i brought you a present. >> chocolate? >> yes, of course. what else would i bring you swiss chocolates for the whole team. can you eat chocolate this hour? >> oh, it's early -- >> no, i don't want any. no. >> oh, how is the diet going? we haven't talked about this. >> i thought you were off it. >> i'm less fat. >> it worked. >> you know what that is? those are empty calories. >> these are empty calories? you want some? >> i'll take it. >> i was thinking about you. >> my skin, acne. >> you can't have one? >> i don't want any. the saliva. >> oh, how cute. it has letters on it. >> you know what i wanted, a green screen behind you. how much snow did they dump on you? >> thank you. >> they dumped a lot of snow on you. >> that was funny. >> that was really funny. >> a lot of snow. >> there were four meters. >> are you cold here? no one else was cold there.

>> becky and i talked about how cold it can be in the studio. >> weren't you in a little tent? >> there's a little tent but no heat. >> i liked the guys who came in with the open collars, sat back, and a couple of them had beads of sweat on their forehead. >> they were only in there five minutes. he was out there hours in the snow. >> next year -- >> no. >> all three of us that would be fun. >> i don't want to go over there. i don't even know what the whole story is with that place. people want to go, i think. i tried to explain to my kids why they were there, because they have a lot of parties. >> it's the place to see and be seen. >> they understood the partying part. you went to some, right? >> yeah, there are a lot of business deals. >> the ceos go and they have private meetings. >> there's meetings all day long. >> it's the only place you can go and see all of your clients. >> almost all the viewers want to know was, did you actually try the beaver tail? >> i did try the beaver tail.

i had beaver tail for breakfast. every morning. it was amazing. >> what is does it taste like? >> where is the squawk ward moment when you need it? >> what does it taste like? >> it's fried dough with nutella and then banana. >> you got banana and nutella, too? >> it's fantastic. >> wow. how much weight did you gain over there? >> it was unbelievable. >> wow. >> no, i was on the davos diet. >> that and coffee, right? >> the coffee, champagne, it was tough. >> and you actually went out with shawn parker. >> i didn't. but mick jagger to me was more interesting. a real business guy. >> how close did you get to him? >> to mick? i mean, we talked a lot. >> you're kidding? >> he made a video for my mother on my iphone. >> he made a video for your mom? >> he showed up at two dinners i

was at. it was good. >> what did he do on the video for your mom? >> it's a long story but i interviewed him about 15 years ago for "the new york times" and he had actually called my home to finish the interview and my mother picked up the phone and he said, is andrew there. and she said, who is it? he said, mick jagger. she went crazy. i told him the story and he made a thing on my iphone and said, hi. it was very fun. >> that's cool. >> it is cool. >> it was. >> do i look younger? >> you look younger. >> i mean than him. >> yes, you do. absolu absolutely. and i think you do look like you've lost weight and your skin is glowing. >> my skin is not glowing, it's sagging because when you lose weight the stuff that used to prop up your skin goes away and then you just sort of look like a beachball with air let out of it. so, i don't know -- i'm hurtling towards a two-week period where you don't see me and i come back and i look like bruce jenner. that's what i am hurtling

towards. it's coming because makeup -- they tell me in makeup. you don't need a brush. you need a scalpel. >> what? what's your plan on eat iing fo the super bowl next week? >> i'm eating. >> you're eating? >> all beaver tail. wings, things like that. you're not even allowed -- that's a big off the record -- yeah, so we can't talk about that. i can't talk about anything real really. so let's -- since we don't have anything else let's talk about the headlines. >> we do have some big headlines. in fact, this is perfect timing. andrew has just come back from davos where he has a lot of connections on this but facebook is expected to announce an ipo this week. the company's chief operating officer says the ipo will produce jobs growth and social change. >> the world is look iing for economic growth. the kind of economic growth that feeds a billion people, that deworms millions of children who shouldn't have to live lives like that, and then employs people all around the world. and it has to be that new technologies which sometimes take away jobs must also grow

jobs. and if this for the economy can be seep as the job growth it is and importantly for people, the opportunity to use their voice to change their world, we hope that's the part of the movement we're a part of. >> facebook's listing is the world's most anticipated offering since google. analysts say it could value at $100 billion. as we mentioned andrew was there last week and he caught up with the major facebook investors like shawn parker and milner in davos and got their thoughts on what to make of this ipo. >> i can't comment as to timing. but i do think that there's a possibility that it will be the largest offering in history. i don't know what the number will be. i think we're all eagerly anticipating that data. >> i think there is a time to be private and a time to be public. and i think -- >> better in terms of exiting? >> and i think that companies

like facebook and groupon are basically transformational companies. i mean, you don't come across them very often and i'm pretty sure that they can continue to grow for a long time, even being public. >> so, andrew, milner said it. a time to be private and a time to be public and i guess this is their time to be public. >> this is their time to be public but it's because they have to. i mean, i think one of the things that has been lost in this conversation is come april, and they -- >> because they have investors -- >> they have over 499 investors. either you make it public anyway or go public. of course they're going to be public. >> a couple of interesting componen components. >> come may, depends on when they do the traps action, come may, the lingedin and other ipos come up. >> oh, wow. >> and so there's a big worry there's an overhang on some of those stocks -- >> that they'll see the pressure. >> right. if people start dumping their

shares, what that's going to do to the social media bubble, if you believe there's a bubble. so that's one issue i did hear a lot about. the other thing that was just sort of interesting to watch was all of the bankers in davos literally like sheryl sandberg here and the bankers trailing her. gary cohen from goldman sachs, morgan stanley said to be leading this transaction and, by the way, i'm not sure the bankers themselves yet know they've been selected. it's possible ultimately you'll see a filing without banks chosen. i know there's a jockeying horse race. on wall street they're all desperate to get a piece of this. the last component that's so interesting, there's an expectation that the fees the banks will get, facebook will be dictating to them. someone described it to me like when the treasury called up some of the banks and said you're going to do the aig deal, because we're the treasury, we're such a big deal, we're

going to tell you you're going to take virtually nothing. >> for the cache? >> it will be interesting to see what happens. >> it was interesting that what's his name, milner, as a public company it will grow and it should still be able to grow. i'm trying to figure out how much we need to assume that we'll grow to get to that $100 billion number based on the metrics we have now. what are -- what is the estimated revenue run per year right now? >> i have to go back and look. is it four? i thought it was less than that, about three. >> is that 25 times sales? you need great margins. you need like 8,000% margins. it's really amazing how much growth you are discounting into the future for facebook, isn't it? you have half the world's internet. >> absolutely. the distinction between this and the google ipo is at the time of the google ipo everyone thought

it was a lousy deal. they thought it was overpriced. >> because of google sort of. >> there wasn't there run-up in valuation the way in fais book. facebook. so that, i think, there's a big issue whether you can make real money. >> i was watching john, our guy was on with lester last night. john was on with lester holt and lester said, well, we're at 850 million users, where do you get growth? and john pointed out, they don't monetize diddley at this point really and that's where with the 850 you've got if you learn how to monetize that. what do you do to monetize what people do can on facebook? >> ads. >> they need to pump a lot more ads -- >> will that work? >> i don't know. >> the question is will it work without tuning off your users. >> are there other things,

social things, little relationships where you can tell what someone is like? >> try to sell different products. >> gee, i don't know. >> the other thing that got me anxious about-face book, i sat with somebody at one of the dinners, a guy from the silicon vall valley, showing me all these new apps people were using on cell phones that replace facebook. the hottest thing in silicon valley right now, hasn't emerged yet. we should try to find this ceo and get him on the show. there were very interesting products start to go compete with facebook that may rise up. people don't know. >> that's four or five times the size of google? >> no. google is bigger. >> now. but the ipo. >> yes, four or five times. >> okay. this is going to be interesting. i don't know. i don't think i'm buying it. >> that's the same thing that people said with google. you're right. it was a different method.

>> with google it was $80, a lot of people thought -- i think it was around $80. >> $60 or $80. >> this is going to be a retail play meaning you -- i know my mother, may father, people are going to want to try to buy into this and that's the danger. >> they're the ones left holding the bag. >> exactly. anyway, we're going to have more on the expected ipo throughout the morning. >> and we have another deal this morning, manufacturer thomas and betts being acquired by switzerland's abb for $72 a share in cash nlt that's about $39 billion. $3.9 billion. did i say $39? you come back from davos, you stop reading teleprompter. it's over stocks friday closing prize. and apollo -- >> not the god. >> that is true.

apollo -- >> he's not involved. >> he isn't. he isn't. but leon black is and its consortium partners are in advanced talks to acquire that unit for about $7 billion, not $70 billion. not that i said that. but apollo's interest has been widely reported in the past. today's "wall street journal" now calls the firm, quote, leading bidder. >> bet against apollo, i don't think. >> i'm thinking zeus. >> there is no private equity firm called zeus, is there? >> you'd think with apollo somebody would get in. >> there is a cronus. >> and a seberus. japan's second largers refiner tonen is buying 99% of shares in exxon mobil japan shares. it will retain a 22% voting share in the japanese oil giant

and back in the u.s. the united steelworkers union is telling refinery workers to prepare for a strike as early as 12:01 a.m. wednesday. most refine ers are expected to reject the shutdown offer and begin assigning temporary replacement workers to operate the refinery units. talks between the union and oil company representatives for a new three-year deal are said to be continuing. about 6% of refining capacity is expected to shut down if workers walk off their jobs and another 5% is expected to shut if it lasts up to three months and, to this day, i haven't seen gas -- it's $3.40 at $101 -- whatever oil has been and it's got to be -- it's different this time as the crack spreads. but it hasn't been -- >> it hasn't been a very cold winter. >> that's true. >> you haven't seen the demand. >> it is a game changer, though,

for the economy and the election and everything else and it's strangely staying down. >> spring you'll see more. >> the situation in iran will get worse. let's get to the markets. the stock markets. last week the dow turned in its first weekly decline in 2012. of course the blue chip index is still up about 3.6% so far this year. another notable statistic for you, friday marked the 17th con second moves. up less than 100 points up or down for the dow. now this morning you do see a move for the futures. down by 66 points for the dow f futures now. the s&ps down by almost eight points after a weaker opening in as asia. those markets moving off their 3 1/2 year highs and concerns about what's happening in europe. you have some big meetings with european leaders today. it does look like the fund itself will get pushed forward but you have some questions about what's happening with greece. meantime a number of big economic tests for the markets

this week, this morning personal income in spending. chicago pmi and consumer confidence. on wednesday already it's the adp employment report. maybe it will give us a little bit of insight as to what to expect. on wednesday we'll get ism in construction spending. thursday you have squobless claims and productivity and costs and then friday, believe it or not, it's the jobs report. the all-important monthly jobs report. ism manufacturing and factory orders as well. figure what out that it's so -- january flew by? >> february i could understand. aren't there fewer days in februa february? >> january we had all those vacation days. >> in january it was also -- it wasn't on the 2nd or 3rd of january. i think it was on the first friday was the 6th of january. so we already had a week under our belt. it seems like we just hit -- >> january for -- it does seem like it. >> it seems like we just

reported that and it was a good number and the 8.5% but there were some flaws in it, too, and the same with the gdp number last week. better but then people were -- >> time is going faster. >> i was on that diet and time slowed down to a crawl but now the minute you stop then there's a snap back. >> is it over? >> it's a-t two week thing. >> it's over. >> we're going to go to california. you're going to stay here and man the ship. we're going to go out there. >> you're going to eat and then come back and it starts up again? >> i'm going to stay relatively -- i have a little -- i'm allowed to put skim in my coffee but then when i come back i'm going to do it. we're going to california, as you know, out to pebble and we're going to do the show from out there. >> that's coming up in about a week. >> you know who is coming on? >> i heard. >> the cinderella story. he's the defending champion of

the pro-am. won last year. >> i decided that's probably why he committed so early. he doesn't want to change anythi anything. he won the tournament. i think he had fun, too. i have to do the exact same thing. >> maybe. maybe. >> i would. i'd be so superstitious. >> i'd be surprised if he didn't have d.a. points again and he won the tournament, too. in other golf and dieting news this morning, nobody is laughing. in global headlines this morning iran's oil minister saying that the kcountry ready to halt some oil exports soon. iran's parliament will debate a double urgency bill. it would halt all oil exports to the european union in response to sanctions by the block. take a look this morning. you can see there, well, it's kind of funny. you would think they would be going up on a little bit of anxiousness and nervousness but not so much.

