>> all right. simon, been a pleasure. thank you for spending the week. >> i adore working with you. that's all i can say. >> have a great weekend, everybody. "street signs" begins right now. welcome to "street signs" where we are all over the oil story. oil rig evacuations. crude prices rising. gas prices soaring and the storms are a-brewing. is $5 gas right around the corner? maybe is it here already? imagine a loan with an interest rate of a cool 1,900% per year. you don't have to imagine it. they are here. and one man in the payday loan business is here and he will defend those rates. plus, herb and i square off over mitt romney and staples. and the ultimate luxury, how you can own your own island for a lot less than you think. i'm designing my new country's flag on my head right now.

the stock market having the best day of the bad week. the dow still on track todd rogers its first losing week in seven and applies the s&p 500 and two others in which it was virtually unchanged. for the nasdaq it does have a chance to post a weekly gain of six straight weeks of gains. we have bob and rick. bob, first of all, you've been talking about volume recently and kind of put out an interesting report today talking about just how bad is the volume and you said it's not maybe as bad as as we've been thinking. >> so many complains about it from wall street and people thinking it shows disinterest in the market and point out something. we talk about share volume. the average amount of shares on a daily basis and to young this, dollar volume, i went back three years. this is the share volume at the new york stock exchange. this is that blue line. you see it's for the last three years on a slow decline. but look at this. this is the dollar volume. this is the actual dollar value

of the stocks traded on a daily basis at the new york stock exchange and basically it's been kind of on the sideway basis and the reason that's happened the reason you're getting declining share volume and dollar volume is that the average price of stocks have been going to the upside and, mandy, that's a much more important indicator. >> i'm one of the "ms." thanks very much, bob. rick, we saw benchmark yields three-month highs and to what extent are we marking time until wyoming? >> three-month highs all happen but for the last several plus sessions rates are moderating a bit and i think that ben bernanke, mario draghi and general uncertainty much more difficult to price. you have this huge 800-pound gorilla of the position that is are safe harbor and maybe they don't need such a big harbor for safety. and then you have the notion that if ben's going to buy, forget whether the program

works, if he buys securities, that all in itself may have a bullish side. so i think there's a wrangling going on between safe harbor and quantitative easing and not ze decided yet but seems as though around a 180 yield there's people to challenge that and i think we're at right now a good pivot for the rest of the august. >> thanks very much, rick. >> now to tropical storm isaac. bp and other oil companies beginning to evacuate some of their oil rigs in the gulf of mexico because of that storm. at this hour, isaac is sweeping in to the caribbean on track for the west coast of florida early next week and then the guchl and oil rigs are located. oil prices, the lynch pin of american economies and they have been all over the map this week. but americans really don't care about oil prices as much as they care about gas prices. and those are rising, as well. aaa now expects to see the highest labor day prices since the beginning of the recession.

so from the oil pits to the trading floors to the weather center, we're going to tackle it all. and let us start now with tampa. they're nervous down there because that tropical storm is gaining power and the city could be hit by the first full pledged hurricane in nearly 100 years. that is not the news the republican delegates at the convention wanted to hear and the weather channel's todd santos has the latest forecast. todd? >> thanks so much. you nailed it with the interest, as far as the storm is concerned. we are talking about a tropical storm that's the very latest in out of the hurricane center as of the 2:00 advisory. the pressure dropped a little bit and may be looking at a system strengthening slightly here. you can see it on the satellite picture. the convection waned and it's not clear on the image. here's the latest stats, not really any changes with the wind's concerned from the last

advisory. we mentioned the areas southeast and starting to see the winds pick up there. sustained winds up in the 17 to 21 miles per hour range. gusts around port-au-prince around 29 and they're talking about big-time rainfall there across hispaniola. there's the track through saturday evening. notice at that point in cuba, 60 miles per hour, that's still a tropical storm. some of the latest modeling coming in at least does one of the more reliable models has an eastern portion of the gulf of mexico in play there and still a central to eastern gulf, make sure everybody is on alert here considering the system in towards tuesday could still potentially be close enough to the tampa area to affect the east coast of florida and eyes on isaac and at least for the oil production mainly the central to eastern gulf and a big system. >> indeed it is. thank you very much, todd. now the evacuations that we're starting to see in the gulf. mary? >> a number of rig and platform

