gains and maybe step aside . I dont think so, joe. As of yesterday, you got the third most bullish reading out of the option traitors in the past ten years. I think in the timing models like they did last july and august suggest a small pullback here. I dont think valuations are out of sight. Were trading at about 16. 4 times this years estimate. If we trade that same pe multiple, youre talking about a little over 2,000 on the s p. Interest im glad we have some people that disagree with you. You want that. Im watching business coverage and a lot of it is almost everybody is asking that question. Everyone is asking, have we gone up too far . Garbage in, garbage out. You do forwards, you do currents, you back out gap stuff, you do a tenyear average of stuff. You cant even get a straight answer from these guys about what the multiple actually is. What did you say the multiple is . 16. 4. Thats using the s ps bottom up consensus earnings question for this year. And next years between 121 and 1 is 22. And the earnings side at risk given the options risks are at highs for so long and that was down . I dont believe in regression on the mean in profit margins. What youre seeing is a lot of small and Medium Sized Companies do is outsource to the clouds, your ip budget. I think that bodies well in the new year. I was upup in detroit on a couple of plant tours. If you talk to the plant managers, theyre wearing their equipment out. They cant keep up with demand. I believe thats the sweet spot for the stock market. The growth is simple, but its sustainable. Joe, im interested in two questions. How well are you doing relative to other countries . Two, the fact that you are doing well with is a more structural, cyclical, if its more structural, you tend to think its more sustainable. Whats even more remarkable is the fact that this is the first time in 20 years the u. S. Is in first place. Using the same metric . Using the same. The u. S. Has done more poorly than any country in the world as far as its ranking amount. This is the first time theyre ever in first place. What has changed . In each of the last eight quarters, weve seen improvement with our fiscal deficit and low unemployment race. From that point, its very remarkable. Can you translate that to gdp . Somewhere between close to 2. 7 and 3 . But i think clearly the risk is to the upside. Its declining to the upside. Then youre going to see more inflation, higher Interest Rates. I think that could be a bigger problem for the stock market. Things might be getting too good. Yeah. But i think the big story is the biggest story, whats driving this recovery so far, is that its import substitution. This is the first time in 20 years outside of u. S. Recession that america is spending on u. S. Produced goods and services. This is about shell, cars. Do you know four years ago, this country only produced 6 of 3 of the cars sold here. As of last month, that number jumped to 72 . Ford and gm, for the first time in ten years, my claims in the u. S. Economy combined for the first time. Thats more people turning 65 than people finding work every month. And i feel better about myself as every one of them turns not that much better. But i mean, i dont feel like you at 30 what are you, 31 is or something . All right. Do you feel better, too . Dont you feel a little better . I think the economy is stronger than the Service Figures suggest. I think a lot of people are transactioning in cash. I was in scottsdale last week and i saw a lot of transactions in cash. Its not recorded or captured as well black market . Youre putting black market stuff into your numbers now . No, no, no, im talking ab t transactions at restaurants, those kind of things. All right. Weve had some people on that had us worried. I like being number one. Its not a stupid index. I saw you just kind of go, oh, its not a european country, right . Are you happy . Happy were number one . We should be. Coming up, the girl scouts have a message for dan loeb, the fake dan loeb. Well tell you what that story is about. And next hour, michael dell will be joining us to talk about everything from taking his Company Private to his outlook for technology. It will be an interesting conversation. Were coming right back in just a moment. Opportunities arent always obvious. Sometimes they just drop in. Cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. We enable you to reach Global Markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. Cme group how the world advances. Welcome back, everyone. On todays agenda, we are waiting for Quarterly Results for jcpenney and deere before the bell. We heard from lowes this hour. Lowes came in a penny shy from expectations. Qualcomm is holding its annual Shareholder Meeting today. Analysts say theyll be paying attention for the insights on the smartphones, the american market, the emerging market demand at the low end. Aaa is going to unveil its thanksgiving travel forecast. That will include information on how much travelers spend. How they travel. And how Airline Ticket traveler costs compare to last year. Thats your squawk box planner. Andrew, over to you. We have a story now that is part real and part fiction. In vanity fair, they posted a fictional letter to dan loeb. The ceo of girl scouts of america asked vanity fair if she could respond. It was a pretend letter from dan loeb to the girl scouts saying he wanted to take a stake in the company. Vanity fair wrote it . Pretending to be him, saying he would want to take a 19 stake in the Company Going on to say how do you defend the expensive proposition of keeping a fifth avenue address for your headquarters and have you ever actually seen a girl scout in manhattan . And he also said the idea that canceling lemon he was upset about the cancellation of the lemon chalet and the waxy taste in the thin mints. And he said something horrible about the dosidos. He was very upset about the dosidos. She answered its the most fattening confection after them. That was a fictional letter. And she decided to write a real letter back to him saying it says first and foremost, i apoll fwiez from the bottom of my coconut heart for these treats. You see every year girls sell cookies and it turns out your beloved lemon chalet creams werent beloved by the rest of the public and by the rest of the public, i mean anyone. We can get her hour on at the beginning of the next hour. She lives out by me. Was this your idea to do this . My favorite line was when she said she will bring these cookies back if he visits me at my cookie castle address in a life size cream chalet and hand delivers a check for 1 billion. I saw mr. Loeb monday. He told me he was bored with the whole story. That was two days ago. You liked it today, though. A contra indicator that i am. Coming up, the pulse of the consumer. Were going to drag that music out again for to use. Were going to talk to the Company Behind International Online transactions. The retail giant such as macys and j. Crew. Well do all that when squawk box returns and maybe have that music you like. T retirement. Those dreams, theres just no way were going to let them die. Like they helped millions of others. By listening. Planning. Working one on one. Thats what Ameriprise Financial does. Thats what they can do with you. Thats how ameriprise puts more within reach. Afghanistan in 2009. On the u. S. S. Saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once its earned, usaa Auto Insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaas commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. Begin your legacy. Get an Auto Insurance quote. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. Welcome back everybody. The national e kmors market is expanding more than twice it is in the United States. Our next guest is looking to cash in on the growing opportunity. Joining me now, michael, the ceo of border free. It works with a lot of retailers. You help with web presence overseas setting up . Thats right. Border free is a Global Company to work with retailers helping them extend online to sell around the world. J crew, macy, crate and barrel, a lot of brands people know. I go to macys come or Neiman Marcus and it looks like a normal site. What does it provide . Technology that detects where the consumer is coming from and helps them flip the site into context that makes sense to the international user. Youre coming from the u. S. Youll make it in portuguese if you know i speak that language. You know based on my ip address . Thats right. It shows local currency and products you can buy for that particular country. I imagine there are complications trying to sell to other countries and overseas. One is how to get the stuff there and currency you brought up. How do you deal with those problems . We help the customer giving them the ability to shop in the local currency. If you were coming in from brazil on play says for example would be in brazilian. Theres no mystery at the end of the month when they get the credit card statement and see the Conversion Rate they werent expecting. Everything is priced locally. In terms of transportation, the thing thats important is the whole process moving products from the u. S. To a different country is getting them through customs and delivered to the customers door. Those can show up with extra collections from the customer. We take care of those up front. Were trying to give the consumer