Mcshane. Dagen corporations taking a hit from the flu. Fortyone states reporting widespread cases and that is keeping people home from work. Connell disney wants to help you keep track of your kids at the parks. Dagen brad pitt with a big announcement for the people of china. Hockey is back. Give me a hand. Connell happy birthday to Dagen Mcdowell today. Before we get too emotional, lets go to nicole petallides. Nicole happy birthday. I hope you have a great year ahead, dagen. The Dow Jones Industrials is about down 50 points right now. While the moves were not dramatic, they were down arrows. We saw the vix taking a breather, but today it is back again. I wanted to take a look at bank of america. This, too, has gone back and forth. It hit a 42 week high. This on some settlements with fannie mae. You can see here that stock right now is down about seven cents. Ultimately, people perceive it as good news to get it out of the way. Connell it looks like president obama is really gearing up for a fight with republicans. Dagen rich edson joins us now from washington, d. C. With what the holdup would be. Rich president obama will nominate former republican senator from nebraska chuck hagel to lead the department at the pentagon. A number of republicans have had issues with hagel. He has reportedly erected talks with hamas, some say he is not pro israel enough. It has a number of republicans lined up against him in opposition. He has long severed ties with the Republican Party. This is an inyourface nomination by the president. I do not know what is Management Experience is regarding the pentagon. I think it is an incredibly controversial choice. Rich this sets up a big fight in the u. S. Senate. This at a time when those automatic defense cuts have been delayed for two months and that fiscal cliff deal. There are major questions in washington on defense spending going forward. This is a pretty timely opponent or appointment for the president when you consider all that is going on with not only the federal budget, but the Defense Budget. Connell thank you, rich edson. Dagen lets bring in matt welch. How do these nominations play into, again, the defense cuts that are on tap and other cuts that are on hand . First of all, happy birthday. Congratulations on being able to drink. [ laughter ] dagen you are welcome back every day. It will be on march 1 or february 28 right now. The president needs someone on his own site who has been thinking about cutting military spending right now. He would get tossed out in a second. He is a republican so the president is exposing rifts within the republican position. We do actually need to cut military spending. Connell you think he will still get through the senate. That is the question. Connell i think a lot of the republicans that we are done talking about taxes after the last cliff. Nancy pelosi said this. You know, the president had said he wanted 1. 6 trillion in revenue. He took it down to 1. 2 as a compromise. It is not enough on the revenue side. Connell if you thought tax hikes were off the table, forget about it. There on the campaign on Something Like this. You can expect to be part of the conversation. The question for me is, are republicans actually going to talk about spending cuts in actuality rather than in theories . Dagen they wanted to simplify the tax code and go to lower rates and make it something more sensible. If you look at what was done with this compromise, you have a tax code that is even that more complicated. It was a total handout to the accountants. You have a separate income tax rate on capital gains. It is a nightmare. It will only get worse from here there were 50 tax extenders. He can build a privately. That is how we govern now. That contributes. I do not think i think tax reform is off the table probably for another couple of years. Connell we will have the same discussion that we had last time. The republicans are back in charge next time, i did not know if that is true. We have a cliff coming up on march 1 and the milk cliff comes back up on september 1. It is no longer the rose parade anymore. It is a holiday for ms. Governments. It is a series of artificial deadlines. This is the new reality. Dagen stop delegating and lead from the front. That is what scott locke says president obama needs to do. You manage money for a living and how does that factor in to what you buy or sell right now, scott . We are all about buying good businesses. The dysfunction in the congress and presidency i think well keep a lid on stocks. It will be great if we got some clarification on where we will go with the debt ceiling. It does not bode well for stocks taking off. The other concern i really have is bottoming of estimates, it is far too euphoric. If we went back a year ago, you at the north of 110. We came in under 99. You really only have about 3. 5 3. 