>> a little odd. >> european union leaders are meeting today in brussels. becky mentioned this earlier. they're expect ed ed to sign of a permanent rescue fund and agree on a balanced budget rule in national legislation. of course they have to get a deal on greece first and the real question is how big the firewall ultimately is. these two stabt funds, the idea they're basically putting them together. the number i keep hearing and heard in davos over and over again need to get to 740 billion euros. you get about 238 on the other. so that's the deal. greece's prime minister is seeking backing from party leaders for some unpopular reforms. a long way to debt relief deal for the near bankrupt country. seems almost secured at this point. international lenders want proof that athens will go ahead on those reforms before they hand over fund for a 130 billion euro bailout. i don't know if you saw the story. >> it came out of davos, behind the scenes that whole weekend

the eu ministers trying to create some sort of structure so they control greece. and they control all -- >> germany in particular. >> it's really germany that would control their budget and whether greece will play along. >> and greece is saying you can't make us choose between surviving and getting a bailout and losing all national dignity but at the same time i can understand the german perspective. the i'm not throwing more good money after bad. you haven't come to the table and really come up with these reforms. you can't collect taxes like you promised to this point. >> i will say if you look at the proposal going around in davos and i think it was published in "the wall street journal" over the weekend, the goal of this german committee would suggest deficit reduction comes first. there's no conversation about growth. so if you start thinking about how your country is going to be manage managed by another country and their objective is just to get your debt levels down through austerity and there's no conversation about what growth is and that's your first priority, sort of changes the dynamic. >> you're damned if you do and

damned if you don't. you need that second bailout. >> some pieces weren't confirmed. greece said we're out of here. also you saw portugal is now looking a little shaky. >> the danger -- that was the thing talked a lot about in davos. the danger of greece not defaulting. if grease defaulted, fine. leaving the euro, that's the end. >> it starts to unravel. >> because the values of everything in greece then will go down another 40% or 50% and just when you think about what that actually means. >> it means it's time to go to -- is what it means. does it not? >> i think "squawk" should buy an island. >> i agree and that's my favorite. have you been? >> it is my favorite. >> maybe we would buy up in the mountains there, buy that, where everything is white and where

all the pictures are taken. maybe just buy that. >> just that? >> we can't have anyone -- >> have a good live shot in the morning. time for the global markets report. karen tso is standing by in london. karen? thank you so much, joe. let's debate all the key factors influencing confidence here today and the reason why i'm surrounded by a whole bunch of red boxes today. we have selling in basic resources, insurance, the bajs, some of the green you are seeing the top of the charts here is down to some of those defensive plays, food and beverage and also health care. the stoxx europe 600 down 0.8%. the key market movers and see what we're tracking. weakness in the italian market is off its lows, though. down 0.9%. all tracking weaker today. the german market posting losses down 0.7% and here in london the

ftse 100 is down about 0.8%. where we are seeing a lot of interest is in bond markets in particular because we had an auction today pretty much towards the top end of what the italian government was seeking and the yields also coming down worth noting we had the yield on the five year at 5.39% and this is down from almost 6.5% in december. on market today it's even lower than that at 5%. we had movement lower on the ten year on the back of the auction. now at 6.11% on market, the auction saw that go away the 6.08% well down from the 7% we saw in december but you guys were just talking about this. portugal. this is the real concern in markets today. tracking at highs on the yield, 21.22% now on the five year and this is the ten year currently sitting just shy of 16%. so you can see there's a lot of pressure still on the portuguese bond market because it's waiting to see what's going to come out of greece. guys, back to you. >> this is -- >> no. karen, thank you very much. coming up, one final day of

campaigning before the florida primary. mitt romney and newt gingrich slugging it out. we'll head to washington for the full story next. first as we head to break check out the global market headlines.

making headlines, unauthorized transactions that cost the swiss bank as much as $ .3 billion pled not guilty. 31-year-old kweku adoboli. that was a while ago. he was arrested in september. we got the big story today. >> yeah. >> money heaven. >> it's gone, right? >> vaporized. they used the word vaporized. you lose it on trades. you cover positionses with clients' money and then -- >> i don't understand. i'm with becky and i'm with ben who said how does it vaporize? >> because you lose the money. >> stealing money or giving it

to the wrong -- it doesn't just -- >> i don't mean vaporize. losses. . >> talking about rogue stuff did you see that -- not that he's rogue but is going to be potentially testifying in the trial this week? >> no, i didn't see that. >> a very interesting article i believe in "the new york times," of all places. >> who are we going to? harwood is not there. >> he is sick. he's never, ever sick. he's sick but the florida primary is now a day away. we have mitt romney with a double digit lead on newt gingrich and guess who is in florida. first, though, amin will join us. you are swapping in here but you've been following this very clo closely. >> another -- the silver fox like john. >> and, we've been trying to keep track of the back and forth swings with this. at this point romney has a

double digit lead on newt. is this the final swing or more back and forth at this point? >> reporter: look, newt is going to absolutely campaign ferociously in the last day before the primary. a lot of political people would say it's insurmountable in florida. newt might be playing to go on to other states, the states in the deep south where he feels like he might be able to pull up some of the delegates and he has sworn that he is going to fight all the way to the republican convention here, guys. that might be a nightmare scenario for mitt romney. we saw this 2008 obama and hillary clinton battling it out well into the spring and that didn't damage the democratic party's chances of winning the presidency back in '08. this probably won't damage the republicans' ns chas of winning the presidency here in 2012 but ferocious campaigning for newt gingrich attacking mitt romney as somebody who is of the elite saying he represents the anti-elite, the

antiestablishment. he's running an insurgent campaign here. dramatic stuff going into florida tomorrow. >> a good script, though. you could say that maybe romney was not battle tested and maybe nottage tated enough and suddenly he is. look how it happened and the primary season ended up being a positive by strengthening, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger or whatever you want to say. he's a different guy all of a sudden. >> reporter: in politics, that's often true. mitt romney is somebody who has had to take off the gloves here. he didn't really want to battle against newt gingrich but he has been slamming gingrich on the campaign trail over the past couple of days. he was really aggressive in the last debate going after newt gingrich and what a lot of people thought was a listless performance by the former spe speaker of the house which really opened up an opportunity for romney to go after him and

they're pouring in the money and don't overlook that. florida is a big state. a lot of media markets, it costs a lot to campaign there. mitt romney has the money. his super pac has it. they're pouring it in and the organization, too, to get out the vote all up and down the state. that's important for mitt romney as well. >> mitt is doing okay with the money recently, too. and his wife. >> reporter: and for gingrich you have to worry about how long is that spigot going to be open? the money is pouring in from one particular family into his super pac but the minute those people say this is a losing bet, that goes away and newt is going to have to face the prospect of really raising money on a national basis. >> what is cool intrade, we have the nbc/"wall street journal" poll come out. intrade was back to 80% for romney being the nominee and we had that poll that was four days old and it had gingrich ahead and it was clearly already

obsolete. >> it shows you how quickly people are changing. >> let me see what it is today. >> this thing has been a soap opera. it's up, it's down, it's a cliffhanger. it's new developments and romance. >> we're at 87% right now on intrade. >> eamon, did you see this piece in "the new york times" on saturday about romney's relationship as a customer with goldman sachs? i didn't think it would have any impact because they could be writing -- >> i had comments on that. >> you have to have a relation ship with somebody. >> i said i have a checking account at chase just because i have a debit card. >> there are people that buy into the big vampire squid that is a negative for society for goldman sachs when, in fact, you look at municipal finance or investment banking -- >> you have to have somebody. >> if you are -- if you can put goldman out of business because there are criminal activities, do it. it's probably the most

prestigious and venerable wall street firm. and we're in this 1%, 99% occupy wall street mentality. all this crap. but to say someone has a relationship with goldman is not a negative thing. >> i agree 100%. >> as if it's a negative. >> put that story aside, though, where i think that story came from -- >> your paper. >> it came from was basically that gingrich had tried to use this connection to goldman sachs and i was curious if that -- it's not working around this table but i'm curious if if it's working around other tables, eamon. >> reporter: that's the question for florida voters, and we've seen newt gingrich running a campaign against mitt romney accusing him of being part of the wall street elite attacking romney as part of the republican establishment and the wall street elite. they don't necessarily play as well in tampa as it might in new york or washington or elsewhere. that's an insult where newt gingrich comes from down in georgia. so what he's saying is that mitt

romney doesn't have your interests at heart. he has financial elite interests at heart and that's where the goldman sachs stuff all plays in. ironically you have mitt romney hitting back accusing newt gingrich of being overly friendly and making money with freddie mac. they are lobbing these claims at each other. >> eamon, obviously we have a lot more to talk about before the polls even open tomorrow morning but thank you and we will see you again very soon. >> reporter: thank you. coming up, what u.s. investors need to know about what's going on in europe this weekend. i was hoping i wasn't going to have to read this myself. i was hoping you would. do you want to do it for me? >> this is huge. we want to give congratulations. a minimseries for his role in hbo's too big to fail which of course is based on andrew's book. this is huge. giamatti plays ben bernanke and

did he play it well. look at that. right now as we head to a break, take a look at yesterday's winners and losers. we have a great plan in the united states and europe and also a tremendous growth plan in the asia pacific just coming on line now. >> facebook is eager to make sure they can start trading by mid-may or so. >> users want to invest. >> this could be the lowest priced corporate issue ever. >> the psychological impact on silicon valley would be huge. this is the central company of this era. when bp made a commitment to the gulf,

we were determined to see it through. here's an update on the progress. we're paying for all spill related clean-up costs. bp findings supports independent scientists studying the gulf's environment. thousands of environmental samples have been tested

and all beaches and waters are open. and the tourists are back. i was born here, i'm still here and so is bp. i have to be a tree in the school play. good. you like trees. well, i like climbing them, but i've never been one. good point. ( captain ) this is your captain speaking. annie gets to be the princess. oh... but she has to kiss a boy. and he's dressed up like a big green frog ! ewww. ( announcer ) fly without putting your life on pause. be yourself nonstop. american airlines.

