♪ >> from bloomberg world headquarters, i am mark crumpton. this is "bottom line," with a main street respective. to our viewers here in the united states and to those of you joining us from around the world, welcome. we have full coverage of the stocks and stories making headlines, and su keenan follows another drop in crude oil prices, which are once again below $50 a barrel. companies are selling bonds at an accelerated pace. we begin with our bloomberg

chief washington correspondent peter cook as president obama sent congress a request for military force against the islamic state. peter, good afternoon. >> good afternoon, mark. president obama today sending up a formal request for the use of military force. the draft language does not appear to satisfy all republicans, some who think it is too limiting, as well as some you may think it may still be too broad. thread that needle and win enough of a resolution to actually clear. now, let's walk you through. it authorizes the use of force for three years, and that means the presidential successor will also be bound by it. it authorizes against the islamic state but allows the use of special operations forces and it ends the 2002 approval for iraq but it does not touch the 2001 approval after 9/11. there are no geographic limits. if the fight moves to lebanon

the u.s. could wage against the islamic state there. the president rights to congress, i can think of no better way to support our nations security than by enacting this legislation, which would show the world we are united in our resolve to counter the threat posed by isil. again, it will not be a slamdunk. there are democrats and republicans likely trying to make some changes to this resolution to this draft here and the president is trying to sell it, not just to congress, but to the country at 3:30 eastern time. mark: at the end of the day, will president obama, as you put it, be able to thread the needle? peter: this is very challenging, and i was just on the hill. every time he makes a change on one hand, it might affect republicans on one side, democrats on the other. at the end of the day, i spoke

to senator tim kaine, a democrat from virginia, and he pushed the president to put this forward in the first place, and he thinks the president will prevail. senator kaine: isil is a threat and the united states needs to take that significant threat to counter that with other nations, so i think he will succeed, but you are right. there are different points of view. the president was a senator. he was on the foreign relations committee, and he knows you do the best work as an executive. we're going to take our time with that, but the need for the mission is made more manifest every day, the death of kayler mueller, the horrible burning of the jordanian pilot. it is a threat to everyone if we do not take it seriously. peter: mark tim kaine also wants to see changes in this language, language with regard to truth still too broad, and he

once the language also dealt with, as well. mark: our chief washington correspondent, peter cook, thank you. and the first-ever special representative to the muslim committee from the state department and now an adjunct senior fellow at the council for foreign relations in washington, welcome back to "bottom line." it is a pleasure to see you again. >> a pleasure to see you. mark: he will hold his first war powers talks since 2002, which is when president george w. bush was given authorization before the u.s. invasion of iraq. what are the similarities and differences between that request and the one that president obama is seeking? >> it is an important question you're asking, but there is a larger frame, and we are talking about this moment of time for our country, and this is indeed, a moment of time to come together to understand what this threat is, and this threat is not just about the conventional

war that everyone is talking about. it is about something much bigger. it is impacting not just the region of the middle east but every part of the world and so if we're going to get serious about how we fight the extremists at large, we have to get serious about the hard power and soft power. mark: ms. pandith, you mentioned ideology, but isn't that at the crux of every one of these? war is when ideology differs and when diplomacy fails? ms. pandith: we have been looking at the sharp end of the spear looking at whether we can contain isil or al qaeda or boko haram in the 14 years since 9/11, and the fact is young kids are being recruited from all over the world, and ideas don't have boundaries, and if we are going to fix the problem, which is actually a solvable problem

we need to tear up in both the conventional components but also the nonconventional, -- we need to gear up, and that is been unbelievably weak, not just in our country but in countries around the world. there is a summit next week to talk about some of these threats and the ideological space, but i think this is the moment when our congress and the white house should come together about what it is we are facing. what is this threat? it is young millennials around the world that are being seduced by extremist ideology, and in order to be up to stop that so we do not have to put troops on the ground, we have to stop recruiting from taking place online and off-line. mark: ms. pandith, president obama's legislation had what is being called a glaring ambiguity, looking at enduring offensive combat operations and

senator barbara mikulski of maryland said that it has to have a time clock to it. how do you interpret this phrase? ms. pandith: i do not want to interpret that phrase. there is a piece in the legislation that talks about the component that i was just discussing in terms of how we look at defeating isil in terms of the ideology. when you are looking at the conversation that i hope we will have, the bipartisan conversation that we are having, we will look at all contours of how we effect this, and to put time limits or regional pieces to this at this stage without having the kind of conversation that we need to have i think limits us, and i think we need to be as creative about how we think about how we go after this threat, as we ever have been. you began by asking me what the difference was right after 9/11 and today. the threat has amassed in size in such a capacity that we are looking at a global threat of an

