averaged over two and still a unique offering as i said. i like it. >> i need a nickname for you stephanie. >> missing link? i don't know. coach. but on weakness and kind of scary we're all playing retail but we like it. >> get another dose 5:00 p.m. eastern time. lace 'em up! "halftime" is over. the second half of the trading day starts now. >> welcome to "power lunch," everybody. until today, the s&p had been locked in to its trading range. its narrowest trading range since 2005 and today it broke out. why sonar row? basically, this man right here. ben bernanke. he speaks tomorrow at the economic summit at jackson hole. why did it break out to the downside? well, in part, over worries of what he may or may not say about the markets and also about easing. and then, of course, throw in what may be the speech of mitt romney's political life and you are shaping up for a tense 24 hours on the trading floors.

so let's start right there with my partner for the day, simon hobbs at the nys e. hi, simon. >> sue, good afternoon. we have taken a leg down. 90 points down on the dow. bob is here with me now. feels like an important break, bob. >> well, we have been in a narrow trading range and seems like an unusual day not down 100 points in the dow in a while. two things, simon. look at the s&p futures overnight. the markets convinced them that mr. bernanke is not bringing in dramatic qe3 statements tomorrow and there's an understandably and happened overnight profit taking that's been going on and there was a second event that's equally important and heard from the spanish prime minister commenting that he would delay decision of asking for a bailout until it's clear what the terms were from the european union. that's around 10:15 eastern time and you can see the euro dropping. that, of course, put pressure on the dollar and we saw all the commodities move to the downside.

commodity stocks dropping. >> boiling it down means that you will not have massive intervention of next thursday at the ecb news conference on spanish and italian bonds. >> a logical statement to make. wait for the conditions. >> let's see what the traders want to hear from what big ben says tomorrow on equities here at the nyse. joe grecco joins us and john brady and from the nymex ira eckstein. joe, let me kick off with you. what do you want to hear tomorrow? >> what do i want to hear? >> what does the market want the hear? >> the market clearly wants to hear -- well, the shorts and people taking profits want to hear that nothing is happening right now an i anticipate that's the case. you know, the secret is kind of out that the market is not moving in the direction that it was and not bad enough in reverse and the market, the job market and i mean inflationary

concerns where bernanke and the fed step in and get revolved in an asset purchase. >> john brady, what about the bond market? we have seen a dip in the yield. are you doing that and what do you want to hear from jackson snoel. >> sue, i think bonds are in a position to react to other asset classes tomorrow in response to what mr. bernanke says. i think they have qe3 priced in to them and thus those two asset classes have to reprice to lower levels. bonds probably move higher in price and lower in yields. not like bonds offer great value right here right now but the recipient of short-term capital flows as equities and commodities reprice if he takes a pass which i think he will. >> ira, what are your thoughts heading in to jackson hole and we'll mention to get the statement at 10:00 eastern tomorrow morning. >> there's things going on.

volatility's the name of the game here. we had hurricane isaac. no knockout blows. there's a lot going on. look at natural gas today. we had a bearish number in natural gas and yet rallied. up over 6 cents. every time this year we had a bearish number on natural gas it's come off. the rigs are still out for, you know, in oil. and yet, so there's a lot of unknowns here. bernanke, hey, more stimulus on the market. more dollars. i think that's going to be bullish for oil. devalue the dollar. the dollar is weak. oil rallies. >> john brady, when's more important at this point to the bond market? is it the jackson hole meeting or actually the september 6th meeting over in europe with mr. draghi? >> well, tomorrow's important, sue. no doubt. but certainly, i would think that what the european central bank does a week from today is going to be as important if not more important and likewise, too, there's an important economic data set specifically here in the u.s. with the pmi and employment numbers and