we're back on this monday morning. joining us now cnbc contributor dan greenhouse from btig. dan, good to see you this morning. >> good morning, andrew. >> let's just handicap it, do you think a deal gets done today? >> well, today i'd say is somewhere between 10% and 15%. that's the standard ratio for any given day. one of these days something will get done. whether it's today or not i don't know. >> and are you worried -- one of the things i was talking about earlier, i just got back from davos, the conversation wasn't so much were whether greece defaults, in fact, there seemed to be an expectation they might.

i'm not sure what this ultimately will do. this deal that may get reached today with creditors. so much as whether they ultimately see from the euro and the conversations over the past couple of days around germany trying to impose itself on the greek government there. >> i say absolutely no way that happens. the idea that the greeks would somehow suborder nate their budgetary authority to an external -- to the germans specifically, i don't see any way that happens. let's not forget that whatever we agree to today or this week with greece is essentially the model by which we will do portugal. investors have to remember the second we get done with greece all it takes is one random finance minister official in portugal to say, hey, a 50% cut in our debt looks pretty interesting and we have to go through this whole charade all over again. >> mrip the whole conversation around and think if you're angela merkel how you're going to get your political base to ultimately support you putting up money into a country where

they don't seem to be meeting any of the baselines that had been agreed. >> well, they are making some progress. the country is imploding on itself. so they are doing some things to rectify the situation. but let's not forget that throughout the history of the euro, the populace has not been as in favor as has been the elites in each country. i am always reminded of a survey done, i believe, in germany on the eve of the creation of the y euro in 1998 where something like 30%, 50% of the population in germany did not want to swap out the deutsch mark for the euro and yet it occurred anyway so this has been an unpopular project from the beginning and there's no reason to believe it will be any less popular tomorrow. >> dan, thank you. >> i just want to say about the last discussion about the 1%, don't forget that you are way more likely to be in the 1% if you are a doctor or an attorney.

>> was that the new york tames or the journal that had sort of in graphic representation who the 1% was? >> there certainly is skew in terms of income, i.e. wall street, people tend to make more of the more but in terms of the generalized profession, this demonizing of wall street, you know, again, doctors and attorneys far more likely. >> in washington there were huge protests by the okccupy washington and it was all about the 1 percenters. >> i didn't get to show you video of the 15 people in davos in their igloo. >> in washington there are tents everywhere. they're in multiple squares allowed to keep their tents up there and were on the march this weekend at these dinners. there were some arrests, i think 300. in oakland they said they were fed up with some of the actions that the group was taking where they were breaking in, trespassing, breaking into businesses and other people have been taking over. >> occupy wall streeters last

night in solidarity with the folks from oakland down in washington square, i believe, overnight. so, dan, thanks for joining us this morning. if you have comments or questions about anything you see here on "squawk" e-mail us. coming up, monday morning strategy from jobs to earnings. the stories likely to drive this week's trading. at the top of the hour "squawk" gets ron johnson as our guest host. a recall vote for scott walker in his home state and much more. we were just driving along,er comin' back from the lake,ng. and all of a sudden, ka-plam. it blindsided us. what is it? our college savings account. how do you think it happened? not sure. i think something we bought a while ago turned out to be something else, annnnnd, i remember a lot of other stuff in there had the word "aggressive" in it. is everyone okay? well, now, yeah. who knows later.

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the jury is still out on the u.s. economy. meantime, we're waiting on more clarity from greece. let's get to our monday morning strategy session. chris johnson of johnson research group is with us and boris schlossberg of porex is also here. all right, johnson -- >> how are you, joe? >> i'm not sure, man. you have the beard now? that's new, isn't it? >> it gets cold here in cincinnati. you know that. it's frigid. in the 50s. right, right. >> when a money manager grow as beard i think he's hiding from some of his past calls. i chalk it up to that. >> no hiding here, joe. >> what do you mean that the market has already discounted most of the good news and are you forecasting a 10% pullback or do you just think that there's not a whole lot of good things around to keep it moving?

>> well, i think there's not a lot of good things to keep it moving. the short term i think we see 3% to 5% over the next couple of weeks, joe. that's because the market hit an overbought level last week similar to what we saw in july of 2011 and it's just overdone a little bit here. when we look beyond that, though, so 3% to 5% over the next couple of weeks here, when we look beyond that and keep in mind the charts are the only thing that really investors have to look at now. there's so much uncertainty out there in the market, i liken it to a pilot trying to fly during a storm and they call it flying by instrument. that's what the market should be doing here in looking at the technicals and the charts because that's the one thing that you can count on instead of looking out the window. when you look at that we're getting ready to see a goaden cross, what they refer to as a golden cross in the s&p 500 where it moves above the 200, only ten times since 1990, joe, we've seen that 90% success rate. markets usually 60% higher. i think that's going to help us

get through this last year of the presidential election cycle and all of these things that have kind of been adding noise to the market. i really do think we'll see the long-term trend continue to improve for stocks. >> so you do? okay. because i know we had someone on last week -- and i was hoping that we finally paid our dues enough over 11 years with the reverting of the mean, i thought 11, 12 years, but there are people who still think it could be 15 or 16 and we may have three or four more years to go. but you think there's no reason for it to go higher but you think it will based on technicals. >> one thing nobody is talking about and the reason they're not is because it is the crowd, but when you look at it, the mutual fund redemptions we had end of the year last year, there's so much pes nichl to the market, joe. though the vix is down around 18 again and you have all these signs that show the traders may be more optimistic from the

public standpoint, from the consumer trader or the consumer investors, there's so much sideline money in the market that if we do start to see some glimmers of hope here, if we do start to see greece improve and we see these technicals continue higher, you are going to see a whole new flood of cash that will start to move into the market. >> chris, if you were just to look at what your alternative investments are, zero, and the fed says -- >> you lose money safely. >> they might be lying. maybe it's not until 2014, and then you look at at&t, verizon, or ge, the blue chip companies, 4% or 5%, if there wasn't something -- if we hadn't known that in 2008 the world could have ended, if it that wasn't still so close in our rear-view mirror, i don't see why everyone wouldn't have their money with dividend yields. i don't understand it. >> grow a beard and become an n investor/manager, joe. >> why not, schlossberg?

>> your position position is the same as chairman bernanke. when they asked him -- >> is that a different guy than bernanke or do you mean the same guy? >> the same guy. bernanke, is that the same guy? >> different pronunciation. what are the savers to do? he said basically buy stocks. >> yeah, that makes sense and that would help the fed, too, because they love it when the wealth effect helps the economy, don't they? >> exactly. >> we're seeing the dividend effect, here, take place. the last six months those blue chips that are turning out the 4% and 5% returns they're o outperforming the markets. cincinnati financial it's a 6% yield and the company has been outperforming the insurance sector for the last year. i think the market is just starting to uncover the gems and you're seeing investors go to those versus the bond trade we

saw in 2010-2011. >> boris, what's on your mind, you want to talk currencies? >> yes, it's interesting. we're coming to a pivot ol weal. we've basically had an easing of credit tensions in europe because everybody thought the greek deal would get done, better than expected data out of the u.s., created a big support for the risk trade and positioning skew has been unbelievable, we're at record shorts on the euro and the last, single best reason why the euro has the potential to go up but the first two are wobbling. the greek deal has not materialized. we're waiting for it to come through. it needs to happen in order for the credit market in europe to stabilize. lastly the gp numbers own friday are weak. this week's data is pivotal for the risk trade. if the first two things come back into alignment we can't see the euro squeezed much higher,

34, 35, but all of if this unwinds, we could come right back down to 130. >> just on a side note you've got companies like mcdonald's that are worry being the euro. we shouldn't worry about the euro's effect on some of the companies that have been doing well over the last year, right? >> we gotta run. >> sorry. >> mcdonald's, 40% will be open 24 hours because so many people working second jobs and working nights. >> people get up earlier in the morning. >> still to come -- a buzz building about a facebook ipo. we'll ask if investors will "friend" the offering.

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the other office devices? they don't get me. they're all like, "hey, brother, doesn't it bother you that no one notices you?" and i'm like, "doesn't it bother you you're not reliable?" and they say, "shut up!" and i'm like, "you shut up." in business, it's all about reliability. 'cause these guys aren't just hitting "print." they're hitting "dream." so that's what i do. i print dreams, baby. [whispering] big dreams. 

when we return, comments from the coo of facebook. plus senator ron johnson and bob dahl. 3q

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the fight for florida. guest host senator ron johnson talks about the florida primary and who he thinks will win out for the gop nomination.

>> jobs in focus. bob dahl tells us where he's putting his money for clients and what he expects this friday for the labor market. plus chairman austan austan goolsbey will be our guest as the second hour of "squawk box" starts right now. good morning, welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc on this monday morning. i'm andrew ross sorkin with long with joe kernen and becky quick. negotiations green greece and private bond holdings haven't yet resulted in an agreement. greek officials upset over suggestions they should give up control of their budget policies. in m&a news, abb is buying thomas & bets for $3.9 billion.

exxon mobil selling its japanese refining and marketing business in a nearly $4 billion deal, the partner is tonin. exxon will maintain a 22%ic to in tonin. the dow would open about 57 points lower, s&p 500 off about 7 points and the nasdaq off about 16 points. also in the headlines, facebook is expected to announce an ipo this beak. the company's chief operating officer tells cnbc the company's ipo will produce jobs and social change. >> the world is looking for economic growth, the kind of economic growth that feeds a billion people, that deworms millions of children who shouldn't have to live lives like that and that employs people all around the world and it has to be the new technologies which sometimes take away jobs, must also grow

jobs and if this for the economy can be seen as the job growth as it is, and importantly for people, the opportunity to use their voice to change their world, we hope that's the part of the movement we're part of. >> facebook's listing is the world's most anticipated offering since google. analysts are expecting it could value the company at $100 billion. last week andrew caught one sean parker and yuri milner in davos and got their thutoughts. >> i can't comment as to timing but i do think there's a possibility it will be the largest offering in history. i don't know what the number will be. we're all eagerly anticipating that data. >> i think there's a time to be private and a time to be public, and i think that -- it gl >> better for you in terms of exiting? >> companies like facebook and groupon are basically

transformational companies. you don't come across them very often and i'm pretty sure they can continue to grow for a long time, even being public. >> we'll have more on the expected ipo throughout the morning but again this is the big week we're watching for things coming up on wednesday. >> may happen as early as wednesday? we'll see who the banks are jockeying for position to lead the thing and also numbers, finally get the numbers. what's going on inside the company. >> how much can they make even though the razor thin margin, is it $100 billion, hutch is it worth? >> the company may be worth somewhere -- >> how much account bankers make? >> i think it's going to be razor thin. >> still it's a lot. >> it's not going to be 7%. it could be 2% or 3%. >> tens of millions. >> it's not a bad deal for the banks but it's the -- >> if they asked "squawk box" to underwrite the ipo we'd do it. >> for the cache. they might need us for the cache so you have to think about it. >> we are flush with cache

