ashley, what have you got? >> yeah, my knowledge of asian and african flag, a little rusty. i'm going to go with number two, 34. stuart: okay, lauren. lauren: i'm going to do 44, number four. stuart: i'm going for the lowest number, 29. and reveal -- lauren: good job. >> very good. stuart: 929 the's the answer -- 29's the answer. the first country to have red, white and blue flag was the netherlands. i thought it might be britain with the union jack, but apparently not. don't forget to send in your friday feedback for this week. remember, we like short and pithy mention so that we can threamed on the air. no insults, plee.z send all of it to starny viewers at -- varney view isers at -- lauren: insults coming in. [laughter] stuart: time's almost up for "varney & company," but "coast to coast" starts as of now. neil: so, stuart, you had a

premise if with the e-mails, no insults? [laughter] because that's to all of my my e-mail right there. stuart: realize, i'm encouragin- neil: i have some i could pass along to you. no cult subtles, look at that. oh, neil's on. [laughter] thank you, my friend. all right. well, nothing insulting about the market right now, across the board gains, and a lot of its has sort of changed the thinking. we had a bigger drop than expected in jobless claims. we're going to tell you more about this. stuart, of course, elaborated on it for you, but the whole view of the market has gone now from fearing inflation and any type of number that might hint at it like the jobless claims numbers, and now relief that's strong enough to indicate there's no recession on the horizon. see the 1800 in just the last week? we're keeping a very, very close eye on that because stocks are up and look at the yield on the

10-year bond, that is in and out of 4. remember on monday we were down to 3.68%. so that seems to be more normal right now p. but, again, it could hurt some of these auctions that are going on today the for everything from3, 6, 1-year bills because their rates have gone up now a little bit here, so it's going to be a little bit tougher to pass that along as a we were seeing yesterday in a bond auction. so, you know, you're damned if you to do, damned if you don't. but having said all of that, it looks like a good day going so far today. let's get kelly o'grady, very good at laying out where we stand right now. >> reporter: that's a tall order, i will try, neil. markets are rebounding after some much-needed good economic data. the yesterday we weren't able to continue the momentum that we saw on turn-around tuesday, but currently we are seeing some green, we are seeing some bumps. so, look, the cow up 526 points, the the s&p almost 100 and the nasdaq 366 right now. i want to zoom out though

because we still haven't recovered, rather, from the monday selloff or the end of last week jitters, right? remember, we had that thursday, friday. so let's look at where we stand versus end of thursday last week. the dow still down 2.of %, s&p 500 down 32 2.8%, and the nasdaq down 3.7. so still some work to do before we dig out of that hole completely. initial jobless claims, we got that this morning, they totaled 233,000 for the week. that's down 17,000 from the week prior. it's also well below the estimate of 24 to 0,000. it was kind of interesting to watch this morning, market futures were negative. we got this information and then it turned sharply positive on that news. and up kind of seeing this, you've got to marvel at the 180. good news for the labor market thing, oh, gosh, inflation is here to stay. maybe the labor market isn't in as a bad a shape as we thought

on friday. one note though, continuing jobless claims teched up to 1th if 87 for -- 1.87 million, the highest level since late no 202211, so it speaks to the trouble those that are unemployed may have finding a new job. finally, mortgage rates a breaking right now, 30-year fixed plunging to 6.47%. that's down from last week. that numbers, by the way, the lowest level since we've seen since a may of 2023. the existing homeowners are still sitting on much lore rates so, certainly, something i want to see as i'm in the market for a house, neil. neil: yeah, or take what you can get. we're going to be speaking to james bullard, the former st. louis fed president, what he makes of all of this but, kelly, thank you for that. now to susan li following the technology here. you know, susan, the back and forth on buying on the dips when these stocks sort of go down a

lot, it is the case today the i wonder for how long. >> reporter: that's a great question. remember mid june, neil, when nvidia all of a sudden became the world's biggest company, overtaking microsoft and apple, and many thought maybe there was a new paradigm shift in leadership in the sock market. well, fast forward six weeks, and nvidia has lost almost a trillion dollars in value. that's almost two teslas gone and not a lot of dip buying. and that's despite the 27% drop you see in the stock and a post-stock split below $100 toapiece yesterday, and that's because there aren't a whole lot of catalysts in the market up until nvidia's earnings on august 28th. and if you look at amd, that helped support the market recently with its bullish guidance. super micro, the a.i. trade of this a.i. hype cycle, it's still up 80% this year and submitting 10 for 1. now, the question is are the gains over? well, if you judge it by the the

