pivot as we call it. >> killer, see you tomorrow. that will do it for this edition of "power lunch." thank you for joining us. >> we'll see you again tomorrow. have a great afternoon. "street signs" begins right now. the show is "street signs." i'm brian. but china be the name of the day. new data shows investment there is slowing but don't hit the panic button yet. why their pain may be our gain. did 26 companies really pay less in taxes than paying their ceos? a group says, yes. the companies say, no. we discuss. plus, yet another flash crash. the pricey drop for one dollar store. ikea set to open a chain of hotels. good idea or no? mandy, the rooms will be cheap but do you have to use an allen wrench as a key? stocks gains not spectacular

but notable. the dow moved less than a tenth of a percent in four of the past six sessions before today. the s&p 500 hadn't moved even as much as a quarter of a percent in more than a week. today, it's broken out of that narrow range and is on pace for the highest close in five and a half months. the gains are the biggest in almost two weeks. let's get down to bob on the floor of the new york stock exchange. we got pep out there. maybe what you call a melt. up after the comments of merkle and wondering how sustainable this is going considering we haven't had any significant moves in over a week now. >> as long as europe is calm, the markets are calm. the u.s. is safest investment, mandy. how close we are to new highs, everyone complains of the volume but we are five points of a four-year high on the s&p. 100 points, 0.7% from a new high on the dow industrials.

out further, the nasdaq, the russell 2000, the dow transports, a lot further away. this is a big cap rally right now. mystery stock of the day. what's going on with general motors? take a lock at gm. up 6%. now, that's a very unusual move. 9 million shares changing hands. there's an intraday chart of general motors and strange for gm. i don't have information on what's moving it for you. the preferreds are moving, as well. a tremendous yield of 6.7% and also up about 4%. there's some surveys out. isi with a survey out today and sales good for autos and no specific news on gm. take a look at the other automotive stocks. you can see moves here good. 2% overall for the group and not like 6% for gm. finally, mandy, the home builders up nicely today. some of them at new highs because permits for july better than expected and the numbers

elsewhere, the starts numbers not so good. look at this. 6% moves in the builders. >> we'll take any good news on the housing sector we can get. thank you very much, bob. rick, i want to get to you. the 10-year yield is higher nine out of the past sessions and whether this is the market assuming there's no easing or is there something else at play here? >> i think it's mostly something else at play. i think it's the low volume time we're in. makes markets' ability to move without resistance a little easier and once there's a little momentum harder to stop and could be the case for the fixed income markets. you know, referenced in the last six sessions we have hardly moved in terms of stocks and those past six sessions we have moved 20 basis points higher in a 10-year note yield and bob talking about when's going on earlier with regard to the lqd etf and it's southbound and the notion of not being enamored

with governments they're not enamored in some ways with the government issues. about 43 billion month to date on investment grade corporates even though as you see that etf seems as though there's definitely split decision. companies enamored with the low rates. investors not involved with anything that's a security, at least at this point. >> thank you for that, rick and bob. well, if you have not been paying attention to tech stocks, pay attention! because quietly the nasdaq 100 up 21% this year and with the huge dividend increase on top of the earnings beat last night sending cisco higher today. tech is red hot. will it cool off? joining us, kimberly foss and richard davis. kimberly, ladies always first. for your clients, have you been loading up on technology or loading off? >> you know, we have technology

in our portfolio and we always have had technology in our portfolio. i think it's important to have that. you have got apple coming out with a dividend now. i think people are going to stay in the technology field because that is the future. and then it's going the start to pay dividends and attract more people, so got to be careful, though. you know, pigs profit and hogs are slaughtered. remember the lessons of 2000 so not to over allocate to the tech sector we we have it, absolutely. >> speaking of delicious pork, kimmer berl kimberly, gluttonous at the trough. >> yeah. it's difficult but you got to take it. we've got it in the portfolio. i'm just saying don't get greedy. you know? stay disciplined to the portfolio and have those tech stocks in the portfolio. we have over 3,200 different small cap in our portfolio.

a lot of those obviously are tech stocks. >> i want to get to you, richard. you have cisco joining the list of the big techies like apple and intel and dell and ibm and past few quarters delivering more cash back to the shareholders. maybe there's a better use for it. maybe because they're so cash rich, m and a perhaps. >> think it could be an outcome. what we hear through the contacts is everyone is sharpening the pencils, everyone is looking but, frankly, a lot of people trying to figure out what the fat tail of europe is. no one wants to buy something and then europe hits us over the head and feel badly of overpaying. everyone is looking, the transactions haven't occurred and a combination of that m & a and dividends. >> who are the victims? the predator and the prey for m