operators in the gulf of mexico starting to evacuate nonessential personnel from the facility as the coast brace for isaac. among the firms by taking them off, bp. here you look. the blue dots, those are some of the oil platforms. excuse me. rigs. the red dots, natural gas. okay. bp taking nonessential personnel off two facilities including the thunderhorse platform above bp's largest and most productive gulf. and suspending drilling in the eastern gulf where evacuation is under way. diamond offshore and transocean, eachers from one of the rigs in the region and apache and saying production has yet to be impacted. the firms continue to monitor the storm expected to enter the gulf on monday. as for residents along the gulf, lowe's sending extra supplies including generators and batteries and plywood to 50 to 60 of the stores along florida's gulf coast and alabama.

back to you. >> thank you very much. let's now get down to jackie deangelis at the nymex. >> hi there, brian. been a volatile week for wti this week moving higher on monday and tuesday, seeing profit taking on wednesday morning ahead of the weekly supply data and those fed minutes. and then we saw wti closing above the 200-day moving average. that was for the first time since mid-may and pivotal. next day, though, a little bit of profit taking because the potential of qe3, euphoria, didn't hold up. we couldn't keep above that 200-day moving average level but today again seeing prices on the rise. there are concerns about tropical storm isaac and what could do potentially to supply and what disruptions to potentially cause, as well. one trader telling me he's repositioning going in to the weekend. he doesn't want to be short right now but, of course, there's a bit of a cautious tone here until we know more. at the same time, some of the old timers saying never say

never. talking about what they seen with katrina and past experiences and saying that, again, they need to monitor things going in to the weekend and watch this very closely. brian, back over to you. >> all right. thank you very much. now addison armstrong at tradition energy and dan dicker, president of merck block and a cnbc contributor. ady son, first to you, do you see $100 barrel crude any time soon? >> well, yeah, absolutely. as we sit here, we're $4 away. the market is really been propped up by expectations of stimulus. we talk about it every day. certainly the situation with iran is one of the underpinnings, as well. if we come in monday morning and the storm looks like it's going to cause some more shut-ins, particularly on the oil side, i think, you know, we'll definitely take a run at 100 early next week. >> what do you think is the key driver right now? >> is that for me? >> yeah, dan. >> i'm sorry, mandy. yes. i agree 100%.

look. most of it's been iran and inspired it. isaac is extra playing in to it. it's been mostly a brent move and what's happening obviously is that the brent move has inspired this big move up in gas that brian talked about in the opening where we have seen gas prices goes to $4 a gallon and i think that's where the danger lies, particularly when this tropical storm moves in to the gulf coast. it's not going to be very large. in fact, most of the reports i have seen has put it as a max of a category 1 and really not going to impact many of the production areas but it might shut down the refineries for a while and giving extra spurt to what's been a very, very fast rising price of gasoline. >> what do you think the price of gas could peak at, dan? >> i think over $4 and won't be long and that's really against the trend. normally at this time of year we get a moderation in gas line prices and because of iran and because the gas line price so related to the present price and close to $115 opposed the wti at

100 that with the storm coming in makes it go really high really fast and seeing $4 soon. >> adison, what's it take to get prices down? what kind of combo? >> well, you know, it's not really about the fundamentals. trading on fundamentals we would be in the mid $70s as we were six, eight weeks ago. as long as there's an optimism that ben bernanke and dr. draghi and even the pboc come to the rescue of world speculators we retain the premium and certainly until there's some sort of, you know, i don't know what to say. there's some sort of conclusion? i don't think a conclusion is right word but until something happens in the middle east to say, look, the israelis or u.s. attack iran or they aren't, we have a fear premium in the market. indeed, we are. i want to ask about mitt romney yesterday pledging energy independence by 2020. we have heard it all before.

