Be celebrating at 11 00 a. M. Eastern which we are about 18 hours away right here in new york city. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to squawk box here on cnbc. Im becky quick with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. The dow tracking to close out 2015 down about 1 . The s p is just near break even levels. Were three or four points above break even. That would be looking at the nasdaq and looking to finish 6 or 7 higher at this level. Lets take a look at the quick u. S. Equity futures. Where we go this year, break even on the futures this morning too. The dow futures are up by 7 points. Not to rain on the new years eve parade but news just out that authorities in belgium now detained six people as part of their investigation into a new years eve terror plot yesterday. Heres where it gets more complicated. They called off the new years eve fireworks display citing fears of a militant attack. They wouldnt be able to guarentee that every attendee could be checked so they cancelled the celebration as a precaution. Also the city of paris cancelled parts of its new years eve celebration and shortened the amount of time that the light show will be taking place to avoid having large groups gathered for too long. Already starting to see the effects in real time in real terms. And the firework there is too. And theyre conceding that they cannot guarentee that everyone will be checked. I can tell you that everyone will be checked in times square. Theres 14 entrances to get into times square and everybody has to go through metal detectors and all kinds of detections. They said it will be the safest place on the planet tonight and i said take it back. Meanwhile, have you i finally wrote. I dont write a lot of checks because i dont control the money. In your household you mean. Right. But i finally got 2015 instead of 2014. Just figured that out. Are we going to 2016 . Yes, sir. I just finally didnt have to cross out and then you have to initial it because it was these are things are happening too quickly. Slow it down. So when you write out uncle sam, thats what happens . Uncle sam too fast. Did you see the piece in new york times, did you see the journal today . They do pay a lot. In real dollar terms they do. 2 of overall. But the Capital Gains rate they have all moved their the top 400 have moved their money into Capital Gains and dividend stuff obviously to not pay ordinary income but since Capital Gains tax have gone up to 23 or 24 . Theyre paying 22. 9 . Not 16. But it was just funny. But it wasnt on a same day when theres dualing opeds. They said youre full of crap. This is the actual situation. I love them. Im sorry but i love them. What was the times story. Still paying half, joe, of what youre paying. Half of what youre paying. Half the rate that youre paying, joe. Still 400 people are paying half the rate that youre paying. 2 of the entire bill. Theyre not carrying their fair share. Theres different ways of looking at it. What does that say about distributions in the country . So if someone what does that say about Income Distribution in the country. I dont know. What does it say . Its ameritocracy. Thats the way things work. Its not money passed down between dukes and dutchess. They earn 1. 3 . In large part they made it from the efforts in entrepreneurial system. The key numbers i took away from that is they make 1. 3 to 1. 6 of all income and pay 2 of all taxes. Was that the mix . Yeah and a lot of the people, in fact started with not a lot and got to a point where they have generated all of this wealth for shareholders. Paying 80 million a year. So should they pay a lower rate than you . Im all for great entrepreneurs. I want everyone to be successful. Im not taking anything away from the individual they pay a lower rate than me because its not ordinary income. Greatness of what theyre doing and this is not a they didnt build it argument but we live in a great country. If you come to this country and youre born in this country your chances and opportunity are so much greater and dont you think that everybody should then should be paying a fair and equal amount. The fact that youre paying double what somebody who is getting paid billions of dollars more than you. Why . Because its ordinary income with me. Correct. So if you want to have a discussion about Capital Gains and what this is the same thing. This is the same argument we have five years ago and we came to the same conclusion. You want to have the optimum Capital Gains rate to ingender investment and to make things where capital is treated differently than ordinary income have the discussion about Capital Gains because these people arent crewing you based on lower rates of lower income. Theyre crewing you based on moving their assets into Capital Gains and income which is youre allowed to do. So change Capital Gains. This is the reason we do not have argument. Then trying have the lowest tax possible. Its about the rules and the question is what should the rules be. But be careful what you do with Capital Gains because if you want to tax it at ordinary income you may not have the same type of Economic Growth. So you cant have both. Once youre making several hundred how many yachts can you ski behind . At some point its several hundred Million Dollars in annual income theres a point at which youll take the rest of it and invest it into somebody else. They are all signed off and they generally its not a futile system. So they didnt get it passed down from generations where theres idiot sons and grand sons of rich people. Some of them are. But the other piece of it is the estate tax. Thats a very interesting that you raise only because right now used to be literally the estate tax is 5 million, its 11 million and a number of those people in that article have lobbied heavily to get rid of the estate tax which puts you back into the futile issue youre talking about. This is another thing nuisanced beyond belief because people that have that much money arent going to pay estate taxes anyway because