Fargo earnings ahead of the bell. Expecting the company to post earnings of 88 cents. Revenue of 21. 3 billion. Keep an eye out for that. Melissa youre up to date. That does it for must. Money with melissa is up next. Melissa im melissa francis. Here is what is money tonight. Jack lew gets the nod for new treasury secretary. Senator Jeff Sessions is outraged and vowing to block lews senate confirmation. He will join us to explain why. Why this flu epidemic is making our economy sick. Experts say were looking at a possible 10 billion hit on the economy from the flu. That is what we need. Details are coming up. How much is an oscar really worth to a movie . The 2013 Academy Award nominees are out. Studios dropped 10 of millions of dollars on their oscar campaigns. A top Industry Expert is here to crunch the numbers. Even when they say its not, it is always about money. Melissa we start today with another school shooting. It happened at Taft Union High school in california. One student was shot. The sheriff says they have one suspect in custody. Makes the meetings on gun control today, on capitol hill even more urgent. The fact that Vice President joe biden met with the nra and other gun rights activists on possible new federal regulation. At the same time attorney general eric holder was talking to retailers about solutions to gun violence. All of it could end up having a deep impact on the sales of guns in this country, which in turn would hit our already struggling economy. Fox businesss rich edson is in washington with the latest. Rich, what do we expect to come out of all this effort . A report to be delivered tuesday to the president. That is what Vice President joe biden said in a meeting today. Whether it is a mix of federal regulations that the administration can do without the consent of congress or thinks it can do without the consent of congress, or whether this is legislative idea that is unclear but Vice President joe biden did say there was a consensus developing. There is a surprising, so far, a surprising recurrence of suggestions that we have universal background checks. Not just closed to gun show loophole but, total universal background checks, including private sales. The National Rifle association, in a statement about this meeting said it was disappointed how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with cushing the Second Amendment. Melissa . Melissa well, who has been meet at the white house on this . There are a number of different groups here. First off on the businesses, these are the retailers that met with attorney general eric hold academy sports, bass pro shops, cabelas, number of big name folks. Walmart wasnt originally going to show but said yesterday it was reversing its initial statement and would come up. There were a number of other meetings with the Vice President. Sportsmen groups, womens groups, gun owner groups. Entertainment industry. That is portion. How much violence television and videogames has to deal with this. Tomorrow the videogame folks will meet here with the Vice President. Melissa . Melissa rich, it feels a lot like when they bring everyone in from washington, you know, to, im sorry, everyone in from wall street to come and meet and talk about things then you dont know what really will come out of it. This is a parade of people coming through. Do you think that something is really going to come out of it . Well definitely get a report. How much the administration will push this, remember the administration didnt have all that much to say on gun control until these recent events developed. They always had positions on it but didnt go out of their way to discuss it. Theyre going for the optics. Having meetings with different stakeholders. Whether this translates into actual policy well see. That report comes out tuesday. Waiting to see what is in it. Melissa definitely. Rich edson, thanks so much. In light of everything that has happened some lawmakers are wondering should anyone have access to semiautomatic assault rifles and highcapacity magazines . According to the Second Amendment every american has the right to bear arms but alderman joe marino says not everyone should have access to the weapons. He hasnt heard an argument to believe otherwise. Why do you think banning these particular weapons would solve the problem. I dont think it is a panacea, melissa, and that it will solve everything. Lets be fair and very honest and perhaps unemotional about the argument which is very emotional argument. You have no solid reason that semiautomatic and high magazine capacity bullets are needed in our society. And if we take a look at what, the tragedy that happened in connecticut, the accessibility that that gentleman had, couldnt even call him a gentleman, that criminal had, to these kinds of weapons is why we had such a tragedy out there. And i just dont have, i have not heard one solitary, solid, reasonable, argument that i may disagree with, but not even a reasonable argument why we should continue to manufacture and sell these types of weapons. Melissa you make an argument that a lot of people make, having assault rifles out there or having magazines with so many bullets in them increases the body count, when Something Like this happens, but if you look at the total number of gun homicides per year, we went back and we looked at time during the assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004. There were 9983 gun homicides per year on average. Since the time the ban was lifted 2005 to 2007 ven the number of gun homicides per year has actually gone down, 9528 as the average. So which. Looked at 10year period as compared to a sixyear period, am i correct. Melissa no it was average over that period of time. They have gone down. Lets wait another four years to see if the average is still there. Regardless of the other societal problems we have, which our Mental Health