the power and experience as a u. S. Customer obviously shopping from a different geography. Youre not someone that sets it up and leaves. You run these full time. How is the partnership . We integrate the website and important to let them know its their website. Were with them through the process of the transaction. In many ways they rely on us to make sure the transaction gets fulfilled. Never thought about the complications and how hard it would be for every retail toer get and running. If the Consumer Experience isnt good, it isnt marketabilimarketable and good for a time where things are taking off globally. Coming up, Ben Bernankes thoughts on qe. Weve got his actual thoughts on it. News makers of the morning, michael dell. Squawk box will be right back. Today with ten days before black friday, this luxury retailer going big while others shy away. The big management and markets. Todays guest host knows about both. Bill george, former ceo now proce professor joining us. Plus Market Reaction to fed chairman Ben Bernankes speech at the National Economics club as the second hour of squawk box begins right now. Good morning. Welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc. Take a look at futures and how things are setting up this morning. Across the board dow looks like 1 point. S p 500 and also nasdaq little up. Meaningless at this moment. Jp morgan agreeing to pay 13 billion in the settlement. The deal wont have Immediate Impact on future earnings. Eric holder says the jp morgan was not an isolated case and his fraud investigations are far from over. Keep an eye on bank stocks today. You dont know whats going to happen. What are you looking at . Have you heard it referred to this bank pedalled mortgages to investors that cost much more than their homes were worth . Isnt that a great way if you really wanted to characterize . They pedalled mortgages that cost much more than peoples homes were worth. Any way. Go ahead. We have a couple other pieces of news. Lowes did not match the performance of competitor home depot. Lowes earning 47 Cents Per Share for the third quarter, a penny below estimates. The company boosted the year outlook but still below street consensus. Home depot had a beating quarter and raised the yearly guidance. This is short of good news. Americans are keeping Credit Card Debt in check. Credit card debt per borrower fell during the third quarter. Late payment rate did rise and remains near the lowest level in six years. In a speech delivered last night, ben bernanke sited the feds efforts to revamp the economy. We have the wrap up of the speech. Do you have something prepared to read. I cant talk to you . Talk to me. We said we were going to bring you his thoughts. My producer didnt think id get to the second sign. Thats her. We promised viewers wed have his thoughts. Do you have his thoughts or just comments . I try to do the best with both. He has his interpretation. He could have been thinking about ill paint the ceiling pink. He could have been thinking anything. Im pretty sure he wasnt thinking that. You wanted to interrupt my report to get that comment out. He said the way its going now, we may go longer at zero. Once we get down to employment goals we may keep them on as if he knows he can get us down to 6 . Its clock work. Its all you about shaping expectations. It was a valid victory speech, farewell speech. Okay then. Thats what it was. He was extolling the vir vitues transparency. The federal funds rate is likely to remain near zero perhaps after the unemployment threshold is crossed and tlooirs until the preponderance supports the data. He doesnt know. He doesnt. Whats the difference . Hes telling you what he thinks is going to happen when. It could be 2030. It could be. Whats your point . If youre in a position you think it all depends on you whether congress or not, its not about the fed. I dont think hes saying when we put it there. Hes saying when we get there. Hes being very dovish. I hope hes right. People think were way above hes telling us when fed gets to 6 1 2. Doesnt mean automatically we raise rates. It means stand around, look around. Its a trigger. What will he do when it gets to three . Or gets down to zero . By zero they will be higher. Thats where they plan to go. Heres another thing he did. Next sound bite was he talked for the first time about what he might do when he departs. I look forward you know before i became a policy maker, i was an academic and worked on issues related to the things ive been doing the last 11 or so years. I look forward to writing and speaking and having more time to contemplate some interesting issues. Thank you. Is there no will for him there . I didnt think about it. Its taken me years to read a script with interpretations. Theres a lot of attention of release of minutes. The feds spent a lot of time talking about communication, how to convince markets. It would remain low for long. That would discuss inflation and thresholds changing. Thats something were going to look for in the 6 1 2, maybe talked about making it six or two and putting inflation threshold 1 1 2 . Thats a crutch. You wrote all that stuff. Why cant you come out and tell us what he did no, i know. You know what you want to say. Take a listen. Steve its great setting things up. Those guidelines are for the control room. Joe is right. After having been a print recorder 30 years, i lean on the written word. Its getting it organized. I have no time for organized thoughts. That we know. Lets welcome our guest hoist bill george. Hes currently at Harvard Business school. Bill, were so glad youre here. So many things to talk about. Lets start off you by what steve was discussing. Whats happened with the fed . What do you think will happen . Im a fan of bernanke. In my opinion he saved us in 08. We have no fiscal policy in this country. Hes trying to off set the Monetary Policy. Hes gone as far as he can go. Weve got to pull out of this. I think theyll keep Interest Rates low. You say youre a fan. Are you a fan of whats happening now . We have an imbalanced economy. Were hanging on for dear life trying to get the unemployment down. I think theres too much money in the economy. Its eventual got to come out. Theyre not going to do hit with unemployment rates. Are they paying too much after tension to what washington and congress is doing and trying to catch the fallout . They have to. They cannot ignore. Congress is doing nothing. Theyre not going to do anything. Theyre trying to keep the economy on even keel. I think if not for the fed, well be in more trouble. Do you think it feels like 7. 4 . The private sector is adding jobs on a steady basis. Nothing great. Unfortunately over industry adding jobs as huge resist answer from the government. Regulators are after every industry adding jobs. Health care, it, certainly energy. Tho those are the three gross sectors. When you say fiscal policy from congress, youre saying get out of the way. Your not saying you Like Congress to do id like a tax policy. Youre not saying another 800 billion stimulus. Im not looking for stim luslus stimulus. Get out of the way. Those are not the things youre talking about . No, im not. Would you like to buy from canadians or nigeria . Canadians. By asking you questions is to set you up in the way i want you to answer it. Im going to get flak. Shell gas is the greatest thing thats happened to the country in 350 in 50 years. Let it flow. Some people think they want high infrastructure. I like infrastructure. Go to switzerland or germany. Were spending 1 . We could save in other areas. Think about that . Would you consider that . Can i ask a regulation question. You made youre career on the world of health care. Obama care good or bad in the context of removing regulations that youre talking about . Terrible. Were focussing on the wrong things. Its becoming terrible is a good word. Andrew, heres what weve got. This is titanic. Everyone is looking at the tip, healthcare. Gov. Its not solved by the end of the month. Trust me. Weve got a long way to go. Thats part of the problem. Were starting to reveal. If you dont get it fixed now, its going to get much, much worse. Look at the fiasco trying to take Peoples Insurance plans away, give them back are you in the camp of fixing it or repealing it . Youre not going to repeal it. By 2017 this is going to be locked. No one is going to repeal it. The president is never going to. Weve got to fix it. The president better move now. Approval ratings 42 . 