they set up trust funds. And people dont want to get rid of the estate tax but has a huge business based on second to die insurance as well. You never know why people are advocating things. I dont know if you should pay taxes your entire life all the way through on all of your income and you finally get there and then they take it when you die. All of a sudden theres a death tax so that your heirs have to sell everything that youve done. They have to sell it just to pay their taxes . Is that the way it should work too . If in the bill of rights there a certain thing about private property and property rights. But to the extent that you have a futile issue, what do you do about it . Its not a futile issue. Its ameritocracys. To the apologies to the Walton Family and the people with walton in their name, you believe that these people. God bless them im not pointing them out because theres something wrong with them in particular, thats how it. In a free society theres things that happen and we set up the government for specific reasons. If you ultimately want roads and bridges and all of the infrastructure that is allowed and education, all the things that made this country great that have given everybody these opportunities to some degree. Pay your fair share. You have to pay for it. But there was a better argument for that in 2012 than now. The tax rates you have seen rise now over that period of time. Going from 16. 7 to 22. 9 in the tax rates that theyre paying over that time shows you have seen it swing. You better make sure that you dont kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Because thats what most of these remembdies end up doing. Its also why we have not seen tax reform. These are valid questions and issues on both sides. Why 0 Interest Rates for 7 years still cant get us out at this point. Its not dynamic enough. In terms of regulation and taxes and everything. Your friend larry over here doesnt want to raise Interest Rates. Thinks the economy is lousy. Why . And we finally heard andrew when he was younger used to be more honest. Its not true. We have to find the video tape on that. I cannot believe its said. When he went on larrys show the first time said i want to let you know im an Upper West Side liberal. Totally untrue because the first time i was on his show i was on an episode about vivendis acquisition and i cant fathom that we got into a conversation about politics. This was in 2003. In 2003 i was a hardcore republican. The world has changed. He said you said it. All right. We have to talk about cosby. How about cosby. He had to put up 100 grand. How much money does he have . 100 million probably. Dont you think . Easily. Another one not paying his fair share. Okay. Among other things. Allegedly. First ten minutes of the show have gone by. Its thursday before new years. Last day of the year. Lets tell you about the big corporate stories at this hour. Bill ackman with the finally weekly report of the year. Down 19. 7 year to date as of tuesday. Also shares of chimerix showing signs of life. 72 closing 5. 3 stake in the small cap of bio tech on monday. That company tumbled 80 after the Company Announced it had that failed drug trial. If theres a merger of cells. So this company is chimerix. Happy new year everybody. Uber crossing a milestone stop, stop andrew, go ahead. Let me tell you about uber and then you can continue on your way. Going to mess this up. Uber is causing a Milestone Company announcing the billionth uber ride was in london on new years eve. It was a short trip inside a blue honda that cost 8 which is surprising. Uber giving that passenger free uber trips for a year. And the driver gets a free vacation. This is valuable. To any city where uber operates. Oh, me. Tell us about bill. He is at home today. Everybody saw the it was almost a perp walk. Released on bail. Did you see his mug shot too . Yeah. I often wonder what kind of expression. I thought he nailed the expression. He wasnt smiling. He didnt look like he was ready to kill someone. But hes wearing one of those ugly sweaters too. Always known for that. Right. Its after his arrest yesterday on a Sexual Assault charge. He was fingerprinted and had his mug shot taken at the Police Precinct in pennsylvania after his arraignment. He was charged with aggravated indecent assault. Montgomery county prosecutors said in 2004 cosby gave pills and wine to a former Temple University employee before sexually assaulting her. He is released on a Million Dollars bail but only had to put up 100 grand. Cosby did not have to enter a plea. He denied all the allegations. They say he said and then theres like 54 she saids after the he said. One for every one of the women. Hit the statute of limitations was going to run out in a matter of days or weeks because it was 2004 and its 15 years or no, its 12 years. Money angle, a business angle to this story is some lawyers yesterday saying if he were to be convicted those actors and producers that got residuals on the show that have been cutoff from those residuals because the show has been cancelled could have a claim against him. It hurt their future unclear whether a judge would actually take the case. Its a difficult case to bring. Lisa bonet gets residuals. Theres a whole series of producers. Its interesting. It is interesting. Its like seinfeld and all the money they still get. I did one thing and the checks keep rolling in. 3, 4, but it never ends. Damages. Damages. On fx. Yes. But yeah. Theres nowhere in the country that cosby i believe the last network that had cosby on was tv land and they cancelled it. And in the middle of getting a new show. Big program from nbc. Lets get back to the markets. As we showed you the futures havent budged all that much. The s p which is the most interesting of the stories this year because alt this point the s p is points above the break even level for the entire year. Up fractionally this morning. Up by less than a point. The dow is negative at this point. The nasdaq in positive territory is up slightly too. Take a look at wti. Its up by about 12 cents right now. Crude oil is down by 3. 