facilities. Melissa right. Are desperately need to be increased and that, were talking about violence in videogames and violence in movies and et cetera, that cant replace the discussion about what is fair and reasonable gun control in our country. I would even say, whereas these travesties continue to happen, we might not even be talking about gun control. Were talking about, trying to, a massacre, protection quite frankly and i will go headtohead with anyone that gives me a solid argument on why we need to keep these guns an magazines. I havent heard that from you today. Melissa hang on. This isnt normal disagree with me generally we do. Normally we have fun and this is very serious topic were talking. Another shooting happened today. Right. Melissa we both would like to see the things not happen, a question, does it become a slippery slope when you start infringing on the Second Amendment . For example the shooting that happened a few hours ago in california, so far the reports show it was someone with a shotgun. Not even a gun were talking about. Wouldnt have impacted that at all. Sure. Melissa i dont know if were attacking the right problem . Seems like it is really about Mental Health. Maybe it is about school safety. Guns dont kill people. People kill people. So get tired, i get so tired of that trite saying though. And that is the problem. I will put it this way. You say why are we going to infringe on the Second Amendment. Well, we already do. You can nogo it and get, Second Amendment talks about right to bear arms. Melissa it is not helping. If we already done it is not working. We dont have people shooting Rocket Launchers at school. We dont have people throwing grenades into big office buildings. We dont have people rolling up on, in tanks. Those things are not accessible, all right . Weve decided as a society that they should not be accessible even though theyre arms and what im arguing wait, wait. We each get a turn. It is my show. When you look at people who have been bent on killing in these situations i feel like if they didnt have rifles they would have made a homemade bomb. These are people mentally unstable who are bent on causing death and destruction. They would find a way to do it no matter what weapon there was. Go ahead. Let you have the last word. I dont disagree with that point but i agree what do they have accessible to them . Terrible shooting in connecticut, if he had a slingshot we would be talking about a couple broken windows and bump on head. If he had a Rocket Launcher maybe we would be talking about a school was shot with that. My point is, we already restrict arms. And i think what we need to have serious debate and were 57 of the americans agree with me, melissa, in a recent cbs poll, these type of weapons need not be part of our sew sky society. Melissa thanks for coming on, joe. Real serious topic and we appreciate your thoughts on it. Thank you, melissa. Melissa time for todays fuel gauge. Saudi arabia cut oil output to 9 Million Barrels a day because of slow demand around the world. It is the countrys biggest Production Cut in nearly three years but chinas thirst for crude is not slowing down. Oil imports rose 8 in december, versus the same time in 2011. Export growth in china quadrupled compared to november, indicating a strong pickup of Economic Activity there. Both stories fueled the oil trade, closing at a high of 93. 82 a barrel. Moving onto the other really big story of the day. President obamas new pick for treasury secretary and that is of course jack lew. If confirmed. Lew could take over just as the administration is up to its neck in battles over several fiscal deadlines, including whether or not to raise the debt ceiling. But lews critics are howling. Joining me on the phone is alabama senator Jeff Sessions. A Top Republican on the Senate Budget committee and says that lew must never be confirmed. Thanks for speaking with us today, senator. Lets get right to it. What is your main objection here . Look, mr. Lew has been the point man for the president in misrepresenting the fundamentals of our debt situation. For example, in early 2011, when he was budget director, he came before our committee, went on television, and stated that our budget will get us over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American People in the eye, and say were not adding to the debt anymore. Were spending money we have, only money we have each year. We can work on bringing down our national debt. He said his budget would do that, when in actuality, added 13 trillion to the debt over 10 years. And the lowest single deficit in one year during that period was 600 billion. Looks like that number was lower than the truth is going to be. Melissa yes. I guess what i would say to you, i examined him at length and aggressively at the budget committee. He continued to insist on that utterly false position. I dont feel like we shuttle straight somebody. Melissa senator, we can put the quote up on the screen as well. He said our budget will get us over the next several years to the point were not adding to the debt anymore. Were spending money that we have each year. And when he was grilled at length after that he came back and tried to justify it in a couple different ways saying that they were, you know, not counting the interest that you to pay on the debt. They came back with a couple different ideas but it was hard to come up with a mathematical answer that supported that statement being true. Why does it bother you so much that he would come out and say Something Like this. Look, this was a statement that if the American People can only interpret one way, that the president s budget led us to a balanced budget and would pay down the debt. That is exactly what they want the the American People to hear and when i asked him about it at committee he had no answer really of any value to that. When i asked secretary