chairman bernanke looking at the august economic data data and important things but on the margin the ecb is more important central bank. >> traders, thank you very much. ira, john and joe. thank you all for joining us. snu. let's head to jackson hole, wyoming, with steve liesman. you heard the traders. what are you hearing out there? any signal if any that we're likely to get tomorrow? >> reporter: i think it's interesting listening to the traders and watching what's happened. you have this huge build-up to the speech. people expect a lot. and then all of a sudden it comes off and people think, oh well, we may be disappointed. ask bob, sue. you probably remember. it happens every year. this up and down on the bernanke speech. >> yep. >> reporter: i think it's fair to say it's somewhere in the middle. i want to give you three things i'll be watching for in the speech. the first is the emphasis of additional quantitative easing. he wrote a letter to represent

darrell issa pointing out the fed has more scope to the recovery. watch for discussion of alternatives, things like the communications policy. pushing ahead the low rate forecast of 2015. even some mention. because there's going to get discussion here of that of targeting the unemployment rate. i think it's a low probability bernanke mentions that but talking about the broad range of possibilities throughout it has to be brought up. finally, the real key is watch for his discussion of the economy. we've had somewhat better than expected data. does he see the class half empty or full? that will lead to where policies likely is going. we had the president of the atlanta fed on this morning and he did summarize the quandary for officials leading up to the september meeting ahead of the bernanke speech. >> i think it's a close call, really. if we were to see deterioration from this point, let's say

persistence of job growth numbers that were well below 100,000 a month, if we were to see that, or if we were to see signs of just inflation that could signal the onset of deflation, then there wouldn't be much of a question of policy. but now i think the policy question is how much will you gain and of course what are the costs short and longer term? >> reporter: he did say, guys, that he didn't think the costs were that great so dennis lock hart, a centrist watching closely, sounds like somebody to be convinced to vote for more easing. sue? >> what's the mood out there. you have covered jackson hole many, many times for us and we remember the meetings where the global economy is teetering on the brink. we have issues in europe and the united states but do you get a sense that the mood is more constructive than in the past or not? >> reporter: it's very interesting. i have been here for all the ups

and downs. let's categorize the two different poles. 2008 as sort of a height of crisis and anxiety, 2006 or '07 as everything is wonderful. we're in the middle of the great moderation. i'd say it's a little bit towards the center and more towards the anxiety range with concerns of the european central bank and the eurozone but as for the united states there's less anxiety and still a major quandary of policy. >> indeed. maybe you'll get more clues because the philly fed president is on at 4:00 p.m. today and very interesting to see what to get out of him. thanks, as always. >> reporter: sure. thanks, sue. >> simon? >> bernanke has economic reports to chew on before tomorrow's speech. the number of americans filing new unemployment benefits remained unchanged last week. initial jobless claims steady at 374,000.

economists were expecting a dip to 370,000. consumer income rising, up .3 of a percent in july. that's the same rate of gain as we had the prior month. and this is the important one. consumer spending rising by the most in five months, up .4 of a percent in july in line with estimates. remember consumer spending makes up about 70% of the u.s. economy. it is that retail spending, sue, that in many people's eyes is now a key dynamic. >> indeed. the nation's top retailers did just release their latest sales figures. many ringing up strong numbers. i have done my part. courtney is on the beat. back to school season, perhaps? >> yeah. that appears to be part of it and color, product newness helping full price selling success for nearly every retailer that reported august comp store sales despite a drop in consumer confidence readings and rising gas prices.

august actually the most universally upbeat month all year so far. macy's with broad based strength. the ceo saying he's particularly pleased with back to school sales and gap with strong back to school sales and maybe not a back to school retailer nordstrom reports 21% gain for august and doubles very bullish expectations thanks to a strong response for the anniversary sale that was shifted in august this year from july last year. now, offprice retailers posting one of the most impressive streaks. over the last year, gains of more than 6% each month. target, food among the big box retailer strongest gain come peetding with walmart. wells fargo notes expanding in anticipation of a strong top line and margin opportunity to come. cotton costs down 27% from last