54 gdp growth. It does not bode well. When people build and High Expectations and there is disappointment, it is not good for stocks in general. Dagen you have a market that is slightly down. If stocks tumble or falter, do you think Interest Rates will go lower which will thereby make longerterm treasuries a haven in the short run. The federal debt is over 16 million. Nobody in their right mind should lend the government thirtyyear money. The other point i would also make is that the consumer is pretty much tapped out. Even with the 2 increase. People are losing out to inflation and gdp. Consumer installment that have skyrocketed it really does not hold well for the consumer and growth in the economy. Dagen thank you for that. Scott, thank you. It was great to see you, as always. Thank you. Happy birthday, dagen. Dagen thank you. Connell the big story that is developing here is the flu. The flu has been crushing businesses across the nation. So many people are forced to stay home. Dagen disneys idea to track your child. Is this really something you want and disneys hands . First, take a look at the oil market today. Oil is at 93 a barrel. [ woman ] if you have the audacity to believe your Financial Advisor should focus on your longterm goals, not their shortterm agenda. [ male announcer ] join the nearly 7 million investors who think like you do. Face time and think time make a difference. At edward jones, its how we make sense of investing. Maybe you want to incorporate a business. Orrotect your family with a will or living trust. And youd le the help of an attorney. At legalzoom a legal plan attorney is available in most states with every personalized document to answer questions. Get started at legalzoom. Com today. And now youre protected. Connell lets go backkto nicole. Talking about apple. Nicole keeping a close eye on apple. We know this dog is quite volatile. Right now, it is virtually flat. The news today is about downloads for laughs. They are talking about 40 billion downloads. About half of those being in 2012. A lot of the downloads are in 2012. It is not old news, it is new news. It is becoming extremely popular and growing and popularity. Dagen Workplace Productivity down, blame the flu. Twentynine states in new york city reporting high levels of flu activity. Fortyone states are reporting cases already. If you think that flu shot you got will protect you, think again. We have a doctor from atlanta joining us now. How bad, so far, is this outbreak of the flu . We are not sure about how this season will be. We will not know until the end of the season. What we do know is it is a very early start to the season. There is a lot of flu activity out there. People need to take steps to take care of themselves. Dagen how severe is the strain of the flu. The flu shot is the best way to protect people against getting the flu. We will not know until the end of the season how bad of a season it is. I here for my friends and family that people are coming down with pneumonia like they have not before. Are there things you can do to keep the infection from getting worse . Absolutely. Probably the most important thing to prevent complications from the flu is to see your doctor and talk about getting treatment with influenza antiviral medication. Dagen is it too late to get a flu shot at this point . It is absolutely not too late to get the flu vaccine. We recommend that you get your vaccination right now if you can. We do not know how effective this years vaccine is. We should have some estimates on how effective it is in the next month or so. Dagen i often hear about people say that the flu vaccine makes them sick. Is there any truth to that . There is no truth to that statement. People do get sick after getting the vaccine. Part of the reason is, they do not get the vaccine early enough. It takes time for the vaccine to go into effect. The flu vaccine only protects against the flu. People can get sick with other things also. Dagen if you have employees who do have the flu, do not go to work. Absolutely. We recommend to protect the rest of us who have not been sick, that people stay home and stay away from work and school. Dagen doctor, thank you very much. Doctor young, be well. Connell brad pitt is online in china. Dagen we care so much about what brad pitt thinks about the world. How you feel about the future of our country. Half of the polls say that the u. S. s best years are behind us. I am worn green with your fox news minute. The Shell Oil Rig stranded for a week off the coast of alaska. The rig is being towed at about 4 miles an hour to the alaskan coast where crews can determine if there is any damage. There is no evidence that the oil had leaked into the ocean. Violence in syria. He will not step down. A 21 month conflict that has caused more than 60,000 lives. The pope is calling for urgent aid for civilians in syria. Continued conflict will leave nothing but a field of wounds. Those are your headlines. Connell lauren, thank you. Airlines are doing great when it comes to safety. The safest year for the airlines since 1945. The World Airlines overall reported only 23 accidents and 75 fatalities last year. The group credits that applied to safety guidelines. Disneyland wanting to use wristbands. It will announce when it is your turn to take a ride on space following are whatever ride it is. Dagen we are all about cinderella. Connell i dont like her. She was a little rude. Dagen who are you hanging out at disney world with. Connell brad pit joined twitter. Actually, the chinese version. It is the truth, yup. I am coming. Brad pitt. Dagen is it really him, though . Do we really know what that that is one thing we agree on, we both really do not care. Welcoming ad dollars for this years inauguration. Connell the future of america, is it all downhill from here. First, some of the winners today on the s p 500. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods first day of work. And his new boss told him twongs cook what you love, and save your money. Joe doesnt know it yet, but hell wk his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and me from the great northwest. Hell start investing early, hell find some good people to help guide him, nd hell set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isnt Rocket Science its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Announcer you never know when, but thieves can steal your identity and turn your life upside down. Hi. Hi. You know, i can save you 15 today if you open up a charge card account with us. You just read my mind. 