ideology that is affecting every part of the world, affecting our country and other countries that have similar young people who have been moved in a particular direction, and what we have to be thinking about is how we are going to stop this threat, not just using the conventional means but using all of mark: the tools in our toolbox. mark:-- but using all of the tools in our toolbox. mark: ms. pandith, is there a sentiment that this is best left to the middle east, or if isil's scope such that we must engage? ms. pandith: the number of countries getting involved in this, i think it is really important that jordan is being as proactive as they are and it is important to see other muslim countries do this but the fact is that the bad guys are preying upon young people who live with minorities in other parts of the world, as well, so i would like to see a global efforts of

muslim and muslim majority countries, as well as those who live in the minority at the community level making a difference on this. i would like to see nationstates to also take part. so there is no longer a time to be slicing and dicing who is doing what where. we have done that for 14 years, trying to checkboxes about who said what where. we are at a critical point where one part of the planet is muslim, 62% of those people are under the age of 30 and that is the demographic of the bad guys we are going after, and it is time for us to get serious about how to stop the recruitment from happening. symbolically, we have to see jordan and others, but we have to do more at the community level. mark: ok, speaking of the community level, you know what the talk has been in the past. will that pr campaign begin and

end with this is not a war against islam? ms. pandith: it is not a war against islam, and if we have learned anything, it is a way to stop recruitment from happening at the community level, and what we have to do is inject the kind of resources and the kind of support at the community level that knows how to stop a young person from moving in a direction that the extremists want them to move. mark: ma'am, if i might, what resources are you referring to? ms. pandith: there is government money, but that money is not credible. they look at that money with suspicion. what we would like to see is the kind of money that would come through philanthropists and the private sector to invest on the ground to stop recruitment from happening, and that will turn the game. that will absolutely change the game. mark: ms. pandith is now an

adjunct professor and senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. ms. pandith, always a pleasure to have you on the program. thanks for your perspective. president obama will be delivering his statement from the white house and we'll talk about his request to congress to authorize action against the islamic state. we will have live coverage and analysis on "street smart," with my colleague trish regan. let's get you to some of the top stories we are following at this hour. in belarus, leaders are holding talks about stopping the fighting in ukraine, and a big stumbling block is reportedly how much autonomy progression rebels will get over the territory they control. there is a 70% chance that talks will result in an end to the fighting, which continued even as preparations for negotiations were being finalized. meantime, ukrainian government forces have reportedly retake and six counts of around a port

city. european finance ministers are in brussels, holding talks on greece and its bailout loans. germany's finance minister says there are no plans to discuss a new deal or to give greece more time to repay its debt. greece's new government is hoping to get a new $11 billion loan, saying it needs to really negotiate so the economy can start going again. up next, world news, including the latest on embassy closings in yemen. "bottom line" on this wednesday continues in just a moment. ♪

mark: it is 15 minutes past the hour. let's check bloomberg world news. the captain of a capsized costa concordia has been found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in prison, that verdict coming down just moments ago. he was charged in the 2012 ship

wreck near an italian island and 32 people on board died. he was accused of manslaughter housing -- causing the accident, and many of the passengers and crew were still aboard. president obama wants to withdraw most of the u.s. troops sent to west africa to fight evil the. close to 3000 americans were deployed last year, and just 100 will remain in the region at the end of april. we will have more coming up on "bottom line." the u.s. state department is closing its embassy in yemen, urging them to leave immediately due to terrorist activities and unrest. there has been increasing turmoil since shiite rebels took control of the capital. the british and french embassies are also closing and that is world news. we will have another update coming up in about 30 minutes. coming up apple has about 180 billion dollars in cash, and that is more than the gdp of

many developing countries. yet, it keeps borrowing money. are there risks of this era of cheap debt? next. ♪

mark: welcome back. this is "bottom line" streaming on your tablet and on bloomberg.com. two major developments rocked the television world. nbc has suspended anchor brian williams for six months without pay. last month, williams was forced to retract his story, in which he said he had come under fire while reporting in iraq, and the host of "the daily show," jon stewart, says he believes soon. he has posted that since 1999

and they have satire commentary, and interviews with newsmakers. and another has joined the board of lions gate in a stock swap deal, the company that produced the "hunger games" movies. lionsgate will get 14% of the voting power, and malone's starz tv network. and cable channels and hbo helped offset a drop in advertising sales, and so did job cuts across the company at cnn and time warner is trying to attract new viewers by offering a web-only subscription to hbo, and some of the cable channels will be available on dish's new online service. when you're sitting on billions of dollars of cash, why borrow more money? some say because it is cheap.

