Larry fink talking about the fed and the markets yesterday. The Federal Reserve is actually causing more disorientation in the marketplace, because theyre purchasing more than is being created by the treasury. And so i think they should get it over with, move on. I dont think it will be disruptive to the marketplace. Since they started talking about tapering, rates are down 75 basis points. That tells me they have not been aggressive enough. Thats very interesting. Beyond the minutes well be speaking to the fed, well be hear something other things this afternoon as joe mention. We do have new york fed president bill dudley. Thats coming up at 10 00 eastern time. Later this morning, janet yellen will deliver the ny kruu commencement address at yankee stadium. Stanley fischers nomination to be vice chairman of the fed has cleared a key procedural hurdle. Fischer is widely expected to win confirmation. Andrew. News this morning about deals. A new study facing hostile m a activity has reached a sevenyear high. Research firm dealogic saying yeartoyear hostile activity now standing at more than 273 billion. That number was only about 71 billion. The very active m a market is of course leading some to worry. Worrying about whether a bubble could be forming. Also in m a news, google is looking to go an a foreign shopping spree. The company detailing International Expansion plans in response to recent questions from the nec. They are setting aside 20 billion todays 30 billion for acquisition of foreign companies. The company adds it could spend about 4 billion buying offices and data centers outside the country. The other question, joe, is what you dont know what these documents is how tax related that investment might be. Meaning is that money already offshore, therefore, were deciding were keeping it offshore and thats why were going to make those acquisiti acquisitions. We heard cisco and other Tech Companies talk about that. We never did the postmortem one on pfizer. May 26th. Still watching my clock. Wouldnt it remind you of texas saying to toyota, no, dont come here. Its a peculiar thing. They opted, though, they opted for the worry about losing jobs overrode 1 billion of extra tax revenue. Unclear its actually the uk. It may be the price. It might be the bill ackman entrenched management of astrazeneca. Could be. The only time that really happened was with alligan. The only time in history. Larry fink that was interesting. Hes saying they should get out of qe entirely. They havent been tapering fast enough. What i didnt realize, an interesting point, theyre buying more than it being printed. Yes. Were down 75 basis points. They should have removed it more quickly. Then i heard, you know, esther is a name you dont hear a lot. Biblical name. My great grandmother is esther. Its i beautiful biblical name. I had two great grandmothers, esther and a ruth. Im long esther. Five years that will be a popular name . Have you seen some of the most popular names theyve come up with . People dont think that much. Britney spears, jaden or something. One of my little guys, we have a max. You have a lot of maxes right now . I love max. But, yeah, everybody is a max. I dont know any other maxes. Our class theres three maxes. John kerry talks about maxisms. Which is class to marxisms. If were wrong about climate change, what difference does it make, said john kerry. Lets see. It was funny. We can spend trillions of dollars trying to do something we cant really do anything about that slows economic growth, hurts job production, less Economic Opportunity for graduates and hurt had s the worlds poor. He didnt say that. Thats a quote. Thats not bad if we spend trillions of dollars . Its always funny. You were right in the middle of this. Goldman sachs. I apologize. No, no. I want to tell everybody what Goldman Sachs is doing. We talked about this before, six or eight months ago now. Goldman sachs starting a formal process to sell its metals warehousing business. Goldman bought the unit for 550 million four years ago. The move to shed the operation follows regulatory and political pressure. You might recall a wall street journal frontpage story about aluminum. A little more class with aluminum. You give me grief for what is it that i say . I cant pronounce anything. Vigilante. Youre going to go with aluminum . Goldman is getting out of the business. Jpmorgan is getting out of that business. Everybody is going to try to get out of that business. This is from the midwest. Of course i say aunt. What about vase. You gave your awn the a flower vase. A vase. Youd say aunt a flower vase . Aunt, yes. That is snooty. Is that snooty . Im reading the new york post. I cant feel that snooty. The shoe fits. Citigroup wants to increase its market share in the Mortgage Market. The ceo of city mortgage says the firm could focus on buying home loans that other firms have made. Other lenders make. She says that the bank will be extremely careful about the quality of the loans that will make. Speaking of housing, the head of the Mortgage Bankers association will join us first on squawk at 6 50 eastern with the latest Weekly Mortgage application data and more of these what would i call it . Our cast of characters that come on all talking about housing being the most important thing to watch. The crazy thing is, with rates being so low, you wonder where the Housing Market would be if rates climbed to 3. 