133 points from its alltime high. How about that . The markets continue their march. Meanwhile, disney refusing to pay ransom after hackers get ahold of the new pirates of the caribbean movie. The pirates aimed at his daughter sarah on saturday night live. We cover it all on varney and pane for you Varney Company for yous which is about to given. Ashley and a quick look at the dow futures for you with. How about that . More green arrows. The dow showing it will be up 42 points or thereabouts at the opening, the s p and nasdaq also up again after record closing highs yesterday. It just goes on and on. Higher profit, by the way, in sales at home depot helped by a strong Housing Market. Premarket up over 1 . Nice quarter for home depot. A few more retailers reporting this morning, tjx and marshalls and home goods, weak sales and guidance. Weak sales also at Dicks Sporting Goods but encouraging sales at staples. Up nearly 2 . All right, lets stay on the economy and bring in economics professor peter morici. Tenured professor, stuart likes to point out. [laughter] peter, i would argue that the strong Housing Market clearly giving the home depots of this world a nice boost and also another positive sign for the economy despite all of the political turmoil, a crisis a day it seems coming out of washington. The economy is going along nicely. I think the economy and the market is becoming immune to the, to these, the drama at the white house. The reality is most of this has very little effect on commerce. I mean, the president , essentially, was looselipped yesterday, and that was a mistake. But its hardly going to affect the profitability of exxon or the Ford Motor Company or home depot or anybody else. Americans continue to buy cars, they build homes, they live lives. Lets face it, this is a market economy, and what goes on in washington can be an impediment but nothing that mr. Trump has done has thrown up any impediments whatsoever. Ashley well, the argument before was it was the fed that was propping up the markets with all the cheap money, but is this based on solid fundamentals . Weve seen the Earnings Report for the First Quarter very solid, more investment, for capital expenditure. I would say all the signs they say green shoots, perhaps even more than green shoots. Forecasts for the Global Economy are about 3. 5 , which is fairly brisk, and American Companies those that are prominently traded on the exchanges get more than half their profits abroad. American companies now profit no matter where there is profitability to be had. Were the new holland, the new netherlands of the Global Economy. And as a consequence, you know, what happens in the United States is important, but what weve established through this recovery is this market can do well with 2 growth. American companies have very good profitability outlook. And as you know, ive argued in several columns that the nature of Technology Today justifies higher to price earnings ratios because they make capital fundamentally cheaper regardless of what the fed does. Ashley and peter, lastly, you know, look, all of this is being achieved on the markets at least without tax reform, without the new Health Care Plan in place, without the infrastructure ball rolling. When those things and we hope and assume they will happen eventually we can go a step higher, right . Well, absolutely. Regulatory reform is going to be very helpful. As you know though, he faces legislative constraints there. Some of it requires congressional action to move quickly. And in the state and local governments, this is where i wish the president s were better organized, had a stronger, more focused economic team, one that is more adroit at Public Policy as opposed to trading on wall street. A lot of what needs to be done requires leadership from the federal government to cajole state and local governments. For example, in housing one of the things that is holding us up are new state and local zoning laws of various kinds. Ashley right. And building codes and things. Try to build a deck in your backyard. You have as many bureaucrats as they take to put up, you know, a new wing of the pentagon. [laughter] running around with clipboards and pencils and so forth inspecting all kinds of minutiae. That needs to be cleaned up. The Obama Administration was worried about it towards the end x mr. Trump needs to articulate the need to move in this direction. Ashley youre right. But, you know, theyre too busy putting out fires. Ashley they are. Thats the problem. Peter, stay you, you, minus a clipboard, to talk about china in a little while. Stay right there. Hackers are holding disneys latest pirates of the caribbean installment for ransom. E. Mac, what the heck is going on . Yeah. Its either pirates of the caribbean dead men tell no tales, or cars 3, and it looks like its this movie. Its projected to bring in half a billion globally. This would be a big hit to the bottom line if these hackers are going to do what theyre threatening to do. Bob igers saying im not going to pay the money. Theyre going to release the first five minutes, then ratchet it up, 20 minutes of the movie in increments. So, you know, this is an indication remember, orange is the new black got hacked and they threatened to put it up online . Ashley yeah. The small production studios dont have the digital cybersecurity ashley that was my be question, how the heck do you think they get their hands on it . Youd think it would be in a vault somewhere. It looks like postproduction got hacked, a small vendor. We dont know. Were staying on the story. Theyre demanding money be paid by bitcoin ashley do you know how much money theyre asking . Dont know. Ashley bob iger says, were not paying. Its an important