>> that's the same name as his house on long island. >> 310,000 a week. >> who are rented it? >> that's a good question. >> the french designer. >> that was designed by him. >> why is rupert renning his boat out? >> because he can, i guess. >> maybe he needs the money. >> not getting around as much. managing his assets. >> do you think that's a reference it rose bud? >> more questions than answers. we have answers to the question what are college students to go to pay the high toft of tuition. >> some young women are selling eggs for $6,000. i didn't know this was a possibility. >> you would have had it? >> no, i never saw it advertised. there advertisements in many college newspapers.

>> more than there used to be. not to be indelicate, but when i was in college, not that i did, but i had friends who visited sperm banks to raise money for college. i have no idea what kind of money they got in those days. this is not a new development, but it is a lot of money. >> i feel as red as my sweater right now. i don't know why. >> walking down the street the other day, there was somebody just like you. he was 7 and he was just like that. we will see you tomorrow. >> what are shirt are we wearing. >> let's go white tomorrow. erin burnett with "street signs" begins in 30 seconds. >> air traffic controllers reached a tentative agreement with the obama administration that will hopefully end years of strained relations. berk shirt hathaway went to

derivative holdings, but believes it is dialling the contacts fairly. they sold $15 bill whereon in 30-year bonds in an auction that was well-received. that's the news now, i'm sharon epperson. >> you are looking live where liz claiborne is among the stocks hitting 52-week highs, but as the bulls and bears are locked in a tug of war, we are flat for the market. welcome to "street signs" from the big board today. retail sales disappoint and raising fears the american consumer may derail the recovery. the discount rack coming up in a few moments. president obama said america will be number one in alternative energy. billions more in aid to power manufacturer this is afternoon. we are making a bet on batteries. are we swapping reliance on

middle eastern oil for reliance on another source not made in the usa. the obesity wars continue. did you know a one-send tax on soda would triple research funding? why a bigger tax might be the best way to fight the fat. we have all that and even if you didn't put money to work, you have been making a lot of money on wall street. we will explain in a couple of moments. let's give you the details on this tug of war for the market. we are down a half of one point. here at the open, stocks headed lower and they saved a turn around. mark and were following every bit of the yo-yo and now barely back in the red. is it a good or bad thing that we can't get higher. here at the new york stock exchange and scott wapner at the nasdaq. >> good reason to be cautious. the bottom line was good, but not a lot in the way of sales.

we'll get abercrombie and fitch and after the close, we will have nordstrom. take a look at nordstrom str. there was not a surprise. it was a planned sale. the word was it was very good and the gross margins may be exceptionally good. don't expect them to raise guidances and things like that. there is a real pattern and companies are cutting cost and continuing to be cautious on the outlook and nordstrom up that much, why would you raise guidance? you want to be cautious and don't want to juice the stock too much. that would be a concern. i'm expecting people to be fairly cautious here today in terms of guidance. rick santelli, we have a successful 30-year auction. is this going to lay to rest the argue am that is the u.s. can't sell any long maturities? >> the answer is yes. if today was the last of what we

would have, there will be many, many more and no easy answer to that. it will be marked with a grade every other week for a long time. with this auction set, it did go well. fitenal we a 30-year bond. let's look at the yield. not only was it down before the auction, call it anxiety over not good numbers on retail sales, but after the yields kept going down and even to good will there translated into stocks, dollar intext reflecting losses today and down close to a half cent. maybe the defining area is watching the dollars against the yen where it's given up the most ground. what are you seeing, scott at the nasdaq? >> the technology component is holding up well and still positive. it's only 2/10 of 1%, but there compelling stories along big caps. apple is up better than 1% and has been strong today after a

took up the price target. also the product line there. jpmorgan raised the price and dell up to $13 and has been strong up 2%. chip stocks and texas instruments got upgraded. up 1% and components within it following suit as well. intel is up a half percent and qualcomm is strong as well. technology has been a leader grp group and was yesterday. technology and the nasdaq continue to hold up fairly well. >> you have the market update around the horn. there many conflicting signs. what is real and what is the noise? investors believe the good or the bad news? that is the fundamental question for investors. the managing director, president of conundrum research. good to have both of you with us. i know you don't sell it that way, but that is what we are facing. the news is what we are using.