year's record high. we know that's going to help a lot of retailers. sue? >> indeed. thank you very much. let's check out shares of amazon now down about 1.40 on the trading session and the stock up more than 40% this year and earlier today it hit an all-time high. amazon says the kindle fire captured 22% of u.s. tablet sales and officially sold out. it's the most successful product launch in amazon's history. the company is holding a press conference next week and there are a lot of reports throughout that amazon may unveil a new version of the fire at that event. simon? sue, now let's move to tropical storm isaac. expected to weaken more heading north today and still bringing heavy rain and potentially devastating floods. cnbc's scott cohn is in braithwaite, louisiana. one of the heaviest hit areas from the flooding so far, i

believe. >> reporter: that's right, simon. a lot of things unfolding rapidly. one of the issues, one of the biggest issues that isaac left behind is lots and lots of water. near the louisiana-mississippi border, which is not that far from here, they are now ordering an evacuation along a dam along the river because they fear that that dam could burst sending some 20 feet of water in to the nearby neighborhoods so they're looking at that and here in plaquemines parish which we have been following for quite sometime now, they have made a decision they're going to cut a levee that's behind this flood gate here that was supposedly protecting a neighborhood but that neighborhood in plaquemines parish is inundated and the plan is ultimately to cut a hole in that earthen levee behind the flood wall to get the water back where it needs to go but a false move and they could send

mississippi river water in to all of this and being very careful about the decision and before they had to do any of that or could do any of that they had to do search and rescue so they went through by boat through the neighborhoods here looking for people. getting -- making sure that everyone was out of their homes, taking some residents back so they could look for some of their belongings. 70 or so homes in here, some people evacuated but some did not. among them, lance that stayed because he understood and from past experience in this neighborhood he had every reason to believe that this area was safe. >> with the wall and the levees down the road it pushed it up to us. it came up six feet in two minutes. i was in it. barely made it from my brother's house to mine. all right? we got a boat. started to get other people out. we want to get back in and get our stuff out. that's it. >> reporter: but the authorities weren't going to let him get back in there. all he came out with because the

water came up so fast were the clothes on his back. we asked one resident here why people live here. she said because it's home. back to you. >> all right. scott, thank you very much. scott cohn there. we apologize for the distortion on that image. that's condensation partly because of where scott is working and the water. up next, swing states like florida have, of course, been hit hard by the housing crash. how are the candidates aiming their messages in those states so crucial to winning the election? as we head out to the break, here's some of today's most active stocks and where they're trading. [ male announcer ] it's a golden opportunity

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time for another look at the bond market and certainly worthy of it today seeing people move in to the bond market ahead of mr. bernanke's address tomorrow and perhaps more importantly ahead of what's early week european session. we are closed monday so depending on the news of europe over the weekend if any we won't be able to react to it. we need the yield on 10-year moving down and the yield on 30-year holding steady.

that's a look at the treasury curve for you, simon. we're hours away from mitt romney's speech coming on the back of his vice president running mate paul ryan who laid out a scathing indictment of president obama and his policies in tampa last night. our own john harwood is at the republican national convention site in tampa where he joins us now. john? >> reporter: there's no question this is the most important speech of mitt romney's life and an important moment looking back on the km pain and whether or not he got over the hump appealing the people he hasn't been able to reach so far. paul ryan was effective. republicans loved the substance and the delivery. democrats found several ways to distort the truth and agreed it was an effective speech and one thing paul ryan did not neglect to do is set things up for mitt romney, the guy who put him on the ticket. >> our nominee is sure ready. his whole life -- his whole life