57 against this. You better act now. How can he fix it . Ive got lots of ways to fix hit. You cant give them back their policy that were taken away. Insurance commissioners have to sign off you and Insurance Companies have to blow up what theyve done for six years. How do you fix it . My Little Office lost theyre health care. They can change it but change all their doctors. When people start losing their doctors theyre going to be very upset. And driving past three hospitals on the way to the one that offers you treatment. Youre going to get a lot of upset people if you dont act quickly. Act quickly to do what . I dont know how to undo big problems he laid out . First of all the bar is way too high. No plan would qualify under this. They are high deductible plans. You get a reduction for taking care of your health. Under the current law, you dont get reductions. If you get pregnant, are you covered for that . What about Substance Abuse. That guy in toronto, that can look at anyone. You better have Substance Abuse options in your plan. Thats what i want you to have because i say you have to. Youve priced your plan. Based on the fact youre going to are have 38 of people under the age of 34. Not going to happen. If you were 26 years old just went off your parents plan, what would you do if healthy . Pay the penalty. Working at starbucks or the retail store. Youre going to postpone as long as you can hoping something will come. Im worried about adverse selection next year. Move ahead of those things . How do you . Get a fix of minimum conditions up here. Until you give people incentive for living healthy lives. Right now becky, were going to have huge no plow effect of costs. It will not happen in this president s term. It will happen about 20182020. Youre going to have huge 1 to 2 trillion. Do you have to undo the premise of preexisting conditions. Thats expensive. What joe talked act, maternity, thats not a matter of taking care of yourself. Let me select that. If i want that maternity care, i want to select that. If you want maternity, its going to be expensive. You have to lower the bar. You have tow permit incentives for living healthy lives. Right now the big cost issue is lets be honest, obesity. Its politically incorrect. Thats the big driver. Weve got to move on that is and give incentives for People Living healthy lives. Does that mean if you pass certain tests you get the incentive reduction or if your bmi is a certain level. Starting the bar here. You get reductions every time your bmi is reduced. I think we have to do that. Because we have an increasingly unhealthy population in the country. Thats going to cost more. First time in history weve asked the healthy young to pay for unhealthy old. Why should young people come along and pay for me. Weve always been doing that in some tomorrow form. Semi unrelated question. Obama care is not helping bring down but there was an issue on the table in washington about taxes on products made by companies and medical devices and whether the margins, profits of Companies Like yours are too high and one of the things that has to happen is costs of those types of products that has to come down. Lets have a little competition. Profits were too high. Im make the argument it was going on in washington not making it myself. Im a pro competition guy. Med tronnic and medical device people refuse to pay subsidies to get this bill through like people did. This is a tax on revenue. Do you think this is a lobbying game . Yes. I know how angry max bah cuss and manuel were at the device companies. They punished them. Med tronnic gets hurt. They have a huge revenue base. Think about startup you companies that have no profits and get hit. If not monopoly, how do you you use that term with a straight face. Its too high it does not compute. Is there really a competitive marketplace . Second question, the fact the government and taxes are paying for products. If youre 90 years old should you get a titanium hip when you could get a cheaper one. Med tronnic on the other side is saying you should be able to get the titanium hip. Its a competitive marketplace. Ask people at st. Jude whether they compete on price for pacemakers. Its highly competitive for hips. Should you have a choice . Should you go with what your doctor says . This is best for you andrew, or your mother . Were in a political market. Its not absurd to say the government could consider. They can do it. My doctor hopefully will always tell me to get the most expensive greatest hip that exists. That may not be the right thing in the larger policy perspective, right is this. Right. Andrew, i want you to have fiscal incentive to do the right thing. You have you responsibility. Every medtronic plan is based on that. You have a choice. Pay less or more. Youre going to pay for the hip if you want top of the line. Hospitals are moving in the right way to bring down costs. On the board of mayo clinic, associated with a number of hospitals. Theyre working to reduce costs. As long as youre treating disease and not health, theyre trying to shift from disease to health. Get rid of fee for service. Ill pay you a lot of money. I dont want heart surgery. Ill pay you a lot of money to have heart surgery or spine surgery. Weve got to move there and get going. This train wreck is coming down the tracks to mix metaphors of the titanic. You better see whats coming, the cliff ahead. If you dont, youve got big problems. Sorry to be so outspoken. This is great. Youre getting to real solution. Thats helpful. Fortunately bill is with us the rest of the program. Bill george our guest host. Steve, well see you back later too. You going to have a script with sound bites and elements . We can count on that. Weve got to go and come back. We have a great interview coming up. Up next, chairman ben bernanke saying rates staying low. The chief officer is weighing in on what that means. Check it out. Michael dell joins us to talk about the pc market and his companys future now that its come back. Squawk box comes back in just a moment. Fed chairman ben bernanke saying central bank remains committed to Stimulus Program for as long as needed. The fed funds rate will likely remain zero for a considerable time after it ends. How you will markets react to this . Were going to ask the chief officer for division of barkley and minutes that we have today. Weve been talk act the fed for so long. Id like to talk about business and whether ceos are spending and things like that. You really cant. Its so important and such an underpinning of what were seeing day in and day out isnt it . This market can be described in three words. Ly driven market. All were voicing similar concerns that the relationship between prices and fundamentals get stretched. The market is not seeming expensive, its underlyingme fundamentals. The indication prices tell an investor is less clear because of money in the system. I understand how the money in the system finds it way to the stock market and other classes. Why is it that the great he liquidity is not stopped up by the economic engine . Thats what the feds are hoping that the baton gets passed and it does improve the underlying economy itself. You think all that seed money would be good and economy could catch up. The question is why isnt it creating more jobs . Why isnt it getting in the economy and creating jobs . Inside banker ball right. I think essentially that money printed was never destined for the economy you and i live in right. That money was really always for the financial economy. The fed is paying Interest Rate rates on reserves. You want that money moving, dont pay interest on those reserves. Maybe tax deposits . Thats not a great idea. Interest rates paying on excess reserves will get money moving. What you describe goes back to democrats should be against it because its wealth gap getting wider. Republicans should be before it because its lining pockets of rich friends. Thats all thats happening. People that own the assets are the ones benefits. No one is really talking about this. I think were at a juncture in economics profession if you will. Im not an economist and will not attempt to play one on tv. Why do you wear the bow tie then . Its easier to clean shirts than ties. I assumed you were an economist because of the time. Were at the cross roads because depending on how this works out t economics and central banking path weve gone down will be validated and solid fied or ruined for pay couple of generations. It sounds dramatic. When you heard the feds talking about serious people floating the idea that perhaps a bit of a bubble is not a bad thing, right. The notion of what the natural Interest Rate. I think the natural Interest Rate is the economic equivalent of the yeti. It moves around depending on the environment youre in. You have a part of the profession which is in fact talking to itself about these things. Not talking to the market per se. Its all very untested. While this is happening, you see this money flowing into the system. It is creating a delinking of prices to value. Thats the problem that those of us that work in the real economy are dealing with and have to clean up. Let me ask you a question. I have a lot of friends that own small businesses. Theyre having trouble getting money. They cant get money. Why is the money not getting down there . These people are good creditors, the ones to add the jobs. Its not the Big Companies to add the jobs. Yes theyre adding inning thailand, china and brazil. Small businesses are bringing back the jobs market yet they cant get money to expand the business. Why dont we trickle down . This is not only happening in the United States. If you go to uk or continent you hear this a lot. Some of this is the echo of the financial crisis. Banks continue to repair balance shiites and lending standards go up. These folks are deserving of the capital though. Thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you for the tie. Im going to wear a tie later this week like this gentleman. Wont look as good as him probably. Coming up, going to talk to dell founder, michael dell, in just a moment. Im beth. And im michelle. And we own the paper cottage. Its a stationery and gifts store. Anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. So you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the