which are we supposed to believe? the building good news or the very concerning headlines? >> to separate the economy from the stock market, the stock market has certainly anticipated the marginally better news we have got, but the economy is okay. this morning rail car loadings came out and they were better, but you look at crushed stone, down on the 4-week average. that's down. you really got to separate. are you trading or an economist. >> say someone wants to decide whether to get into the market now because i didn't catch the full rally. if i'm that person, what do i look at? >> traders are watching in the s&p and that would be a new high and indicates we could move forward. i have to tell you the way i'm move for example the financials was like goldman and morgan lagging and starting to move in

the technology, there is a flight to safety. the key thing that is the investors need to look at is something we talked about with "the insider" buying versus sales. over the last weeks, $2.4 billion have been sold by insiders. 28 times what they bought. who is buying? the retail investors and they are posting massive inflows. retails are buying and insiders are selling. that got me concerned about the stock market. i would be waiting for that to turn and companies have more confidence, not only in their own company, but m&a picking up and starting to buy others in the same space for enhanced competition. we are not seeing any of that. >> looking at what is next, there is one crucial data point you think could tell us where the economy is going. therefore whether the market has room to rally. that is what we will get tomorrow. >> that's capacity utilization and we get the utilization.

that tells us how much the factories are using. it dipped down to 68%, the lowest in the history since 1967. what's interesting about this stat is that since 1967 in every single recession, an upturn in capacity utilization marked the end of the recession. tomorrow if we see an upturn in utilization, we are probably near the end. within about to three months if you look at the history, in that case you want to start buying stock. markets up 50%. i don't want to load the boat here, but look at names that may be haven't participated. >> your name in particular is north american gal zanizing. >> north american galvanizingal. they do the same thing. they are steel fabricators. what they do is make all the pieces and productions that go into the infrastructure and

looking at the stimulus kibing in in 2010. that's what they do. not only that, they are based in the u.s. they fit in under the buy american clause. they should benefit as the stimulus kicks in. >> even if we are not building skyscrapers, you may build bridges. >> whatever it is. >> thanks so much to both of you. even if you are afraid to take your cash off the sidelines due to the conundrum, you made a lot of money. this is pretty amazing. we have not lost our shirts on bailout nation despite the cries to that effect. david, you actually found an index with trades on the nasdaq that really tracked every company that has gotten government assistance and gotten crisis. there is an index that can look at the t.a.r.p. recipient banks. as taxpayers, we have done well.

>> absolutely. it's one of the things where government intervention was because of the death for any company or industry. investors have reversed that psychologist. one of the clear things that we need to look at is going back to the savings and loan crisis. we had to bail out $500 billion in assets because of a real estate boom. that sounds familiar. at the end of the day, they had to lose $150 billion, almost 30% of that and there was no recouping. the government is there as an investor of the last resort. they are not a value investor and to make bets. they are there to break up when the system is not working properly. that's what they did and they will take years to bleed off the issues they have sitting on their book. it will take a while to find out if they are shrewd or not in my opinion. >> that's a fair point and plenty of banks, bank of america has t.a.r.p. money and general

motors. it's hard to see where it plays out. fair to say it's too early to stay with the success, but looking at the banks and how they performed since october until now. they did analysis and morgan stanley tripled. >> i think we are seeing the banks have done well. the markets which were frozen in the fourth quarter of 2008 are funking reasonably well and said that the investments have worked. empirically the system is functioning. if it failed we would be in a much more severe situation today. the mechanisms would be broken down and they didn't. >> what about general motors? that appears to be the big question mark whether we will be made whole on that as taxpayers. >> there is a saying on the trading desk, but it's a difficult industry. we are tending to start throwing good money after bad. we have to consolidate a lot of