around here, we are. joining to us talk politics, the economy and more, republican senator ron johnson, member of the budget committee. you're outspoken in your support of business and in criticizing the administration for kind of being anti-business so we'll just get that out of the way at the top. >> i'm the loyal opposition but speaking of cache, joe -- >> i saw this. the whole cheese head phenomenon. >> the last time i was here you were giving me trouble about this. >> i'm not going to wear this. >> hold it up to your head. >> come on. >> what if i wore it and took it off and my hair came off. it's gross. it's swiss cheese. >> i have a green bay packer's shirt. andrew has the cheese tie. >> why do we have that with super bowl sunday which has nothing to do -- >> unfortunately. i'm sorry. >> you haven't endorsed anyone

and you said it would be meaningless. at least it wouldn't be the kiss of death for one of the candidates. you said it would be meaningless for to you endorse them. >> it's wisconsin, i'm new on the scene so i want to see the thing play out. >> romney looks good in florida at 86% on end trade. do you expect romney will be the nominee? >> it's kind of looking that way. >> that would be like -- >> who knows? who knows what's going to happen here? >> do you think he's more electable than newt gingrich? we'll have kelly anne conway, one of his advisers, by the time she gets through with us we all may say he's a better candidate. >> sounds after $1 million in florida romney made newt unelectable in florida. >> we'll see what happens in the southern states. one thing you do know about is wisconsin and i want to, i watch what's happening with scott walker and we've had him on. we get mail when we have him on, the vitriol in the mail that we get, this is a huge election, i

just want to show you "the journal" wrote about it on saturday, we'll go through a couple of these things here because it's worthwhile. "wall street journal" it's the most important non-presidential election of the decade. the evidence is mounting that mr. walker hasn't brought economic armageddon but financial stability. last year's $3 billion deficit is now a $3 hundred million surplus and it was accomplished without new taxes that unions favored." the next thing, a survey of major business owners, when he was elected, thought 10% of wisconsin was headed, 10% thought that the state was headed in the right direction, it's 94% with him. that's not all. this is what he asked people to do. check this out. granting local governments the legal authority to hire and fire teachers based on merit -- what a concept, trying to do that all over the place -- 5.8% into

their pensions, it had been zero, and then 12.6% into health care, that's about half of what private workers pay right now. has already saved local governments $475 million. rather than assaulting government workers it allowed all of these guys to stay employed, all of the union guys. would you think unions would be happy that there weren't the huge layoffs. >> the big problem the unions had with it is one of the elements of that is that governor walker did not allow local governments to automatically deduct union dues out of the paycheck. that was the armageddon. >> who likes that? that's the next seg. the union brass are the ones -- and this is always what we hear, it's not necessarily the rank and file all the time, the union brass, when you have mandatory withholding, they get huge sums of money to buy political influen

influence. >> they spent $30 million in the -- it. >> so far. now these national unions have to decide, do they spend, and right now i think it's going in walker's favor, i think, as far as opinion polls, although they got a million signatures, i don't know how many dead people signed it but, the, they got to decide whether to spend $3 million to $50 million on walker or the seiu last election spent $80 million on obama, on president obama's election last time so they have to decide, do you do it on walker or obama. this frames in a microcosm what the national election about as well. >> you're always going have to rich versus poor but the real class is public sector versus private sector. size of the government versus the size of the private sector and in wisconsin, local governments after local governments are able to balance their budgets because of the flexibility that governor walker

gave them. now i don't want to underpay public sector workers but when we're running these types of deficits in state governments and federal governments, we can't afford to overpay them so we need to benchmark pay, we need to benchmark benefits and let's face it. there aren't very many private companies that employees are only contributing 12.6% to health care and 5% to retirement. we have to get these things in line. >> the 5% threw me off at first, 5% or 12% of their overall health care costs, not 12.6% of their paychecks. it's 12.6% of the contribution that goes in. >> it's minimal. >> but you look at the -- i mean really, and you mentioned some of the e-mails or was it an e-mail or was it a letter? >> there's an e-mail that got sent out to every member of the wisconsin state legislature that said we're going to put a bullet in your head, we know where you and your family lives. now that didn't make national

news. >> seriously? >> this went out to men, women, women with young children. the levels of intimidation hoisted on members of the wisconsin legislature was amazing, and they just showed real courage and that's what we need. we need elected officials willing to acknowledge whether it's in the state or federal government and have the courage to make the tough decisions, take the tough votes to start fixing the problem and we did it in wisconsin. we haven't started doing it on the federal level yet. >> i just saw an article yesterday that said that union, the percent of the employment pool overall in the nation has dropped in terms of union percentage once again so obviously unions are feeling the pressure. >> it was flat this past year. >> down 0.1%. >> didn't decline. >> it's because workers, you know, and we have business, you know my business we were always non-union because we always had a very open door policy. we didn't let problems fester

and quite frankly, when people who worked with me took a look at $900 to $1,200 in union dues i'd rather work with ron myself and individual after individual are taking that exact same outlook and i'd rather work with the company directly as opposed to having somebody i'm paying to bargain for me. that's their choice. >> those are some of the numbers they don't lie, and it at least gives you an idea that it is possible to not be illinois, and it is possible, but you are going to get a backlash that you can't even believe. >> oh, yeah. >> if do you this. i think there's parallels to the national election, too. >> it's extremely important that governor walker doesn't get recalled because if the reward for showing courage, stepping up to the plate and fixing the problems is turned out of office before your term is up that would send a horrible signal to other elected officials and national level, $1.8 billion in wisconsin and we need elected

officials with courage and that would be a bad signal. >> he was at 37% approval i think, he's back to above 50 at this point. >> it's going to be close. i'm hopeful. as i travel all over the state of wisconsin, there's still a great deal of support for what he's doing and let's face it, like i said, local governments are balancing their budgets because of the flexibility he gave in the budget act. >> i'm sure you have some comments about this, right? >> yes. the senator is going to be with us for the rest of the program but if you'd like to write in, if you have comments or thoughts what we've been talking about, feel free, e-mail u us squawk@cnbc.com. you can also follow us on twitter. blackrock's bob doll will join us after the break and 7:30, senator david vitter.

welcome back, everybody, take at the futures this morning, dow down by 62 points, the s&p off by more than.5 points, after asia opened weaker, selling off from some 3.5 year high level in the markets. the dout suffered its first

weekly decline of 2012. overall trend of the market is positive. joining us bob doll, chief equity strategist for blackrock. >> good morning, andrew. >> in terms of positioning the fund, i'm curious, given what's going on in europe, given the conversation around greece, whether we get a deal today, tomorrow, whether the deal holds how you're thinking about things. >> and with the market up 20% or more in four months, so i think you need more balance in the portfolio. at some point we'll take a pause so while i still want my cyclical stocks like the energy names i also want some defense in the portfolio and health care fits that bill. i think more balance in here. the mood's turned from negative a few months ago to i think a little complacent. there is more good news. i think the market will end the year higher than where we are today but we won't go straight up. >> bob what was the turning point for you? i ask that in the context i was talking to these guys during the

break, coming back from davos, there was this sense of optimism, you talked to the big multinationals and they were thrilled about life. they weren't talking about the regulatories using it, different from the wall street story which everybody is still treading water. when you get that bullish sentiment from the corner office, if you will, all of a sudden you say maybe i got to ease off the gas? >> yes, that's sort of my attitude. i don't want to be too early. mutual fund flows just started to see equity in-flows and there's more of that to come in my view. however, trees don't grow to the sky and look the fundamentals are pretty good, but we can't forget europe is still a problem. we can't forget energy prices have moved up some, but the world has some hot spots in it as well so i don't want to sound negative but after a 20% run in four months i'm thankful that some of the cyclical names we were able to add because it looked like the world was going to end on october 1st, there's a

little more complacency now. >> was that last week you started rebalancing things? >> exactly, got just a little more, let's say bring the beta from 1.1, 1.05 to 1.02, maybe to pick a number. >> you saw the gdp number on friday. what is your prediction for the end of the year? >> i think that we will have 2.5% real growth. the 2.8 for the fourth quarter was the best since the second quarter of 2010 but as you saw there's all kinds of cross-currents, the big buildup in inventory, the big decline in defense spending. i don't think either of them are sustainable. final demand was not what we would like to see. i think we're this muddle through, good enough but not great economy. >> what is a good name in the muddle through economy you ta you c talk about? i want to add to chevron, along with conoco and apache in the energy world.

in health care, since i mentioned it, you've heard me many times united health hair, hesson, others in that sector. >> i'm not going to consider this on your defensive list but we've been talking about the potential facebook ipo, may get a filing later this week. is that an ipo you think you would try to get a piece of? >> not likely, given the kind of money i manage. lots of people at blackrock will play that name. i think it's hard to value these things and every time i look at these sorts of things i say i can't believe how much capitalization is coming there and i end up buying something that i understand a little bit better where it might be going. >> you've been recommending high dividend stocks for i don't know the past year and a half on the broadcast. is that oversold? is that idea sort of two out there at this point in. >> i think it needs a modification, a free cash flow. i only want to owe the dividend

paying companies that can raise their dividends. if stocks do better and bonds take a back seat this year, the dividend paying stocks, that don't increase their dividends i think will lag. >> give me a name or two on that. >> i'll come back to the names i mentioned, chevron, united health care, good, free cash flow, decent yields especially in chevron's case but year end will be higher than they are today. >> fixed income, is there anything you loo ike? >> we still like the credit spreads, they can narrow a bit. relative to treasuries, corporates, high yield municipal also probably do better. >> municipals, remember when municipals were supposed to be the -- it shall. >> a four-letter word. >> they were the touch of death. bob, thanks for coming on. >> you bet. coming up david vitter, and then former council of economic advisers chairman austa

austan goolsbee. "squawk box" is coming right back. time for the aflac trivia question. what studio did the beatles use to record 191 songs? man, i'm glad aflac pays cash. aflac! ha! isn't major medical enough? huh! no! who's gonna help cover the holes in their plans? aflac! quack! like medical bills they don't pay for? aflac! or help pay the mortgage? quack! or child care? quack! aflaaac! and everyday expenses? huh?! blurlbrlblrlbr!!! [ thlurp! ] aflac! [ male announcer ] help your family stay afloat at aflac.com. plegh!