prepared him for this moment. to meet serious challenges in a serious way. without excuses and idle words. after four years of getting the run around, america needs a turnaround and the man for the job is governor mitt romney! >> reporter: now, convention workers prepared for his speech by rejiggering the stage. they moved the platform down a little bit. a few steps closer in to the crowd and one of the ways of which to help mitt romney connect with this audience in way that is he hasn't been able to do so far and make space up on the higher level for all of those members of the family, children, grandchildren who are coming out later. mitt romney warmed up yesterday for the speech which his aides say is lasting about 35 minutes and locked down with a speech to veteran in indiana. >> paul ryan and i have a plan to keep america strong and secure, prosperous and free. where the president has failed to lead, we will protect our

national defense from cuts that jeopardize critical missions. where he's let down our veterans, we'll welcome them home to a booming economy and the jobs they need. >> reporter: simon, everyone can tune in and watch that speech live on cnbc tonight in the 10:00 hour and it's going to be quite, quite important for this campaign, as i mentioned. >> some very nimble footwork. obviously, as you say, mitt romney the man, vote for me in that context, but also, lay out the problems that america has and what needs to be done which, of course, may turn a lot of people off, john. >> reporter: yes. he'll lay out the solutions. i think at a high level of abstractions, he's not going to be granular. the senior aides gave a briefing to me and my colleagues at nbc a short while ago. there's not going to be policy specifics but he is going to give a little bit of the sense of the road map for how to turn the economy around, one of the things paul ryan didn't do last night while he eviscerated president obama's performance

and went after him very hard, told his own story, he didn't talk a lot about the particular polly agenda that republicans will be pursuing. left some of that ground for mitt romney. >> yeah. okay, john, for the moment, interesting night, thank you very much. in today's yahoo! finance poll, do you believe national political conventions can influence the way in which you vote? on either side of the fence, cast your vote. we'll have the results later. housing as you know is a key issue in the election and politically important swing states. nevada and florida hit especially hard with a plunge in home prices and have more than their fair share of underwater borrowers. how are the candidates targeting the messages? diana olick joins us with more on that story. >> reporter: the short answer is candidates are not talking housing enough and drawing criticism across the board because the swing states have some of the worse states on

foreclosure. remember over 11 million borrowers or 24% underwater on the mortgages owing more than the home is worth according to core logic. numbers are highest in the swing states. florida has the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. 46% of borrowers in florida are underwater. nevada, sixth highest foreclosure and 63% of borrowers under water. michigan, number 7. 36% underwater and ohio number 8. voters are not getting much from mitt romney saying foreclosures should not be stopped and housing hit bottom. democrats are running a spanish language ad in those swing states with that quote but that's about it and last night paul ryan mentioned housing just once but with a slam, not a solution. >> it began with a housing crisis they alone didn't cause. it ends with a housing crisis they didn't correct. >> reporter: you would think that homeowners in trouble would

want to make their voices heard but actually it's just the opposite. not only are americans who lost their homes to foreclosure less likely to vote but so are those in neighborhoods impacted by foreclosure. according to researchers at the university of california riverside. now, homeowners are more likely to vote than renters and that's true in high and low income neighborhoods so should be interesting to see how that plays out given that we have more renters. simon? >> interesting. diana, thank you very much. up next on the program, analyzing the analysts. find out if the wall street upgrades and downgrades are the right calls. on the list, pandora, facebook and world wrestling. my volt is the best vehicle i've ever driven.

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time to analyze. here with ed ponzi. this week, pandora to buy from hold based on quote potential upside stemming from higher mobile montization and possibly moderating content costs. shares fallen since the ipo of june of last year and today up a strong 22%. what do you do? >> it's a great buy. once you start listening to the radio on the iphone you never stop. i'm addicted. that's the wave of the future. they're proven that they can do it. big bump in revenues and driven by mobile. that's the key. >> okay. that's the key. moving on to piper jaf ri