the production. the last segment was talking about the utilization, but like a lot of things, we have to see if it's a balance because the cash for clunkers is pooling. where is the growth going forward and in retail and back to school. we don't know yet. >> i think the general motors situation, this is the first bankruptcy we have been through. there will be another one. there is too much worldwide capacity. >> another auto company. too much worldwide capacity that general motors is probably going to have an extremely difficult time going forward. the media outlook okay, they will survive the next couple of years, but come the mid-part of 2010 or 2012 or 2014, it will be tough. >> we will leave it there and talk more about gm and the battery bets in a couple of moments. thank you to david and jim.

still to come, we will get cramer's take on uncle sam as an investor and financial trade for you. why he thinks that the market is due for a bit of a pull back. next the american consumer riding a roller coaster of emotions. the ceo of hershey park and what they are spending their mono. we'll be right back. the world is full of priceless things and amazing deals. find them, share them with mastercard's priceless picks app. download it now.

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>> recession turning us into a nation of bargain hunters. jane wells is in on that story. that's a big question for all of us. you see full price and say i will just wait. >> whoever paid full price in the first place? some people are after the depression and that was after the war again. while the situation is not as dire, there is some feeling that people may have a permanent mind set on some of the wealth. the same store sales when people have stimulus checks to spend and this month was competing with cash for clunkers. it is attracting new shopper who have never been there before. some we met yesterday. >> target used to be one of my favorite stores.

now i can't go there. i can't afford the prices there. >> i can't go to costco, but normally i go to other retail stores. >> i get so many compliments on my hair and working with my clients, i said wal-mart. they said no. you get the argument and it's wal-mart. $9. the bargain shopper. that's what they call me. >> she is not a wal-mart employee. i promise. they will stay there for the foreseeable future after earnings. b of a and wal-mart with strong gross margins. not cutting prices completely. shares are viewed as undervalued and reiterating a buy. citigroup as a hold and believes wal-mart's business will benefit from the challenging consumer environment due to the strong valued proposition. interesting about all that. wal-mart stock has been

performing well. target stock is up like 22% and wal-mart is down like 8%. >> thank you very much. nordstrom strom too as we focus in on the retailers. fining a way to take the summer vacation. american ex-tress is one of the top travel trends. the one-year stayication. this is a nearication. that is better. good to have you with us. appreciate you taking the time. sounds like it's better than a stayication. they are getting out of the house and spending money. you are talking about the hershey park, right? >> hershey park and the lodging operations and the destination hershey is in the perfect location for the nearication, if you will. we are exactly on a half day's drive from 60 million people.

the numbers show that the stayication works in hershey, pennsylvania and hershey park and all of our attractions in hershey have benefit friday that entire nuance that has been coined in the travel industry. >> one thing that everyone wants to know is whether you have discounts. disney was doing extensive discounts to get people to the park. they said they were raising some prices. are you discounting or are you now feeling like you have the strength and the pricing power to boost prices? >> erin, we took a look at the way things were moving in the fourth quarter last year. we knew what we were going to have to do and knew there was not going to be any means of marketing and no customers in the group. we decided to focus on what's

our focus and has been for many, many years. we owned family who after that market and to construct not deep discounts, but through a domain site we bought last october. family stimulus package.com. to market to that audience exactly how they can save money and create their own vacation almost in their back yard. >> have you seen an improvement in the economy? as you can gauge through your visitors? >> the numbers right now are as good as they have been in over a year. if you look at the comparisons, we're at less than 4% down from last year. one of the record years in the history of the company. what we are doing obviously is working and we are getting to the audience that we need to get to.

the family made a decision early on that they weren't going to give up their time together in the summer and going to go somewhere. when they hit july and august and 38% of revenue, mom, dad, it's not far away. >> being back to where we were is something a lot of people. >> next on the show, it's the key to ending dependence on foreign oil. is the drive just creating another addiction. we'll find out from the ceo of a company leading the electric charge. the soda solution to obesity that can cost taxpayers billions, but trim the cost of health care by many more billion. would you pay that tax? we will be back. i'm racing cross country in this small sidecar,