franchise. Ashley gas nateing. Switch fascinating. Transportation secretary elaine chao says taxpayers and private investment will fund the president s infrastructure plan. Take a listen to this. The new infrastructure plan will include 200 billionc in direct federal funds. These funds will be used to leverage a trillion dollars in Infrastructure Investments over the next ten years. Ashley all right. Joining us now is katherine wild with the partnership for new york city which works on infrastructure prompteds. So the question is projects so the question is, katherine, and thank you so much for being here. Who gets the money first . Do you have a list and is there a priority . You know, is this a number one, two, three and so on . Well, i think every state around the country has a list and has their set of priorities, so, yes. Here in new york were looking at our deteriorated Transportation System, 100plus years old and where were losing the tunnels that are under the hudson river in a few years if we dont do something about it. Weve got 5. 7 Million People a day riding our subway and bus system in the city which is also aging out. We cant replace the signals because they dont make those parts anymore, theyre so old. So weve got a lot going on in the city on transportation, and we will certainly, in new york, be competing along with the other states for federal funding. Ashley so you get all this money. Are we just fixing whats broken down . Are we actually putting new structures and new infrastructure in place . Well, its very important that we do both. Finish weve got to build new because our city is growing as are metropolitan regions around the country. Weve got new centers of employment, new residential centers, so we have the connect to we have to connect to those. But also in the next five years weve got 15 billion worth of repairs to make on our hoping subway system. Anybody who rides the trains and the subways knows that. So weve got both those pieces to worry about. Ashley so youre talking rail, subway, roads, bridges, airports airports. Ashley we say this every time, laguardia which is already undergoing a massive facelift. Threequarters of the delays in the u. S. Are based on the new york area airports. Ashley is that right . Yes. Were responsible for a lot of the problems, and were about to try and fix those ashley are you sick of hearing about the complaints of laguardia . [laughter] didnt the mayor describe it as third world . The exmayor . I think that was joe biden. Ashley was it joe biden . I think he was one of many. [laughter] anyway, its harsh, but in some respects i would say its true, wouldnt you . Yes, absolutely. Especially if you go to developing countries around the world and see thes modern, efficient airports that are well serviced. Ashley its a boon for the economy too, right . Infrastructure. A trillion dollar Infrastructure Investment that the president is talking about was projected over the next ten years to create 11 million new jobs. Ashley wow. And theres a 2. 2 multiplier in that, so theres nothing more valuable you can do than invest in infrastructure in terms of the Ripple Effect in the local economy. Ashley everybody wins. Everybody. Ashley i like the sound of that. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. Look forward to seeing the new laguardia. Elon musks launching Spacex Spacex its the size of a doubledecker bus, it weighs more than 13,000 pounds. You know, ash, this is falcon 9s, the ninth launch in about six months, the second in two weeks. It looks like its a 23story rocket that shot off from Cape Canaveral monday night. Its a very heavy satellite, the heaviest yet ashley do we know what its going to be used for in. For communications. Its going to float around, stay in space. Ashley ill get a better hbo signal . So it doesnt go out when it rains . [laughter] all right, thank you very much. Hillary clinton might have lost the election, shes not going away. Shes launching a superpac call call and your daily dose of california outrage. Governor jerry brown earmarking millions of dollars of taxpayer money to pay for the legal bills for illegal aliens facing deportation. You cant make this stuff up. If you did, they wouldnt believe you. And get this, a team of Scientists Say an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit earth a few minutes later, t. Rex could still be walking the earth. That would be interesting. Well explain with more varney after this. Looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. It can provide what we call an unlock a realization that often reveals a better path forward. At wells fargo, its our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and Wealth Management firms in the country. Discover how we can help find your unlock. Brtry new Flonase Sensimists. Allergy relief instead of allergy pills. It delivers a gentle mist experience to help block six key inflammatory substances. Most allergy pills only block one. New Flonase Sensimist changes everything. Ashley all right. Take a look at the shares of ford up 1 in the premarket, announcing that it is cutting 10 of its global work force. Apparently, investors like the sound of it, cutting costs. E. Mac, why are they making these cuts . It looks like its going to be 20,000 ashley 20,000 people. Worldwide. Potentially, half of them here in the United States. They are on track to cut 3 billion in costs this year. Of so, you know, the reason theyre doing it, this stock is down 40 since 2014, the market cap is below tesla and gm and, you know, so will this create a white house reaction or a backlash because donald trump has said, the president has said hes counting on job creation at the automakers. So, you know, the fact that