Transcripts For FBC Varney Company 20150206 : vimarsana.com

Organization. Get ready for the real story on jobs and the economy like youve come to expect ever day. Varney company is about to begin. 34ubg. Tom lets check the big board right now. Not too far away from dow 18,000. The dow on pace for its best week in three years, and look at that . Less than 100 points away from the 18,000 mark. Lets take a look at twitter. User growth slowing, but results were still better than expected in this result and as a result, that stock is moving higher up 16 . Meantime gopro is forecasting a Current Quarter profit that could miss wall street expectations, and they also have said their chief operating officer is resigning. The stock is down on that news down 10 at gopro. And linkedin is a winner after reporting strong numbers. Stock hit a new high 271. Were just a penny under that right now. Looks like the jobs report 257,000 createssed last month. And created last month. A lot of those are low paying jobs. And the labor force that Participation Rate we talk about, is still hovering around a three decade low 62. 9 . And that is one of the main numbers we look at because were critical of the jobs report every month. Take a look. 142,000 jobs created in august. Not nearly enough and that is the slowest pace of the year thus far. A Participation Rate of 62. 8 that is at a generation aloe. And heres the middle class squeeze. The average hourly wage up just. 2 last month, up only 2 in the last year. You look at the headlines, you see a lot of spin. Everythings fine and rosy but when you get right down there, Middle America is suffering. The president trumpets the economy. However, a record 92 Million People are not in the labor force. The labor Participation Rate guys 62. 8 edged up ever so slightly, but were still talking about the lowest levels since the late 1970s. Stuart the headline number looks encouraging. It looks encouraging. Yeah. Stuart lots of new jobs, hourly wages up, real Unemployment Rate came down. Whats troubling . Wages arent really taking off and accelerating. The labor Participation Rate that number weve looked at so closeically, still at 1970s levels. Tom lets bring in paul conway former Labor Department chief of staff under george w. Bush and, paul youre our resident skeptic. [laughter] what do you make of this latest report . Well, i like to be an optimist sometimes, but not a lot of optimism in this report. You need 150,000 jobs minimum every month created just to bring on new workers coming into the work force. So i think that the direction is great, but you folks have drilled into the details which is where the storys at, and you have soft jobs being created in the Retail Sector and other things that are like that and you have a lot of people still stuck in parttime jobs. Parttime job number, those who are stuck in parttime jobs for economic reasons, is a 35year high. And for the first time last year, we exceeded the number of business deaths Small Business deaths versus the births of Small Business. And thats where at least 50 of the new jobs created every year are created or should be created for this economy. Tom yeah. And that is a critical number. Thats, in fact, the gallup ceo brought that up, about the fact that you got more business deaths than births, and that is a flip that is very, very dangerous because we all know the small it is a desperate situation for Young Americans and especially for those who were in th7cq i jt their earning careers. Good,y ,hspdfs nts executives who want to go back tohoi]lt work cant find bv opportunities. Ncfy tom this isnt something im just making up now, ive talked about this forqnbncz 30 yrbri in business broadcasting, and ithu always,fa to me historically november december,. O tom what do you project for february . Is that where you start getting maybe a different picture . I think youll see]e different picture in february. The2n way bls does their numbers, they adjust their numbers and its a which is their true policy agenda. Then7 agenda shodw be what puts americans back to work and thats hundreds ofgu0s thousands of jobs per month areg jd now. Tom yeah. Paulm n good to get your take, thank you so much for joining us. Youre welcome. Tom more numbers that give us a. [ ll,f clearer picture of the economy according to pew research the share of americans who are part ofk5ay yeah, but thats natural. I mean, weve had such a step change in Energy Production many this Company Country because of innovation that over the longer term, you know energy has been a net contributor. Yes, theyre laying off now because the oil price is going down, theyre not going to invest. Thats short term. Tom i dont disagree with you its just im going the report this morning from the Labor Department did not include did they forget . Thats all zero head is asking, and i think its a good question. Anyway, we have some breaking news for you right now. No filing your state taxes online with turbotax. Company is halting efiling nationwide over fraud concerns. Intuit, whos the maker of turbotax, they made the announcement this morning. They say that they are working with state agencies to address the problem. However, they say it does not affect the filing of your federal income tax returns. Again, turbotax suspending efiling for state returns over some fraud concerns that they have. The stock is down on