Thank you becky one of the key Decision Makers now defending a decision to launch a program. The launch had now been moved in the right direction and said Market Reaction was encouraging thus far and next big question a major election in greece this weekend. Back in the United States the focus is on earnings and economic data. On the agenda heres whats happening. Quarterly results from General Electric and mcdonalds before the bell but two data points coming up at 10 00 eastern time. Existing home sales and leading economic indicators. Stock futures at this hour dow opening up 5 points higher. S p 500. Nasdaq up about a point. Now to todays top stories. Succession in audi arabwe saudi arabia. Brother to brother. These are the sons of the original king of saudi arabia. The unspoken question is what is next for saudi arabia. Is this the last brother. Yes it is. King salman. Hes a half brother. Hes 70. Hes in his 70s. Thats pretty young at this point. I know that now. When we were talking about what comes next whats going to be very interesting is the new crowned prince. He is actually the Younger Generation. Hes in his late 40s. So this is what were talking about in terms of the age difference but is there going to be a change in the progress of saudi arabia. Most people dont think any progress has been made but if you look deeper youll see that King Abdullah was the great reformer. He was able to bring in jobs and even now to bring the stock market to such a place that theyll open it to foreign incelestement for the first time ever. He changed saudi arabia in a big way but its going to be the crowned prince that is going to change things because we know that king salman isnt in the best of health. I like when you read he was in his 90s, somewhere, like nobody knows i guess. Right. But 90s means one thing. Was he involved for the last five years in the daytoday operations . Very much so. He was. Very very much so. But theres other people behind the scenes. Theres a lot of people behind the scenes but this man had an agenda for saudi arabia unlike what they had seen since the beginning and he was racing against the clock. You have a younger population there and the fact that their entire society is based on the price of oil and he knew if he didnt act quickly to make sure that young people were educated and the labor force was able to give them jobs he would have a major problem and thats something weve seen in the last few weeks. Paris with the situation there, he knew this would be a problem if it wasnt taken care of. Alabama they people there do get stipens just from oil. Theyre not not taken care of but he was loved and known as being a benevolent ruler. Will you stay . Thank you. Joining us from istanbul Richard Engle in davos. I feel a little more worthy of tossing to richard now that Im International as well. Good morning richard. Good to talk to you. I hope youre enjoying davos. Very much although its cold today. So yes obviously the big story right now is the transition that is underway in saudi arabia with the new King King Salman and the burial of King Abdullah which is supposed to take place in about an hour. Burials are very quick and usually within hours of the kings death. Hes buried in a simple grave marked with a stone. Not an elaborate procedure at all which is in adherence with the religious traditions. They are expressing continuity. Theyre not expecting major changes in policy. Oil policy security policy. The new king is wellknown. He was governor for about 50 years. He himself is 89 years old. So this is not like were getting an unknown quantity to come uproot saudi society. Theyre talking about managing this transition and making it as smooth as possible and for a lot daytoday life what it was yesterday and what it will be next week wont be impacted at all. Thank you richard. We have such a long delay i dont know if its worth while trying to keep you in the conversation here richard. Its impossible you talk over each other but in the near term what does this mean in terms of oil. They want that stability. Theres no value in changing the current policy. In a few years theyll be just fine and they all understand this and are behind the policy. This is a top down society. Everything has to come from the ruler. We understand he has been the oil minister for years now but it all comes from the king and when things are frozing, for example in the next three days of mourning and if king salmams health were to worsen. You have the two top Decision Makers that may or may not be in the gail. I dont see any changes in the oil policy any time soon. Joining us now is bill spindle. Hes the middle east bureau chief and the last several years have been a time of great upheaval throughout the middle east. The arab spring came to much of the region but not saudi arabia. They used a lot of oil money to make sure they tamp down any potential oil rising right there. How willing are the people to kind of ride this out . Do you foresee changes with this succession . What were seeing both yesterday and again quite dramatically today is the saudis moving swiftly to deal with any sort of uncertainty. Yesterdays decision sort of left open the question or brought to the fore the question of whether the next generation would step up and when the next generation would step up and that introduced an element of uncertainty that the saudi system doesnt deal with well and then today they very quickly dealt with that by appointing a prominent member of the Younger Generation to be the deputy crowned prince. That puts him in line of succession and puts him above all his peers at the Second Generation level and thats a really dramatic move today thats really intended to put a damper on any sort of uncertainty in the situation to make clear that the royal family is determined to prove they can get through this in their usual steady calm way despite speculation about how this works. And members of the royal family are loath to question the next generation or whats coming next but in