good luck with that. many presidents and many presidential hopefuls pledged this kind of thing. is he able to do it? >> boy, are you right, mandy. every president since nixon pledged energy independence and nobody is closer to it. we made progress with obama in the white house and not much noted and most of it due to the fact in a recession or at least slow growth. demand is done and production almost intrinsically up and coming from the gulf of mexico and elsewhere and and that's what made some energy independence or at least the imports go down over the course of the obama administration. what's required for real energy independence is something that both parties don't seem to want to have anything to do with and that's infrastructure spending and subsidies in terms of natural gas and in terms of shale drilling and doesn't seem to be anything that's palatablp. i don't think that a president romney comes closer to energy independence than president obama has. >> addison, listen, with all due respect to mr. romney, is it

possible? >> no. i don't think so. you know? not unless we as dan says go through some very, very big changes in our thinking about how we deal with this -- these resources we have. which are actually very tremendous. and it's a real frustration for many of us in this industry. that more isn't being done to try to exploit them. you know, think about it. if we were to get close to energy independence there's a lot less turmoil having to deal with, the economy would be running smoother. jobs would be better. there's a host of things going with this and until the politicians stop paying lip service and actually do something about it we won't get there. >> good luck. >> we have to get ducks lining up. great to have you on the show. enjoy your weekend. >> thank you. other big story following, learning more of the shooting outside the empire state building this morning. ron allen is on the scene. ron? >> reporter: good afternoon. yes. it's calm here now. the police still have 5th avenue

shut down for the better part of six blocks now and closed down east-west, as well. this started down 33rd street where you see the people in front of an apparel zoer and the gunman confronted a former colleague. someone who had filed a grievance against and then the gunman ran in this direction around the corner to the front of the empire state building where he was shot dead by police. a distance of about, oh, a couple -- about 100 yards or so. police say about 14 shots fired here at 9:00 in the morning as you can imagine, the streets were crowded with tourists, people going to work. this is one of the busiest parts of manhattan. police roped off the area. there's a possibility that the police because they fired perhaps a dozen shots or so may have hit some of the civilians who were hit. there were nine civilians wounded. most of them grazed by police they say.

but the gunman identified at 58-year-old jeffrey johnson, fired by an apparel store about a year ago and came back to exact some revenge against the person who had a grievance with. >> such a pity. thank you for the update. coming up next, payday loans gone wild. we are talking 1,900% interest rates. how is this allowed? herb investigates and one payday lender is here to defend his drjaw dropping rate. perfect rate. you might be surprised, a man who knows how to find islands and sell them to you is coming up. >> open your wallets, folks. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow.

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all right. well you have likely seen the commercials on late night tv. offering a quick fix to the money problems with instant loans but at high rates. some of the rates legally are as high as 1,900% a year. now a group of senators are calling for a crackdown on this type of lending. herb is looking in to it for us. how's 1,900% legal? >> we are about to find out. it's a great question, brian. look, a few weeks ago i was here. i did a piece here and cnbc.com.

it was on a company of world acceptance with small loans at rates as high as 204%. that seems e agree jous. i started to look at the issue on installment and other types of small loans. usury is a state thing. but an annual percentage rate of anything over 36% on high risk loans is considered predatory and abusive by consumer advocates. shockingly, according to the consumer federation, 32 states allow lenders to charge well over 36%, especially on the most controversial of all of these loans, payday loans. two-week loans against a borrower's paycheck. missouri is one of the worst on that score with an allowable annual percentage rate, this is the one brian was talking about, more than 1,900%. it's 1,955%. idaho, south dakota, wisconsin,

utah, nevada, no cap on what payday lenders charge. why do they put up with it? let's ask a payday lender. jamie former with advanced america. this is one of the largest payday lenders in the u.s., recently acquired. welcome, jamie. what do you say? >> thank you for having me. >> we're glad you're here. what do you say about this? >> well, i think in order to understand our product, because i think you have hit a lot of misunderstanding about our product and service that we offer. in 29 states across the country is that consumers use our product to help bridge a gap between paychecks with some type of unbudgeted or unplanned expense and for that the fee becharge typically is $15 per $100 borrowed. >> or 390% on an annual percentage rate. >> well, the analyzed percentage rate is 390% typically and that's calculated as if the customer had taken out that same