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>> the facility has been designed with different types of battery pack integration. we designed the tooling and equipment to make sure we are flexible and anticipate that we can grow the facility and do different types of pack integration overtime. >> keep in mind gm is not the only auto maker developing an electric car. this is the nissan leap. the electric car coming out next year. they unveiled it in tokyo. home about a week ago and it's

an electric car and the range here is 100 miles. keep in mind it's different than the volt. the volt has a small gas engine that will work as an assist. completely electric. >> thank you, but phil is going to stay in the conversation. the government -- that may be me. the government hopes $2.4 billion in grans will help gain an edge in the way to develop the electric car batteries. we will focus in on it today. are we too far behind? are we trading one foreign addiction for another? chairman and ceo and it's a battery company here in the u.s. that is one of the recipients of one of the federal monies. yawn is with us and clean technologies and materials and capital markets. let's start with you looking at the list of u.s. companies. it got awards for the

governments. this is a tough one. we want the jobs here and obviously most of the technology appears to come from outside the u.s. particular places like korea. korean companies setting up subsidiaries in the u.s. and selling to u.s. companies, right? i'm not sure if he can hear me. i will start with you. is this really the situation some i know you will define yourself, but why the companies and not the u.s.? >> our lithium battery series started out as the only lithium ion battery in that year and delphi is looking at the battery business. interestingly acquired the third largest battery manufacturing in korea. we have a presence in both korea and the u.s., but the technology

was developed here in the united states. >> what about this issue of your company? this is when the washington times was having a big foreign ownership. what is it? about 2 slash slash 3 of a company is known with a russian investor. >> that has been diluted down over the past five years as we have taken a new equity capital. i raised about $250 million in capital for the company since 2006 from people like morgan stanley and credit suisse and fidelity and etc. we took in money in 2003 and 2005. with any other public company, they are all over the world. >> i know they look at the russian company having the ability to dictate the management, that's still true, right?

>> with the filings, they talk about way worst case scenario and not necessarily what i consider to be the ordinary course of business. i think we have obviously addressed ourselves to that issue quite smartly and i think most u.s. investors that have done the dealerships are comfortable and companies like morgan stanley and others owns between 5% and morgan stanley owns 8%. i don't think it's a big issue. >> from your perspective, from what the administration put in place as incentives is going to help more technology be developed in the country and not just american workers and building batteries based on foreign technology? >> yes and i don't think we are that far behind the asian companies developing the batteries. they are in the lead right now. u.s. is probably considered secretary place as far as a region and europe behind the u.s. there a lot of u.s. companies that are going to get the brands and benefiting.

a 1, 2, 3 out of massachusetts received a lot of grant money and will receive more in the future. this company is a company that many believe is going to be going public in the future and has enormous potential when it comes to electric car batteries. i think it's going too far to say these grants are just for the employment of people to build batteries with asian technology. i think it's different. >> one thing when you look at the list, obviously they spent a lot of time reporting on this, but you see a lot of foreign companies and subsidiaries. french as well. that's not necessarily a bat thing. are we doing things in the united states that would make the next level of technology be american? >> yes and no. there issues on both sides of that equation. on the one hand, i'm glad to see

investments being promote and grans being handed out. to companies like this that are willing to build plants in the united states and have done the research to develop the batteries to the state they got them. innocent, i would prefer somebody working in the marks to see those grants going to start up early stage companies that are developing the next leapfrog technologies that will put the united states in the lead rather than going to plants being built in places like manufacture. i do agree with the other guests that it's early days and very early in the process of developing the batteries. a lot of room for improvement and although the united states might be a second now, it's not going to take a lot of work. >> that's on the technology side. the other issue i wanted to get all of your perspective on is this issue when we talk about oil and how we rely on the mideast, with batteries, it appears the key components are