our guest joins us in the studio. there is no guarantee that investors are going to have a payday, is there? guest: no. when you are buying corporate bonds, that is like money market types of profits dive years ago, six years ago. people are definitely taking a risk. mark: so is it betting tonight on powerball? lisa: let's not get carried away. ultimately, you are going to get your money back, supposedly, from a company like apple or microsoft or some of the other thousands of companies that are selling debt. i think what people are looking at going forward is they are saying, look. the european central tank is not backing away and central banks around the world are engaging in stimulus so even if they backed away from its monetary policies, no one else is so you are going to get your money back and not only that, that 1% yield looks pretty good when you look at

that 4 trillion dollars of negative yielding government debt around the world. mark: so if microsoft has all of this money, why raise more? lisa: well, why not? people are handing you money. in switzerland, apple had its first bond sale, where the 10 year yield is negative. in other words, people are paying for the privilege for 10 years. and then they can turn around and invest in the u.s., and if you think the dollar is going to appreciate ursus the swiss franc, you're basically doing a trade. they could raise money and then just use the cash they use from the bond sale for general operating processes while keeping their 150 house and dollars plus. -- $150,000 plus. mark: are small companies

getting on board, as well? lisa: yes. you are seeing smaller yield companies also going overseas. this is the equivalent of $20 billion of junk bonds that have been sold in europe. versus less than half of that during the same period last year. mark: ok, raising money in the u.s. as opposed to raising money a broad? lisa: versus 1% over in europe. if you look at this chart, the gap has widened the most since 2005. it is two percentage points more expensive to finance debt in the u.s.. mark: ok so is it a net benefit for the economy? lisa: this is a question people

are asking. on the one hand, it is benefiting some but in the u.s. the fact that we are backing away or preparing to back away from our easy money policies rates are rising or are potentially rising. the dollar is strengthening, and this is eating into company earnings. pepsi today was talking about how they are expecting the currency shift will eat about 7% off of their profits this year so you aren't inc. some detrimental effects from this sort of global monetary oppression backdrop. >> up --mark: ok, what are they going to do about interest rates? how does this affect their position? lisa: they are looking at the strength of the economy that the economy is showing strength. wages are increasing. implement is dropping, so for them, they want to get back to a normal kind of position as far

as interest rates go. at the same time, the goldman sachs coo yesterday came out on bloomberg television and said you know, the fed is going to have to look at currency rates. they're going to have to look at the strengthening dollar and how it is eating into the profits of american companies, and then they have to take that into account. mark: i have to ask you. you are an average investor. what does all of this mean to you? lisa: well, it depends on if it is a lottery ticket. if you're getting 3% on a corporate bond. mark: wow, lisa apple, microsoft, that is a lot of money. lisa: it is a lot of money. mark: thanks so much. coming up, ibo look. reaction to the fact that the u.s. will be removing most of the military personnel by the end of april. stay with us. ♪

>> welcome back to the second half hour of "bottom line" on bloomberg television. let's get you to today's top stories. let's check the price of crude oil. . you see new york crude down about 2.5% today at 48.88 a barrel. congress set to send a bill for the keystone xl pipeline to president obama. it is expected to pass the

senate easily this afternoon. it authorizes construction of the much-delayed pipeline. it has passed the house and the senate but not enough to override a presidential veto. he will begin raising money to run for california governor in 2018. newsom is the former mayor of san francisco and has long wanted to be governor. he announced last month that he will not pursue a u.s. senate seat, creating anticipation he would seek the state's top post. the launch of an unmanned rocket by spacex was canceled due to high wind in florida. they will try again tonight. that is a look at the top

stories we are following at this hour. president obama announced the united states will be withdrawing most troops sent to west africa to fight the ebola outbreak. mr. morrison, welcome to "bottom line." how would you assess the u.s.'s role in helping african nations combat ebola? >> the u.s. has been the strategic variable in rolling back this crisis. president obama made an announcement mid-september to deploy initially up to 3000 troops. that was in a period when the crisis was running out of control. they deployed rapidly into liberia principally. they provided command and control. they provided an air bridge. they constructed ebola treatment units.