& a? >> it's funny. it's a souffle market. you have high price cloud software stocks to get picked off. i think a lot of them private and a few of the smaller cap plays, i mean, i don't know. i mean, maybe some of these next generation tools companies, so expense i. but you know, splunk is a great company. huge upside opportunities there. i think maybe the middle market companies and that could be anything from, i don't know, you know, maybe like a paramed ritr would make sense. >> kimberly, best one or two tech names out there that you like if you can. >> i do like cisco. part of our portfolio. i'm on the fence about apple but love google. got to love google. >> cisco and google. richard, do you agree? >> yeah. those are both good choices. i would agree with this. >> you know, we were mentioning at the beginning of the show that the nasdaq 100 is up about 20% this year.

versus, of course, the s&p up about 12%. how much of that, however, is due to apple i'm wondering, kimberly? >> with the -- with the upswing in apple got to be a substantial increase part of that waiting in the portfolio of the nasdaq but there again where can apple go after steve jobs and that visionary? they've got big shoes to fill and i think they're the leader and can't deny -- you can't deny to go with the trend. the trend is your friend as we have said before. >> well, you have 36 nasdaq 100 company that is are up more than 25% this year. so apple may be a part of it but certainly a lot of names, kimberly, kind of the previous bad pun of hogs, do you think technology is overbought? is it time to get in to something else? >> you know, it's very difficult trying to time the market. we believe in a globalized diversified portfolio and, you know, in our small cap, like i

said, we have over 3,500 different companies and in the u.s., we have over 5,000. internationally we have over 3,400 different holdings and in emerging markets over 32. we have like almost 12,000 different holdings over 44 different countries. i think the numbers, you have strength in numbers. go with an ultra diversified portfolio. don't worry about if tech is a little bit overbought. rebalance the portfolio if you're too much in it. take the profit off the table when you have it. that makes sense, doesn't it? if you just consistently discipline to your portfolio, take the profit off, put it back in to the fixed income and then not going to walk away from the table, maybe a few chips on the table and still walk away with a lot in your pocket. >> thank you very much, kimberly and richard. let's get a market flash with brian shactman. >> transocean, one of the best in the business. up sharply today. they gave the report. extending contracts, new

contracts and charging more for those contracts. barclays basically said that 2,000 eps estimates going up and a price target of 77 a share. see it at 50. that's a big upside. back to you. >> thank you. on deck, the stat that blew us away. a report claims 26 major companies maid the ceos more than uncle sam in the taxes. we'll speak with the author of that report coming up. from cheap furniture to cheap hotel rooms, a budget hotel chain of ikae. a smart or silly plan? and got us thinking, which brand would you like to branch out? tweet us.

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brian shactman here. locking at stj, st. jude medical dropping and i went to get the headlines right. fda orders fresh review of the troubled defibrillator leads and more data on the newer leads and the last one, patients with st. jude leads should get e rays. take a look at the move in the stock. down 4.3%. brian? >> thank you. this headline got all of us talking today. an institute report says 26 companies paid their ceos more

last year or will this year more than the federal government in taxes. we reached out to the companies saying it's not correct. here's a statement of abbott labs, for example. quote, this is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. abbott paid the u.s. government $700 million in federal income taxes in 2007. it represents a non-cash accounting adjustment as a result of the resolution of various tax matters. citigroup, boeing, at&t among others echoed that sentiment to us. institute studies getting attention but the companies say it's not true like abbott and tweaked the accounting rules and made assumptions they didn't agree with. your response? >> the figures come out of the company's 10k filings with the s.e.c. and the best information of the taxes paid last year.

with abbott we struck a nerve. we draw attention to the fact this is a company of 64 tax -- subsidiaries in tax haich countries. also that they reported making more than 40% of their sales in the u.s. last year but strangely reported only about 7% of their profits from this country. and so, they are focusing in on our tax number accusing us of being misleading. i'd love to see documentation of that. and also, response to the issues around why does this company have 64 subsidiaries in tax havens? with the other companies, they are trying to on vi skate saying we didn't look at the foreign taxes they paid or the state taxes. we are looking at federal corporate income taxes and looking at the cash that changed hands last yore. >> yeah. >> with deferred taxes, often those taxes will never be paid. if it's, for example, on