ford is doing this even though the car sector has been growing over the last seven years, it looks like ford is still trying to get a grip on its bottom line. Ashley the companys not doing well and has to take steps, should they have to worry about the white house not liking what theyre doing. They have shareholders. Yeah, thats an important point. And they have shifted towards small cars and electric vehicles where people still, of course, want the big cars. Ashley theyve got the trucks, the f150s, thatll help save them. E. Mac, thank you. Moving on to the Global Economy, china has a trillion dollar plan to build roads and airlines in africa and europe. Theyre doing that already. Peter morici, china is a favorite topic of yours. I tend to be skeptical, to ive got the believe the socalled new silk road as theyre calling it has to be designed to largely benefit Chinese Companies and their economy. Am i wrong . Well, that is the idea. China has a lot of excess capacity in steel, concrete and so forth, and lets face it, this the stuff you use to thats the stuff you use to build roads, bridges and railroads. At the same time, it offers an opportunity to develop its middle tech and hightech sector in areas that support those kinds of initiatives. Still, some American Companies like, you know, caterpillar and ge stand to benefit from this. The real question is can they pull it off. Generally speaking, big, grand schemes pursued by governments especially across borders tend to run into all kinds of problems because, you know, government bureaucrats, theyre not the best risk managers, and theyre going to be lending a lot of this money to people that they dont know in foreign cultures. Ashley but you could argue, and many have, that chinas way ahead of the u. S. On this Global Infrastructure project. Theyve been in africa for many, many years building out the roads and rail lines there. Theyre very, theyve been doing it under everybodys noses. I mean, that sounds like its doing something, you know, theres a scheme involved. Theyre just very good at the long game, respect they . And are they arent they . And are they getting a leg up over the u. S. . I think they are, and i think its a wakeup call for the Trump Administration. For the last 16 years lets not be partisan the white house has worried about domestic welfare. You know, basically providing Prescription Drug benefits to seniors, building out health care and so forth and been neglecting its international responsibilities. And we see the fruits of that. The obama folks emphasized tying Foreign Countries to america through trade. The transpacific partnership, negotiating a similar deal in europe. Whereas the chinese are focusing on more tangible things that developing countries have trouble doing for themselves because of lack of money. And if its the one thing the chinese have, it might not be expertise, its cash. Lots of it. [laughter] so theyre willing to build you that airport where the United States saysing well, lets have a free trade agreement. Now along comes many trump, and he cancels the free trade agreements while china is saying, want some more concrete . Who gets a leg up . The answer is china is following through, its got continuity, focus and vision. The United States is, quite frankly, quixotic in its action, and this white house is not fulfilling confidence in its ability to perform. Ashley 30 seconds, peter. Candidate trump made china to be the root of all evil when it came to trade, but now apparently the leaders of the two countries are bffs. Do you buy into that . Are we going to have more access to the Chinese Market . Is this a trade deal thats going to work . It might work. In the past deals like this havent worked, but even if it does, it only covers small slivers of our concerns about trade with china. It doesnt deal with the big picture. Unfortunately, mr. Obama persuaded mr. Trump to focus on north korea, that somehow they could persuade china to help him out if he caved in on trade. Well, hes caved in on trade, and last i heard north koreas still shooting off those missiles. Ashley they certainly are. Peter morici, as always, great stuff. Thanks for joining us. Take care. Ashley sears ceo blamed weak sales on negative coverage from the media, now hes bashing one of sears top power tool suppliers for threatening to cancel a contract with the company. Maybe mr. Lambert should take scott shelladys advice. Roll that. Ive got a shockingly great idea for him. Make some money thats going to make it all go away. Go out and make some money, stop talking. [laughter] you always pay your insurance on time. Tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. What good is having insurance if you get punished for using it . News flash nobodys perfect. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch and you could save 509 on auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™ Liberty Mutual insurance. Ashley well, it looks like markets shrugging off political turmoil. Turmoil . What turmoil . Liz, the housing story continues to look good. Yeah. The existing home sales are up at the fastest pace since, in a decade. Were talking 2007 levels. 5. 6 million plus homes sold in the First Quarter. And house prices are popping in 85 of the 178 markets covered by the National Association of realtors. Ashley very good. We are joined, by the way, mike murphy, a couple of superstars from Varney Company. Shah, housing numbers have been pretty good, we had the Housing Sentiment number yesterday that was also very good. I dont care whats going on in washington, these markets are very resilient. Well, Home Builders are doing very well, i think millennials may be starting to buy. But i think in terms of inventory, ther