Game Changing app from ink. We didnt get into business to spend time managing receipts, thats why we have ink. We like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. So you have time to focus on the things you love. Ink from chase. So you can. Customer erin swenson ordebut they didnt fit. Line customers not happy, im not happy. Sales go down, im not happy. Merch comes back, im not happy. Use ups. They make returns easy. Unhappy customer becomes happy customer. Then, repeat customer. Easy returns, im happy. Repeat customers, im happy. Sales go up, im happy. I ordered another pair. Im happy. both im happy. Im happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy happy. I love logistics. Welcome back to squawk box everyone. In our headline this is morning a jury is deliberating for a second day trying to determine how much sam sung owes apple. Sang sung copied apple iphone key features. Sam sung says it on the side 52 million. Nissan is ramping up the all electric leaf model. Demand has jumped. Its made at a plant in tennessee. Nissan hasnt determined how much it will boost production. Busy day for production numbers. Well get sales on home sales and business inventories. The fed releases the minutes from the foc movements. Its been a month since dell went private after 25 years public. Lets find out how the private life is treating the company. Good morning michael. How are you . Can you hear us, michael . Im great. How are you . Were great. Thank you for joining us this morning. Heres where i want to start. I was thinking about this. Everyone wants to root for you. Everyone wants to see dell succeed. A number of shareholders were frustrated when your company was sold. Some call it a steal. If five years from now you succeed and succeed remarkably as a private company and go back to private markets at some huge p multiple of how the company was when you bought it, how should shareholders feel about that . Were reinventing our business, taking risks, doing a lot of things i did when i started the company. During the 25 years we were a Public Company, im proud of our record for shareholders. Our stock increased 13,000 , 25 times better than s p 500 during that period. We had a difficult process to take the Company Private. Were thrilled now. Investing aggressively and growing around the world. Couldnt be more excited. What are you doing behind the scenes now that youre private that you couldnt when you were a Public Company . One of the first things is you sort of get out of this 89 day planning cycle Public Companies are subjected to. Having the assets and customer relationships we have and breath of it solutions we have, were able to go after growth. So i was just in europe two weeks ago. We got double digit growth in germany. Investing aggressively in building relationships with the s andbes, Enormous Growth opportunity. Emerging markets are coming back. Were building out solutions not just focused on the near term but thinking about the cloud, mobile big data, opportunities and cllenges that it represents. Again, with an incredible brand and great set of asset, fantastic team and strong balance sheet. Couldnt be more excited about the position were in and the opportunity to change the industry once again. Michael, is there a good example of a project you always wanted to pursue when you were a Public Company that youre now able . Specific project or initiative . You know, i think certainly as we look at our business, theres a couple of areas were going to make big bets. Weve got a fantastic event coming up here next month called delle world. Im going to be back on cnbc as youll be with us on the show floor. Were going to be talking about those things, revealing new technology were working on here. Were increasing investments. I think youll see the fruits of that. What i can tell you is that our teams are energized. The customer reception has been quite positive. Were out there being aggressive. Mike, i said all along i thought you paid a fair price for the company. I admire how you hung in there against folk out there. Do you think people like carle acahn were ever serious . They were just trying to talk the price up. Ultimately that got resolved. The person in question didnt own a share of the stock until after the deal was announced and had no long term intentions or good intentions for the company or its shareholders or the people inside the company. I like what Warren Buffett said on the station. He thinks you ought to run the company for shareholders going to stay not those going to leave. Do you think companies should consider going private or are entrepreneurs where you were 30 years ago think about staying private indefinitely . Out in the start up world ive been spending more time with a number of interesting new startups in our industry. Theres a desire to stay private longer. Certainly theres a roll the Public Markets play. Thats an attractive step at some point for companies. Companies have a desire to stay private longer. Theyre not so entranced by the the Public Market and availability of debt capital at very attractive rates. And i think the increasingly burdensome layers of governing and compliance and related issues that have been placed on companies, its a challenge. Michael, is the goal ultimately to take dell public once again down the road . Dont have any plans to do that, becky. Were a family owned company. Well stay that way until we decide to do something different. Michael assuming other Companies Take your lead and go private, what is the right model to go it . One of the criticisms of this particular process the dell situation was involved in, once you teamed up you with silver lake, it became comeply kaicate challenging, hard to find others who wanted to be or could be long term shareholders to compete with what you put together. Not to rehash the past, but the process was led by the independent directors. I was willing to partner with any participant who was willing to pay the highest price. That was the case then and absolutely what occurred. Ultimately the bid by myself and silver lake was the highest price available for the company. Right. Lets talk tech for a little bit. We spend a lot of time talking about microsoft and the future of microsoft. Your pc business is depending a little at least on microsoft. Whats your take about the direction of that company . Who should run it after steve . You know, i think the board is going through a thorough process. Im impressed with what im hearing so far. Well wait for them to reach conclusions. Microsoft is an important partner for dell in the industry. Im sure theyll come up with a great solution there. Our business is not as dependent on the pc as it was 10 or 20 years ago. Weve broadened our business considerably in the enterprise, solutions software. I will tell you were seeking renewed growth in what we think of as the client part of our business. Emerging markets are coming back. We have this whole move to the virtual client which is quite strong. Helping our customers adopt to all opportunities out there with cloud, mobile, take advantage of their data. Microsoft is a very good partner for us. Theyre though the only partner. Were a customer based company. That has us part eerer i ee eer with i a lot of companies. Youre at a college dorm. Tell me your opinion on whether social is ever able to be to the point it makes sense . Its hard for me to adopt new things. I look at whats happening and maybe not that good at this point. Its hard for me to really see we do this and im going to be tweeting 20 years from now a thousand times a day. I dont know. Are these things going to figural out a way to make money on all this stuff . I think what were seeing inside companies is the collaboration among teams and sharing of information is incredibly powerful. This is where you see the applicable in business. You get excitement in the market and whatever youre talking about in terms of the latest ipo and stock movements and that sort of thing. What we see is how this is improving the speed at which teams collaborate, share information and progress occurs. We see it in our own company and helping custer manies do omers. How do you get the knowledge quickly . This is a big challenge. Tools like the kinds that are being developed now are really going to accelerate that kind of process. Thank you for joining us. Started virtually in a garage and doing it all over again. Couldnt afford a garage. Did it in a dorm room. Dorm room, not a garage. Appreciate you. Sounds like well see you in about a month. What was that a b to b answer. Remember the last bubble had to move on from consumer to b to b. That was going to be the big money maker when corporations utilize it as a tool. Can the consumer validate just us playing around with this stupid stuff . Can that validate the evaluations or does it need to become a 120 billion tool for facebook . It can eventually become that. But does it need to . I wouldnt bet against michael dell. Hes the real dell. I give him a lot of credit for hang in there. Take a look at shares of jcpenn jcpenney. Stock came out trading down, under expectations. Sales down by 4. 8 . They had positive sales for the month of october and said the trends are improving. Well talk about this when we come back. Bny mellon turns insights like these into powerful investment strategies. For a university endowment. It funds a marine biologist. Who studies the peruvian anchovy. Invested in the world. Bny mellon. Tdd 18003452550 life inspires your trading. Tdd 18003452550 where others see fads. Tdd 18003452550. You see opportunities. 