repeating the overweight call on the stock we love to talk about, facebook of course. an analyst just on "fast money" claims, quote, facebook may be one of the best stocks to own in the large cap tech space. shares as you know suffering since its ipo. it's up little bit more today. what do you think? >> i agree that that facebook has a lot of potential but unlike pandora, they haven't proven to monetize mobile at this point. also, i don't think i would want to buy the stock right now because november 15th, huge lock-up exwe ration. potentially 1.2 billion shares coming on to the market. what's the rush? i wouldn't buy it here. >> okay. let's move on. are you ready to rumble? >> always. can you smell what the ponz is cooking. >> whoa. world wrestling or the wwe with an upgrade. an ablist wrote that pay per view results suggest the turnaround in fan interest is under way. stock is sitting at basically a

bit of a boost today. it's up more than a bit at 8.65. what do you do? >> looks great. first of all, yes, bump in nonwrestling mania per per view. the stock about to put a pile driver on the shorts. i like it here. i would buy wwe. >> all right. thank you very much. see you in a little bit. metal markets are down. the dow is down. we go to the nymex for the final numbers. mitt romney ready to deliver the biggest speech of his political career. the days at bain capital front and center. we ask, is america ready to elect a coe? that's ahead. whether it's supporting a delaware nonprofit that's providing training and employment opportunities, investing in the revitalization of a neighborhood in the bronx, or providing the financing to help a beloved san diego bakery expand,

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gold prices are closing right now. jackie deangelis is at the mercantile. hi, jackie. >> we saw selling off in equities triggering profit taking down here in the gold pits wechlt saw the prices turn negative as soon as stocks extended the losses. traders are tentative ahead of the speech tomorrow. what will he say about quantitative easing but not necessarily that. it's degree of it because some of that is already baked in to

this gold price already and the question really is he going to tell us anything we don't already know? gold prices today range bound and not hitting that 1,675. that's the next key technical level and of course the lower settlement is third time in a gold lower capping the run-up of 1,600 of earlier this month. finally, a look at the broader metals complex, as well, watching silver, copper and platin platinum. all lower on the day, as well. back over to you. >> thank you very much. not that we have moved hugely today on the markets. equity markets. more in context of the fact we're not moving anywhere for quite a long time now. we have we are heading to 13,000 on the dow. >> yeah. you're right. we've been such a for an owe range. it's somehow this seems like something significant and this is a fairly normal day. the dow typically moving 100 to 125 normally. we haven't recently. i think the comments on

commodities are correct here. while people were -- the markets are down on lower expectations of mr. bernanke, it was the euro dropping in the middle of the day that put a lot of pressure on the markets, particularly commodities because when the dollar goes up, you get commodity stocks across the board, all the usual suspects, moving to the downside. your coal spotocks, as well. put pressure on coal stocks and see across the board they sold them off sort of without thinking about them. and then of course we had all the oil service names down in the last day or so as it's been a realization that what was going on with hurricane isaac is not a major event. hornbeck, of course, big boat company down today and across the board even oil, other big oil service names down. >> they bought them in anticipation of more work? >> some anticipation to happen and never heavy buying in to it because traders made an

assumption early on it's not a big event and that was correct. >> unless you're in one of the -- >> some events like katrina caught by surprise and caught wrong on that one. >> let's head to the nasdaq. bertha, how's it looking? >> lower here. little bit more than the other indexes in terms of nasdaq and also because big tech has had a pretty good run this month up 4% for the month. best performing sector and nasdaq 100 benefited with apple, google and microsoft adding to the big imact and pulling back today along with amazon. very interesting story with amazon. gives us kind of a cryptic headline saying they have sold out of their kindle fire. they don't give us an exact number and saying millions and 22% of the tablet market. the interesting thing is form factor, 7 inch. price under $200. same as the nexus 7 and apple reportedly set to set a mini and may be a big reason why, that

price point awfully attractive. amazon off an all-time high here. sears slumping as s&p will move from the s&p 500 because of the fact that less than 50% of the float is out there. meantime, costco and urban outfitters setting a new high so it's a mixed bag coming to retail with retailers beating on same store sales. >> indeed. thank you very much. now back the isaac. scott cohn earlier in the hour showed us the real human toll of that storm. now the real economic toll. the impact it's having on the energy sector and how that could mean higher prices for you and me at the pump. brian shactman is tracking that part of the story and joins us now. hi, brian. >> reporter: hi, sue. you know, today is really a day of assessment and we have learned a lot in last two hours. what we know, according to the cme, the henry hudson terminal handling nymex gas contracts is operating.