$100 loan every 2 weeks for an entire year and that's not how the kuls her who uses our product in fact does use it and that's not how the typical american values the product. they look at the out of pocket value. how much do i reach in to my pocket and pay to borrow $100 of advance america or pay for my other alternatives. if i can't pay my bill or rent or afford groceries and so if you look at the $35 on average that banks charge an overdraft fees or the $55 that $100 bounced check could cost you once you paid the bank you've written the check on and the merchant written the check to or paid on the internet for an unregulated loan and these are options consumers are faced with and why they come to our company, use our products and services. i'll tell you. we have extremely high customer satisfaction with the services. 96% of the customers rate the service good to excellent. they'll always recommend us. as a state regulated entity we

don't have complaints. >> i hear you. they can go other places like credit unions for better rates but why did the military come out and basically put a cap of 36% on payday loans? if the military did that, it's suggesting they thought something was going on they thought shouldn't be going on. >> we can discuss what led the military to take that action but i think what you have to focus on is end result and the end result was that you have eliminated a safe, simple, transparent, regulated credit option for folks in the military and those states and done nothing to address the need for the product and all you have done in that case is taken them out of the regulated marketplace, driven them to a higher cost unregulated marketplace and look at what when you're trying to find a balance between providing consumers with the right kinds of protection with making sure that they have access to important forms of credit and again, i think if you applied

the same calculation to the alternatives of a minute ago, the annual percentage rate calculation, you would have aprs that range from 800 to 3,500%. >> which, jamie, it's brian sullivan. i have to jump in on you here. we have to more of an interaction on this, i think. 340% is legal and you say it's not as bad as this but how you justify 340% apr? >> well, i think you have to do it like the customer does it and that is -- >>er that're desperate. >> that's -- >> they're desperate, though. >> the annual -- our discuss merles aren't desperate. you have a misunderstanding of our customers. >> who are they? >> they have an average household income of about $54,000. they all have a job or a steady source of income. 90% have a high school education and all of them have a bank account so the discuss merle who is use the product are more

underbanked than they are unbanked. >> do they have to have a bank account to your customer? >> yes, ma'am. they do. yes, ma'am. they do have to have a bank account to be our customer and what they do is look at the options and they try to decide, one, which one is simple. which one is easy to understand? which one is transparent? and then they make a decision that they think is best for them and their families and totally supportive of that. you can't lose sight of the fact that that interest rate you're talking about is an implied annual percentage rate like taking it out 26 times in the year. that's not how they use our product. >> what percentage -- we'll let you go. what percentage of the customers pay back on time versus maybe another loan to pay back the loan they can't pay back? you get trapped -- does anybody get trapped in that cycle? >> 97% of the customers who use our product pay us back on time. now, there are customer who is

use our product more than once a year and on average the average customer uses the product between seven and eight times a year but by contrast the average customer writing a bad check does so between 12 and 13 times a year. >> well, separate -- well, seven or eight times, jamie, seven or eight times a year they use it that means the default rate on the loans is higher than 3% or 5% the number you want to put out there. >> not on terms of transactional volume f. a customer comes in today to the center and takes out a two-week loan for us, two weeks, and then they come back in this three months doesn't mean they took a loan to pay off another one or repeatedly. they had a need today and in three months. >> thank you very much for coming. we really do appreciate it. >> i appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you. one of the things looking at the bottom line is that it really is an unsophisticated customer. they need the money and not thinking in terms of

percentages. you wonder how many people say, my gosh, what have i done and why not go to the credit union charging me 18% on an annual rate. >> that's quite high. >> remember, he's saying that paid back. that's really consumer advocates saying that's a larger failure rate. >> i appreciate jamie coming on. an industry that takes a lot of criticism and maybe deserved and undeserved. took the hard questions and we appreciate it. >> we really do. >> thank you also for doing the investigating. coming up, a big ray of hope of a drug maker and a huge doze of optimism for us impacted by alzheimer's. >> later on, not everybody is high on our home-pium. one analyst says there's no reason to rally around the hot housing numbers. "street signs" returns with more after the break. here's today's "return on retirement." many retirees are working to

make additional income. according to the latest survey by the society of actuaries. so what percent of retirees have between $500,000 and $1 million in savings and investments? the answer when we return. i have three daughters and my son, and then i have eleven grandkids. right when you see them, they're yours, it's like, ah, it's part of me. it's me again. now that i'm retiring they all have plans for me. i'm excited.