terms of u. S. Foreign policy we have seen such a division in the goals of the u. S. And saudi arabia over the last decade or so do you foresee changes in the coming days . I dont really. I think that the saudis King Abdullah despite whatever disagreements theyve had with the u. S. And they had a lot of disagreements with the u. S. Recently, they worked hard to keep those out of the core security relationship between the saw disand the u. S. The terrorism relationship. Those are really things that are at the core of that relationship and not only those not come into question the last couple of days but again the appointment of mohammed as the crowned prince hes closest to the u. S. And worked hard and made his name and viscerating al qaeda and hes a real favorite of the u. S. I think its a real statement that that will remain a center for both of those countries. Hey, bill i remember right at the beginning of the arab spring as it went from state to state some people said that the saudis would be nervous that the same thing can happen there. I remember we asked him about that and he said no the saudi people they love the royal family and some people said well some of that is because theyre not exactly bought but they are certainly taken care of pretty well and the saudis did weather that storm. I dont know where it stands but you know better than i do. Its an interesting thing because this does raise the question of what about the president of egypt. Many saudis i have spoken to are ready to see a more active role from egypt. Theyre ready to see a more active role and this raises the question, are we going to see egypt take the bigger role in what happens in middle east policy going forward. But this wont imboldened the people of saudi arabia. I would say so. Its an interesting thing because you have about 20 of the population who are modern educated in the west. Theyre working in the country. Theyre involved in the political sphere in that sense but the rest of the population is conservative and religious and they have been following King Abdullah like a father figure. Thats how they see the king. I wouldnt say any unrest. Theres no generational distinction . They see him as a benevolent father. This is an arab society and in an arab society its a maternalistic society. All right. Hadley is going to stay and bill is going to leave. Well bring in our last remaining oil expert. How will the death of King Abdullah impact the oil market . John youre back in vogue. He is back at our global headquaters. Is there any reason to think, john, that the recently deceased king was one of the individuals that said im going to teach these frakers a lesson and will that continue to be something that the audis was that one of the rationals and will that continue . Absolutely. This was their brain child. They brought it to the last opec meeting and fought back opposition from iran and venezuela and others and said we have done this before. We did it in 98 and well do it again and thats whats happening. I dont see any change in the shortterm. They want to break the back of the frakckers here before they retighten their grip on the Global Supply. Things go downhill from here for us with King Abdullahs death. The next generation and others while they talk a good game and a lot of happy talk toward the u. S. And what they want what they want is a Sustainable Oil price, a higher one than we could benefit from and would work to do that. Nobody knows where oil is going to go but 46. 90 with the death of king at saudi arabia. It looked heavy for a long time when it wouldnt move in the 90s and now it can barely get back to 47 on this. It seems like the supplydemand dynamics are what they are. Well right now yes, we have this oversupply. Yesterday in the weekly inventory report we saw another massive inventory. Keeping a lid on whats happening here. This is the saudi play book. This is what they wanted to happen. Its almost as if the futures market here we spiked a dollar on the news to pay homage to the kick and well move to the reality on the ground in the near term future. Thats lower prices. Thats why i continue to target at least 33 if not lower for a time. They want to shake things up in the Global Supply chain. Let me ask you though youre saying that things arent going to change immediately but if youre in a position if saudi was in a position with the Third Generation being the ones in power you think they would not go along with the current policy . They would be there to reign in some of the production . Theyre playing long ball. Theyre totally on board with whats kurnly going on but down the road given what all is going on this civil this religious civil war were all witnessing and what theyre trying to do as well if you look at some of the reporting around the kings death youre reminded about wiki leaks about him urging Bush Administration to make an attack on iran as he said to cutoff the head of the snake. So there is no love lost there and theres a lot more ahead of us in terms of what saudi interests are going to be including how they see the arab worldcoming along. They were part of helping to overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood in egypt. They spent hundreds of billions to keep the peace at home as you were discussing a few minutes ago. So i think the next generation will be very much about looking out for their own selfinterests which you cant blame them for but it wont be the happy u. S. Interests we have come to enjoy. All right. Long ball. Thats baseball. I was going to say underinflated or overinflated balls but i think that was a baseball anlage. Not a football anlage. That news even made it all the way over here to davos. Do you know who i talked to about that last night . Joe montana. He probably liked them underinflated too. He said everybody likes the balls a certain way. He said its a little odd that 11 of the 12 balls were underinflated underinflated. He also said the colts and ravens caught them too. But like brady said yesterday its not