huge amount of continued spending on artificial intelligence, a.i., in this a.i. arms race across big tech and the valley, we're talking about tens of billions of dollars still chasing nvidia chips. every big tech company are upping their a.i. spend, and virtually every big tech executive that i spoke to this earnings season, they have confirmed they are ramping up their spend significantly. goldman sachs says at least a trillion dollars in a.i. spending by these check ingiants, and that should raise global gdp by 7%. cathie wood and ark investments have picked up $27 million in amazon and ark md shares this week, but its ark fund has hit its lowest, investors pulling out over $2 billion from etfs, on if pace for her worst year of outflows in a decade for cathy. now, meantime, some news here this morning, microsoft continues its a.i. push. microsoft will incorporate

palantir's big data analysis and its cloud services to the u.s. defense and intelligence agencies. now, microsoft if we know is still going all in, all in on a.i., biggest investor in openai. amazon, google invested in chatgpt competitor anthropic, billions of dollars' worth, nvidia has invested in cohere which is a $5 billion a.i. company in france, and the next five years, neil, should be rather interesting. i'm just wondering what you think of the jpmorgan call, they have upped the recession call to 35%, up from 25%, but then the you have jamie dimon who says that in his view a soft landing's maybe only a 35-40% probability. neil: but, you know, what good does that do, to say the odds t- [laughter] that it climb maybe 5 or 8ing %, whatever, it just seems like a meaningless slash, doesn't it? things are boeing to look more worrisome, we're going to look at a 5-8 -- >> reporter: very good point.

neil: we should have a thing in the show, just stop it! >> reporter: talk to the hand. that's right, neil. neil: susan, that does not apply to you, thank you very much. nor to my next two brilliant gentlemen, jake woods here, mitch roschelle, madison ventures partner and chief strategy officer. you know, mitch, on that issue of firms that come out and then they weigh the recession possibilities and they might, couple of others have done it, up from 20% to 25%, from 25% to 30%. what good does that do for investors? >> none, neil. and it also reminds me of analysts that have a buy on a stock and then they report a good quarter and they have a sell the next day. i think it's really window dressing because their constituents want the company to have some sort of a point of view, and if they don't redefine the point of view after there's news in the market, then they're

criticized. it's almost like virtue signaling about the market. and i think you're absolutely right as was susan, the best thing to do sometimes is just say nothing. neil: there there you go. and a lot of it, a little hiney covering here, but who knows? certainly don't apply to to either of you fine gentlemen. jake, we've had a whip sawing of moves, and i don't know whether today is more representative of where, you know, the markets are and sentiment is, but separately i noticed there's a survey out that shows retail investors haven't been this pessimistic in about nine months. it's on market watch plight. but there are a variety that are indicating similar sentiment among the retail crowd. what do you make of that? >> yeah, new york i mean, usually when you get those surveys, sentiment goes down as the time to buy. this is august, september, the two most volatile months of the year, we haven'ted had an upperiod in those two months in the last three years.

we had the fed last thursday, the unemployment number spooked people, basically telling the fed you should have cut rates when you had the opportunity. and then you accelerate things with the japan trade and that unwind, and it was just the fuel to finally get that much-needed and, be honest, a correction of 10%. the s&p 500 almost got there, it was down 9.8. the nasdaq did correct 10%. so you look at it from a bigger scope, we get one of those corrections on average every year, 3 three 5% corrections. nvidia has corrected, so we're going through some pains right now. but when you live through 'em, that's when you question it. could this time be different. and right now i don't think it is. neil: all right. you're quite right, all the chipmakers are doing well from nvidia, broadcom, players in the arena, ancillary players meta and a. they're all doing really

well. i am bond earning, mitch -- wondering, mitch, what you make of the sentiment for technology. as jay pointed out, you talk about a fast market for this market, when so many players have had a couple of corrections of up to 20%, that tells you something about this group of stocks. so how do how you play that? >> well, i think you have to take the retail investors and separate them from the institutional investors. the retail investors that got sort of whip sawed with all of this are going to slowly trickle back into the market and try to potentially buy dips. the institutional players, especially the hedge funds, it's interesting, they took stocks like nvidia and they borrowed heavily to buy those positions. and even though the cost of borrowing is considerably higher than it was say, you know, three years ago when money was free, when a stock's going up and doubling, you can borrow at 10% and still get a great return. but they found happening to themselves in the last two weeks is, you know, in plain speak,