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Someone went in and actually purchased something. You figured comps had to level off at some point. You cant lose 30 quarter after quarter. Remember last october . Think about that. Theyre up. 1 . They didnt say. They says positive comps in october. That might mean they sold something. Dont put your life savings on that. Profit guidance shortly below the level but above consensus. Lows reported 47 cents, penny below. Four year guidance slightly below. When we come back, our guest host has ideas on who he thinks should replace the leader at microsoft. Ceos are nervous. Going to play out plans how to embrace or not embrace the activist investor and how you should do it. We have a great name of names tomorrow including the ceo of gram funds. Tune in at 6 30 eastern time. Well get you ready for another big trading day after the release of fed minutes today. Squawk box is right back. Practice at Harvard Business school and former ceo of medtronic. You have ideas of who you think should be running microsoft. I was struck with bill gates emotion yesterday. I couldnt tell if that was for the company or steve bomber. Time for steve to move on. 14 was too much. The Company Needs a total transformation. Normally like internal promotion, they have to go outside. Internal candidates are names being floated. My favorite was cheryl sandburg. She would have been terrific. A lot of talk. I have the greatest admiration. I think allen is one of the top ceos in the United States today. He is a tech guy at all, 68 years old. They could get seven years out of him. Are you coming out in favor of him. He has no great experience. Do you think hes the right person to change things at microsoft . Id take allen. Id make sure he was teamed with a tech guy, maybe coo. And get yearly physicals . Yeah. Hes a young guy. You said you dont know if he can last seven years. He can live seven year, i want to make sure he has the you could get seven years out of him . Yeah. 70 is the new 50 guys. It is. Hes got a lot of energy. I think this guy will build a team. I have a lot of confidence. Hell be a successor. I dont want to see him leave. He has a successor lined up. Hed do the same thing at microsoft. Bomber did not. Shame on steve for not having a successor. Kevin is a nice guy but not the successor. This thing needs a reshape. Youve got to have someone from the outside. Where we going to go . They need a plan. Well talk about activist investors later. Is this the scariest thing out there for any ceo or board . Theyre all worried about it. If Procter Gamble resigned. I dont know any ceos are not thinking about it. I have ideas how to deal with it. Its the talk . Absolutely. May not be on cnbc but is privately. Absolutely. Were going to talk more to bill george about this. Hes our guest host. Hes got strong thoughts about this. Coming up, another hour with bill george. Inflation dat that could be moving markets and jcpenney sales in focus. Well get a preview of the Holiday Season squawk box returns in just a minute. Over the next 40 years the United States population is going to grow by over 90 million people, and almost all that growth is going to be in cities. Whats the healthiest and best way for them to grow so that they really become cauldrons of prosperity and cities of opportunity . What we have found is that if that family is moved into safe, clean Affordable Housing, places that have access to great school systems, access to jobs and multiple transportation modes then the neighborhood begins to thrive and then really really take off. The oxygen of Community Redevelopment is financing. And all this rebuilding that happened could not have happened without organizations like citi. Citi has formed a partnership with our company so that we can take all the lessons from the revitalization of urban america to other cities. So we are now working in chicago and in washington, dc and newark. Its amazing how important safe, Affordable Housing is to the future of our society. You can fill that box and pay one flat rate. I didnt know the coal thing was real. Its very real. David rivera. Rivera, david. [ male announcer ] fedex one rate. Simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. S p 500 coming off back to back losses. Will the days fed minutes restart the losses or extend another day . Jcpenney missed expectations. Well dig through the report with the analyst and look ahead to the retailers holiday expectations. Theres a sale at pennies. First look at the redesigned chevy colorado. The president of gm north america is going to tell us why the company is recommitted to mid size pickup trucks when competitors exited the market. The third hour of squawk box starts right now. Squawk box here on cnbc. First in business worldwide. Something about a truck. Our guest host this morning, bill george. You got a truck . No. Hes a professor at Harvard Business school, former ceo of medtronic. Former member of goldman sachs. Youve got great ideas about the Affordable Care act. Do you talk to people implementing it . Do they want your idea . Absolutely not. Heres what i thought. I thought theyd say this bill george guy is at harvard. Hes probably one of us. Lets call him up. They called you up and heard one sentence out of you. They said we called a guy from harvard. This isnt what we expected. Michael porter and people have great solutions. They dont listen. Bring in the pros. Bring in george al verizon, hhs. Bring in someone that knows how to do it. Youre a ceo. They dont want you. They want academics. We dont need politicians joe. I know you love politicians. We need some professionals. They want academics. You cant solve a management problem with politics. Hall is going to involve a problem of Health Care Exchange . Are you kidding . Come on. Youve got to get serious. Theyre not serious. Youre preaching to the choir. That was my point. Throughout the administration, right . Including secretary of the treasury. All the bay down the line. Its time to say that. People are sick of me saying it. Just said it. Thank you. Lets talk more about the mornings headlines. A lot of earning reports came in this morning. Jcpenney lost 1. 81 a share, four cents wider than estimated. The stock is up 5. 4 . That was not the case when the stock hit. It immediately sunk. Theyve been talk about october and november sales trends something they said they finally had positives in the month of october. Maybe that turned things around. Stock up to 9. Were going to talk to an analyst in a few minutes. We heard from Home Improvement retailer lowes. It lost a quarter profit for the share. The forecast is still a little short of the streets consensus. This is a stark contrast from home depot where hit raised expectations, beat on every metric. Lows down 2. 8 , decline of 1. 44. Heavy equipment maker deere helped by higher prices and lower taxes. That stock is up 3. 8 . The project manager of healthcare. Gov says up to 40 of the technology needed to run the new Obama Health Care insurance marketplace has not been built. Separately several tech experts testified yesterday the health site is hitled with security plaus that put user data of people at risk. They said its large and inefficient, leaves it vulnerable to attacks and difficult to protect. According to the experts testimony, the healthcare. Gov runs on 5 million lines of code, 25 as much as the code of the one of the worlds busiest sites facebook. Lets get a check on markets. U. S. Equity flat. Dow down six points. S p 500 down over a point. Nasdaq up less than a point. If youve been watching what happened in asia overnight, you can see nikkei closed down by a third of a point. Shanghai up two thirds of a point. In europe and early trading there, at least right now, some red arrows, modest declines. Cac half a percentage point. Joining us, mark freeman chief Investment Officer of west holdings group. Westwood Income Opportunity Fund manager. Ill talk to you chris. Im thinking less transparency might make more sense. Im sorry mark. Go ahead. More than happy to answer. Go ahead. Joe, im mark. I want to go not to westwood. Whos on first . Im on first or second. You in the glasses go. Look, are we going to get additional transparency today . Probably not. Well get more important to what bernanke said last night, the message is still the same. Rates stay low basically forever from from there. Theyre commitmented to quantitati quantitative easing as long as it takes. The the minutes are not recorded. Its planned. Its about shaping investments and reinforcing the message. We found out there was a time they didnt know they were being tape add. Remember . We found out they were being taped. That was better wasnt it . I think its probably better for them. Better for us. We may get the right story. They were kind of shocked. Now its just what they want us to hear not what theyre actually this is like a giant tape records ee recorder in the middle of the table. Such a short lag from the meeting. Its about reinforcing the message. How about you chris . Good morning joe. No i expect the same. I expect very little new evidence to sway guys from changing opinions or tone. Quite frankly why should they change . Data overall has continued to indicate slow growth. Nothing but slow growth since the recession ended for the last four years. I really dont expect to see a change of tone right now as we go to the last few legs of the year and going into bernankes most likely departure beginning of february. I dont expect to see the taper tone change all that much. Youre not bothered by that . You must be long. Well you know, at this point, i think weve talked about this for so long. You have to remember back in may, the ten year was back at 1. 