5 , 4 . People like paulson say people see rates going up, i better get it now. There were other people who said it was an inventory issue. Other people say there are cash buyers, investment buyers are crowding out people who want to live there. It rose the prices too quickly. Speaking of that business, los reported. Lowes reported. The home improfit retail reported 61 cents a share, a penny above but unlike home depot which was a penny below, they beat expectations. Sales just like home depot were below statements. Intuit posting betterthanexpected earnings after the close on Strong Demand for its tax prep software. What did geithner use . Turbo tax. Is that ab intuit product . Thats what i think of when i say intuit. He was the treasury secretary. He messed up his taxes. That should have been a clue. That might have raised a few red flags. Only because hes the only treasury secretary who did his own taxes. Whos frankly poor enough to do his own taxes using turbo tax, probably in recent history. That to me tells me we have too complicated of a tax code. I think there are also question questions. He was in the imf. He was out of the country, moving back to the country. If you have someone come in who has all this experience in the private sector succeeding, why would you want him running American Business . Theres a story today like a paulson, a robert rubin . You think its a bad idea . No. Those are the guys you want. Do you see whos becoming success if the in the private secretarier . Did you see the bernanke story . Yes, its in the New York Times. How did i miss it. Private sector guy, hes making a lot of money doing his speeches as you would imagine. He did this dinner where david tepper says, he gave out all this stuff, i didnt realize what he was saying at the time so i didnt do a great trade. I heard this. He misinterpreted it. For bernanke to make money right now thats fine. Totally fine. The dollars that hes earning now are worth half of what they were before he took over. Where is that picture . You did not show me that i showed you the picture of katy perry and madonna. Was that a post or the daily news . In the new york post. I cant find it. I will share it with you. You did not point out the New York Times piece on bernanke first thing in the morning but you felt it necessary to point this piece out. Show the camera. We were just noticing. This is a business network. You dont mention to me the bernanke piece and you say, did you check this out, joe . These women are unbelievable entrepreneurs. They are. Is that katy perry and madonna. Thats cool. Did they kiss . I dont know. I dont know. Who was it that Britney Spears and madonna did the kiss first. Katy perry has the i kissed a girl song. I have a selfie with her, too. Not a selfie. Someone took it. Shes draped all over me. Its embarrassing for her. Following up on the results of super tuesday voting. John harwood joins us right now from washington. What . Holy cow, two days a in row, wow the headline, becky, the tea party as an independent movement is officially out of gas. They lost all the elections yesterday. Mitch mcdonnell easily beat his primary opponent, matt beven. By 27 points or something. If youre the Senate Minority leader youd rather not have a primary that gets 35 of the vote. Nevertheless, Mitch Mcconnell won easily. In georgia, the more conservative candidates within the Republican Party all trailed and the two leaders who go to a runoff in july are david purdue, a businessman, jack kingston, a congressman. That is the result the republicans wanted in george yornl. They got the nominee they wanted in the state of oregon. Monica wehbe beat an incumbent. John boehner easily defeated his tea party challenger. This is what the republican establishment wanted. This is what the chamber of commerce want. They sent out a note, flexing their muscles saying they exerted a significant influence over these outcomes. So republicans are bringing the best gave theyve got to attempt to win back the the senate in the fall. Did this change how john boehner behaves . Has this emboldened him . Thats an interesting question. I dont know the answer. It might encourage him in that direction. Maybe it emboldens him to do something on immigration. On the other hand you have eric cantor, his number two in the house whos been saying we have a good thing going. Why mess it up, why divide the party . Why wake up conservatives and get them to expand the potential that they wont turn out and vote in the fall when we have a potential for a good election. Im not sure how thats going to cut. My guess is they will not move on immigration, the one big outstanding question in this congress. If congress doesnt move on immigration, that basically means they done the move on anything, right . Correct. Theyre not moving on anything else, thats for sure. Unless you get Unexpected Development on minimum wage. One of the things thats been lurking in the background is minimum wage. Its something that republicans in the past when they founded political politically expedient, theyve given in. They made a deal with bill clinton on this in 1986. As of now, i think the most likely result is status quo, both sides sort of theyve got their weapons and theyre going to be firing from here till november. When you talk about their weapons, the democrats are going to use minimum wage and inequality and republicans will use the Affordable Care act . Obamacare . Exactly. Democrats have minimum wage. They have income inequality, equal pay for women. We have voting rights, the immigration bill on the republican side theyve got obamacare. Theyve got the general unpopularity of the president whos in the low 40s. They have the benghazi thing. The investigation which fires up a lot of their bass, darrell issa still hammering away at the irs with hearings on the hill. Memorial day is coming up. They do. They havent even talked about this. Thats more of a bipartisan thing. I would hope so. This is like fumbling, bumbling along with every Single Department has got problems with no one overseeing whats going on. I just happened to see this. Did you see emergency room visits are up or at least flat . That was supposed to be something that was taken out. Theres a huge shortage of primary care physicians. So many people are trying to get an appointment because they need a primary care physician. They cant get an appointment, they are going to the emergency room. Shortage of primary care physicians are something well have to deal with in a lot of places. Do they continue . For states as well. A lot of states have scope of practice laws which limit what nurses can do and some of that is likely to change as a result of these pressures. You look at what happened at the v. A. And i dont think that