20 pages. boom! the other office devices? they don't get me. they're all like, "hey, brother, doesn't it bother you that no one notices you?" and i'm like, "doesn't it bother you you're not reliable?" and they say, "shut up!" and i'm like, "you shut up." in business, it's all about reliability. 'cause these guys aren't just hitting "print." they're hitting "dream."

so that's what i do. i print dreams, baby. [whispering] big dreams.

now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. what studio did the beatles use to record 191 songs? the answer "abbey road studios." >> aflac! >> if you've got any comments or questioning about anything you see here on "squawk" this morning, facebook, some of the issues, unions, e-mail us cnbc.coma squawk@cnbc.com. next david vitter joins us to talk about the florida primary. tomorrow on "squawk box" the profit pop line from chairman and ceo john lechleiter and debbie wasserman schultz.

i was downstairs making coffee, and we heard it. it just came crashing through the roof, out of nowhere. what is it? it's our ira. any idea what coulda caused this? maybe. i just sorta threw a little money here, a little money there. and i loaded up on something my dentist told me was hot. yeah. ♪

my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪

welcome back to "squawk box" on this monday morning on cnbc. among the stories we're following, italy's borrowing costs fell at its latest auction of long-term debt. five-year yields came in at an average of 5.39%, down from 6.5% at the auction just today. former ubs trader pleaded not guilty. he's been accused of rogue trading and hock lead and boeing invited to build a new fighter jet for south korea. the country planning to invest $7.4 billion in a next generation fighter jet program. >> you should never reference that because someone said in my ear, you can pronounce queco,

not carl quintanilla. >> you got quecu's name but not carl's. >> quintanilla. >> if anybody can, can he. >> carl can do nilla. >> you know they're saying something to me so if i make a moment don't reference it. i would not have said it. >> sometimes i'm going through the news do you this. >>. >> this squawkward moment is brought to you by andrew ross sorkin. >> thank you. >> don't look at him. blinder, blinders. >> i try for three hours to keep the blinders on. >> there's a running commentary in my ear. >> i thought it was the voices in your head. >> that's the other thing. >> i'm hearing stuff over here, too. the battle for the gop presidential nomination

continues with florida's primary tomorrow. joining us right now his thoughts on the best path for republicans is senator david vitter, he is a republican from louisiana and senator, thank you for joining us. >> great to be with you all, thank you. >> we have been trying to handicap this race, and -- >> good luck. i stopped about 12 cycles and 154 debates ago. >> you're the smart man for doing this. what do you think as we head into florida right now? it's easier since we're so close. >> all the polls suggest romney is doing well. we'll see. it's up to the voters. if he does win and do well there, i think he's going in to probably what's a good month in terms of what else is teed up around the country. so we'll see, but again, i really stopped predicting many cycles and dozens and dozens of debates ago. >> you're a smart man for doing that. what we've been trying to posit around the table is whether the black and forth and the harsh turn that this primary run has

given romney is that good for the candidate, if he is the eventual candidate or does it weaken him by making him spend his money ahead of time in. >> probably a little bit of both. like every republican out there, i'm frustrated by the process. i like debate, and discussion, but i think it's so many debates in particular and the nature of this back and forth between newt and mitch -- mitt, is really hurting so i hope we get beyond that and i hope we get back on ush issues, particularly economic issues and the obama economy. >> do you mean the process of primaries in general or in particular the number of debates. >> this year and the obvious thing to point to is so many debates, and when you have two candidates in particular going at each other in a pretty personal way, all of the debates magnify that and i think it's turning a lot of people off. >> is there an argument to be made if all this comes out early

that then maybe it doesn't pain the next -- it doesn't put all the pressure on them later? >> somewhat, and i think it's good practice for the nominee, whoever it is, so i agree with that. but still i think, you know, that could have been gained with 12 debates, not 192 or wherever we're at now. >> david you and i both think we'd like to get on the issues and do the comparison between the path obama is taking us on versus the path that republicans take in the country on particularly the energy. you're the expert in terms of what this country really has to offer in energy. can you comment the difference between obama's approach versus your approach? >> i'm pleased all the republican candidates are talking about american energy and to me that should be a key component of our platform, whoever the nominee is. it's a win/win/win, first, energy independence, less dependence on unstable places like the middle east but second it's great jobs, great american

jobs an oh, by the way, jobs that are impossible to outsource. you can't take a domestic energy job and send it to india. not going to happen, and then third it's deficit reduction. the second biggest source of revenue to the federal government after only the income tax is royalty revenue on domestic energy production so if we get into that in a much more aggressive say, we can produce a lot of revenue and have deficit and debt reduction. ron, like you are, i'm all for more revenue, being part of the deficit and debt solution. it's a big difference between getting revenue from job creation and the energy sector or other growth and just jacking up tax rates. >> what needs to happen with an energy policy? say three things that need to happen . >> in general open up access. we're the single most energy rich country in the world. a lot of americans don't realize

or think that. we are at itch rest in terms of energy resources. russia is second. no anile eastern country comes close. the problem is we're the only country in the world that takes 95% of those resources and puts it off limits. can't drill off the east coast, can't drill off the west coast, can't drill now in the eastern gulf. can't drill in a lot of offshore alaska, can't touch anwar and in the west enormous shale fines so one, two, and three is opening up access significantly on land and offshore and i'd add to that a particular wrinkle, hydraulic fracturing, fracing is a key and safe process for these shale and it's under attack from the left including obama's epa with no scientific basis. that's a big deal, a key issue. >> there's the "gas land" movie

rattled a lot of people up. >> pure "new york times" signs, not valid signs, but it did rile a lot of people up which was its intent. >> and that other movie. >> what's the other movie? >> "an inconvenient truth." you got two of them back-to-back. >> i'm going to push back only because you did say new york times. there are scientists and lots of them that do believe there is global warming and also believe, frankly, that fracing can potentially be dangerous. >> first of all i was focused on fracing. i don't think there's any peer reviewed scientific study that's pointed to a real case of drinking water contamination, none, zero, nothing, zip, so i do not think there is peer reviewed valid science in that direction. >> let's face it, global warming is not settled science. there's a great piece in the "wall street journal" that ran last week. >> we were e-mail being it. >> as well as number one, how about build the keystone

pipeline, a know brain per. >> don't you think it gets built ultimately? >> might get built to british columbia and have the oil used by china. >> that's the danger if we drag our feet too much they can build it in another direction and that's a real danger. also it has a domestic energy impact, it will have on ramps within the country in the dakotas and oklahoma and that's needed to get backlogged u.s. energy to refineries. >> i'm going to play devil's advoca advocate, there is an argument to be made that that gas is going to move across our country and we're not going to, it's not going to come back to us. we're not going to be the beneficiaries except for building this thing and taking. it's not bringing energy to us. >> we're becoming a -- >> do you boouy that? >> it may happen but i don't buy it's not a benefit to us. we're becoming a refined energy product exporter. that's a good thing, a great thing, wonderful for our economy.

>> how is that a good thing for getting us energy independent. if the reasons we need these things, the number one issue is that we want to be energy independent from places that hate us. >> well first of all we're exporting that refined product mostly because of the recession. demand has gone in the tank, gone through the floor so hopefully that's going to come back and when it does we'll have that product here in this country. >> if we need it, we'll have it. and let's face it, you're talking about $7 billion infrastructure, private sector infrastructure spending on the pipeline itself, $20 billion total, 20,000 jobs, 100,000 long-term terms. that's beneficial. >> i will push back to correct, 20,000 jobs potentially on the construction, 100,000 long-term is not the case. and some people argue as you know that we're not talking about 20,000 jobs, we're talking about 2,000 jobs. >> who? >> these guys go from job to job every single time. what infrastructure job is

permanent? >> i wouldn't belittle that in this economy at all. maybe in a boom economy. >> i'm not belittling. i'm fact checking. >> they go from job to job until they retire. >> oh 2,000 to 20,000. >> i've never heard of 100,000. >> it's a foe aux debate. >> i'm just trying to suggest the numbers are maybe a little different. >> i don't think the permanent workers for the hoover dam, they're not still there building the dam but it was a huge boom at the time for the economy. >> but you can't use it as a talking point if you don't -- >> every infrastructure project you go from one -- >> it will create jobs, we know that. we'll leave it at that. >> if you ever use the same mult flier da multiplier zandi used on the stimulus, it would be much more. to the left the public

infrastructure is like the holy grail, but suddenly the private infrastructure there's no jobs, none of them are permanent and there's no multiplier effect. it's unbelievable. it's insane. >> as you stare at me. >> you asked for it. i like it when you say i'll play devil's advocate. you're not playing devil's advocate. you're playing yourself. >> because i personally think that the keystone pipeline probably should ultimately get built. it's just a matter can we do it safely. that's the question. >> you know why you can't do it safely? there's already so many pipelines in the sand hills that you might run into one that's already there so that might not be safe as you crisscross with previous pipelines already there. >> senator thank you very much. >> great to be with you all. thanks for the invite. >> checking the futures as we head to the break. up next it says we're going to talk about politics. >> again? >> class warfare, the economy, former chair of the council of

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the florida primary comes tomorrow and the january jobs report friday. here now to discuss these topics and a lot more, austan goolsbee, former chairman of the council of economic advisers. austan, i don't know if you had a chance to listen to the conversation we had with the senator before but i'm curious as you watch romney and gingrich trying to beat each other up as much as they are and you think about the election later, let's say a couple months down the road, does this help or hurt president obama, only because i might argue actually that it takes some of the issues off the table rather than put them on. >> well, you know, i actually somewhat agreed with senator vitter, that it does a little bit of both. i think what you might be missing there, andrew, and it may work out the way you describe it, but in 2008, where you had kind of a very extended primary for the democrats, and still pretty extended for the republicans, was when these things would come up, say the

equivalent of the tax returns or the bain stuff, the candidates were getting as much information out about the thing as they could at the very beginning, and so then six months later, they would say but this is old news. we addressed everything about this six months ago. in this case, i don't know if that's necessarily going to play out, because some of these things for romney hasn't, he hasn't wanted to be as forthcoming as you might get grilled in the general. so i don't know if they've been put to bed. >> i'm curious about the business and the business community and the way the president will approach the business community over the next couple of months. there is a sentiment he is anti-business. is it let those guys go, i'll let romney or gingrich perhaps take them or does he tack in a different way later on? how do you see that playing out? >> i saw in the state of the union, he was sticking to a

position which is, arguably here are a bunch of specific things that i'm doing to help this industry or here's how i want to help business. i don't think he's going to change the perception among a bunch of folks that they think he's anti-business, but he's at least trying on the substance, it felt like to me, to have a pro economic line and if the data were to keep improving the way they have the last two or three months, i think most of business is not really political. they're pretty practicing gmati. if the economy is doing well -- it shall. >> you think the communities could come out and support the president? >> most business people are not very political. i doubt they'd get out front and say i love what the president is doing but i think they would be far less prone to come out and say well i really disagree with

what he's doing. >> austan, this is ron johnson. >> hi ron. >> don't you think once the primary is over this election will basically be about the difference between growing government and growing the private sector, and i just want to get your measure in terms of basic metrics. the size of government in relationship to gdp, the size of our debt in relation to gdp. those are the two large metrics i would be looking at in terms of how our economy is performing and right now this president has managed those metrics horribly. don't you agree with that? >> you have a couple of things going in there. number one, i think if you just look at the data in the gdp numbers or in the jobs numbers, you see the dynamic that you would have expected, and that is, as the recession comes off that size of government is a share of the gdp is actually shrinking quite significantly, we're adding, i guess we've added about 3 million jobs on

the private sector, and the public sector jobs are one of the great drags on employment. >> but austan -- >> i really think that looking at the short run deficit and especially spending or tax revenue as a share of gdp is the wrong thing to do because it's so highly colored by the recession. >> but austan -- >> in the long run i think you're right, we should be thinking about long run fiscal stuff but we've got to have a growth plan. i think that's the main thing you compare. >> you look at the long-term trends for 50 years the size of government was 20.2%. under this president is rose to 25% in 2009, and it's on a trajectory to go to 35% by 2035. >> ron, once again you're forgetting we just went through the worst recession of our lifetimes and everyone knows when you go into recession, spending rises and if you're condemning the rise of the size of government, i'm surprised