that news. Meantime, weve got some headlines on terror to tell you about with lauren simonetti. Hi lauren. Reporter good morning tom. Jordanians take to the street to rally in support of the family of the Fighter Pilot that isis burned alive, this as jordan retaliates with more airstrikes, also releasing a slick hiproduced slicklyproduced video complete with pictures and people writing messages to isis on the bombs to be used. Also today president obama is expected to call on congress to authorize military force against isis even though passing legislation and figuring out how to pay for it would be a challenge. And check this out, republican senator tom cotton of arkansas grilled the pentagon official about the rationale behind the white houses decision to close a Guantanamo Bay prison camp. As far as im concerned every last one of em can rot in hell. But as long as they dont do that, they can rot in Guantanamo Bay. Reporter the young senator adding the only problem with taliban tan mow bay is there are too many Guantanamo Bay is there are too many empty cells. Tom . Is. Tom thank you very much lauren simonetti. Al sharptons tax problems theyre not going away. Were keeping it front and center on Varney Company. The question is why do some big name have beenties end up in jail celebrities end up in jail for tax evasion and not mr. Sharpton . I dont know what i should do next. Do what everybody else does. Start a business. Build yourself a website. Welcome to t. O. s humble pies. With wix. Com. Lets party . We make it easy to create your own allpro website. All by yourself. Favre carve you did that yourself . Dont look so surprised. Wix. Com. Its that easy. Tom checking the big board, look at that the dow is up 42 points. We were a little closer to 18,000 earlier but were still this that same neighborhood. Oil is moving higher again as well another nice pop for oil up more than 2 , 51. 55 for a barrel. Gas up another we penny overnight, 2. 16, and thats up more than a dime over the last three days. The 1 club shrinks, now were down to eight states where the state average for regular is below 2 a gallon. We were up to, what was it, 20, i think. As for the cheapest gas in the land maverick in cored lain, idaho, you get nice scenery and some cheap gas. And the credibility crisis continues for anchor Brian Williams. This week he admitted he was not aboard a helicopter that was thit and forced down during an invasion of iraq in 2004. Okay, we got that. But now stars and stripes, and thats the Armed Forces Newspaper that first broke this story, reported that Brian Williams was actually flying with a different Helicopter Company altogether in a different direction and was only linked to the attack unit by radio. So nbc has not said yet whether or not he would face any sort of disciplinary action. Mary, this story is getting bigger. Its not going away. Thats right. And, you know whats surprising to me is that it took this can for this lie to be this long for this lie to be uncovered. It happened more than ten years ago. You know, when you think about the big journalist scandals jason blair at the New York Times or Stephen Glass at the new republic you know people believed them because they were writing stories that played into, you know the popular conception. So, you know, ive got to wonder tom, do people not question the story because Brian Williams was reporting that the iraq war was really dangerous and bad and, you know many of the mainstream networks didnt like george w. Bush and what we were doing over there . You know . You have to ask. Tom i think its bad for all of the media, because a lot of people that dont have a lot of trust in the media are going to have less now so it really is a broad swipe. Maybe less troop trust in nbc news, but not in fox. Tom well, people i dont think distinguish as carefully maybe for us. Id like to think they do but politicians out there like the former attorney general of connecticut, richard oh boy. Blumenthal. Tom yeah blumenthal that was in vietnam when he never went to vietnam, they make these stories up. I dont know what it is. Well, look the good thing about the media today is you you cant get away with it forever because of social media, because of blog, because of other reporters. Its much more difficult to keep a lie concealed but again youve got to wonder why this one took so long to come out. Tom and he kept telling the story for years. Now there are questions about his reporting from new orleans during katrina. But then, again, same theme, right . Mishandled quoteunquote, mishandled by the bush administration. Nobody questions what he said. Tom theres one thing for us to make a mistake in the media and report something and then have to make a correction. Everybody has ebb done that. Everybody has done that. This isnt a mistake no, its an embellishment. Its a lie. Tom thank you. Meantime speaking of trouble now this. Big tax troubles for msnbc host al sharpton. He reportedly owes more than 3 million in federal taxes and Liz Macdonald tells us other people from chuck berry to Leona Hemsley have gone to jail for owing less to uncle sam. Whats this Leona Hemsley chuck berry right. Lets set up the story. So, you know, according to news reports and ive looked at al sharptons, you know profit filings as well he personally owes reportedly 3 million in federal back taxes, another 778,000 in the state taxes. You know, his two forprofit businesses tom, owe roughly 800,000. So and his Nonprofit National Action Network also has owed money, a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars in his operation. Some of this involves fail to even file tax returns. But we know now and ive dug into tax records ive talked to awe to haves, chuck berry went to prison for 200,000 pete rose went for owing 300,000. Less amounts be i they ended up in but they ended up in prison. Even Leona Hemsley for owing 1. 