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today's "return on retirement." what percentage of retirees have between $500,000 and $1 million in savings and investments? the answer, 6%. according to the society of actuaries. for more on retirement, go to retirement.cnbc.com. all right. from the return on retirement to disaster du jour and that disaster is autodesk. that stock down almost 16%. on a big earnings miss. they cut the guidance. eps light. sales did rise 4.2% year over year and missed a consensus revenue number. the guidance of 40 to 45 cents very consensus of 50 cents.

>> cutting 500 people for restructuring. sad. big ray of sunshine f eli lily. the alzheimer's drug did not meet the primary end point of a study and it did slow cognitive decline in some patients and still hope for the drug and that's reflected in the stock seeing here today. all right. there is a busy week ahead, folks. on monday, the republican national convention hopefully begins in tampa. we're going to keep a watch on tropical storm isaac. and chicago fed president evans and cleveland fed president speaking out. and tuesday, the index of home builders and consumer confidence. wednesday, real gdp and -- maybe that's china. pending home sales. paul ryan is planned to speak at the rnc. thursday, it is mitt romney's turn at the podium in tampa. we also get chain store sales, jobless claims, personal income and spending and friday fed

chairman ben bernanke speaks and saturday, european central bank mario draghi participates in that panel in jackson hole. >> no one in southern europe has a six-day work week. >> they don't have a six-hour work week. just ahead -- >> the bane of herb's existence. why the op-ed of staples has herb fire l up today. popping pills and tanking tankers all after a quick break. look at these streaming charts! they're totally customizable and they let you visualize what might happen next. that's genius! we knew you needed a platform that could really help you elevate your trading. so we built it. chances of making this? it's a lot easier to find out if a trade is potentially profitable. just use our trade & probability calculator and there it is. for all the reasons you trade options -

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happy friday, folks. let's look at "street talk" right now. merck up about 1% although it did get downgraded to neutral by bank of america merrill lynch today. >> they don't hate the stock but already up nearly 15% this year. they have a $45 target. a buck 80 upside. they note that a new cholesterol drug is high risk but potentially high reward on the longer term perspective basis so they downgraded it and lots of the market is ignoring it. interesting when the market said we don't care if you downgraded

it. >> big on pharma today. another drugmaker is bristol myers with the upgrade today of buy. >> same call as merck. there's one call and hitting both stocks. analyst there sees enough return potential to upgrade it. they expect the approval of an anti-coagulate drug and a riskier name than the other buys. you got about $3.50 of upside and down 7% year to date. >> what do you think goes on at a shoe carnival? clowns and stuff? shoe carnival recommended by a guest yesterday on the show and not looking so good today. >> what happens when every shoe you sell is size 22 and red. i'm kidding. they did have pretty strong sales of athletic shoes and down in part because costs rose

because they're continuing to open new stores and a bad news/good news story and downgraded and shoe carnival up 33.5%. >> talking about rising shoe costs or import costs of shoes and nike this week with the $350 lebron james shoe. is that the most expensive ever? >> you have to be a heel to put that one out. >> aruban networks soaring today. guidance, i wonder? >> it's a new name. maybe you didn't hear of it. up 17%. revenue and earnings beating expectations. they raised the sales forecast a little bit at the top end for next quarter and posts a loss. sometimes the headlines they had a big tax benefit last year and on that comp they lost money and still sales, earnings, all up. the stock is soaring. >> taking a look at front line on the web today not to be confused with the products of killing ticks and fleas. this is the tanker company in fact saying the world's largest

tanker company with an upgrade of neutral from sell. >> usually we show these stocks. this is 350. the reason i'm showing it because it's down 91% over 5 years and an oil tanking company. it's been whacked the last few years and we know that oil, that demand can be seen as a leading rhaps goldman sachs finally saying the worst may be over for frontline. the stock up 636% year to date and 45 bucks down to i think 2 bucks and change a couple of months ago so sort of an economic story here. >> all about timeframes. earlier this week we unfortunately coined the phrase home-pium and on the back of the housing data pretty strong. toll brothers killed their quarter not everybody is buying it. bring in andrew wilkerson of miller and stan humphries, chief

economist at zillow. andrew, first to you, is housing recovery just a blip or the real deal? >> i don't think you can deny there's a recovery in the housing market but remember that the fed's limited unconventional tools left with which to try to cure the unemployment picture which expects to feed through to the housing market. you have to also remember that construction, rez didn't shl construction these days is a much smaller part of the gdp pie. for example between 2003, 2006, rez didnsidential construction down to about adding just 22 basis points out of a growth rate of 1.5% in the second quarter. >> stan, in terms of data of zillow saying that housing bottoms nationally in the first quarter of this year and rising home prices for eight homes and do you dare dig holes in that