also, the louisiana offshore oil port and produces and handles 13% of u.s. oil imports, backup power to take deliveries and when they take them remains to be seen and phillips 66 refinery and also hit hardest by the storm and reported they lost power and they have been flooded. we don't know the extent of the damage but we know that they're dealing with that. on or offshore, that's the biggest issue right now as it pertains to offshore, we'll learn more later today and then tomorrow because getting out there and assessing is a bit of an issue. you see that flare behind me? this is the norco fachlt run by shell. it is operating at a reduced rate. it's actually the opposite of a good sign. they flare off more burning off gas for safety purposes. they're one of three, one of four refineries operating at a reduced rate and five shut down completely. what does that mean for you and

me and everybody else, sue? yesterday was the one day biggest spike. people want to get it back quickly so they can hope for that price to ease. back to you. >> understandably so. brian, gnthank you very much. we all know about mitt romney's business career at bain. c eos are paid to make tough costs. we asked, can a businessman fix america? we have an all-star panel to debate that very interesting question next on cnbc. you know why i sell tools? tools are uncomplicated. nothing complicated about a pair of 10 inch hose clamp pliers. you know what's complicated? shipping. shipping's complicated. not really. with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service shipping's easy. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. that's not complicated.

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in today's yahoo! finance poll, donational political conventions, the rnc, the dnc next week influence the way you vote? this is what you said. 72%, the vast majority, no. you can see a smattering for yes and a smattering, as well, for others. but not me. nonetheless, very fascinating viewing. now let's see what's coming up, speaking of fascinating viewing. >> thank you. too kind. the top of the hour, paul ryan made the case last night at the rnc. but what was fact and what was plain old fiction? we'll get right down to it and fact checking on his prime time speech. also, she said what? why the world's richest woman who is an australian is telling the rest of us to shut up, get a jb and stop being envious of here. it's a sad, sad situation for snooki and the gang. that's all coming up. back to you on "power lunch." more fascinating viewing.

>> thank you. that's an eclectic mix. the business background of mitt romney and days at bain capital is front and center in the campaign. so is it his strongest calling card or the biggest liability? is the country ready to elect a businessman? joining us is chief washington correspondent john harwood at the rnc convention in tampa and herb greenburg, as well. it starts basically, guys, as a conversation that we were kicking around here in the newsroom and in different meetings. gordon, i would like to start with you. when you were at continental, you were made to make the tough choices and you did. you had to cut jobs. a lot of decisions that were unpopular and businesswise they were very successful longer term. is the country ready for that type of approach? >> i think so, sue. we have seen what it's like not

to have a managerial expert at the white house. mr. obama was like a guy, a dog that caught the car. he was facing some really tough economy and employment issues. yet, he chose to spend the time on what he calls now obama care and dotd-frank. you need to fix what's wrong the country first before you start to implement social change and missed the opportunity. you need a hard-nosed guy. >> john, it seems some of the hard decisions also might provide an opportunity and certainly sound bites for the opposition if, indeed, those tough decisions like cutting costs, trimming things, laying people off, closing plants, et cetera, if those decisions have to be made. >> no question about it. in response to your question in the beginning, sue, an asset or a liability, it's both because the american people understand somebody's run a large enterprise. they can see positive executive