7 million in back taxes. Tom right. So the big question is why isnt sharpton behind the clink . Well thats the question and thats what people are asking. Its an open secret that the irs operates in a decentralized kind of Business Model meaning they have different district offices that handle tax investigations and probes. But the irs doesnt i know this for a fact having talked to them, they dont like to be criticized, they dont like to be second guessed. These guys like to have their decision, and they feel like they adhere to the law into the directives and the rules. But, you know federal appeals courts have said, you know the rules are not generally consistently applied to taxpayers, theyre not strictly you know adhered to evenly across the board. So youve got to wonder why hasnt al sharpton had the book thrown at him . We know that he has tax liens filed against him, and the irs is acting and the state is acting, but others have really had the book thrown at them how can we not discuss this story without talking about the irs targeting of conservatives . This is a politicized institution, we know it, and now we have evidence to prove it after all the congressional hearings and reports that have come out over the last coup couple of years. Tom i presume, and maybe liz you can answer this, is there somebody at the irs who has to call up, send a file over to the u. S. Attorney or yeah that does happen. That does go on. Top tom because i would think the u. S. Attorney well, theyre political too. Theyre politically appointed too. But you would think they would go after, and especially a federal judge if it ever got to that would treat him the same. You know, thats an interesting point tom. And the other thing, too, is al sharpton in his response to this whole issue to the New York Times, the national review, he is making it political. Hes saying, you know every time that theres a ferguson that comes up, they go through my taxes. People dont like president obama, they dont like mayor de blasio. Hes saying hes paying it off but liens are still out there, and this has been a chronic problem for him dating back to the early t 90s. Tom long before ferguson or anything else. Yeah, thats right. Tom liz, thank you very much. Amy pascal is stepping down as the head of Sony Pictures and some nasty emails revealed during that hack. Has hollywood learned its lesson . I doubt it. At ally bank no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping. When it comes to medicare, everyone talks about what happens when you turn sixtyfive. But, really, its what you do before that counts. See, medicare doesnt cover everything. 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Cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. We enable you to reach Global Markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. Cme group how the world advances. At ally bank no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping. Im almost done. [ male announcer ] now you can pay your bill. Manage your appointments. [ dog barks ]. And check your connection status. Anytime, anywhere. [ dog growls ] oh. So youre protesting . Okay. [ male announcer ] introducing xfinity my account. Available on any device. Tom take a look at the shares of pandora touching a new low of 14 after earlier reporting disappointing sales numbers. Right now the stocks at 15 and almost a quarter. Check the shares of sony it broke on this program yesterday that the head of Sony Pictures amy pascal, stepping down. This following the fallout of the hack and all the controversy over the movie the interview. Shes leaving the role to launch a Production Company at the studio. Right now to chime in on this Jeremy Gerard joins us, executive editor of deadline. Com. Is this quick to change everything or is this going to change anything . Well, cleanup, i dont know what we mean by cleanup. The shuffling has just begun. We are all speculating about who might replace amy pascal or if anyone will replace amy pascal in the job that she had. Theres a lot of mixed feelings in hollywood about her record mixed feelings about what the consequences of the sony hack really were and how behavior may or may not change in hollywood in the way films are made. Theres a lot going on in the industry tom listen i think actors and producers, you cant put em all under, you know, one broad brush, but theres a lot of egos, and she damaged a lot of egos, she basically called them out on a lot of their behavior as well. In her opinion. So is she, shes going to have this Production Company, what whos going to want to work for her . Whos going to want to produce or act for her . Oh, i think anybody whos looking to make a movie and needs financing is going to want to work for her. Shes got a lot of money at her disposal, and shes got an extraordinary track record with creative people. Let me bring u