6 . We spiked up to 3 on the change of inflection from the fed. I think weve already talked about this beyond belief at this point. Until they get to the point they actually start selling securities in the open market, i think were in this environment that continues to be close to near nirvana for investors. Wow. Lets do a trillion a month . Why not . I think theres a limit. This isnt working is it . Depends on how you define as work. Jobs. No. I make the point quantitative easing isnt designed to create jobs. Thats what someone else said. Whats it designed for . The you ultimately think what are they trying to do . Create a wealth effect okay. Quantitative easing doesnt drive growth. Its not going to drive earnings or growth. Thats all theyve got . Thats all theyve got. At least youre admitting its a blunt instrument. It hasnt been blunt. Its been strong in terms of if you look at what its designed to do, target evaluations, its very eventually is this supposed to have a positive feedback effect on the underlying economy . I think we already have seen a positive impact on the underlying economy. Absolutely. Obviously weve seen the price of homes increase double digit. Weve seen big item purchases, cars doing well, truck cycle most likely on the horizon. It has had a positive impact. I would say that where we are right now with Interest Rates, i think this really reflective of low growth environment weve continued to have. Whether or not they decide to taper 5 billion or 10 billion month over month over the coming months thats not a big deal. The big deal is whats going to make us decelerate rapidly or accelerate rapidly from the low growth environment were in. I dont think we see it until Business Confidence picks up. Its a different question to be answered. Thats a chicken and egg thing. Why isnt that picked up . Let us bond. Inner democrats against qe. Well touch toes. Lets be against qe. Its adding to income disparity. Thats your new reason to take that to the bank . Dont you think that is . I can feel virtuous to myself about not liking qe. Thats almost like a libertarian view. I had the libertarian view before we need to clear the markets, see where wed be without this stuff. Now im going from a progressive point of view were helping people that dont need help. People that need help, its not trickling down fast enough. We should get the music with the halo. Bernanke says that every time. The man on the street, even the saver getting crushed now, says those guys would be in worse shape if everybody falls back this keeps congress and the white house from getting their act together. They can rely on fed. They dont have to legislation or reform taxes or do anything to stimulate the economy with fiscal policy. They can settle back and say bernanke will take care of it. Now its janet yellen. Im giving you an argument. I hate rich people. Okay. Mark, chris, thanks for joining us. Talking about jcpenney up next. Were going to dig through the results with an analyst. Later, ford and chrysler have exited the mid size pickup truck business. Gm is recommitting. Well get a look at the thank you colorado live. Check out the squawk box market indicator. It is red at the moment. Welcome back everybody. Jcpenney reporting a bigger loss than expected this morning. The company is making upbeat comments about the november sales trend. Joining us will frohnhoefer. Jcpenney shares sold off on this news. When people heard about the sales trend, stock picked up. What is the right interpretation . Its right to pick up. We saw weaker sales than anticipated. Sales were down 4. 8 versus street 4. 5. How far the trend in sales was growing months over months in the third quarter. The company is now guiding for positive comparables into the Fourth Quarter. One thing you said before was that people are focussing on j jcpenney. If it comes in lower, investors will be concerned. I saw cash equivalence of 1. 2 billion. Does that concern you . The price they gave is over 2 billion. They mentioned in the press release they paid down 200 million on the revolving credit situation. Michael is a stand up guy. He has a lot of support from venders. I know thats the case. People trust him. Its tough to turn something around when comps decline. Trying to keep consumers in the stores and coming back. They had to offer steep discounts to get people back . They did that. It should be recalled their Home Department was empty in stores as they remodelled it. Bringing back traffic and customers back in took big effort. You have a price target of 22 dollars. I wonder how confident you feel in this. At this point looks like theyre stemming losses. Stemming losses and getting people back in the doors are two different issues. My price target is actually 11. Its considered to be an ambitious price target. The reason why i put that target on there is if theyre able to make it to the Fourth Quarter, the leverage will be implied to pay the money to the revolver. The more debt theyre able to pay down, the more they can get finances in order and more stock because of the high amount of debt the company put on. 11 is your price target. Are you thinking this is more of a short term trade, get in and out . Where do you think well be from a year from now . Its a 12 month target. They have the tools to succeed in the Fourth Quarter. Overall they need the market to help them out in terms of being able to recapture customers they lost. Its long term because if they work out issues theyve had this year and turn it in and around the Fourth Quarter, theyve set themselves up for a good period in 2014. Havent they just gone back to the past . Wheres the strategy . I dont see any strategy. What would attract you to go in and shop for your child . Theyre in a tough position. They had great advertising and marketing that got people to go in the store and it wasnt delivered. Fool me once. Its a short term trade maybe. Its a long term investment. I dont see it. They lost 60 the last year. I dont see it coming back. I would disagree. The main issue sheer they lost quite a bit largely because they made bad operational mistakes in the previous regime. What theyre trying to do is stabilize the company. If theyre able to bring the comps back by 2015, theyll set themselves up for long term recovery. Its been painful this year with the amount theyve given to shock holders and debt theyve been forced to raise in the marketplace to right their situation and promotional situation. This is necessary pain. Will they be able to invest in the stores . This is not sears and kmart. Theyve spent 1. 4 billion in 2013 if i get the spending correct. Theyve done a lot of work on refreshing the stores in Home Departments. Its been brought up to scratch. Theyve done a tremendous amount of spending this year. The question is will they be able to keep it fresh . Thats depending on 2014 numbers. The Fourth Quarter is very important. The amount of cash they can pull out to keep the stores green, if you will. Thanks for your time. My pleasure. Thanks guys. I was just clued into something. On a true progressive, doesnt want to end qe because of the income disparity. You keep that going but com up with an additional Government Program to deal with the disparity that youre causing from the initial program. Then you have the program plus another program. Thats the way. You dont end the first one causing the disparity. Well come up with liberals first. Then you redistribute after. Should i run as a far left candidate . Well make you secretary of congress. Lets go back to the question of activist investors. You said everybody is scared out there. How is the ceo and board to deal with activist investor that comes knocking saying i own one to five percent of your company. You and your board take the boy scott motto, be prepared. I encourage boards to look and say how would a act vis look at it . Tell us how youd come at our company. One good thing the activist says, none of this hangs together. An example of a company that did it well and still doing it, peps co. They looked ed it and justify billion of profit every year from the snack business and soft drink business. Nelson comes and says lets break it up. Theyve brought it through. The board is with them. They know the mission and strategy. Theyre staying focused and not pulled off course. They know how to take the nancy reagan pledge, just say no. They can do that. Others cant. Why cant they . There are times when activists come with good ideas and sometimes bad ideas. The question becomes if youre a member of management and trying to fend them off in advance whether youre going to start michael dell is living on an 89 day cycle. Youre going to make shorter term decisions knowing that youre going to be up for a vote this the proxy coming. Then the question becomes, if youre actually right in your part of management and youre being attacked on