margin calls. and and when you get squeezed like that as a professional money manager, you are very reluctant -- my metaphor is if you have foot surgery, it's hard the first time you put weight on on that foot, and that's what's happening right now with the institutional players and some of these big names. neil: all right. gentlemen, i want to thank you both. jay, mitch will be back later. in the meantime, james bullard, you remember him, of course, the president of the st. louis fed, key player and a very keen read on how fed think and central bank think goes. james, always honored to have you. i really want to put this in the context of the bank of japan which startled folks when it went ahead and raised rates, startled them all over again i kind of think this week by saying, you know, we might not do that for a while as if they were afraid of the market fallout and what they started. so it beg the the question -- beggings the question, should central banks be worried about

how the market reacts to what heir doing? >> oh, absolutely. and i do think that boj was trying to settle things down a little bit with this deputy governor's speech, i guess yesterday or the day before. i think attitudes have changed in japan a little bit. you know with, always in favor of the weaker yen, but i think 160 was a bridge too far, ask and they're trying to pull that back a little bit without, without too much volatility. but they've got a lot of volatility on friday. if. neil: they did. all the world -- [inaudible conversations] >> yeah. neil: right, no, i understand. when you were on the fed, how closely did you look at the markets? sometimes i think i've raised this with you in the past, did the the market misinterpret a decision or a statement or a speech that you made or gave, and it bothered you to the point

where you had to react to it? or do you just ignore it, it's noise? >> well, i mean, markets are notorious for going too far in one direction or too far in another direction, and that's why the fed has not wanted to react directly to the stock the market, because you can really get into kind of a losing game where you adjust policy one way, then the market goes the other way. it can really backfire. so i think the fed tends to the to want to produce, you know, we're not going to react to a particular number, you're going to take a more measuredded assessment of the situation, and that tends to be the rule when even when there's a lot of market volatility. neil: but, you know, james, isn't there a risk that the markets are bullying you -- not you, specifically, but we can rant and scream and stomp our

feet, and they'll do something because they get nervous and we've got their number. >> well, at the fed they like to think that that does not happen. [laughter] it is a dance, i would say, between -- because i guess what i'd say about this is both, the fed is trying to assess the state of the macro economy, the market is trying to assess the state of the macro economy. if they're on the same page, then everything works fine. if hay get a little bit different interpretations of the same data, then you can get some confusion about how that that's affecting future monetary policy and, therefore, future valuation in the market. so to keep everybody on the same page, i think, the best way to do that is have pretty constant communication about here's how we're interpreting the latest numbers, here's how the fed is thinking about the latest data, and that a tends to keep everybody on the same page. but sometimes things occur and

they get on different pages. neil: it's easy to play monday morning quarterback as we look at the fed and the markets -- >> that's america's favorite sport. neil: you're right. but jerome powell was addressing the no change in rate decision on the part of the fed. i mean, he gave a very sanguine outlook for the economy and things are doing okay, then along comes the fried -- friday unemployment report. in retrospect, a couple have said it would have been wise for the fed the make a cutting move at that meeting. some had advocated it. what do you make of that, that -- easy for them to say should have, could have, would have, they never did. what do you think? >> yeah. i think the fed's had a pretty successful run here with the 2022 policy, four 75 basis point

increases in a row. then you got a lot of disinflation in 2023 and even into this year without causing recession, so it's all been pretty good. but the moment to pull back, you know, is getting very, very near. i think the committee signaled about as clearly as they can that they're ready to go in september -- neil: by how much erik do you think -- do you think, james? >> i thought it was maybe a little too late. but still, in the macroeconomic scheme of things, you know, it wouldn't matter too much if you started in july or you started in september. so i think they're in pretty good shape, but there is a debate now, and i think a good focus for markets is like how fast will this go now. if you start in september, do you want to go at every meeting 25 basis points, slower than that, faster than that? that's a very live debate right now, and pretty much all the