isis and its not oil. Do you believe they cant feel it though . They all claim they have no idea. But wouldnt the other offense know it. You use different balls. Each team brings 12 different balls. Check them at the beginning. And montana said its because every quarterback has a different feel they like so they allow them a little bit of leeway. For awhile they came right out of the box and nobody could hold them. The officials check them at the beginning of the game. When they checked then at the end that was the difference. Its ridiculous they dont mix them up. Thank you hadley for being here. Good to see you on set. Normally we have a delay when we talk. Becky catches up with mary bara and check out some of our news makers on the agenda. Kyle bass Lloyd Blackfein and jack lew still ahead. When we return live from the World Economic forum in the beautiful swiss alps. Ive been called a control freak. I like to think of myself as more of a control. Enthusiast. Mmm, a perfect 177degrees. And thats why this road warrior rents from national. I can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. And i dont have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. And i dont. And national lets me choose any car in the aisle. Control. Its so, whats the word . Sexy. Go national. Go like a pro. According to the faa which u. S. Airport had the most flight arrivals and departures last year . Chicago Ohare International followed by atlanta and dallas ft. Worth. It returns it into clean water, electricity and ash. First showed you that video a coup of weeks ago. Bill gates demonstrating confidence in a new technology that turns waste into drinking water. Now hes challenging jimmy fallon to a taste test. Heres whats followed. [ applause ] im pretty confident that that was this was the bottled water. Well, that was rigged. It was all poop water. That was both poop water. Absolutely. Youre unbelievable bill gates. I cant believe you did that to me. Gosh really that was it. But thats as pure as any water youve ever had. It tasted really good. That was good poop. Fiji water. The machine that changes waste into water is called an omni processor. Its the latest project of the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Theyre here. I just saw him talking to al gore in the hallway. Were teaming one facebook to bring you face to face with influential thinkers. Today well sit down with Melinda Gates and sheryl sandberg. Earlier this morning i caught up with gm ceo mary bara. Well be investing in technology and over the horizon well want to take advantage and be able to offer the vehicles that customers want with this environment but theres a lot of uncertainty as everyone knows so our agenda doesnt change and well look to provide customer what is they want. When we talk to mike jackson its like a whistle, when gas prices come down they want to come in and buy big cars and trucks. In general its a shift but they look at it. The average length of ownership of a car is going up so theyre going to look at it over the longterm but it provides disposable system that they may be able to buy a richer vehicle. Weve seen a lot of volatility in marketing. The dollar is strengthening, day by day, sometimes hour by hour especially when you look at what the ecb just did. What does the stronger dollar mean to you and how worried are you about what may happen later this year. Our philosophy is build where we sell. Were looking to make sure we have the right globalization. We have theres wind falls and theres, you know challenges for others so we continue to execute that strategy and well continue to look at it. When Consumer Confidence gets rocked youre some of the fist to see it right . We are. Over the last couple of years as the global influences have become more prevalent in impacting local markets, weve seen people get used to a little higher level of volatility but if it gets too high definitely. Consumers will say ill put this purchase off. Mary gm just maintained its dividend. Ford raised its dividend. They just put out a note questioning whether that was the right thing. Some shareholders were looking to say more. They raised if question of whether that increases the possibility for activism. Our vision for the company is to make sure that we become the most valid company. So we remain on that path. We want to look have the right reinvestment so we have a longterm strategy so definitely plan to return excess earnings over the longterm and thats what were intent on working on. I think of uber or somebody that makes it less likely for young people to buy cars. Were seeing trends especially in the u. S. And other urban areas where people are putting off that purchase but i think thats one of the things when we talk about the industry is changing and will change more in the next five to ten years than in the last 50 and General Motors is looking hard to lead in what will provide true customer value. We just saw the numbers this week. Toyota was the number one vehicle sales in the world followed up by volkswagen third place was gm. Is that a trend that concerns you or bothers you or do you even look at numbers like that . Of course we look at them. We want to grow but we want to grow profitably. It gets a lot of attention. More importantly is the quality of earnings and the quality of growth. Thats what were focused on. Guys again this was probably half an hour ago. Maybe 45 minutes ago we were talking to her. We did get the chance to ask her which car she prefers and while she said she loves all gm cars we got her to admit theyre both camero people. You were up again this morning. Yeah. What time was your first panel. That was just at 11 00. So you slept in today . Kind of. I slept in and had a meeting with mark carney of the bank of england. It was interesting. What did he say . Well talk about it maybe after the break. What a tease. What a tease. Coming up, Quarterly Results from dow component General Electric plus more on the future of saudi arabia and the oil markets following