you're not praising the president for having taxes be the lowest that they have in 65 years. >> i'm looking at how much government spends and it spends way too much. we're on a trajectory to go to 35%. state and local government is 40% in relationship to the size of our economy, 40 cents of every dollar cycles through the government, that's a bad metric. >> you're mixing two things. one is short run size of government because we went through a terrible recession. >> no, that's long-term. >> long run size of government because of the aging of the population and rising health care costs. >> and this president is not addressing that. >> that is a problem we've known about for 40 years and we haven't done anything about. >> nor has this president done anything about it. >> the important thing is to take a balanceed aapproach. >> austan, back to the primaries, put yourself back in the white house, if you're the president do you say i am

praying, i am hoping that somehow gingrich wins? >> probably. you know, because gingrich is kind of prone to blowing himself up but it seems unlikely at this point, as you guys were commenting. now, i think one thing playing out here that ron raises is an interesting point, i think. when conditions aren't great, it was going to essentially be a referendum on the economy. if the conditions improve enough, not that the economy becomes a selling point, but merely that it becomes a contest of whose plan is better, that's in a strange way a great improvement for the condition of the president, because just the straight referendum ceases to be the issue, and it becomes this contest of two plans, and that's a lot better than where we were in the summer of 2011, when

we're argue being the debt ceiling. >> that's a very important argument because the president wants to add $12 trillion to our debt in his budget he presented last year, we'll see what he says this year and people aren't even talking about the significant increased deficit risk, if we only average 2.5% growth -- >> uh-oh we lost somebody. >> $5 trillion in additional deficit spending. >> you look like a real tv person, you real i-ed we lost him, said "we lost him" and kept going. >> austan was like i've had enough of this. there's no way i can answer this question, and i saw his shoulder move. >> he said enough. >> i'm out of here. >> austan if you can hear us, thank you. if you can't we'll get you on the broadcast soon. >> maybe you'd looic to answer for -- >> no, thank you. that is a squawkward moment brought to you by joe kernen. >> austan our apologize. we'll have him back to continue

this discussion. as we head to break look at the futures, under a little bit of pressure. you'll see the dow futures are off, well the s&ps are off by just over 8 points. dow futures off by 55. about 60 points below fair value at this point.

some of the stocks to watch, thomas and betts and it's never been at 72, i looked, andrew, so that will top out, if you look at historical chart of t&b. >> 24% premium? >> 24% supremeup, abb, which is a big competitor to --

>> switzerland. >> -- general electric, acquiring thomas & betts for $72 a share. citigroup was upgraded by goldman sachs. >> that was nice of them. >> what do you make of that? >> i think it's nice they're getting along. i thick this, the target was upgraded to buy from a neutral. you know who else goldman sachs upgraded? morgan stanley. >> wow! that takes -- >> added that to the conviction buy list. >> i wonder if that takes courage or they're just trying to be nice. >> goldman has a conviction buy list? i would think up, i would change in a. i wouldn't say conviction in terms of any investment bank these days. >> this is my strongly recommended buy list? >> yeah, just get --

>> anything could conviction in it. >> we feel strongly about this. >> give the "new york times" just that there is a conviction buy list at goldman they'll find something out. bank of america, what'd they do there in. >> whaed' they do? >> downgrade it at goldman. >> wow. >> to neutral from buy. time warner downgraded from equal weight to overwaugt at bar clay's and kellogg downgraded to neutral from overweight at morgan, target cut to 48. all the way down to 48. >> i'll keep an eye on those stocks today. >> will you? >> i don't always walk stocks but when i do. [ "theme from rocky" ] coming up, how the florida primary will shape the republican effort to beat president obama in november. a senior adviser to newt gingrich will join us at the top of the hour. [ barks ]

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rng it's the final countdown for the florida primary. we'll talk strategy with former romney campaign adviser kevin madden and kellyanne conway, senior adviser to the newt gingrich campaign. steven ross will join us to talk about florida politics and the super bowl, chairman and ceo

of the related companies and owner of the miami dolphins. >> let's go! pack it fast! hirs cowing is the cio, joining us with his top picks for your portfolio. third hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ when i woke up this morning, i knew what i had to find ♪ ♪ somewhere there exists a malady that will make you change your mind ♪ ♪ so i got down to business good morning, everyone. welcome back to "squawk box." i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. our guest today is wisconsin senator johnson. in asia there was a sell-off there. >> european union leaders meeting today in brussels, expected to sign off on a

permanent rescue fund for the eurozone and agree on a balanced budget rule and national lesion. greece's prime minister seeking backing from party leaders from a unpopular reform package, a long awaited debt relief deal seems almost secured. international leaders want proof athens will take reforms before they handle funds from 130 billion euro bailout. and thomas & betts acquired for about $3.9 billion, that's a 24% premium over the stock's friday closing price and the highest price that the stock i think as you said, joe, has ever been. >> right. >> joe? >> gop front-runners mitt romney and newt gingrich hoping for a decisive victory in tomorrow's florida primary. joining success kellyanne conway, senior adviser to the gingrich presidential campaign. you saw that we had her in a, paired in a smackdown for the ages with kevin madden, but

kevin's not here. i think it's our fault or something with a car. >> i sent his car on a detour. >> you know what, knowing you. >> no, i love kevin but we also know what he'd say and romney gets plenty of help by the media so you might as well just have a newt person. >> now you have sarah palin on her side. i can't do her accent but it's almost like fargo. make it a liberal man, vote for newt. >> the extension of the 2010 elections into 2012 would be the classic establishment versus the non-establishment, and the beauty of 2010 with 87 new house members was those people who we probably couldn't pick out of a line-up they ran on a message, they didn't carpet bomb their opponents with the money opinion most of them the underfunded unknown candidates told you can't win because we didn't say you could. we didn't pick you. so this will shape up as that as we move on. >> florida, let's just for argument's sake say that romney

wins florida and say wins comfortably. where is the next, what's the word i'm looking for? the firewall for gingrich, to stop the momentum for romney. where would it be? >> sure. we're not ceding florida just like we didn't cede iowa and south carolina which he didn't win either. first of all there's proportional delegation, not winner take all. it's a huge benefit when you have two true front-runners, they will be able to share the vote, the delegates in each state. that's a big boon for us. you look at super tuesday t includes newt's home state of georgia, that's 76 delegates, includes tennessee and oklahoma, the in ex-week is mississippi and alabama. we feel as we go into the south the calendar looks good and feel in the caucus states coming up that ron paul could do well, too. we can also. if you transpose the shear volume of our crowds in florida, the florida reporters said we're

in the thousands of thousands. romney and saner numb the hundreds and hundreds. if that translates into the caucus situation in some of the more hospitable states we feel we'd do it. >> would you take anything back, kellyanne, what i mean by this is, does an establishment candidate imply that he's for the free markets? he's for capitalism? he doesn't think goldman sachs is like, is a pejorative? he doesn't think that wealth accumulation and becoming very successful -- >> the speaker doesn't think those either. >> certainly seems like it. >> i've seen the caricatures. >> beyond the pail some of the stuff he said, it's damaged capitalism and damaged the republican party. >> we're a great country and people understand how capitalism works but i don't think he gave an inch to david axelrod in the white house. they want to run against mitt romney. they're ready for him. >> they have all of their talking points down. >> david axelrod -- let me say something i think true

capitalism is shown by who has got an economic and jobs growth vision. joe, i'm still waiting -- governor romney is out there every day pounding newt. he never once this entire weekend said, and here's my flat tax plan. he doesn't have one. here is my zero capital gains plan. he doesn't have one. we have both. we treat everybody the same under the tax code with 15% flat tax, zero percent capital gains. that's a true capitalist. romney only talks about newt and small people talk about other people. big people talk about ideas. i'd like for him to talk about ideas. >> you talk about lowering the rate but what does that mean? bringing in a lot less money but there hasn't been real conversation where the cuts are going to come to match that on the other end and a lot of conversation about somehow we have too much debt and that the president is blowing up the debt, however, the tax plan unto itself if you don't dee something on the other side of the ledger will blow up our debt more. >> that just assumes a static economy. newt's position is that if you take the business tax for

example from 35 to 12.5, not to 25 where romney wants to put us, he wants to give us an even playing field with other countries. >> evil you wanted to say. >> freudian slip. 12.5% business tax instead of looking for where do we cut you say that makes us more competitive, people want to do business here then and unleashes it. >> you think you grow the base. what happens if you don't? >> then we'll take a look at it. this is what bold people do. tough times need tough leaders. i don't think people want another people pleaser. >> president bush owe lowered tax rates and did not broaden the base the way he expected in terms of what ultimately happened to the economy? >> i'm not sure what he expected but a perfect storm was created through housing and through the cost of 9/11, frankly, afterwards, and the dip in the economy, so you're going to have to ask the bush people that, but

in any event, there's just if you go on newt.org and look at the solutions and you go on mitt romney's website you see who the true capitalist is in terms of your money moving forward. >> is there a point where we stop focusing our fight on each other and focus on president obama and the harm he's caused our economy? as a republican i think that's what we're hoping to see the sooner the better. >> i would prefer that than all of this pablum that mitt romney is the only one who can beat barack obama. he just made history winning iowa and new hampshire and going to seal it in south carolina. wrong again and hurt us in early voting in florida. they wanted to back the guy who is going to win. going to your question we should drain the fire on obama but i don't know how you do that when your health care plan provided the inspirational blueprint for obama's health care plan. you can't put a tissue between

the two plans, any supporter knows that. ask romney's super pac why they spent over $16 million in florida saying newt takes the wings off of butterflies. he's not spent one dime talking about his record of governor. he's been elected to one office, never talks about his record as governor. i don't blame him. >> gingrich has done his own share of spending on negative campaigns. his super pac bought "romney came to town." >> mitt romney always goes like, this i haven't seen those alds. he is the only person in florida, not even florida politics, the only person i can find who hasn't seen the ads. newt gingrich started to do a positive campaign in iowa, go back three, four weeks. we tried to do a positive campaign in iowa and we got bombed there and came in fourth.

we're trying to defend ourselves. 4 million bucks' worth versus $16 million. >> i'm happy to make the suggestion the republicans show the primary voters how they'll defeat president obama and his ideology. that's what we're hungering for. >> i know in your marvelous campaign you didn't karp on your opponent, and you had the money, you took it to obama care and the bailouts. we followed your campaign very closely and i think that is still the way to run in 2012. the way to defeat obama in 2012 is the same as in 2010. president obama looks at it as the crowned jewel in his domestic agenda and we look at it as a by-product of romney care. >> the republicans should be nice to ron paul because he could be very important down the road it was suggested.