pieces of the soft landing have come into place except that the policy rate's still pretty high. so how fast do you want to get to the neutral policy rate, and i think that's the key thing here. neil: do you think it'll be a half a point cut? that's what the markets seem to be factoring in. >> as of where we are today, i think it's going to be 25 and then another 25 in november, but we'll see. neil: all right. always good talking to you and getting your perspective, james bullard, former head of the st. louis fed. by the way, there's something called the volatility index, the vix. it's a fear index. you can actually buy and put money down on how afraid you are. this thing for a brief time on monday, it rocketed up to to 65. it's now around the 24 the neck of the woods, down about 11%. that means the fear, the anxiety of the markets has dissipated to the degree that it's far less than half what a it was a little more than 72 hours ago.

that in and of itself tells you the perspective of the market. i don't have to remind you that it can swing wildly in a day. monday was a good example of that. but all the days since. ya know, if you were cashbacking you could earn on everything with just one card. chase freedom unlimited. so, if you're off the racking... ...or crab cracking, you're cashbacking. cashback on flapjacks, baby backs, or tacos at the taco shack. nah, i'm working on my six pack. switch to a king suite- or book a silent retreat. silent retreat? hold up - yeeerp? i can't talk right now, i'm at a silent retreat. cashback on everything you buy with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours.

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♪ >> welcome back to "can coast to coast," i'm grady trimble on the campaign trail in michigan. vice president kamala harris and governor tim walz have another campaign event here this afternoon. they're meeting with members of the united i autoworkers' union trying to to appeal to union voters here in michigan. meanwhile, former president trump is not on the road this week, but he is trying to halt their momentum. he's holding a press conference this afternoon at mar-a-lago, sort of highlighting the fact that his opponent, vice president harris, has not held a press conference or sat down for an interview since replacing president biden at the top of the ticket. if giving us a preview of what trump might discuss this afternoon, he posted on truth social this morning that the election is about the economy and suggesting that a harris presidency could lead to a, quote, 19929- style -- 1929-style depression. harris for her part, is also a

talking the quite a bit about the economy on the trail. united united autoworkers' members were in the crowd yesterday, and the president, shaun payne, spoke before harris and walz. even though a lot of voters blame the biden-harris administration for inflation, here is her economic messaging. >> we fight for a future where every worker has the freedom to join a union, a future where we build a broad-based economy, where every american has an opportunity to own a home, to start a business and to build wealth. >> reporter: and at that rally, a chant aing group of pro-palestinian protesters interrupted harris' speech. you can see there the they were removed from the venue, and the speech continued. it was a small group, but it sort of highlights a larger concern for the harris-walz campaign here in michigan, that some voters might not show up to the polls in november because of

the biden-harris administration's handling of the war in gaza. so certainly something to watch as that and the economy are in focus here in this critical swing state. neil? neil: indeed. thank you, my friend, grady trimble in dearborn, michigan, on that. daniel lippman with us, the other wildcard here is this crazy market this week. republicans are saying, hey, it's happening all over again. we don't know where it's going, but that's a wildcard in and of itself. >>s it is. the harris campaign would love the market to just keep zooming ahead, but they don't think that it's -- what trump said this week is it's the great depression of 20 to 24, some of that rhetoric seems a little hyperboll ig. but remember, trump is all about the stock market. and so i think the harris campaign wants to kind of compare how the stock market did during this administration

versus the last one. of course, covid had a big deal to do with trump getting a big hit in the stock market in 2020. neil: i don't want to belabor the point, but i've raised on my showing, concern shows, daniel, donald trump can select and choose what he likes, it's going up because of him, down because of them. i've lost track of that. if this does get out of control, there's a survey that a lot of retail investors, average folks, who are more than just a little average worried. and that can, that can first. fester. if it were to, it's usually taken out on the party that vole house. would the same hold few true now? >> i think that would stay true. what's interesting is that the harris camera patience i looked at their web site today, there's no issue page on their web site. so for americans who want to know about how she would handle