offshore earnings, taxes don't have to be paid unless that comes back to the u.s. and that might not ever happen. >> at&t said you're picking on one jurisdiction. do you fault the companies for taking advantage of something they didn't create? congress and the irs and everybody else, yes, they lobby but they didn't write the tax code. americans take advantage of every deduction they can individually. is it the company's fault? >> i put more of the blame on the policy makers who have allowed the loopholes. they're not just there by accident. they have been strongly lobbied for and politicians have allowed them to exist in the tax code and we see that they're really enabling bloated executive pay and reducing revenues at a time of fiscal crisis and so i think before we start really slashing spending and social programs, we need to look at how corporations managed to rig the system, along with their enablers in congress. and try to fill some of these

loopholes. >> i mean, again, kind of like a reform of the tax code rather than a reform of the companies. my other question to you is maybe there's situations where the pays of ceos is worth it. so long as they're creating shareholder value you could argue that's what they're worth. >> well, it's hard for me to agree that ceos are worth hundreds of times what the workers at these companies are making. everybody in these companies is creating value and i think that we saw with the financial crisis that it kind of exposed the myth that the ceos so highly paid, many of the ones most highly paid, were the same one that is got us in to that big mess and so i think it's a time to take a hard look at are the pay packages raely deserved? are they performing? often the pay packages approved by boards that are made up of ceos of other companies and have

a vested interest of keeping the pay levels at these levels. >> what's the solution? >> i think there's things to fix up the tax code so it's not encouraging excessive pay. one thing we point out is that right now there's no real limit on how much companies can deduct from their corporate income taxes for the cost of executive compensation. and in both of the financial bailout and in the health care reform bill, they put a stronger cap on the deducted ability of executive pay, so at least the rest of us won't be kind of stuck with the bill for this. as it is now, the more companies pay their ceo the lower the tax bill and really perverse incentive. >> thank you for joining us. interesting topic. >> thank you. okay. herb is really hot on the trail of another multi-level marketing company trying to go public right, herb? you don't like what you're seeing here. what is the company? >> the company is called visalis a part of blithe, a publicly traded direct sales company, best known for its candles.

blithe is up about 18% today spinning off visalis coming out of nowhere for weight loss shakes and nutritional supp supplement supplementals. the president is from herbalife. the deal is done under the jobs act and a lot that doesn't have to be disclosed. in fact, the ipo filed under the name fva ventures. now, in the controversial world of multi-level marketing, this one is note worthy for a number of reasons. first, its sales in first six months of the year rose astounding 450% to $326 million. the customer count up 500% to 1.2 million. it's got a 71% gross margin. but -- there's the but. a small number of sales people and aptly enough calls promoters making up more than 10% of sales. one who's one of the founders

makes up more than 50% of sales through the upliner down line and the 35-year-old ceo and co-founder telling a rags to riches story as being a gang member and filed bankruptcy in 2005. there's a lot going on in this. lots of moving parts. the real question getting this kind of growth, this quickly in an mlm company, brian and mandy, how sustainable is it? >> i have breaking news on nu skin. >> do you? >> crossing the wire right now. can we bring it up? stamford with a cease and desist demand to nu skin enterprises citing improper representation of their relationship. i have one line. the stock falling on the news. >> i have to tell you something. wait a minute. we have been in touch with stamford. we pushed that issue. we have not heard that from stamford. ourselves. there's a report. >> reuters story.

>> i have been in touch with reuters in the past 35, 45 minutes. they have another report today. had issues about nu skin. we have a comment from nu skin got earlier pointing out they have a past relationship with stamford and other -- >> i don't know enough. do you know or can you tell the viewers what that alleged relationship is? >> they have had relationships with a few universities. they claim one with harvard but the issue here on the cease and desist, i tried to verify it. i would like to see beyond a headline that reuters is putting out and i would like to go back to the stamford contact and just talked to. their pr guy at stamford and said he knew nothing about that. 45 minutes ago. >> slamming stamford. >> watching for details on that. thank you. there's inklings that the great china slowdown could be coming and could it be a good thing for america? we showed you this amazing,

terrifying crash yesterday, coming up, what it looked like from behind the wheel and hear from the drivers and what they were thinking. probably something like oh snap. we're back after this. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments. the expert strategies feature is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. if you are one of the millions of men