geithner, then the secretary of treasury, about it, he acknowledged the president s budget still left us on an unsustainable debt path. But lew, he was spinning without ceasing to try to make this budget sound good politically. And we need somebody as secretary of treasury, the highest economic official in america, and the president doesnt understand economics. He has never been involved in business and finance, we need somebody of real strength in that position who is not a political crony out of the white house. That is all weve gotten from mr. Lew. Melissa do you think you have the support, how hard will you fight . Im going to do everything i can to raise this question that of whether or not in lieu we will have somebody who is willing to deal seriously with the great crisis of our time, which is our debt . All other issues this country faces are dwarfed by the threat of what, a debt crisis can do to america. Melissa yeah. And we really need a serious work toward that. They made a political decision in 2011, to, not confront the issue. To not deal with entitlements. To run and pretend there is no danger out there. And, he, even more so than geithner was the point person. Melissa hate to interrupt you. We have to run. I think were having a little problem with your audio. Thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Melissa next on money is jack lew extreme enough as senator sessions says to warrant republicans blocking his nomination in the senate . Our allstar power panel is here to respond. More money coming up. [ male announcer ] how do you turn an entrepreneurs dream. Into a scooter that talks to the cloud . Or turn 30million artifacts. Into a hightech masterpiece . Whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. Nothing. Are you stealing our Daughters School supplies and taking them to work . No, i was just looking for my stapler and my. This thing. I save money by using fedex ground and buy my own supplies. Thats a great idea. Im going to go. We got clients in today. [ male announcer ] save on ground shipping at fedex office. [ male announcer ] save on ground shipping we replaced people with a machine. R, what . Customers didnt like it. So why do banks do it . Hello . Hello . if your bank doesnt let you talk to a real person 24 7, you need an ally. Hello . Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. Melissa as we know, big news today, president obama nominated his chief of staff, jack lew as treasury secretary. Moments ago you heard senator Jeff Sessions say jack lew should never, never be treasury secretary. Is that too harsh . Lets go to our money power panel. Kimberly fox, james freeman, assistant editor after the wall street journal and Jonathan Hoenig is a Portfolio Manager manager at capitalist pig. Com and fox news contributor. Welcome to the show. Welcome to all of you. Jonathan, i want to start with you. Did you hear senator sessions go by and what did you think of all that . Well, i actually think lew is perfect for obama. I mean lews signature, melissa is as unintelligible as the president s economic policies. So he fits right in. Actually i share senator sessionss concerns. Jack lew has been in washington since he was 18 years old. He is devout liberal and he seeks to maintain and in fact expand the failed entitlement programs that were dealing with right now. I mean what i think treasury needs, keep in mind, this is the individual who signs the currency, we need a cutter, someone able to make those big difficult decisions and preserve currency. I dont think jack lew is that guy. Melissa even more than that james. We need someone to do math. Really bugs me that he said were not adding to the debt anymore. Were spending money that we have each year. If the cfo that is really a budget guy or treasury guy, went out, cfo of a company went out and said this is what were doing. Only spending what is coming in and that much of a misrepresentation, we would be in huge trouble. Sure. Washington accounting a lot of politicians go to jail if you apply to them the rules you apply to the Business World and this is an issue as you said, the treshry secretary has to have credibility in world markets. The fact he does not have credibility when he talks about the debt, the fact he essentially has no business experience except for cashing in his political connections at citi, the pretty typical, too big to fail phony capitalist bank, i think there are a lot of reasons, people look at this nomination and theyre profoundly disappointed if you were hoping for anymore growth economics, in the second term, hoping for maybe, a little less antibusiness attitude youre not seeing it here. Melissa kimberly, what do you think about this . Does it bug you as much as it bugs me that was mathematically inaccurate . Yeah. Considering, melissa, he is supposed to be a budget guru, correct, it doesnt add up. On top of that he is kind of a washington insider. So he really doesnt have the credibility on wall street that maybe even geithner and hank paulson had. They had connections on wall street. They had insight there he really doesnt have it. That will be a big hurdle for him to have synergy with wall street and get corporations on his side. It does concern me. I share the concerns of jonathan and james and the senator. Melissa she makes a great point. What is the downside of that. People listening say, wow, he doesnt have wall street connections. Maybe he is not insider. Maybe we will not baby wall street the way geithner did. Maybe it is a plus he doesnt have wall street connections . I prefer him to be wall street insider instead after washington insider exactly what he has been. He is essentially a career bureaucrat. He has been there for decades and decades the big claim to fame, one written about he was part of that 198 deal to supposedly save Social Security. You know Social Security has a 20 trillion unfunded deficit.