the economy, you have to kind of watch her speeches. you can't go to her web site. and so while the trump campaign, they have their 18-page campaign platform, although there's a lot of platte if tuesday in that as well. -- platitudes in that as well. so i think that, you know, it's something that she is keeping an eye on, but she also knows as a vice president she can kind of shift the blame subtly to joe biden and distance herself a little bit on a debate stage saying, hey, she wasn't in charge of the economy. and in america, we don't have a socialist system where the president can set prices, more would we want to have it. neil: yeah. and that's a risky strategy on her part, if she were to do that. it didn't really work for hubert humphrey in the middle of the vietnam war as a the vice president and standard bearer in 1968. you know, it might have been hard to win that the year anyway for a democrat, although he came close. is so how because she balance that, you know, loyalty to the

president as she herself runs for president? >> yeah. i think it's a tricky balancing act. what a she has to do is say, hey, kind of feel your pain like bill clinton. i have a plan to make america a place where middle class families can afford a home, can pay for their kids to go to college. and trumping with his 10% -- trump, with his 10% tariff, that that would be a tax on american families, that that would be inflationary. so, you know, she can't cite economists too much, and that's a hypothetical. i bet trump would actually not do that full tariff. he's using it as a stick to get more positive trade deals with foreign countries. but that's still in his agenda, and she's going to say, hey, why would we want to the tax our own if products coming in that americans want to buy especially in a economy where inflation is only recently -- has only recently come down and we just

haven't fully picked up even though wages is have recovered, but not to the full exend. neil: yeah. to your earlier point, each side has their own tariff idea as donald trump's seem to be much more sweeping, but we'll watch how it sorts out. daniel, great seeing you again. >> thank you, neil. neil: in the meantime, we're getting some startling news on the taylor swift series of concerts that were canceled on terror threats. apparently, these alleged isis suspects had planned to drive a bomb-laden car into the crowd. one of them was hired as stadium security. we'll have much more after this. ? dad: i'm gonna clean the fence. daughter: it's a lot of fence. dad: you wanna help me? dad: aim at the wall, but get closer. daughter: (gasps) what the?! daughter: alright. dad: side to side. when you work with someone who knows a lot and cares even more... you can do this. ...you're unstoppable. (♪)

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neil: you know, the more we find out about this taylor swift terror threat, the scarier it gets. ashley webster has some insurance companies startling details. ashley. >> reporter: yeah, very disturbing, neil. two s&p 500s, aged 19 and 17, the 19-year-old believed to be the ringleader who'd been radicalized online, swearing an oath to the leader of isis, he is an austrian with, we're told, north macedonian roots. the plan, apparently, was an isis-style attack at one of these concerts driving a bomb-filled vehicle into a crowd to kill as many people as possible. they were also apparently allegedly going to use machetes.

even more worrying, one of those suspects, the 17-year-old, was just recently hired to work security for the venue that was holding the taylor swift concerts. we don't know which concert, there was one scheduled for tonight, friday and saturday is. all three have been canceled, as you can imagine. we are told that both suspects were known already to to authorities in austria as a risk. finish and, of course, when they raided the 19-year-olds home, they did find democrat calls and technical devices consistent with bomb make. so they have certainly averted what could have been a horrible tragedy. but you can imagine that those concerts being canceled affected nearly 20 the 0,000 people who were hoping -- 200,000 people who were hoping to see taylor swift in vienna if over the course of the next three days. but apparently this plot has been thwarted. neil. neil: well, there is that.

the implications of all a of that,, i think you remember the former chief of boston police. he was incident commander during the marathon bombing attack. you know, daniel, i look at an incident like this where one of these guys, maybe both of them, were cleared for security even with this questionable background. i don't know all the detail, you probably do, but that's a little scary. >> background checks are not what they used to be, neil. lots of locations limit what you can and can't do, and in some cases the government agencies don't put information they might have on somebody into the public databases because they don't want to send off red flags of that individual they might be looking at. so that's concerning. that's pre-operational, that they were identifying the security program, trying to figure their way to work around the security apparatus and shows they were definitely planning. neil: you know, i think of what you guys did and how you tracked

down the guys behind the boston marathon bombing, but it's an herculean task. anyone can go to these things. it's a little different going inside a large concert, e grant you, but still open to everybody. so how do you, it was even possible to lock down a venue like that. >> you have to -- and this is what taylor's team has to be doing now, right? they've got to maintain protection around her and her entourage, but at the same time, they've got to rely on their venue security coordinators. they've god to have advance teams going out, checking the venues in the next couple week, making sure they've got proper policies, procedures, staffing, technology and that it's not just something they say they're doing, right? at one event for krol, i was security director of a major event, we had olympic athletes, i went to the venue and started checking out security. we had a lot of credentials, and i could go anywhere i wanted to.