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time for an update on that horrifying car crash we showed you yesterday. driver jeremy foley and co-driver survived the wreck and yuri dislocated his shoulder. it happened over the week. in the annual hill climb in colorado. they told their story to the "today" show savannah guthrie and brought the video from inside the car. >> my first thought, careening off the cliff was, this is it. >> you thought you were going to die? >> this is game over. >> last few moments is what you remember then is a big washing machine of pain and violence and then just coming back to it in a daze. >> i think we both want to get back in the car. we're both probably hesitant for tomorrow but in time racing in the future. >> jeremy and yuri say the helmets and the roll cage, of course, helped save their life. i've been in bad racing accidents and nothing like this. >> amazing.

fast cars to classic cars v. you dreamed of a $10 million ride? this is your chance. we show you the classics up for grabs at pebble beach in california. cnbc's robert frank reports. ♪ >> reporter: some of the rarest and most expensive cars on earth hitting the auction block at pebble beach. clark gable cruised around town in this 1935 car. the lucky guy behind the wheel is david goody, president and founder of gooding and company, premier auction house for classic cars. >> we estimate this $35 dusenberg. >> reporter: he customized it changing the windshield, extending the hood and double spare tires on the hood. this roadster is a 1936 mercedes benz a-40k and gooding says the best of its kind and that means a big price tag, too.

>> much lesser example sold for $10 million so we expect this car to set a new auction record. >> reporter: this mercedes is rare. fewer than 14 exist in the world. for cnbc, i'm robert frank. >> we're all kind of drooling here. you can see more million dollar rides tomorrow as robert is reporting live from pebble beach. lucky guy. special coverage of gooding & company's pebble beach auctions. tune in friday to see the most rare and beautiful classic cars on the earth. yes. stop shaking. just like wiped off my drool here. coming up next, a look at what is fueling sky high low end car sales and on the flip side of that, lambo with two cars in the north american market. ikea from furniture to hotel rooms. good idea? there have been some brand extension bombs. but what would your natural extensions be? keep them clean, america.

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it is "street talk" time. let's take a look at what's happening with dollar tree. had its own mini flash crash

today. dropped about 18% in just seconds. >> this is another disaster for the market. right? two second after the market opened, dollar tree stores dropped 47 to $38.40. the damage is longer laster. perhaps a high frequency event. this is my take, right? we have talked about the retail investor in the markets trying to fix some of the problems. you know know who i think needs to step up? companies that list their stock because if the market doesn't have faith in your stock, corporate america, you have no stock. companies have got to start to drop the hammer on these markets and get them fixed. >> i can't agree more. why don't we look at struggling battery maker. i mean batteries for hybrid and electric cars. a123 systems. bailed out kind of rescued by a chinese company which for me screams political hot potato. >> it is a china rescue. $465 million by a chinese auto

parts of whose name i will not pronounce. it's wanxiang. they had five months of cash left last month. it boils down to a chinese rescue of a michigan-based company with a loan of the obama administration to build the so-called green batteries. too much capacity. weak demand for electric cars. a123 with a bailout of china. >> news surrounding apple today. for all of you that like your gadgets, nearing an all-time high and with its role in pushing up the nasdaq 100, nearly 200% of the nasdaq 100. >> i don't know a one-month or a two-month apple chart. the stock is 65 bucks above where it fell after it tanked on july 25th after disappointing the street. you remember that big drop here? everyone's like, oh, it's the end of the road for apple. if you bought here or near

there, look how much you made. the news, in talks according to "wall street journal." about maybe using the apple tv device as a set top box. jon fortt says the talks maybe not new. you have a samsung tablet. >> unveiled the new galaxy and what apparently sets it apart from the apple ipad is a stylus-like pen and a split screen, as well. so we'll seep how much that takes off in the market. got to talk facebook. shares lower and lower. basic supply and demand. dropping over $4 billion in market value. >> who's clicking on ads on the samsung or iphone smartphone. right? big lock-up just hitting and issuing stock without the s.e.c. and what is it? with today's drop, the loss from the ipo is about $40 billion. we have also got a november lock-up. 1.2 billion shares available for trading before the end of the

year. more and more facebooks like you said. >> zuckerberg cannot sell the shares until the november lock-up. >> how's he living? >> having to eat a canned dog food. but i guess the question is whether or not he's going to sell his shares when that eventually comes. identix pharma shares. lost about 30% today regarding their hep-c treatment. >> yeah. help titus c treatment placed on partial hold by the fda. this is two weeks after a heart-related safety issue of another company. you have another drug developer out there. you want to watch them. but i guess the only upside the stock slammed is not on its low of the day. >> absolutely. okay. so as the economy struggles to pick up steam, used car sales to