managerial traits there but it's the case involved in multinational business and in some of the changes in the american economy that have taken place over the last 20 years or so, you're going to have done some things that voters aren't going to like. the separate question is, that's in terms of campaign and your reputation. in terms of the skill set to be president, again, it's a double-edged sword. you've got people who do have the capability of making decisions and that's a positive and good analytic skills. mitt romney clearly has those. the challenge is for business people going to politics is being a ceo it is easier to get people under you to do what you want than government. >> right. exactly. >> herb, where are you on this? because it is ultimately leadership here that we are p putting center stage. >> george bush had the mba and not a chief executive officer of a company. knowing business is one thing. i'm an observer of ceos but the

hardest thing it would seem to me and john touched on it, you know, when gordon ran continental, he could get anything done or attempted to get it done. quh you're running a country and you have a congress and you don't know where that congress will be so you have that issue. plus, when it comes to the economy, you have a world economy now. it's so much bigger than this place. it is europe and everything else. so you can be the best ceo in the world. you can provide leadership but it doesn't mean you can really i don't believe necessarily move the needle on the economy. >> i think -- >> sue? >> that's something more -- forgive me. i think there's something more fundamental, gordon, about the differences of the two. you know the job as a ceo. maximize the return to the sharehold shareholders. they don't get fired or laid off. if you run a country like america, you have many different things to look to do. lower the deficit, lower unemployment, raise standards for medical care. those are oftentimes mutually

exclusive and benefit one part of that economy far more than the others. it's a much more complicated process than you when you were ceo of an airline. >> i got to tell you, we were voted 100 best places to work for six years by the employees. you don't have to cripple the employees to run a good company. you need to know which way to go and how to get there and when you don't know when you're going, any road gets you there and that's what happened to this country. going six different directions. we needed to focus on unemployment and the economy and he didn't know or have the discipline or the experience to get those first and that doesn't mean destroy the morale or the voters. it means head in the right direction. >> john, to the point of finesse and the point of leadership, you know, a ceo as herb very rightly pointed out can ask to get things executed and they get executed because he is the head of the company. it doesn't work the same way when you're the head of the country because you do have to serve a lot of masters on

capitol hill as well as all of the people of the united states. what about the finesse and the leadership aspect of the job? >> that's one of the huge challenges and it's multifaceted. not only get the congress to go along with you and a large federal bureaucracy in the government that you've got to try to bend to your will and make them execute what you want to do. it's not easy at all and it takes an unusual ability for an executive to communicate, to synthesize information, try to bring people together. that's where politicians have an advantage is that the professional business of politicians is figuring out ways to try to bring things together and used to be in politics and that's why it's a rare business executive to do that. i was going to say a moment ago that i don't think herb greenburg has any credibility because i don't think he's run a lemonade stand but i don't think i have either. >> i did for two years and now back at cnbc and tells you

something. gordon, i have a question for you. >> sure. >> and that is, if you had been president during this period of time, considering you're one of the best ceos certainly in the country and probably the best ever to be seen in the airline industry, do you think you could have made a difference when it came to congress and the unmovable barriers that existed? >> well, i think i would have sent them what i wanted and clear, concise terms and shared that with the american people. i think he dumped what he calls health care on the congress to write and you got sausage made. we weren't clear in our direction. and i think that's what people want is clarity. which way we're going and how to get there. you can build consensus by achieving some of those goals. >> but if you're -- >> board of directors -- >> if you told nancy pelosi and harry reid clearly what you wanted they would do it? >> they're in your party and you had a majority and you had the mandate. >> not my party! >> wait a minute. if you're board of directors were on one side of an issue you wanted, union leaders on the other side, you're trying to run

this company. how do you get it done? sort of a same thing. >> well, you have to build consensus. define goals and how to get there and get the buy-in from the board and from the employees. >> you know -- >> pretty simple. you have to know what you're doing. >> john harwood, quickly, one of the other skill sets of the job i think is empathy. you take a look at when's happening in the gulf coast right now. >> yes. >> americans want tough decisions by the chief executives and they want them to go to various sites when disaster happens and they have to be everyone thetic and they have to be genuine. does mitt romney have those characteristics in him? we understand the bain capital side of it and yet to see more of the human side of it. >> i think that's one of the things to see from the acceptance speech tonight. the aides briefing us on what we can expect to see indicated that we're going to hear things about his faith and things that he's