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As we look at tonights Big College Football matchup, the real money behind these fake town football programs. The most valuable team. We will shock you. Connell fake news on netflix. Nicole that is right. This gives them access to some of the serial drama with time warner brothers. They have been exploring, obviously. They recently did a license agreement with disney. There is intense competition. Even intel is trying to get into streaming video now. Red arrows all day long. We have seen a majority of the names lower today. Cocacola, exxon, cisco, disney, all with down arrows. Last week, we saw a taking a breather. That we will have earnings season. We made it through the fiscal cliff disaster. I can tell you, i am hearing a lot of people who are finally looking at their paychecks and realizing they are down to money this last week and they are not happy about it. Dagen nicole, thank you. It is a pretty cool. They get mentioned about the Football Game later on. 49 still believe that the best is yet to come. Lets bring in Robert Stephen kaplan in. What do you make of this . It is not surprising. We are in a period where we are going through a massive deleveraging in our country. Businesses on the bright side are doing well. We do not see any improvement on the balance sheet. I think it is scary to people. They know how to tighten their belts. They want to see the government do what they need to do. That should be encouraging to the population. Connell so far we obviously have not seen that. These are longterm issues that you talk about. How much of this becomes a selffulfilling prophecy for people with the fundamentals in statistics may be okay. Here is the economic problem, we are reducing that the socalled deleveraging puts a drag on gmp growth. Puts a drag on peoples earnings. We have to go through another five or eight years of getting our deck ground so that we can grow again. I think people in the country are willing to do it, but we have to get started. This is a longterm problem. I think the country is mentally prepared for it. They now want to see the government act. Connell is there something that you can see on the horizon that drives the government to act . Our view here has been that the market will somehow force them to cooperate. When do they act, is it because they have to . You mentioned no labels. I think we feel optimistic. We have a president that is about to be inaugurated in his second term. He should not be worried about his legacy. I think there is no place to hide on this. They have to do entitlement reform and they have to address these issues. Listen, it depends on what we do. We know what the problems are. We know what the solutions are. We know what needs to be done and now it is time to do it. The president will have to really step up to this and it cannot be a fight, a political fight, all while political battle after another. I would love to see the president step up and articulate a clear vision for restructuring our entitlements. Connell we will believe it will obviously, when we see it. Thank you for coming on today. We appreciate it. Dagen we are two weeks away from president obamas inauguration. It looks like some of the thrill from four years ago is gone. Connell expecting to draw smaller crowds this year. Adam shapiro has this story. I do not meet your contributions to the committee yet . No corporate donations. This time around, bring on the corporate donations. It is roughly 12 companies so far. Just 12 have come up to the full. They are listed on a list of donors that the Inauguration Committee put out on friday. What is interesting about this list is it is only a list of names. In 2009, the list included names of people who donated. There were no corporations. There is no crap this time around. It also showed where you worked. This time around, no, not happening. This is a problem for our people and government watchdogs. They asked why this lack of transparency by the Administration May be troubling. They said they are always disappointed when organizations moveetowards less disclosure. Fox business has contacted Inauguration Committee to see if they will tell us how much at t, microsoft, how many of these companies have donated since there is no cap on how much they can donate. We also called microsoft and at t to see if they would tell us how much they donated and why they chose to do it. That is where we stand on all of this. Dagen thank you, adam. Adam shapiro. Connell big nominations today. They could still be charged with our nations security. We will soon find out what mike baker thinks about that. Dagen the two teams playing in tonights games are in the top ten. Are they at the very top of the list . Stay with us to find out. Connell the price of corn. It does not get any higher here in the u. S. Jeff the most expensive corn in the world. These may be filled, but we are starting to import foreign war because our corn starts too much. I have your fox business brief. Amazon shares are boosting. Morgan stanley sites amazons International Opportunities for the upgrade and price target. Sewing on news it has entered into a definitive acquisition agreement. A deal worth 1. 1 billion. Energy capital plans to operate as a standalone Business Operatio