they constructed a training center and a special facility for caring for workers, house workers. that work has been completed. we've seen a dramatic falloff in ebola caseload in liberia especially. so the president's announcement now that, by the end of april, all but 100 of those troops will have been withdrawn it is a mark of success. it's also in keeping with the expectations that the deployment was meant to be an emergency interim deployment and that the civilian agencies are really supposed to be in the lead in the medium to long-term. >> the white house says at the end of april just 100 u.s. military personnel will remain in west africa to fight ebola. why only 100 personnel if, by the administration's own admission, the ebola crisis is not yet over? >> right now, we have in place

an infrastructure in library, it in sierra leone that did not exist at the height of the crisis that should be able to handle the recurrent outbreaks. by that infrastructure, i mean the ability to have safe and dignified burials, to have case investigations of new outbreaks and the tracing of contacts. and the ability to isolate and contain people who are either suspect did or are actual cases of ebola. that infrastructure is there now. the 100-person residual presence is in part two continued to be active in providing technical support, particularly in mobile laboratories. and should there be a need, and urgent requirement, for additional military capacity and that could be introduced. but the point of all of this was always to transition to a fully civilian eyes -- civilianized

response mechanism. >> more than $2 billion were allocated. how have the -- what is the psychology of giving money to deal with a crisis out to many countries that are nowhere near their borders? >> the response to this which amounted to $2 billion in contributions on the emergency side, the u.s. accounted for $800 million. the eu, the u.k., these were the big donors as well as the world bank and the imf. they responded in this fashion because we had never seen such a lethal outbreak of ebola that became regionalized and moved into large urban centers. by september, it had been declared by the world health organization in early august, as an outbreak of international gravity and threat and it needed

to be halted. you could argue that earlier interventions that happened back in may or april it would have been stopped early in its tracks but it did not happen. it got way ahead of everyone and it required this very expensive and very dramatic mobilization led i the u.s. military in liberia and by the british military in sierra leone with a very robust presence of the cdc and u.s. agencies for international development. >> we mentioned president obama speaking earlier this afternoon about the drawdown of military personnel in west africa to combat the bowl a virus. let's listen to what the president had to say. >> we are here to mark a transition in our fight against this disease. not to declare mission accomplished, but to mark a transition. thanks to the hard work of our nearly 3000 troops who deployed

to west africa, logistics have been set up. ebola treatment units have been built. over 1500 african health workers have been trained and volunteers around the world have gained the confidence to join the fight. >> what lessons have been learned by the ebola outbreak? >> some very hard lessons have been learned. we cannot afford as a global community to have a failed system globally of detecting and responding to dangerous outbreaks. the world health organization did not perform as it should in this process, in this period, and it's enormously costly. the second hard lesson is we cannot afford to have a cluster of poor countries like liberia sierra leone, and ginny without having -- and guinea without

having any capacity in their own health systems to monitor and respond. they need basic capacities created in those countries in order to reserve some modicum of health security. also, u.s. leadership, strategic leadership across the presidency , diplomats, aid workers, the department of defense, cdc, was sterling in this period and there is a lot that americans can be quite proud of. >> senior vice president and director, joining me from washington, it's been a pleasure. thanks so much for your time. up next, the latin america report and a loss by billionaire carlos slim.

>> it is time now for today's latin america report. billionaire carlos slim's mobilephone company america bowl model -- america movil misses profit estimates. it serves seven of eight mobilephone users. still ahead, waging war on islamic state. we will have president obama's plan to send ground troops. ♪

>> let's check bloomberg world news. president obama has asked congress to improve -- to approve a tax on islamic state. it has committed despicable acts and will attack the u.s. if not

confronted. president obama wants this 32 use ground troops. 10 of the trans-asia pilots were grounded after tests and will be reach rained after emergency procedures. the other 19 have not been tested yet. shares of's than it airport operator aena -- shares of spanish airport operator aena are soaring. that is a look at world news. another update and 3:15 new york time. it's time now for the commodity's report. >> oil back below 50 is the

headline. we saw traders get a reality check with fresh data showing the nation's supply is at the highest in more than three decades. that is pushing prices lower today. prices are settling. but right off the lows, at the lowest point nymex oil down 4%. you can see it is not even dow 2% at this point. the supply report is a clear report -- clear reminder of the abundance of oil. u.s. crude oil production is at the highest level since we started tracking it in 1983. fuel supplies are the highest since 1982. what is really astounding is all of these high-level production and supply are coming after we were told that the oil rig counts are the lowest in three years. even with fewer rigs, we are

seeing all this production. what could be reducing the decline is we have fresh commons from saudi arabia that they believe demand is improving as prices have stabilized in the past week. >> we have a huge bounce and natural gas. >> a could have something to do with cold weather coming our way across a lot of the u.s. it will likely boosted the demand for heating oil. that is definitely pushing nat gas higher. the day's gains we seeing now explains yesterday's more than 3% rally. today, one point it was better than the to-day gain, close to 8%. analysts say we are likely to support higher prices throughout the week because there is so much cold air out there. it is the strong driver of demand. you are looking at pictures of

boston. how about crossing the street with ski poles? in boston, i have a lot of relatives there, and the snow keeps piling up. the heating season ends in march. but the latest inventory data for supplies will be out tomorrow. analysts say it will be a battle of storage data versus weather forecasts in terms of how the gas trades tomorrow. in terms of what else is going on, a look at metals, we see the strong dollar rally, reducing safe haven demand. gold has become the most smuggled item in india. people are using all kinds of tricks to hide the metal. that has been reduced to because they have eased restrictions on imports. >> president obama has formally asked commerce to authorize war against islamic state. a less than an hour, he will be delivering a statement on his proposal. i guess folks saw this coming.