those with poor credit records have soared. that's been good news for america's car mart. let's go to phil lebeau. phil? >> reporter: people are going to be surprised seeing that america's car mart with incredible returns over five years and who's that? take a look at the expectations in terms of what happens today. reporting of the bell. expected to earn 87 cents a share on revenue of $111 million. they have dealerships in the south and midwest and focused in smaller cities like a columbia, missou missouri. and at these dealerships, they're focusing on subprime buyers almost exclusively with the buy here, pay here formula for doing business. essentially, higher interest rates are being charged and very strict payment terms. you miss those payment terms, not long before the car is repossessed. this fortunately la has been a gold mine for this company and

for investors in this company. take a look at the stock over the last year and if you think that looks impressive, compare america's car mart and the dow over five years. these guys have thrived during the recession and as the economy has struggled because there's still that demand for used cars. they're meeting that demand and making as much money on the finance side as they are with the sale of vehicles so they report after the bell and, of course, we're going to have the numbers for you. guys? >> looking forward to the numbers and talking about the low end, talk about the high end. not just the kind of luxury end but the uber luxury end. lamborghini is unveiling two new models this week. tell us about these. >> these are incredible. looking at the pictures, one of them is one we saw over at the beijing auto show. this is called the urus. they call it the first suv and technically you go back a couple of decades with another suv and a high end suv they plan to sell

for at least $160,000. it's limited in terms of supply, guys. and the key is there are people who will buy a lamborghini suv and some people as soon as it was unveiled in beijing said you can't have a luxury suv from lamborghini. you're ruining the dna. you know what? they sell them and that's the bottom line for lamborghini. >> that's not a suv, right? like the x-6 bmw, a mish mosh of a real suv and a car. >> listen. are you going to drive this -- are you going to drive it offroad? no. you and i know that. the only people to buy this are probably going to be driving it in extremely high end neighborhoods or limited edition model. that's the only reason to buy it. >> climb over the diamos fallen off rings in dubai. filled with diamonds and baubles. >> pyramids of gold bars. other one, right? looks like a bat mf mobile. >> it does.

>> looks like a lamborghini. i can't drive it. i can't fit in them. >> that's the beauty out there at pebble beach. showing the unique models and robert frank out there tomorrow reporting on this. >> he was showing us million dollars. i believe this is $2.2 million. thank you for that, phil. you can drive your urus to the ikea hotel. instead of a key car, you get an allen wrench. we'll take a look at this and the twitter responses with your sort of whacky brand extension ideas.

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trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account. i'm bill griffith. coming up, pimco's bill gross said the cult of equity is dead. is he dead? we'll talk with him coming up. paul ryan has big plans to reform the nation's massive entitlement programs but peters or or zag says it doesn't make sense. fak shares falling to a new low after the expiration of the ipo lock-up. insiders can sell today. how low could the stock plunge?

that and more when we see at the top of the hour from here at new york stock exchange. brian? >> bill, thank you very much. herb back with an update on nu skin. >> reuters is correct. think eve sent a letter to nu skin to stop using a university researcher's name and given them until friday to stop using that name. this is a researchers who was associated with nu skin and did some work with them and collaborated on something and stopped the relationship in 2011. this is as you can see impacted the stock. >> do we know what nu skin will respond? >> we did know nu skin will have a press release and don't know what they'll say. >> got it. thank you. with ikea, plans to open 100 hotels across europe and not using the ikea name or the furniture in the hotels. is this a good example of brand extension? let's ask brad miller. it seems a little weird, doesn't

it? if it was me, i kind of like ikea. i go to the show rooms and have a look around. a hotel with its nice bed and everything i would go there. why not use the brand name? >> i don't know. i don't know. it seems -- it definitely seems odd that they wouldn't put their name on there. the idea is that they are providing good quality for low prices and that people are going to make that jump somehow. but i don't think that people are going to necessarily associate ikea's name with something that doesn't have their name on it and seems like they might want to rethink that. >> not operated, right, or run by ikea but another hotel chain. >> that's correct. >> do we know what and why people go there even though -- >> at this point we don't know the name of the hotel. we know the first two in germany in two years and then -- i think smart thing they're doing is not

getting in to areas that -- getting in to areas where they have stores and know those markets. they understand those areas and, you know, i think that's -- >> maybe it is genius. you sleep on the bed or like the couch and ask what brand is that. if you don't like it, then maybe they're not whacked with that. >> possible, possible. i, you know, i can't remember the last time i went to a hotel and asked them, you know, what the bed was. >> what's the heavenly bed or westin? made that in to a thing. in your view, they should have ikea hotel and go whole hog with this? >> i don't think so. i think they need to -- i think they need to put their name in there somehow. i think doesn't necessarily have to be in the name of the hotel but as long as they're promoting themselves somewhere and i -- it's hard to believe they're not going to put their name somewhere in that room, you know, to promote themselves. >> really got us thinking about other brand extensions, when's