hope-pium? >> no. you can look at the metrics. we think that they're all pointing in generally the right direction. it is a slow recovery but a recovery and home values bottomed earlier this year. in terms of bottom, we think it's a pretty long flat bottom. expectation over next year for home values to only increase about 1.2% so we don't think we'll go back to the go-go years of 2005 but a bottom of the home values. >> okay. we're at a bottom. nationally or certain markets? >> that's nationally and then in a lot of local markets we think a bottom, as well. phoenix, miami, they're in a bottom. there are some markets still seeing substantial housing recessions. chicago, atlanta, st. louis, they're mired in a deep housing recession, but generally, a lot of larger markets are doing okay now. >> phoenix, a great stat up for our viewers' benefit right now

and double digit price increases in phoenix and still look at that, nearly 52% of homeowners underwater with the mortgages in phoenix. a long way to go. andrew, because the home builders themselves, since let's say october of last year had a lot of hope-pium built in and great runs. do you think it's overdone? >> well, when you go back and look at the pe on the companies back in the good old days, they had exorbitant levels and a different metric to measure them by. you can't account for investors willing to pay given some of the data that we have seen, you know. you have seen building permits go up and activity and existing and new home sales and you have seen prices rise and can't blame investors for wanting to be early in on the rally. i'm suspicious of it but, you know, i can see them going higher. >> andrew and stan, guys, i wish we could carry it on. thank you very much for coming on. okay. well, real estate is alln't

location, location, location but still ahead, your ticket to a great location to call paradise. but next, mitt romney highlighting staples as a metaphor for america and his ability to lead. we'll debate the wisdom of holding up a company whose stock off 20% and down 50% over 5 years. herb's here. we'll duke it out a bit. it's worth sticking around for. pass pass [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ]

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. at the top of the hour, turns out morgan stanley, of course, the lead underwriter of facebook's ipo placed a huge number of facebook shares in its own mutual funds. is the firm putting its own interests ahead of its clients? we'll look at both sides of that issue. plus, the embarrassment of riches. find out why many wealthy americans may be cutting back on their spending and how could affect your portfolio. taken 30 years but many republicans are now coming around to buying in to ron paul's call for a return to the gold standard. congressman paul will join us exclusively to make his case for that once again. we look forward the seeing you at the top of the hour on "closing bell." see you then. >> bill, thank you very much. herb is all hot and bothered

about mitt romney's op-ed in "the wall street journal" today titled "what i learned at bain capital." quote, as parents take their children to shop for school supplies i suspect many is visiting a staples store. staples is one of the many businesses we helped create and expand at bain capital s. that the best example? herb says, no. i disagree a little bit. >> of course you do. >> let's talk about why you're wrong. >> brian, look. when -- i almost fell off the elliptical this morning reading the op-ed. using staples as an example of what he learned at bain. while the average guy or average shopper at staples may not have a clue, the reality is this. after 20 years of great growth that shook up an industry, did a bunch of really good things from the perspective of an entrepreneur, staples fallen on hard times. over the past two years its stock tumbled 42% and almost

metric sales growth to cash flow going the wrong direction. as i write right now on cnbc.com, if nothing else, from a financial standpoint, it's almost as if staples is a metaphor for america. yes, a great success but romney could have and should have picked a different example. rather than one whose future is uncertain. >> yeah. i mean, i have to agree. i did my back to school shopping last weekend. i went to a stap ls store. >> of course you did. >> it's a one stop shop. but the place was empty. this was a sunday afternoon. and we're moving in to back to school season. i thought it would have been brimming. it was completely empty. we had the run of the place. i thought that was sad. >> people buying things more online. costco. they have another level of competition. >> the point of this, please. romney and staples. >> yes, absolutely. >> why i completely disagree with you. >> you're free. >> the american public knows