when ron paul took a turn on newt gingrich he didn't lash out back at him and i noticed the same thing with romney. is there a sense the candidates are looking at ron paul and supporters for help down the road? >> they ought to. as far as foreign policy views are frightening but he's got a lot to say about the gold standard and the return to king dollar and sound money which people like me and many others really appreciate. he also, you know the 76-year-old also tapped into the votes. >> let's say romney is at 85%, 90% or whatever. let's just for argument's sake say he becomes the eventual nominee. have you, the -- i mean you're great, if he wanted you on board with him against obama, can you come back and do that at this point? can gingrich come back and do that at this point? >> those are two separate questions. newt said today on a different network that he, of course, will

support the republican nominee and do what he can do to beat barack obama. >> not you? >> no especially me. i'm an expert on the women's vote. aboutment. got 56% of the women's vote in 2008. i can't overexaggerate how high that is for a non-incumbent. bill clinton 4% in his first election in 1992. 5 ha 54% in incumbent. my first job in polling, my first boss in polling coined the term the gender gap as an incumbent. women as a republican party have a huge hill to climb among women against an incumbent who first time out got 56% of the vote so of course i'll be there. i'll be there for newt. after florida 5% of all delegates will be awarded. 46 states to go. >> is he on three and counting or two in counting in terms of

huge comebacks, at least two. >> every good cat has nine lives. we'll be having fun here. >> thank you. >> thank you all. coming up, with low interest rates and uncertainty in the markets, what's the safest bet for your portfolio? hirch owens is the chief executive of clearbridge advisers. we will also talk with stephen ross, chairman and ceo of the related companies and owner of the dolphins.

the welcome back to "squawk box" on this monday morning. the futures not looking good. dow would open up about 70 points lower, s&p 500 off about 9 points and the nasdaq off about 17.5 points. we have some news crossing the wires. pep boys acquired by gors group for $25 in cash. the ten-year chart, back in '04 they were close to $30, about $29.50, and if you took it back farther than that, this stock lived in the $40 range back in

the '90s so some questions about pep questions. gores trying to fix this thing up, for those of you trying to watch which banks are backing these deals, b of a, merrill lynch advised pep boys on the transaction and i noticed credit suisse and barclay's. the next guest says the best place to put your money is in high quality stocks. hirsch cohen of clearbridge advisers, thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> this idea of going into high quality stocks one you've been talking about for a couple of years. you think it's the fed pushing people there? >> two years ago every call i was getting was, every all from people saying i have a cd expiring or treasury bill, where can i get higher returns with no

risk. you can't, there is no such place but you look at high quality common stocks where the price-to-earnings ratio were lower, yields were high, dividends were higher up front than they had been in years. you had higher yields on dividend paying stocks than high quality bonds for its first time since the mid 1950s and so on an absolute and relative basis it seems to be the place to go. in terms of quality, it's an interesting thing. i think that bernanke is definitely forcing people out on the risk curve and i think he's trying desperately to reflate the economy. europe is doing their best to deflate things whether they know it or not with their fiscal policies, draconian fiscal policies. you want to come down on the side of quality in that environment. >> hersh, two years ago it was not a common idea for people to be doing things like that. it was a more novel idea.

two years later with he hear from a lot of people who are looking for dividend paying stocks, and you start to chase the yield or you start to chase what's been happening with a lot of people. >> i've been asked is the trade overcrowded. i think you're talking a decade's long investment view that's important, on a short term basis, yeah, it's become popular in the media. have individuals embraced it? i wonder. i think you saw out of equity funds last year, maybe some money was going into equity income funds which is good but i think on balance people are investing with a rear view mirror, people legitimately scared out of the market and unfortunately i think we're losing a generation of investors at a time when they probably ought to be thinking about and buying high quality stocks, and if you're thinking about the next three months, yeah, you know, who knows, but if you're thinking about the next 5, 10,

20 years, i can tell you from experience stocks actually work and dividends actually work and the compounding effect is enormous. >> this is a generational call and that's why you still see a lot of value for big names, i noticed some of the flames, procter & gamble, walmart, the dow components like a microsoft. >> microsoft the dividend aristocrat of the future, and people like the dividend aristocrats, also in addition to owning a lot of the great dividend payers from the past we're looking at time warner or microsoft or dupont, which we think can be aristocrats of the future. if i can take one second i sat with -- people get so short term oriented and we're all victims of relative performance pressures in this game, and then i sat with the management of kimberly clarke the other day, they have headwinds in europe and cost pressure and they've raised their difficult dent every year for 40 consecutive years, yielding over 4%, it's a

grate management team. why would anybody sell this? you can say the same thing about heinz or 3m or exxon or chevron. i think people think yeah, i don't know what's going to be for the next three months but so many great companies do all the right things for shareholders, so it's not a new idea for me but i think people would benefit from focusing on it. >> and do you think the media has overplayed this? we've heard this talked about more than people have actually put their money where their mouth is. >> it's not an overcrowded trade if you think people would invest in these stocks the next 5, 10, 20 years which is the way it should be. over a long-term basis, earnings, dividend yields and stock prices, the grass will probably super impose on a short term basis, 2008, get dividends up, earnings up and stock prices get killed. >> we got to get through 2012. >> i agree. >> and december. when is the world supposed to end? because if the world is going to end i want to be really liquid.

i want to be totally, i want to be totally in cash. >> in the cuban missile crisis, the market bottomed. if we get a nuclear war doesn't matter. invest in the market all you want. >> if it actually does end. >> you want liquidity if it ends. >> i want to be totally in cash because it's not going to be good for anybody. >> when you get to the pearly gates you have that? >> there is something to the notion we talked about it before you came on, 4% these companies raise their dividend every year, a lot of them. they sell kleenex or whatever you want to use. >> ketchup. >> ketchup, scotch tape, whatever it is, so you got 4%, they're going to raise their dividend. the only thing that really scares you is that something in europe or something that we don't know about, the next black swan that is so horrific that you really need gold instead of anything else. >> and use it to, i try to use it to our advantage, we have coverage, tried to do our buying

during the periods of volatil y volatility. we make it too hard. there's going to be enormous volatility. >> what are people really afraid of right now, europe? >> well that certainly was in the news toward the end of last year. what are people really afraid of? >> they must be afraid of something. >> afraid of losing money, losing everything. >> who would be in cash when verizon is yielding whatever it is? >> you tell me. >> i don't know. i don't know why and it's like there's some -- >> at&t raised for 28 consecutive years. i know all the works on verizon and at&t but the dividends are there. >> all right, hersh i thank you for coming in today. >> you're welcome. my pleasure. >> thanks. which movie topped the weekend box office and still to come, personal income and spending, due out at 8:30 a.m. eastern. "squawk box" will be right back. tomorrow on "squawk box," the profit pipeline from eli lily chairman and ceo john

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hersh. welcome back to "squawk box" everyone. at the top of the box office this weekend "the grey" starring liam neeson, brought in $20

million, the second release from open road films, created by amc and regal theater chains. and "underworld: awakening" came in second. "one for the money" came in with $11.8 million. coming up, breaking economic data, personal income and spending numbers for december as we head to a break, look at pep boys just acquired by gores. you'll see this, that's what it looked like last week. you can't even -- we should show what happened on monday, that's after a barron's story and rumors about a potential transaction were in the market. i hadn't heard anything but i can bet you the s.e.c. will take a look. "squawk box" is coming back after the break. and all of a sudden, ka-plam. it blindsided us. what is it? our college savings account. how do you think it happened? not sure. i think something we bought a while ago turned out to be something else,

annnnnd, i remember a lot of other stuff in there had the word "aggressive" in it. is everyone okay? well, now, yeah. who knows later. ♪

you can feel it. i think we're less than a minute away from personal income and spending data for december, and it is palpable. we hope we get this right. we don't have rick down here. we have scott nations standing by at the kr,cme. we don't want to put a lot of pressure but if you screw this up this will be the last tile.

also standing by, steve liesman joins us from philadelphia. have you seen the number already, scott, or is it going to hit -- >> we still got four seconds, joe. >> oh so you could screw it up theoretically. >> it's up 0.5 for income, a little bit better than expected, spending is unched, 0.1 lower than expected. deflator up 2.4, and that's actually a better measure of inflation. i think it's the measure most people down here use, expected 2.3 so just a tiny bit higher than expected. equities are essentially, futures were down ten handles, just before the number, down 9.5 right now and the same is pretty much true for rates. the ten-year was at about 1.835 before the numbers came out. pretty much right there. i think what we're going to see today is that these numbers,

unfortunately, aren't going to do much for our markets. i think that at least as far as the u.s. equities are concerned, we're starting to realize that deja vu is not a french word but a greek word for oh my god here we go again. >> wow, wow! [ applause ] >> he said unch and very tv friendly. >> he knew all the expectations, had a funny saying. >> i laughed, i cried. >> well done, scott. >> two thumbs up, four stars, amazing. >> guys, i have spent time in my life in a trading pit. i'm used to the vibe down here. >> but it's tough, though, scott, to do it in the tv way, because you know what you're doing as a trader going through but taking that information and making it understandable for everybody at home is not easy to do. well done. >> thank you. >> now watch liesman if you want to see the opposite of what you just did. no. how are you doing, steve, my man? >> never better, joe, never better. >> anything -- that was better than people thought, 0.5, right? >> yeah the income numbers are

better and that you might expect is the jobs numbers, the better jobs showing up in there. what's really interesting, though, is that people aren't spending that income, and so what you had, you might expect this, an increase in the savings rate. i just want to point out i thought scott did an excellent job and i think he should be in line for the number one substitute right there. what you had is a savings, rick, 4.5 from 3.5%. had is a closely followed metric because we don't know in this post-recessionary lackluster growth environment what americans feel the right level of their savings is. we've been up as high as five and change, maybe six at one point and that came back down, a lot of the spending we had in the better quarters in the end of the year came from a reduction in the savings rate. now it's back up, when we have to see is it a temporary blip or not but it's kind of gone against what you would expect, as confidence fell, the savings

rate fell. you'd expect that to go the other way. now confidence is on the way back up and we're expecting, we expect savings to go down, but savings is going back up. so it's a real wild card in most forecasts. >> i'm tired of this number already. tell me what's going to happen on friday. >> i know, i was just about to get there. i want to show you the forecast, but i want to put a big asterisk next to it, and caution here, because the reason is that payroll number is very high at 1.50. a l 150. a lot of the forecasts are 100, 125 from the bigger wall street firms out there. i did look at the details and no offense but a lot of the no-name firms seem to be picking up or driving up the average. there's some guys out there with 200, 210 so i think the 150, if you look at the bigger wall street companies would be more like 125. >> steve, do we know anything that, you know, these weird

aberrations that people talk temporary workers, the holiday. >> right. >> anything get reversed this month? >> well, precisely. that's why people think the actual underlying growth rate may really be or jobs rate may really be in the 175 area, but a lot of guys are taking off the couriers that were put on, the mild weather kind of thing, so they're thinking there's going to be something of a snap back or a payback period in the month of january, so let me go through these. adp is 180, the private sector, 370 jobless claims. 150 with an asterisk for the payroll for friday, with 175 private, unemployment rate at 8.5%, and just real quick, joe, looking at the cooperate tear over the weekend, there's a pretty good expectation for a first quarter growth slowdown from the 2.8 we had. i saw u about, s at 1.5%, a lot of other guys at 2% so that's the number that's out there for the first quarter. >> if people have stopped looking at 64% instead of 66%,

if they saw these last up canoue of numbers get better do they think maybe there's jobs out there, i'll start looking go en? would they come back in? >> they would come back in. there's a whole issue and i'm going to do something on thursday which is to look at the participation rate story and how much of that is demographic and how much is economic. >> we need that. we need that. >> what's interesting it's kind of a political story and i've been talking to a buchbnch of w i hope are objective economists, figure out how much of this is demographic. the aging population creates a downward drag on the participation rate but also the economics part, i'm going to try to see if i can work with the guys in their ecomometric gobbledygook see how much is economic and how much of it is in metric. >> where are you? >> i'm in philly, introducing charles plosser.