coming from outside the united states. you look at lithium and places like bolivia, if we find a way to use cobalt in the bat wes, you look at places like the democratic republic of the congo. are we going to be reliant? >> it's a possibility. i don't think you can get away in the near term for the next couple of decades as far as oil goes. if you are talking about energy independence, that's one thing. if you talk about security that's another. for instance on the lithium side, you have gotten good supplies available from relatively friendly areas like chile and argentina. yes there supplies in china that keep them for themselves, but you have supplies in plays like nevada and working operations that produce lithium in nevada. not a well-known source of lithium, but a relatively low cost and available in huge

spots. >> half of the lithium comes from bolivia which is -- >> points i want to address. >> they recently announced not just to produce, but to ship to japan. the japanese postal service will be doing an easy conversion of the postal suites and they chose the batteries to do that. not only do we have the best technology in the world, but we are producing in the u.s. and ship together over there. the second point i think on lithium, it's only 3% to 4% by weight. it's quite small. i think that's important for us to recognize. the supply chain is crucial. >> but the lithium is a necessary part of the battery. >> that's my point. if you have to have it, you are reliant on the supplier. >> you are reliant on the supplier, but the world has an

abundance of lithium. one such place that lithium exists is in seawater and we know how to extract it. >> but it's going to be extremely expensive and difficult to get it out of seawater. it's too dilute and you have chemistry issues to content with. the best way is to deal with it in a homegrown solution. you would love to see the supporting operations like thes in nevada. the other area as you switch towards electric vehicles, you need batteries and motors. elements like rare earth. these are the key factors and producing the powerful drive of these vehicles and allow them to do something like breaking. there supply issues there as well. >> something i think will get a lot of people thinking about getting this right. thank you for being with us. let us know what you think about that. where we are getting these supplies. up next, time to stop trading

and we will have real estate check. did you know if you drink a 20-ounce soda a day, you are consuming 91,000 calories a year. 7,200 teaspoons of sugar and nearly 30 pounds around our waistline. taxing that can raise billions and cut obesity. why are so many people against this idea. let us know what you think. e-mail us. blap #

trading. we have been talking at the top of the show about the fact that taxpayers have done pretty well, considering it wasn't intended to be an investment. i know you have been looking around at the banks and you have one trait that has to do with investing in a bank. >> just to touch on the profit, citigroup and the government is up huge on this. we have got adopting a michael jackson strategy, don't stop till you bet enough.

she must have a panda doll. it's got to be. he is not that bad of a guy. >> i think we have it. as i look for the doll, look at the financial. >> even though thing inment is not that great and the bat debt and the bat loans are off the chart, there is a 7.50 book valley, this is the big trade. you can't flip this. this man understands the business. all i heard was so what if paulson did this. hey, the guy was short mortgages and all i have is a living, breathing mortgage. i rest my case. >> i found the doll.

executive. executive. >> she wants to run city. she wants to be the ceo of city. let him do his job and meanwhile the government is up big. they are not usually up big on things. it is not a zero. it's like clark kent. >> go ahead. >> give me the head of the fdic now. >> wal-mart comes out better than expected. >> i have now called it down a little. kohl's was almost at a 15-week high. wal-mart is talking about double-digit back to school, but

the "wall street journal" said the back to school season was canceled. they are trying to reconcile that the company with 100 million customers and the jounl said it's bat. the reporters, one is a reporter and one is 110 million people. i have got it. the journalism card that told me i'm always right. i know i do. >> what do you make of it? there is pins all over it. >> it's feeling pain right now. calling the chiropractor and go to the accupuncturist. going like this to him right now. >> i got 20 pins. here we are up one point and we were down and up. i know you have been looking for a pull back. what do you think about how it will close? >> man, you got to put me on fast money for going that route. i think we are okay. i think we are okay.