been the worst and the best. can you tell us what you think? >> yeah. i have some favorites. oprah's "o" magazine is probably one of the best brand extensions. she took a big risk and had no idea what would happen and it worked out beautifully. >> and the worst? >> the worst i think is hooter's air. which, you know, they launched in 2003. post- 9/11. people weren't really traveling anyway. even not post- 9/11, it's hard for me to think that would have happened. >> flew to myrtle beach. you know their motif. this can't be worse than cheetoh's lip balm. >> i love it. that was really another horrendous -- >> can you still even buy this? out on the mrkt. >> you can buy that. you can't buy the harley-davidson cake decorating

kit. >> when i think of harleys i think of cake. >> a clear connection. you know? >> it's -- i don't know. it's kind of nice for the next birthday there, brian. we can get you one of those. let's get the twitter results. >> we asked you to tweet us which brands are good branches out and we learned this you all have very dirty minds. so here's the clean ones that we got. i love this one. blackberry garage door openers. >> mlb hot dogs. >> bubba bob says walmart weight loss studios. >> oh. fiber one toilet paper? ouch. >> scratchy. by the way, ballpark franks, i love the mlb hot dogs. maybe he's on to something there. >> i think all of them are on to something. >> except for the toilet paper. >> tomorrow is the premier of "ultimate factories" friday night 9:00 p.m. eastern and

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welcome bc to "street signs." taking a look at postibm acquis. a couple other stocks getting a bit on this, maybe more demand for what they do. ocz technology up 9.33%. flash memory is being pushed up. >> thank you, here on "street signs," we have spoken a lot about the slow down in china. direct foreign investment bear at a two year low. so if investors are losing confidence in china, will they begin reinvesting more in network. let me ask gordon and donald strauss, should we read into these weak fdi numbers a lot or a little? >> brian, i think you ought to read a little but not a lot.

the july number just reported was way down from june. it always is it that's purely seasonal. it is the case that foreign direct investment this year is about 3% blow last year, and in that sense why it is a negative sign for china. >> it wasn't just july, june was very weak as well, june contracted about 7% as well. >> yes, you're right. if you take the first seven months of the year. that's voters, investors, was down about 3% from a year ago. it was down the first half of the year. so i think people are hitting the panic button here. there is more coming in than out

of china. >> so should we will hitting code orange, will we benefit as a result? >> i think there is a panic button we should be hitting. the fdi numbers were not the worst numbers we saw in july for the second quarter. if you look at the balance of payments turned negative in q 2, we saw perhaps 110 billion worth of capital flight, and if you look at the electricity numbers, copper and iran ore being parked in parking lots. we have a zero growth economy in china. >> gordon, gordon -- arguers know i'm not bullish on china, but zero growth? you're saying 8% is made up? >> yes, if you look at the last four months, electricity increased by less than 1.2%.

and it historically outpaces, that means they could not have been growing at 8% like they claimed. >> i can't believe that. >> that's just statistically wrong. in the downturn in '08-'09, demand went down a lot more than gdp, so one might say they're cooking the books. but in the upturn, electricity demand went up more than gdp, so they weren't really cooking the books. that's because china is a heavy industry economy that is high in electricity sensitive, and if you look over the last five years, electricity demand and gdp in china had been basically on the same trend. >> okay, we all agree that china is slowing down, we disagree on

what number two. foreign direct investment down, is the u.s. still the best place for that money to go to? gordon? >> i think it is. you look at europe which is really tragic right now. you have structural problems in china and india. australia is tied to china so forget that. and you know where i am in canada, we're at the late teenages of a boom. so what, by process of elimination is left? we have brazil, parts of latin america, and the usa. >> don, we saw brazil launch a stimulus plan, they're skiddish, we know the china numbers are slowing a bit. >> i think the u.s. and canada both are very good developed

markets. i don't deny that in the least, but i think while china, slowing, and a lot will be a far faster grower than america, and that's been the case and will be for the next couple years. >> that is going to get the market wants and expecting more stimulus. one thing that is not slowing down in china is count ecounter, from laptops and household toiletries. there is no shame in what a counterfeiter will knock off, and that includes condoms. >> we should never be surprised by what's being counterfeited,

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