charlie's no longer a voter but he is on the communications committee that created this whole thing so i'm going to ask him to explain what these things mean and you remember that story we talked about last week, which was the difference between what was in the forecast and what was in the statement. hopefully he'll be able to put that together for us and explain what are they talking about. >> i wasn't trying to help you. i was wondering who did your makeup down there? >> why is iter itible? >> it's good, just different. your eyebrows they went wild. you look stern, serious and a lot of gravitas. can you see him, scott? doesn't he? >> joe, i can't see him. >> you cannot snae all rig't? all right. >> i'd like to see him in a bow tie again. >> scott, joe's middle name is disarming, that's what he does. boom! cuts your knees off. it's always fun. >> liesman, so that's thursday. i'm interested in that. is it me or did this last the period between the two jobless -- employment fridays,

it just flew by, did it not? it's unbelievable. >> i can't believe january's gone. we haven't had any snow and it's gone, i'm already thinking about fishing in the spring. >> i know. >> i'm already working on -- >> i'm not complaining. >> joe, we did have some news, now that we're in the earnings cycle, middle of the earnings cycle i think that's why it went so fast. our market is ignoring the fact earnings for s&p companies have been pretty good. >> and you're going to be, we can catch you, scott, on cnbc's "option action" on fridays, right? >> yes, it is, joe. you no he what? when you come down to the floor of the cme i'll show you where rick stands and how little information rick does this with. it's actually amazing. >> it is and he'll be back. >> doesn't get to see your pretty face. >> no, that's the downside. thanks, guys. coming up, miami dolphins owner and chairman and ceo of related companies, stephen ross is headed to the set and ready to sound off on politics and the florida primary.

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welcome back to "squawk box." the futures are actually taking a turn for the worse recently. right now the dow futures are down by about 91 points, the worst levels we've seen all morning. s&ps off by over 11 points and part of this could be because of some of the headlines coming out of europe. we know the eu summit is happening today. more of the talk that's coming

out at this point is coming from people like merkel, who is saying that at this point the fiscal pac results are good. they'll look at issues today. uk's cameron is making statements about how they need to get serious about the growth agenda in europe. seems to be missing at this point. >> maybe it got priced in on friday with the news of the expectation reached today. romney and gingrich facing off in florida's primary tomorrow. joining us now is stephen ross, founder and chairman of the related companies and romney supporter and owner of the miami dolphins. you were in florida over the weekend and had a big fund-raiser for romney at your house about two weeks ago. >> about two weeks ago. >> before we came on, joe asked the right question, he said i thought you were a democrat. >> i'm an independent. >> and so how did you become a romney backer? >> well i think right now i think this country needs romney.

i followed romney's career and i don't think there's anybody really that in politics today who has the background that romney had, being such a successful businessman, and then hitting up the olympics, doing something good for the country and then being successful as a governor in massachusetts. i think it's an extraordinary opportunity for america that we have a candidate like romney that can come in, in these times. >> did you know him in business? >> no. >> no. and when did you get behind him? >> i got behind him when he was going to run the first time and looking at the other candidates and his background and thinking what would be best for the country, and then i got to know him, and i think the more i had known him the more i respected him and really believed that we're lucky that we have a candidate like him, in these times. >> so when you were down there this weekend, just give us a sense, a little flavor. >> well i mean, you start seeing all these character assassinations against mitt. >> you can't go anywhere without

seeing it, on tv, robo calls, everything. >> exactly. from both of them, really, at this point. i think mitt when you start going after his character, i mean you're going in an area that people really feel comfortable, you're going overboard because you know this isn't that type of guy. >> and do you think that romney is making the right decision going after newt as aggressively as he is? >> i think he's responding. people always question was romney a real guy, you know, this was too good and i think this is where he's shown him that he is feisty, he is a real person and that you can go after him for so long. and so i think this is kind of showing what mitt's all about, and why he will be a great leader to are this country. >> stephen, as a business guy what do you think the number one think the company needs in order to get the economy going again? >> it's jobs, bringing the business community back into the main stream where the jobs aren't going to be created by the government, and i think today involving businessmen and making this country what it was, and what we want it to be, i

think can he lead us that way. its go leadership. >> basically getting government out of the way, let the private sector grow, concentrate on that. >> exactly. >> i wanted to talk real estate if i could move it there unless you want to go more politics. you raised about $845 million i think. >> yes, that was for an opportunity fund. >> and my question is, where do you think you're going to put this to work? and do you not put it to work until after the election? >> now you might find better opportunities. if romney is elected things might get better and prices might go up because people will be more optimistic. but there's still a lot of distress, real estate that's out there, that banks have kept on their balance sheets waiting for something to happen. >> what states are you looking at? >> new york, florida, california. >> you just did a partnership with danny meyer, my old friend, shake shack. have you abouten to the shake shack? >> no. >> we've passed it. >> not on your diet. >> no it's not but we passed it again and my wife commented you can't pass that when the line is not out the door, unbelievable,

at all times. she thought god it must be great and both of us said there's nothing there for us. >> what are you going to be doing with danny? >> we entered a joint venture to do catering and special events, and putting in a lot of our projects, and in sports stadiums, shake shacks is one, and the citi field for the new york mets and washington nationals. >> eighth avenue? >> there is one on eighth avenue. >> standing room only. >> it's in the park. >> it's unbelievable. >> we'll be butting inputting hudson yards project. >> this year? finally going. >> anything happening with the dolphins? >> yeah we have a new coach. >> what happened to the other guy? did you want the other guy? >> i like the new coach, let's. you the it that way. >> i thought he was going to get peyton manning. what's going on there? >> peyton manning is still part of the indianapolis colts. any team would love to have peyton manning but you have to see if they're going to release

him or not. >> did you make any money this year? >> we did kind of, broke even a little bit. it was a great year for the nfl. it was a really good year. >> are you long-term? >> absolutely. >> with the dolphins? >> absolutely, sure. we're going to be in this -- not this year. in a few years. >> is he going to sell the dolphins, is that what you're getting at? >> it's a great business to be in. it's fun, right? you love it. >> you love it when you win, let's put it that way. it's not so much -- >> the first how many games were -- >> when we were 0-7, so that didn't help too much. >> you see all this stuff, you didn't bring anything. >> i brought product. >> this, i don't know. >> i hope the dolphins now have the success that the packers have had with our new coach coming from green bay. >> thanks, by the way. >> final question, who do you want for this weekend? >> the giants. >> the giants? >> why does everyone -- >> why? >> they're surging. you look and see right now the

momentum seems to be with them, and i think they have a great defense and you know, i mean bob craft has done a great job and tom brady, something to bet against. >> is there a little bit of the underdog thing going for you? >> you live in new york. you read the papers, how are you not going to get caught up in that? >> the great, who was it, mike jackson just talking about eli, the working man, the giants are down in the trenches, and then you got giselle and tom out in the palisades and the mansion and the perfect couple of all-time and brady looks like fabio, only better looking and bigger. it's a great dynamic, great for -- >> even more chiselled. >> he's more chiselled than fabio so it's unbelievable matchup. >> great matchup especially since the game is in indianapolis. >> that, too. with manning and everything else. can i drag you into this? >> you're dragging me into this.

>> stephen ross, thank you very much. i do say go giants because i'm a new yorker. >> good. hold on. coming up we'll head to the new york stock exchange. "squawk box" is coming right back. ready around the stock of the day is is coming up. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. ♪ [ horn honks ] ♪ oh, those were the best of days ♪ ♪ i still feel the summer rays

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the nuts s&ps are over by over 11.5 points. let's get down to the new york stock exchange. we've been watching the futures this morning getting weaker throughout the morning. you have any thoughts as to why that might be? >> you have some portugal cdss blowing out today. one of those great mornings back where the red carpet arrivals happen at the e.u. summit, and we'll watch those arrive. merkel mentioning there will be no thor other discussion of greece. >> all weekend there's going to be a greece deal and merkel, who is clearly running the show says

there's no greece deal. without any growth in the koot pillar projection of what's going to happen in the second half, it not going to work. merkel has to recognize we need gross over uster ity. >> i don't know where they think the money is grg to come from. >> at this point in the rally there are doubts about whether or not the financial rally can persist. goldman sachs downgrading bank of america. what exposure do these banks

have? do they actually great payout if there's a default that triggers the cds. at this point with the banks up so much for this year, there's real concerns as to whether they kin temperature. >> the citi upgrade, the bank of america downgrade is chilling. the fact is jp morgan, full revalued. their quarter was not soy hot. we revere jamie diamond too much. i need a quarter, no need a sho schmoozert. >> we'll talk what historically is meant for the market six months after that, if in fact it happens. >> we'll see you in just a few minutes. >> 30%.

carl candunita. >> i didn't do it more than once. carl i'm sure could probably find me doing it. >> coming um some final thoughts. >> not anymore. >> final thought from our guest senator ron johnson. tomorrow a special lineup for the florida primary. former florida senator george lemieux, connie mack, republican congressman from florida and representative debbie wasserman schultz, representative from florida. "squawk box" coming right back.

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stock of the day is pep boys. the auto parts retailer is being acquired for $15 a share. it was a big winner last week. we did find out it had been mentioned positively in barons. >> but it doesn't account for what happened on thursday -- >> the day before. >> where we saw a big spike. >> if -- like in the movie "wall

street" if you were in the stock watch area, i think blue horseshoe -- >> where do you think they got the leak? was it from the barons stuff? >> no, you look three placess are manny, mo or jack. if one of those guys -- >> their bunny has a good nose. >> mo can't keep his mouth shut. he's yapping all the time about stuff. they're all dead, i think. they were the founders. maybe not. let get parting shots. senator ron johnson, member of the appropriations and budget committee, you've been on a rant today just about you want, what a lot of republicans to talk about the government out of the economy, let the private sector in and we'll get growth. >> we have to grow our economy. why don't i want increased

taxes? it harms economic growth. how many jobs is a particular tax increase going to create? we have to clear out regulation, certainly not add more regulatory burdens to the economy. from my standpoint, you look at the size of government. we hit a trajectory to go to 35%. we're currently at 40. greece is sat 47%. its horrible metric. then look at our debt-to-gdp ratio. it's going to inhibit economic growth. everybody we should be doing should be on growing our economy, growing small to medium sized business. you're saying the big businesses don't mind regulatory compliance. they've got the compliance officers. small businesses can't. they can't cope with it. small community banks are geg