i think what the problem with the market is we don't have anything real to trade on. it's entirely possible in the last 20 minutes, they come in and bang it down. i was looking for a percent and a half down which is a bit of a rounding error, but it's still i thought we repeal what we did yesterday. it's interesting. >> we talked about mobile technology and i wanted to give you a chance of you like a lot of it. >> there was a great thing about palm. the preorders are way, way down. july was focused. maybe morgan joseph doesn't get it too. >> all right, jim. i don't know what that noise is. that is a vibe from washington. about my doll. >> that's the fdic put together right on its neck. >> i put a roll in his neck. thanks, jim.

go bald is one of the things you can do. i will stick that in and it definitely doesn't get a pull there. next, two steps forward and step back. they are priced to find the bottom. not painting a pretty pictures about the home front. that's on the other side of the break. plus, obesity. a major weight on the health care system. soda is a big contributor to weight in america. should coke be taxed the same as tobacco. the other may be too. we will be back. blap #

here at the nymex, the oil trade is settling close to the upside well off the highs of the day. we had all the makings and strong equities and weak dollar. growth out of europe and a storm off the coast of africa and the jobless claims numbers came out

and the retail sales came out and things were bleeding a little bit. the dollar held up in terms of weakness and prices stayed to the upside. i wanted to take a look and less about the story and more about equity market. it was about oil and equity market. that's how the trade went. volatility is not in the dollar today. down consistently throughout the day. that's it for i nymex. >> here's what else is happening. alcoa is the biggest winner. the dow is up six and alcoa up 5% as the industrial fight to finish in the black today. up much more than the intext itself. shares up about 13% and all three averages are back in positive territory. we will keep a close eye on it. washington still trying to turn around without it improving and maybe the economy can either.

new foreclosure numbers showing that washington is having a hard time stopping the bleeding. here with the details. >> as other numbers in the housing market get better, the foreclosure numbers keep getting worse. the realty check and online foreclosure sales report in july 360,000 properties received some foreclosure filings. that's an increase of 7% from june and 32% from a year ago. one in 355 housing units is in a stage of foreclosure thanks to rising unemployment and that is a new record. >> a big part of this is a big in the python problem. we are dealing with volumes of inventory and reos that the industry was not set up to handle. you are talking been an increase of 12 times the volume, it is difficult to get through these kinds of scenarios without choking the system. >> the usual suspects lead. california, nevada, arizona and

florida accounting for 57% of foreclosures, but the pain is spreading. we are seeing big jumps in states like kansas, maryland and massachusetts. oregon up 84%. does this mean housing can't recover? >> we are seeing increased foreclosure activity and price stabilization at the same time. it could be that there is so much buying interest because the levels have become basically record levels and that there is an inventory waiting for the buyers that the market might be recovering at what amounts to the new normal level of foreclosure activity for the time being. >> hard to believe this is a new normal at that rate of foreclosures. on the flip side, if the face is changing, that is moving to other states that are not as investor-heavy and speculator heavy. the question remains, is there enough pent up demand to eat up the foreclosures as it's happening in the booms of bit of days.

realty check.cnbc.com. >> we're brink more than these statistics are discussing. more than 15 billion gallons of soda every year in this country. $60 billion of that stuff with sugar prices poised to hit 30-year highs, could taxing america's sugar high be the right move? you are flooding our e-mail with your thoughts. we have that story and your take blap # eseseseseseseseseseseseses

here's one way to pay for health care reform. an 18% tax on soda. smart or stupid? we have the man with the plan, kelly brownell, yale university professor at the rudd center for food policy and obesity. and john corley, cornell university associate professor in the department of policy analysis and management. great to have both of you with us. kelly, i think people watching this show have been shocked with some of the statistics we have shared so far in the show. but what you are saying is that if we even had a one-cent tax on soda, one penny, it would triple

the amount of funding on obesity research, right? so i mean, it could make a big difference. but you say the numbers are in and they show a 10% to 20% tax on sugar or soda would dramatically decrease consumption and raise revenue, right? >> that's correct. we're talking about a one-penny per ounce tax on any beverage with added sugar. that would raise over the next ten years approximately $150 billion. it also, because of the reduced consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, could reduce health care costs by as much as $50 billion. so that's a real home run when you put those two numbers together. >> and kelly, the numbers that you had in your article in the "new england journal of medicine" in the spring was we're spending $80 billion in this country right now on medical costs related to obesity every year. >> well, the high intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, which by the way surpassed the per capita intake of milk in the 1990s, is creating a lot more problems than just obesity.