these people are evil or trying to do bad things. They are faced with what its like with governmentrun health care where the supply is much lower than the demand for the services. Theres no way to make appointments that cant be kept. Theyre like how are we going to do this . This is welcome to the future of obamacare. Welcome to governmentrun health care. Well, hold on a second. The v. A. s had problems for a long time. People always used to say look at the way the v. A. Runs. Look how well that is run. People say its so much smaller than a single payor system in the whole country. Its dealt with the same thing, a lot of veterans coming back recently, too. Its very, very if you dont take care of those people theres unique challenges with regard to the fact we have so many people coming back from two wars. Its a problem. Its been a problem for a long time. Its going to be a front burner issue. It looks systemic. One point, you said some states would be pushed to loosen up and allow nurses to do more things. What are some of the duties . Is this a good thing . Because nurses should be allowed to do things like take more blood tests or is this a bad thi thing . I think its a good thing. I was talking to gale wolenski, she said one of the things that has to happen, where they have restrictive laws, that needs to loosen up because were going to be for the reason joe just articulated, were going to be short of primary care doctors. We go to nurse practitioners. Theres a lot of things they can do in new york and new jersey that they cant do in texas and mississippi. Thats one of the things youll see pop up in legislatures. What did you do to johnny quade . It was 94, nationals. We were so angry about losing that 1inning game the night before, we jumped all over that dude. He has a 1. 85 e. R. A. Not equal rights amendment. You had a bumper sticker, e. R. A. Now. Give me the max potential for the reds. I dont know enough about their team this year. You know what, were consistently four games below. When youre rebuilding, you lack at things like our Center Fielder whos so great, Billy Hamilton guy, and fast. Cost us the game the night before. Im like hillary describing her secretary of state tenure. It was a relay race. I didnt do much but hopefully the team will be better. Nats can go the different. I cant believe you got that in there. Im working all the way. Something newsworthy . Yes. Real quick news unrelgted. The former head of the China Investment banking unit of jpmorgan was just arrested as part of the sons and daughters. Oh, youre kidding. Investigation by the chinese. By the chinese. His name is fang fang, hes 48 years old. I remember that guy. Looks like he was involved in this everbright ipo. When we come back from the break, well talk more about that. Is this quid pro quo . Are they mad at us now . This is part of the sons and daughters investigation. With all this other stuff, now that were calling them spies . Well figure that out when we come back. I like fang fang. Thats kind of cool, right . Yes. The fbis new Marijuana Policy could be going up in smoke. Lowes reporting just moments ago. And what is target going to say today after getting rid of people . I would expect a contingency but who knows. The fbis no tolerance policy could be hampering efforts to fight cybercrime. Fbi director james comey speaking at the White Collar Crime institute earlier this week. Is that where you learn how to do White Collar Crime . I didnt know there was a is that where the big graduates go right to goldman on an investment bank. You go straight there. Like the phi beta capa. He said finding the best hacker recruits has been a challenge. Ive got to hire a great work force to keep pace with the criminals. And im competing with a lot of better paying private sector entities for those kids. And some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview with the fbi. Weve got to figure out weve got to figure out how to deal with that. Knowing comey, i mean, i give him a carte blanche. Hes so good. For ten years ive known him. Hes going to be hes great. Hes like 8 feet tall. Congress has authorized the agency to add 2,000 recruits mostly to fight cybercrime. We cant find anyone that knows about computers that doesnt get high, basically, i think theyre saying. If you smoked pot in the last three years i didnt think you could ever have smoked pot. Theyre trying to a memend the policy. I think i can apply now. Obviously i never inhaled or exhaled, kids. Ones that could be watching. Is this me or you . I believe it is becky. This is an interesting story. A middle school in rhode island has canceled its honors night. School administrators are citing the exclusive nature of the annual event. Im totally with this. Totally agree with this. Instead of the traditional celebration, students will be honored during teambased ceremonies. It will afford us the opportunity to celebrate the individual and collective success of all students and their effort. Yes, thank you. Their progress and excellence. You want to give people who are working harder and studying more, you want to give them different grades than other people . You dont want everyone to feel good about themselves and be equal . However are you going to talk over that strong man. You talk the talk and walk the walk but when push comes to shove, you want to make people different and grade them meritocracy. Its a word. What a concept. When i was talking about Goldman Sachs i was channeling occupy wall street idiot. I was not saying where are you on this . Youre okay with this . No, im not okay with this. Go to harvard sometime and say, listen, all you people that got as on that paper and all you paper that got cs, does it really matter, youre all going to get bs. See if these kids dont understand about earned success. C students might be okay with that. Fairness is when you get rewarded for what youve earned. I agree. Not fair outcome. On this i really agree. Can you imagine this . Look whats been happening with the commencement speeches. Even the guy from berkeley couldnt come here and he got y