all side, what do you do then . You dont let it get to that situation. Activists have good ideas. Ralph came to home depot, did the right thing. Look at how theyre doing. He did absolutely the right thing. The board doesnt have a long term view. You make the numbers every quarter. I miss one quarter and get beaten up. Keep your costs in line. If you have businesses that arent paying out if look at quarterly management thats not always best long term investment. Anyone in our company that sacrificed long term to make quarterly numbers is gone. If youre trying to play against that, what do you do . Im not worried about carl icahn. If we have big holders, im going to stay to the target. Im not going to wait on an attack. Im going to make sure were aligned for the long term. They need to buy into our long term. If they dont, ive got a bigger problem. I asked this question last week. Is activism a force for good in all of this . Force for evil in all of this . Democracy is messy. It doesnt always work. Overall its a good thing. Where do you land . I have reservations about it. Im afraid its going to pull great corporations off track and get them short term to stop investing long term. If theyre serious about running companies, look what eddie did for sears, what happened in jcpenney. The flip side is you talk about entrenched boards of 60, 70s, 80s. How to move them out. How do you keep the balance . We need to think about advance. Ceos are quaking in their boots. Your advice is dont. Stay true to yourself . Get in there and do dont wait for activists to show up. Take the action now. Do it. If youve got weak businesses, spin them off. Act now in advance. Have your advisors lined up. You know who they are. Those are things you should do. Trim your costs. Thats the problem with proctor. They waited until they got the activists on top of them. They shouldnt have done that. I guess we could go too far. I go back to before it became popular. At that point were ceos too entrenched too boys club you or not enough . I say unequivalent. They were too entrenched. Thats because investors they had the boards lined up. We were airing on the side of ceos being too entrenched. Maybe its gone too far. You were a ceo. I think you still carry that around with you. Right . Because i say prior to that. Ceos didnt have to answer to anyone. They were almost imperial. Theyre chairman. We dont split the two up. Activists did you a favor. At least now people realize ceos arent god. We have the best generation of ceos in this country weve ever had. I can name names and tell you weve got the best generation of ceos. These guys are not entrenched i want to make sure they stay to course. The ones i worry about are the ones that play short term and destroy companies. Ive seen it happen where they dont do their jobs. Joe, why would you stay 14 years . Weve all got an example of a ceo who was entrenched and had the board in his pocket. As a result the stock never moved and shareholders were suffering. Move on. You cant if the guy is playing golf every weekend. The board has got to step up. Okay . Bill george is our guest host. Hes with us the rest of the morning. When we come back, we have breaking economic numbers. October sales set to hit at 8 30 eastern time. Well bring you numbers and instant reaction right after this. Weve completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies. To get a list of equity options. Evaluate them with our p l calculator. And execute faster with our more intuitive trade ticket. Im greg stevens, and i helped create fidelitys options platform. Its one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. Now get 200 free trades when you open an account. Customer erin swenson ordered shoes from us online but they didnt fit. Customers not happy, im not happy. Sales go down, im not happy. Merch comes back, im not happy. Use ups. They make returns easy. Unhappy customer becomes happy customer. Then, repeat customer. Easy returns, im happy. Repeat customers, im happy. Sales go up, im happy. I ordered another pair. Im happy. both im happy. Im happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy happy. I love logistics. Welcome back to squawk box you were looking at a live shot of dc. Seconds away from cpi and retail sales. Weve got rick here. Sales up four tenths of 1 headline is better than expected. X auto 2 up. Auto and gas up three tenths. This number isnt bad. Last month minus one tenth headline stands at 0. Next numbers, control gas group shifted one tenths up three tenths. Better than expected. Inflation down one tenth on headline cpi. Theres no inflation whatsoever. If you look at dow one tenth, last time up two tenths, no revisions. Pull out all important food and energy, up one tenth as expected. Year over year exactly what we were looking for. Up 1 year over year on headline. Thats versus 1. 2 as expected. If you look at ex food and energy, maybe a more accurate gauge if you believe the see series of numbers inlightens you. 1. 7 as expected. Whats the after math . Lets see. We have the preopening dow up a nick at 11. Interest rates up a basis point 2. 72 to 2. 73. I dont know this changes the dynamic. It tells me one thing for sure, were not in crisis anymore. It might not be what people want but not in crisis mode. Mr. Bernanke and mrs. Yellen. I wish we had a reaction box from steve leaseman watching during the report. He redeemed himself. Steve didnt initially like the comment about there is no inflation. Steve says there is no inflation. That was your comment. I didnt understand if it was sarcastic or realistic or what . Is whirly bird janet used yet . In december, we could taper 85 billion. Blow it out. All at once. What do you think . I have no idea. I think our taper and fed programs are a lot like fax policy in france right now. Lovely. Steve, you want to take that on . I want to talk about the retail sales numbers. We spent less at the gas pump. I dont want to do it. I know. I heard you say serenity now. Im focused on the data. Happy. Here we go. We spent less money at gasoline station because we had a decline on prices. We spent it on sweaters. 1. 4 increase on clothing. We had a decline in vehicles related to the Labor Day Calendar et cetera. Food and beverage up 1. 3 . Consumer may be healthier than we thought. Part that feeds in, im wondering perhaps we get a revision higher in the gdp estimates for Fourth Quarter. There does not appear to be inflation in measured numbers we follow here. We remain the feds metrics for where they want inflation to be. 1 year over year on items. Take out all important food and energy, up 1. 7 . Weve been basically rounding down to 01 or up to 02 for quite a few months. Thats where inflation is. Did you say sweater on purpose . You know sorkins sweater. I havent broken out the sweaters this year yet. I own new sweaters that ill break out. It hasnt been that cold. It is now. Im trying to youthen myself. Euthanize . Im going to be with you. No. Youre going to wear a sweater . You wear one and ill wear one. Ill call you in the morning and we can coordinate colors. What also reminds me of sign field. I would never lend you a sweater. You would stretch out the neck with that head of yours. Remember hes going into the 12 step program and wont apologize to george for saying that. I would not lend you a sweater. I tell you that much. What do you think . Ill call you and well color coordinate. I dont have a sweater. Well go shopping together. How about that . Weve got no time. Now you want to argue . What are you saying . He wants to understand what youre saying. It was not understanding. Are you say there isnt or is an inflation problem . If you look at inflation or ppi level im not the tallest guy in the world. If you have a seven foot basketball player and seven months later ticks down a little bit, it looks down. Its still much taller than the average person. I think the person is that were looking at an index in terms of percentage change. We forget that these indexes were at all time highs. We look at monthly changes. Thats my read. Plus i think that id rather calculate the way we did in re began years make it multiples higher. Im going to translate in a way less understandable for people. Hes talking about an interesting concept called price level versus the price change. Thats what rick is talking about. Theres an interesting argument about that. The debate is among economists, in fed policy. Should fed target a price level or change in the price . Thats what hes talking about. He has an argument there worth discussing. We had a pump up in price level. Should the fed target even lower inflation as in deflation to get back to that price level . Interesting idea. On that note, going to leave it there. Thank you. Everyone play along nicely. Okay. When we come back, well unveil the redesigned chevy colorado life from the la auto show. First, the ceo of a Liquor Company dispelling rumors he plans to buy a rival despite numbers on their market shares. Well be right back. You really love, what would you do . [ woman ] id be a writer. [ man ] id be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] id be an architect. What if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you . When you think about it, isnt that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love . Welcome back everybody. The ceo says his company will make its own bourbon and doesnt need beam. Theyve been seen as an attractive target to take on scotch brands. Diageo says it will compete for the ultra premium end of the bourbon market with the launch of two brands. Orphan barrel and blade and bow. When we come back, we head to the la auto show. The president of gm north america unveils the new designed chevy colorado. Squawk box will be right back. The ocean gets warmer. The peruvian anchovy harvest suffers. It raises the price of fishmeal, cattle feed and beef. Bny mellon turns insights like these into powerful investment strategies. For a university endowment. It funds a marine biologist. Who studies the peruvian anchovy. Invested in the world. Bny mellon. Afghanistan in 2009. On the u. S. S. Saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once its earned, usaa Auto Insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaas commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. Begin your legacy. Get an Auto Insurance quote. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. It is time for super mobile cnbc. Breaking news you . Of course. Theres more. Now access live cnbc tv with your hands on iphone, ipad. Its cnbc on demand. Online and away. Welcome back to squawk box now. Lets get to phil at the auto show. Weve played every Country Music song that has anything to do with a truck. As a former country dj, i appreciate that. Behind us is the new chevy colorado, your new mid size truck, goes to showrooms taowars the end of next year. Why trucks and why now. Theres risk in hit which is exciting for us. We went out of the market a few years back with the coloradcolo. This version for chevrolet is aimed for the west coast. It has a different face than the sill very ra dough. Were two pounds lighter than the competition today. If you look at this truck here, were bringing out something 900 to 1000 pounds lighter. Prieting from the operating cost. The first vehicle i got into was the new cadillac elr. I had the chance to drive it. Youve got that rolling to showrooms next year. Two things stand out. A lot of people talk about how much demand is out there for the electric vehicle cadillac. What do you think about that . Well see. What we have is something compelling from the handcrafted standpoint. The integration safety and range and fun to drive factor is different than the volt. I picked up my yesterday before i came out here. Its spectacular. Youre charging 76,000 for this. A lot of people look at this and say 76,000 for a caddy shell wrapped around a chevy bolt. Is it worth it . I think it is. Its the next generation of our technology. We use the battery, more performance and fund to drive than the bolt was. Pure chevrolet value and operating cost. This is a different formula of elegance and tile. It punctuates the luxury brand. Copy no one. Andrew has a question for you. Great to see you. What do you make of the investigation going on with tesla. Do you think batteries are more dangerous than traditional vehicles . I could give commentary on competition around this. Im not going to do that. Ill answer the question around batteries versus safety. Look at the volt. If volt is something we run through the center of the car. Part of the structure we armor with everything weve got. Weve never had an incident with any of those cars. Le millions of miles put on it. Millions of saved. Any time you store energy in a tank or car, battery or gasoline, theres inherit risks. Its up to us as manufactures to provide those cars and safety elements that provide protection no matter what stored energy is on the car. Thats what weve done with elr and volt. Were proud of that. I want to compliment you on what gm is doing to retool the whole product line to make better cars and trucks. I personally experience had the. My question is this, how much further can you go on the energy front . Are you going much more heavily to cng and other things to change the energy mix . Were doing all of that a. I comepliment the energy for th United States and what were doing. Were introducing cng on a fleet basis. We put in the first refuelling station in texas. Were building off that basis. Youre going to see retail things with the impala. Were exploring aggressively here. Thats exciting given our Energy Reserves in the United States that are on tap. Lots of potential. Were excited about it. One last question for you. Do you think the big fleet owners could ucoyo convert like and u big trucks on the road like this . I do. We look at a high deliver ri system in the car to deliver to the engine. The cost of entry into that is r relatively low. I do see that happening and expanding. You had a Board Meeting yesterday. I know youre not talking about the future with how long hes at general motors. At some point hes going to step a side. How much discussion is there about the production of the company . I wish i could answer that. I will not speculate. I gave an update on products and launches. It was interested. It was a fun day for us. I cant speculate. Dan is a wonderful man and has done a corner but its not up to me, its up to the board and dan. Those are personal decisions as well. So great man. Done a great job for our company and people like me that have been around for a long time really appreciate that. Mark royce, head of gm north america. A lot of talk about electric but these guys have decided lets go against the tide and talk a little bit about trucks. Back to you. Just ordered up three or four more where i grew up, we drove trucks. Hes driving his fathers old truck, he leaves it on the station his father had on. When you didnt think of. David allen poe . I dont know that. I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison and i went to pick her up in the rain my friend said he had written the perfect country song and i said he didnt because it didnt have drunk, mama and truck. Your eyes are totally glazed over. We are losing share big time because of dan ackerman and mulally. Thats the big change. Leadership has made the difference, theyre focusing on car design instead of finance. When we come back, jcpenney among the stocks to watch this morning. Well check in with jim cramer at the New York Stock Exchange and get his thoughts on this. Squawk will be right back. Tdd 18003452550 at schwab, were here to help tdd 18003452550 turn inspiration into action. Tdd 18003452550 we have intuitive platforms tdd 18003452550 to help you discover whats trending. Tdd 18003452550 and seasoned market experts to help sharpen your instincts. Tdd 18003452550 so you can take charge tdd 18003452550 of your trading. Welcome back, everybody. Lets get back to the New York Stock Exchange. Jim cramer is joining us. Jcpenney, the stock initially sold off. It has since come back. I wonder are you a believer in this or not . Im a believer it can stay alive. Were going to have to probably stop talking about it. If it stays alive, its no big deal. Doesnt have hedge funds anymore. Its okay. There are so many better stocks to talk about. If this is the quarter they said were not going out of business, so you can just let gus down our thing like we used to, its going to get kohlslike status soon. That is a great, great take and probably the smartest thing ive heard all morning about this stock. Its there, it not going away. Its not necessarily something youre going to jump on. Terry lundgren delivered an amazing quarter. Womens apparel and mens apparel were strong but pvh had an incredibly strong relationship with the previous guy and i think that relationship is continuing, pvh has been down. If you really think jc pennys around, you want to buy some of the companies supplying them because you know the inventory is morning. How about lowes . My Charitable Trust owns lowes. You have to say this one is up, it looks like theyre not outexecuting home depot. At the same time i think there were many people who believed that lowes would ascend home depot and that turned out not to be the case. Coming up, well get the last word from our guest host bill george. And coming up, an interview with ford order evp and president of the americas. [ bagpipes and drums playing over ] [ music transitions to rock ] make it happen with the allnew fidelity active trader pro. Its one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. Get 200 free trades when you open an account. [ male announcer ] 1. 21 gigawatts. Today, thats easy. Ge is revolutionizing power. Supercharging turbines with advanced hardware and innovative software. Using data predictively to help power entire cities. So the turbines of today. Will power us all. Into the future. Time now for the last word with our guest host bill george. The last word today is energy. Go. The hottest thing right now is energy technology. Its not only redede reducing t amount of co 2 in the atmosphere but its also putting america in the drivers seat. This has a long run if we can let keystone and the oil company work and we have a great opportunity become more competitive visa vee tee visa of the world. Squawk on the street begins right now. I really want to love somebody, i really want to dance the night away good wednesday morning, welcome to squawk on the street. Im Carl Quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber at the New York Stock Exchange. Bernanke gave dovish comments last night at the Economic Club of washington. Well talk about that and the flurry of earnings out today. 10year yield may see some action