obesity is the most obvious. but it contributes to diabetes, coronary heart disease, and other disease outcomes as well. so it could make a big difference to the public health to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. >> now, john, you're saying if we're going to do it we've got to go way beyond soda. >> well, i agree with kelly that we need to do something to reduce and prevent obesity in this country. but i don't think that soft drink taxes are likely to be a very big part of government's effort. and the reason is that the public hates the idea. so for example, here at cornell we conducted the empire state poll and we found that 2/3 of new york state residents are opposed to higher soft drink taxes even though 98% of them agree that obesity is a problem. so even though there's agreement that childhood obesity, adult obesity is a major problem, people disagree about the exact strategy that should be used. we found very similar numbers for the cornell "new york times" new york one poll. 2/3 of respondents were opposed. and that includes more than 3/4 of republicans and almost 2/3 of

democrats. so there's bipartisan opposition to this. so my approach is really pragmatic, which is we have a chance right now to influence the legislative discussion about what should be done to address obesity. so i think pragmatically what we need to do is pick a policy that there's tremendous support behind, not arguably one of the most controversial policies with the least public support. >> kelly, why in this case do we need to listen to the public? >> well, the public is of course the most important player of all. and a lot of the support or lack of support depends on how the issue is framed. so in polls that ask the public would you support soft drink tax to help address the issue of childhood obesity and especially if the money were earmarked -- the revenue were earmarked for programs related to childhood nutrition or obesity, you can get more than 2/3 of the population in support of such a tax rather than opposed to it. and i think the opposition that professor cowley is picking up, which i think is very real, and i very much respect his work, we're just witnessing the early

stages of this. there was similar opposition to tobacco taxes but now they're as routine as can be and it will just be a matter of time until this happens with soft drink taxes. >> your research has said every 10% increase in price consumption does drop by 8%. so it's successful in dropping consumption. and you're raising revenue similar to what we did with tobacco. john, before we go i want to throw this chart up because i think this brings your point home. you look at coca-cola, a 12-ounce can of coca-cola. 40 grams of carbs. 40 of those grams come from sugar. it's pretty amazing. let's just compare it hypothetically to apple juice. it's about the same. 42 grams of carbs, and 39 of them come from sugar. this is not just a soda issue. >> that's true. i mean, you can imagine soda manufacturers asking why are they being singled out and why isn't sugar itself being taxed, for example? but i think that's the kind of -- the scope of these taxes is something that could be discussed, could be adjusted later on. but my point is just we have

other policies that do have much greater support right now. for example, in the cornell/"new york times"/new york one poll we found that 2/3 of respondents were in favor of menu labeling at restaurants. this would be including calorie information next to all the food items that you can order in a restaurant. so given that we have this very limited amount of time to influence the debate why not pick the things that already have tremendous public support instead of sort of choosing a more uphill battle? >> thank you very much. both of you. >> thank you. >> and you have all been flooding our e-mail boxes with your thoughts on this tax issue. we have them on the other side. and of course a look at the markets which are still dueling it out. so, katy kicked off the conference call... but we missed the first half trying to download the docs. which turned out to be the old-new docs... rather than the new-new docs. then bob dialed in from home and his... dog starts barking. so jen jumped in with her "two cents"... which katy missed because she was buying shoes online. and then i hit mute... to talk timelines with my team. getting lots of dirty looks through the phone in the process. - overall... - a great call. - great call. yeah. introducing a better way.