staples. they don't know that the stock is whacked and down and maybe the stores or whatever. >> that's misleading. >> it's a large national retailer around the country and mitt romney trying to say i've been a part of building a large, complex organization which is perhaps an alagori. >> you could argue the vc built this and part of this in the early days with bain. look. i understand what you're saying. i put it up on my facebook and lambasted by people saying it's a great story but i think that it's almost misleading to use this. why would you use a company that in the end right now of all times is fallen apart or appears to be? >> go ahead. >> no. i was just saying smacks of a level of ignorance on romney's part to use that. >> or speech writers or the people -- >> no, no. no, no, no. you're assuming. i wish everybody in america watched cnbc. they should. but they don't. the reality is most people are

not aware of the quarterly earnings of staples or the stock move. >> what would have been a better example to use if not staples? >> he doesn't need to. that's a perfect example. one of the biggest retail chains in the united states. >> brian? >> you -- the fact you took your kids there actually proves my point. it's a large national chain and he's associated himself with it. the american public, the soccer mom not going through the quarterly earnings results and saying romney could have rolled out a better company. >> brian, brian, this is in "the wall street journal." >> yes, dad? >> i believe most readers are generally aware of the state of things like perhaps what's going on with staples. that's my point. >> fair point. it's called a debate. >> let's get the view of brian nagle. >> a perform rating on staples. i have a feeling you don't want to get in to the political mix necessarily. but is staples a company quote falling apart and is quote a

ghosttown? >> well, yeah, look, i won't comment on the politics. it is interesting. this is an analyst that's followed staples more than ten years i would say staples is very much a company that is somewhat lost its way. this was one of the pre-eminent retailers in the united states. the hardline group and really a company that kind of set the bar for a lot of other big box or chain retailers throughout in the last couple of years and lost its way. >> i'm wondering. you think it might be the best run of the sector but the sector you have to admit in a structural decline, isn't it? >> yeah. people say that all the time. staples is the best in the arena but that's not saying much because you have a very, very difficult space and two companies much weaker than staples for a long time. >> you know, brian, if you look at, say -- you probably won't want to ask this but i'll ask you anyway. if you look at best buy, i don't know if you cover best buy or not, should we assume he's a

failure because it's struggling now? >> that's a -- i cover best buy. it's a difficult question. but i mean, a difficult questio. over any length of time, i would say no. i think best buy has much more difficult issues right now than staples does, but for a long while they were a very successful retailer that revolutionized electronices. >> but best buy may not be the example of the one you would pick today to show this is an indication of how great i am. you find something else in the port foal you. >> we have to leave it there, brian, thank you for joining us, herb, great piece. when "street signs" returns, how to buy your own private island. we told you about the fire sale next we'll have your keys to ut

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private island fire sale. they're going for dirt cheap, and we have the guy that can get you one. we have the ceo and founder of

private islands. he listed about 500 worldwide. this is fascinating, and chris, we have all been on your website and drooling over the islands we want to buy. tell us the low down for what you can get for your money. does it have to be uninhabited or can you get all of the services and people thrown in. >> it depends on if the island is developed, undeveloped. we have over 500 islands for sale. some of them are as small as half an acre. we have one for 2,000 acres. it really depends on what you're looking for. some islands have a lot of restrictions and they tend to linger on the market. people say they're more for the birds. >> where are we getting the best prices. >> before the recession, there were a lot of islands bloated in

price. half of them are marketed directly by the owner and they have a sense of what the island is worth and it doesn't always fit. so the recession has forced those prices in line with what they should be and it's been an exciting time. say you're looking for an island in panama, and prices have come down in the bahamas, there's different new regions for them to consider. and the bahama's at one point was expensive to get into, so now we're seeing clients open their wallets and starting to buy. it's pretty rare. >> i can here our audience, chris, there goes cnbc again, what's the cheapest island they could buy today? >> the cheapest island we have for sale right now is just about

$50,000. but you get what you pay for. >> is that me standing on a rock in the arctic? what am i getting? >> we have some islands on the east coach, beautiful ocean islands, and there is always a draw back, right? some are more difficult to get to. over the last ten years, prices for these off grid technologies have really come down. so islands that were once too remote to consider are viable options now. there's way more properties on the market, and our company helped put the market on the map so people who are interested can go look and browse, learn about the foreign ownership restrictions. so we really helped create this market. >> yeah, i guess you're not talking about manhattan if for those interested you can go online and check out your site

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