4 to 36. 60. That was part of the problem toward the end of the day. Yeah. At the real end of the trading session. Yeah. Not at the metaphorical end of the day. The overused but keep in mind that were counting down to the final trading day. As all eyes are on that. I hear that constantly on another network. And also looking ahead to whats on the horizon for 2016, joining us is the chief investment strategy. Covering the economic angle is mark, senior economist at wells fargo and well have a lot of guys today on talking about 2016 almost across the board most people are thinking more of the same. Ill start with you mark why do they do this . Because we have two marks. But one of the things that youre saying is maybe we havent fully taken into account manufacturing which could be even more of a head wind next year. Youre worried about that. Well, thats the one concern i have right at the on set. If the year gets off to a slow start like the last couple of years its likely going to be due to some additional slowing in manufacturing and all of it is forward looking data on the Manufacturing Sector and still pointing to further deceleration. They look horrible and we really havent had much growth or any growth in Industrial Production for the last year. A lot of people minimize the troubles of the factory sector and said well manufacturing is a smaller part of the economy but it still accounts for the bulk of the swing in gdp from quarter to quarter. So thats one concern i have. Were with the general consensus. Were looking for 2 to 2. 5 growth in 2016. Thats any number one obstacle to that. And other people on today talk about well 2016 is going to be similar to 2015. You know, muted gains, multiples are going to be hard to expand with Interest Rates going up so were stuck with whatever Profit Growth that we get and Profit Growth isnt going to be huge. Wages are going up but with commodities its hard to raise prices so thats going to hurt margins so youre stuck with what you get with Profit Growth which might not be a lot. They say the same as last year but we may be down in 2015. So muted gains, theyre not muted gains, its been volatile and you end up with nothing to show for it. You end up with even less if you think about the way the market has been joe. If you look at what lead the market of course the fang group of stocks, if you look at an etf like ntum, thats up about 9 year to date. So actually you have a group of stocks doing very well. You have the market that on a total return basis which means its all dividend return that may end this year at a positive 2 or 2. 5 or so and you look at the rest of the market. Vl Something Like the value line index which is 1700 stocks. Its an equal weighted index and thats down 3 or 4 year to date. Youre right. Investors are realizing mostly an outcome much different than the s p 500. We pencilled in 2015 gains that were positive but much less than what we have seen in 2013 and 2014. That will turn out to be accurate but the issue is we didnt anticipate even what the markets experienced in 2015. You dont see anything better in 2016 . Thats what gets me. Everyone saying a similar year in 2016. How is it going to surprise us by not being similar if it were . Could it be down or up 15 or 20 . Thats the issue joe. We begin fall into the consensus expecting muted gains in 2016 expecting the markets to broaden more. Thats the surprise. Okay. And mark, i mean, youre obviously on the economic beat but any reason to think that suddenly we escape stall speed and get up to 2. 5 or 3 . Or we were unable to do it at zero Interest Rates. I dont know how we do it in a rising Interest Rate environment. Well, theres a couple of areas that are more positive. Consumer spending should hold up relatively well. Job growth has been solid. The parts of the economy slowing are capital intensive and labor intensive parts of the economy still growing. Pretty good growth and gas prices are down. That looks good. Housing should be better but the last couple of months have been dicey. They indicated things maybe cooling off a little bit. We still have a fairly descent gain for housing stocks because inventories are so low. All right. All right gentlemen. Its only natural that you always think that the situation or the environment youre in is going to continue for the next 12 months but it rarely does. Probably a year ago people said oil, expect, 80, 85 maybe. Thats what they would have said. They no idea that it was going to be 36 at the end of the year. Anyway, mark and mark. Thank you both. Thanks, joe. All right. Thank you. Happy new year to yall. Happy new year. Doesnt sound like a happy new year. Its not all about money. Its not all about money. Its about family. Its about health and love and happiness. Exactly. We wish you all of that in 2016. Authorities in brussels calling off the citys new years eve fireworks display due to fears of a terrorist attack. Were joined now from london with more. Hey, guys, well, new zealand begins to ring in 2016 one of the first countries to celebrate the new year. As you said belgium has now cancelled their fireworks display tonight along with the celebrations in paris. There will be no fireworks. Were also hearing that belgian federal prosecutors saying six people have been detained today in an investigation into a new years attack plot in brussels. This also in addition to an arrest last night in connection with the paris attacks. And also two other arrests earlier this week that were connected to a possible attack in the belgian capital. Were also having reports of towns in italy banning fireworks for even just personal use and as i said, no fireworks tonight in paris. Theres a light show only and even though paris remains in a state of emergency, people are being allowed to gather tonight. Normally youre not allowed to have large gatherings of people. But its a muted celebration under heavy surveillance. 60,000 police and soldiers will be across france and th