about four hours into it, i had a conversation with the security director of the facility and said, hey, identify got a problem with your team, and he asked what. i showed him a credential where i got a photograph of a woman who wasn't me, and i was allowed into all kinds of places. sometimes facilities get complacent, and they are checking boxes. taylor's team needs to make sure they're working advances and making sure that security is as on their toe the as possible. coordinating with local law enforcement and public safety agencies, they have a unified command and they're looking at all of these threats to ensure people go into these concerts safe and secure. neil: yeah. you know, what is it about these type of large venues, in moscow where, of course, a lot of terrorists had seized on the opportunity to to go into a large theater or playhouse. we've seen this before. you know, pop stars in london and events where it's very, very crowded. but they are the targets now, it

seems, and increasingly so. >> i did some research last night, and i think there's 300 venues for sports and entertainment activities that have been targeted since the '70s. they've got large populations in 'em, you can impact security relatively quickly if you know what you're doing and if they have a breach, and you can have a maximum impact where you get your cause, you know, the attention you're looking for in a negative if man manier, but the positive manner that the terrorists are looking for. we're talking about isis. we just saw saw the asack in moscow where isis, a group we thought was no longer active, they were very active in the last couple of months including the moscow attack. certainly, security officials need to make sure heir doing their best and getting their teams on their toes. neil: yeah. i always a worry, to your brilliant point, when they say isis is done, no need to worry.

start worrying. daniel linskey, he knows of what he speaks and dealt with it firsthand. we are still focused on the markets, also looking at media stocks. some of them used as a barometer for how things are doing if we'll still be inclined to buy a lot of stuff, stream a lot of stuff. right now, not helping stocks all that much. after this. ♪ you got that james dean day day dream look in your eye -- ♪ and i got that red lip classic thing that you like ♪ what the biggest companies deliver is exceptional customer experience. what makes it possible is unmatched connectivity and 5g solutions from t-mobile for business. t-mobile connects 100,000 delta airlines employees.

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megan -- is barron's senior writer, kind enough to join us. i was just thinking knowing that you were coming that some of the biggest, crazieriest markets have is happened in august, you know? and there's a reason for that. obviously, it just could be timing, but it can be worsened by the environment of fewer players. what is it? >> it's true. no, august is one of those months where we do actually see lower trading volumes. in fact, it can be upwards of 30 percent lower than some of the the peak months like marsha we see, so that can actually be a huge driver of some of these wild swings that we're seeing. because when you have a ton of would-be sellers especially on days like monday and you don't have that many buyers around a, the equiclub rum gets thrown off. we might see an interesting month ahead of us. we do have a numb of economic data releases coming out that could be more mixed. that's going to play a little

bit more with markets. it's definitely something we have to watch this month. neil: you know, october gets the bad rap for 1929, 11987, much of the concentration and the big meltdown in 2007, you know, was in that, you know, october. but the fact of the matter is august is the one with the worst return. so sometimes i think october feel like saying, hey, look at august. leave me alone. [laughter] so what is it about august in general? >> well, look, i mean, we have the pumpkin spice lattes which makes everything better, right? if they're just starting this movement no, just teasing. seriously, i do think you get a little bit of that summer slump that we start to see this time of year. you point out at the temperature top folks are going to places like hawaii, certainly, there are fewer people in the office a, i fir managers manning the desk, and that does make a can difference in this wild age that a we are, that we think

everything's automatic and we don't need actual real people in the office. turns out, you kind of do. neil: yeah. so you're bracing us, megan, it sounds like, for more of this, right? that's what you're saying. >> i am bracing us for more of this. i also think though, i mean, we have to look at the wider context. we are seeing things like today we're getting a nice rebound. now, granted, we're still in the mode that we may see our fourth straight week of weekly downs, so that'll be an interesting note on all of this, but we got some good jobless claims this morning. that was a nice bump. it sent the markets into a little more of a rebound than we were expecting, but we've got cpi next week which could send us back into this more volatile situation. neil: oh, boy, you had to remind us of that. >> we did, i did. neil: great job. megan leonhardt on that. charlie gasparino probably seized on something that megan just said is, that pumpkin