now the debate begins in congress. some folks say they will unite behind the president and some say not so fast. >> after all, why are we telegraphing our exact landing terms of a timetable to the enemy? do you really want to be showing your label can effectively and therefore giving them that advantage or being out there indicating that you are not willing to really go the extra mile to fight them? i think that is the real concern. if the enemy knows that you are not really committed, then that gives them the upper hand. the other problem we have is what does this do to morale in the military? if the military doesn't know that they have the flexibility and the full support of the president to do what is needed in a situation, then that certainly begs a lot of questions. >> you know the white house will say the president has sent this authorization to congress.

so you have the full support of the white house. it's congress you have to worry about now. >> i think the big problem now is how much do you want to show when it comes to basically laying out your cards. and by having all that information out there now, that enables these terrorists who have committed horrible, barbaric acts to know what our plan is. that is the real concern. that is the morale issue=, too. the president will be speaking in the 3:00 hour so we won't do that life -- so we will do that life. >> this is a man who is intimately aware of what goes on to the morale and psychology of troops who may be going into a war. >> that is so critical. we see it in a corporate work environment. you want to have someone behind you, backing you, chanting you. when you are out there on the battlefield, your life is at

stake you want to know you have the full support of the commander-in-chief. >> it to -- it's interesting that it might not be so much, as the president says, previewing what he was saying, is that the international community needs to know that the united states is united. the military needs to know that the leadership is united. >> sure. there are a lot of questions with this administration in terms of how they have handled some of these international events. we look at what is happening in ukraine. you have that big meeting happening in minsk now. and there are questions about the u.s. and our roll over there. should we be doing more to supply the ukrainians with arms? merkel clearly not like to go that far in terms of engaging any kind of military complex. so it's in part coming back to us. but the president has a very important role right now. we will discuss whether he is up to the task. >> general hugh shelton coming

up at the top of the hour.

>> the nba's worst team playing in the most famous arena has 10 wins in 52 games. but when her desperate owner jim dolan is not as upset as you might imagine. scarlet, you came over to me earlier. you said i'm going to talk about

the next today -- thekni -- the knicks today. >> let's show you why fans are so upset. they currently have a 192 winning percentage. the next worst team is minnesota which has one more victory than the knicks. the average winning percentage during this period, this five-year stretch is sub .500. we are halfway through this season. i producer is rooting for the knicks to lose so they get the first pick in the draft. stock closed yesterday at a record high and opened today high before losing ground. over the past five years, it has jumped 300%. what is driving it? solid early's -- solid earnings

and new orleans plan to perhaps split up msg. and keeping the sports team and the entertainment business altogether. >> whatever path mr. dolan chooses, msg's fortunes are tied to the knicks' fortunes. a cannot be good for the company. >> they have the worst record in the nba out of 30 teams, but they lead the way in average ticket prices. and attendance is still very respectable. they're terrible play does create a drag on advertising and concession revenue, but the impact this fairly modest -- the impact is a fairly modest when it comes to ticket sales. the luxury cap will likely get lower, even likely eliminated in coming seasons, as their new tv deal is double.

on top of that, if dolan was ever to sell the knicks he would push a $2 billion price tag. >> the other teams that msg owns, the new york rangers they are at least play better than the kknicks. >> they are. if they were to play -- if they were to go into the playoffs right now, they would deftly be in it. ticket prices on the rangers up by 3% this season. but it does not add that much to the bottom line. the rangers are worth a lot less than the knicks. the rangers would fetch about $700 million. analysts are excited about the

possible split in the company. the real moneymaker is the regional sports network, msg and missed= -- msg and msg+. >> get the latest headlines at the top of the hour on bloomberg radio and streaming on your tablet and at bloomberg.com. that does it for this edition of "bottom line." "street smart" with trish regan is next. i will see you tomorrow.

>> this is "street smart." stocks dropping this afternoon with utilities leading the decline. whole foods and tesla. "street smart" starts right now. here are the top stories we are watching. in 30 minutes, president obama will be speaking to the press about his plan to authorize military