done for others through the church. all those things have the potential to be persuasive to people that mitt romney is a caring, compassionate person and somebody who can have the qualities that you need to do when you step out of the business world in to politics. >> thank you all very much. such an interesting conversation. >> thank you. up next on the program, let's see if i do it in 140 characters or less. twitter unveiling a new way to help advertisers reach consumers. it's short and sweet and will it translate in to profits? there, i did it. 121 characters. triumphantly writes the producer. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it!

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twitter ramping up its ad revenue strategy. the site today unveiling a new plan to help advertisers reach users more effectively. will it work? julia boorstin in l.a. with the details. julia? >> reporter: simon, twitter is now allowing advertisers to specifically target users based on interests by sending very specific targeted relevant messages twitter is hoping to

increase return on invest. . until now, they send promoted tweets and trends to followers or users similar to their followers and now they can get a broader reach targeting more than 350 interest categories from education to investing to weddings. if a studio's promoting a movie about dogs it could select people interested in cartoons, animation and dogs and could send a different message to each group. twitter says tests, quote, phenomenally successful and doesn't give a metric. another change, twitter is lowering the minimum bid for a promoted tweet from 50 cents to just 1 cent looking to encourage more companies to test out its ads and for the brands with the most engaging promoted tweets for a higher return on investment. yesterday twitter announced certified products to help brands with everything from analytics and data mining to engaging with customers. simon, the latest announcements

are all about twitter getting serious about the revenue and helping boost its own business. >> yep. meanwhile, the other social media giant facebook of course trading higher despite negative headlines today. when's the story with fb? >> reporter: two different things, simon. first one of the co-founders of facebook, he's no longer involved with the company, but he's been selling about 150,000 shares a day. he sold a total of about $26 million worth of facebook shares. may sound like a lot but keep in mind he's still owning over 130 million facebook shares so that's nothing in the grand scheme of things for him. e marketer, that firm reduced the revenue estimates of facebook of billion in january. now they lowered that to 5 billion, of course, coming off some less than stellar results for facebook in recent quarters. >> okay. julia, thank you very much. all right. listen up all you jersey shore

fans out there. the fist pumping apparently is about to end. the upcoming sixth season on mtv will be the last one for the self proclaimed. don't fret, however. snooki and jay-wow's spin-off show is picked up far second season. >> that was bitter. for companies like viacom, the underground business of media piracy is a real threat and cost the global economy a staggering $57 billion a year. for an exclusive inside look at the underground world of media piracy, tune in to a special investigation, the premier of "crime inc." tonight on cnbc and that, of course, comes right before our convention coverage. in the next hour, the world's richest woman throws a giant class warfare grenade. why she says everyone should stop whining and just get a job. and commitment is not limited to one's military oath.

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happy birthday, warren buffett. america's billionaire next door turns 82 today. he's doubling down the original pledge to stock run by the kids. he'll donate $100 million per

year to each foundation. by the time his promise is fulfilled, the foundations receive what at today's share price amounts to some $2 billion. you can do a lot of good deeds with that kind of money, simon. >> oh wow. yeah. i could do a lot of things, as well. here we are on the markets waiting for ben bernanke tomorrow 10:00 a.m. it is a triple-digit loss on the dow. the 1400 on the s&p is important heading fourth endown because it would be really marks it in the sand as a line of great resistance for a couple of decades, sue. >> simon, i think the market on hold longer than that because we have the long holiday weekend coming up here in the united states. but europe is trading and then we have that key meeting on september 6th with mr. draghi and i think that's what everybody's waiting to see, whether or not there's proof in the pudding. >> i think so. i think draghi has been stalling and bluffing and he's been talking a good game but we need to see something firm a