spiced lattes are out now. did to you know that, charlie? they're out now, right now. >> i saw you start to salivate, right? neil: i didn't start, i am. >> yeah. you were like a rabid dog can when you heard pumpkin-spiced lattes. neil: yes, i was. >> in any event, i don't know how we got on this -- [laughter] neil: it's latte month. pumpkin spice -- >> i've tasted one once. it's horrible. i just want you to know. neil: it is not. >> it's toxic. neil: you're horrible. you're toxic. great author, great book, but i did want to catch up with you on all this media company nudes and david zaslav and the problems at paramount. what the heck is going on? >> neil, there's probably one media boss and i'm going to say this because he's our boss, rupert more dodge -- murdoch, who figured out early. when he sold his entertainment as assets for a lot of money,

something like $50 billion or maybe $70 billion. i can't remember the exact number, but it was the deal of the century because he sold it at the top of the market and leaving disney with a gazillion dollars of debt which bob cheap ec, eventually when he became ceo, when the media industry the started to turn, cord cutting set in and streaming seemed to be difficult and expensive, showed the sort of cracks in the traditional media business model. and, or you know, fox right now is a leaner company, it's, you know, doesn't have a lot of debt, you know in it's in pretty good shape. good ratings, obviously. but these other companies are struggling to try to figure out the model. and, you know, you can talk about david zaslav, he's the flavor of today, but i see these analysts saying positive things about disney just in the same shape almost. we should point out if you put tenth -- i've got to the give a hat tip to zero hedge because i saw this tweet and i checked it,

it's true. 84.93. go back to 2014, that's where it was trading. so if you put $10,000 in stock in disney in 2014, you have $10,000 more or less. all of these companies are in desperate trouble. the weakest one was paramount. if they found, luckily, a suitor that's willing to do something novel. it's a very, very complicated deal. it's kind of a reverse merger, and, you know, shari redstone cashed out with about a billion dollars. sumner redstone, her father, the great media entrepreneur takeover artist, i think his fortune at its height was, like, $40 billion. now she casheded out at just over a billion. david is a very seasoned executive. he knows the balance sheet better than anybody else. he is struggling like everybody else. by the way, if there's anybody, i believe, that could fix the balance sheet of warner brothers

discovery, it's david zaslav. he knows every bit. butly say this, if david had his druthers, and this is why so many media and tech people are really bad at the biden administration, he would sell to amazon. the biden administration is not allowing that. all these companies should be sold to big tech, and it won't happen. neil: all right. >> it won't happen. neil: we'll see. it's a larger playing field now and a confusing one, but you know it, buddy. charlie gasparino, best selling author, his people have people, that's how big a deal he is. in the meantime, we're following how people spend their money, still opting some for $108 dog perfume. that, my friends, is proof that you've gotten money to burn. after this.

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neil: all right, you heard a lot about the consumer pinched and really, we're behind the eight

ball but not all consumers, things are almost business as usual and pricey as usual including the rich happy to pay $108 for dog perfume, dolce & gabanna has that but it doesn't end there, there are $150 burgers and getting lines in new york city as well as chicken nuggets for as much as 28 bucks. that is per chicken nugget. that is mitch roschelle kind of money and he's kind enough to join us where you can find all of this , but mitch i love having you here on this. we should emphasize that not all high end retailers are doing so well but a lot of high end folks are, and they buy pricey things, and apparently, they are still buying them. what do you make of it? >> first of all for $12 you can get shampoo if your dog is stinky. you don't have to spend $108 on perfume right, but there's a very high end consumer that is not impacted by what's happening in the economy or the markets, and then there's non-high end

consumers that are still interested in retail therapy, and in troubled economic times, when you're dealing with inflation and other issues, why not just load up a little bit more on the credit card and do something that makes you feel rich when you know deep down you're not, and we've seen that in other economic cycles, where consumers truly can't afford something, are buying it anyway on borrowed because it's helping them sort of get through the tough times. neil: and what dog doesn't want $108 perfume. >> to tell you right now, you put $108 perfume on my dog fred, i'd have to spend $80 to get him a bath to get it off of him because he wouldn't like it. neil: yeah, it would get ugly. >> [laughter] neil: great stuff, mitch. i do appreciate it, my friend. i thought you'd be the perfect guy to talk about this and i was right. brian brenberg, thats the kind of money he spends o