final trade, adami? >> blackstone. >> that is t zuckerberg -- it. zuckerberg at 5:00. scott and i still celebrating the redskins this weekend. and if you are long the market, you are celebrating today the bulls are back, one day ahead of a two-day fed meeting. investors are like the sound of something out there today. and we will get you ahead of the trade. moody's warning washington again, teetering on the fiscal cliff, it says. the ratings agency says another credit downgrade may be on the way. and we are waiting on the zuck, coming out of the fox hole. we will find out. he is going to give his first

public comments today since his initial public offering of facebook a couple of months ago. meantime, let's check in with sue down at the nyse. hi, sue. >> hi, pretty big day for the bulls. the markets on a very steady run to the upside. take a look at the numbers right now the dow jones industrial averages up about 84 points on the trading session, now 87. the s & p 500 is pushing ever higher above that 1400 mark at 1435 and change, a half a percent gain. nasdaq a fractional gain there most of the focus on the big cap names. gold market up a quarter of a percent on the trading session. west texas intermediate crude up a quarter of a percent. we are getting confirmation once again, second day running, from the transportation average now up 35 points on the trading session. all of this of course, one day before that key two-day meeting of the federal reserve. ty? >> more markets in a couple minutes, sue. i want to bring in today's guest host, author michael lewis.

he is a frequent guest of ours on "power lunch," delighted to have him back. he has written some of the best-selling books in the nation over the past two decades, many of them having to do with the financial crises that the country has face and other topics of interest. now he is with us after being given unhe is dentprecedented, say in journalism, access to president obama. he capture it had all in a fascinating article he wrote for the current edition of "vanity fair" and get to that, michael in a few moments. i first want to start with this. welcome. >> thanks for having me back. >> president obama opened a six-point lead among registered voters. the first time, president obama's numbers are better than mitt romney's on the question of which candidate is better equipped to deal with the economy, 47-45.

let's start with those politics, how do you react to those numbers? how do you think the president who is widely thought to be immensely focused on poll numbers, reacts to them and how much did you see him stressing over the economy? >> um, so first, i'm always surprised, always surprised that we get the reports of the national poll numbers because they are sort of meaningless for the race. what matters is half a dozen states what happened goes on inside the states. the national numbers, they are kind of irrelevant at this point. so, it's hard to know from those national numbers what it means for the head-to-head race in the states that are tossup states. the answer to that is i have nothing to say about those national numbers, i don't think they mean very much. um, the president and polls, um, i'm so see he obsesses over polls, that was not my impression. i was in fact, there, once when people were trying to show them polls and mildly disinterested

in them. my sense was he wasn't thinking about polls all the time. >> i sense that upon reading your article that he was not -- it's a -- it's a -- it's a rather frequent sort of view of him that may not match what you saw what you reported at all. >> i tell you what he did he sort of -- he is one of those people who kind of thinks more longer term than short term, just his kind of bias. if earn an investor, he would be warren buffett, not a day trader. looking at polls is sort of a day trading like thing, short-term snapshots, hard to know what they mean. i suspect now in the thick of this ray he is probably more interested in it. if i were him, i would look at the polls. if i wanted to explain them is our convention went better than their con ven eggs. >> let's talk very quickly, among all the very many things

he does and has to focus on from greeting the super bowl champs or the women's basketball champs to making major decisions that are really life and death decisions about deployments, how much of his time did you really see him focused on the economy? >> it's -- when i was with him, he was focused on me. so i didn't see him focused on anything but me. but it is a constant cover notice white house, the way i was coming at him was a different angle. my question to the white house is how much can you actually do about the economy? how much can you do in the short term about jobs if congress does not want to deal with you at all? without the help of congress what can you do in the honest answer is very little. one of the things interesting to me about this subject, wasn't so much about obama but the way we think about presidents, it's how strange it's -- how strangely we

view the job now. almost like right now people are looking at it as ceo of the country who has enormous power influence the economy in the short term. we give the president credit and blame for things he really doesn't have that much control over and we ignore aspects of job we he does have control t reminds me, i was thinking to have like ""moneyball,"" baseball, professional sports, once upon a time, really didn't parse the athletes' performance inn tell gently. they gave athletes credits for things that were just luck and blamed them for bad luck and didn't isolate skill. i feel like we are sort of like that with politics, like tart president when the economy, when the president is only one factor here. the short term, ben bernanke has much more influence over what's going on in the economy than the president of the united states. >> michael lewis, we will be back with you, talk a little bit of sports, a little bit of stephen strasburg and more throughout the hour.

meantime, sue? >> indeed, ty. the markets gaining little bit of strength, up 85 points but also a bond auction in chicago. three years just went off the block. rick santelli at the cme. i saw a bid to cover of about 3.94%, which seems pretty much on the strong side to me but what do you think, ricky? >> yeah it was on the strong side. i almost had the big one when i read that number. i have a 20-year -- >> don't do that. >> i have a 20-year database of three-year note and i cannot find a higher bid to cover than today's 3.94. close to $4, chasing every dollar's worth of securities available for sale, just a big wow on that the wi market was flipping between 34 and 33 1/2, offered at 34 and a half, 34 the yield came in .337, a couple of three-tenths under 34 you could argue there was a little bit of a tail there, but even having said that, 36.8 better than the

ten auction average on indirect. direct, 13.4, better than the ten auction average. dealers took a smidge less than 50%. this is an an apple minus, a-minus on the three-year note auction, by the way, 24th straight time of 32 billion on the three-year note auction. >> an a-mine frou am tough grader. thank you. jackie deangeles with a market flash. >> watching shares of nam star up today, at this point, 3%, 3.4% nearly after carl eicahn issued a letter. i have a mesh an for the board, my cons are not threats, they are demands i take seriously in light of the investment, a 349 million investment, as should you, says icahn in light of your fiduciary obligations. goes on to talk about the history of and a half advice star and standing his ground

here. on the last day of the year, a slate of tax cuts expires, as you probably know, spending cuts automatically triggered unless there is a deal. they call it sequestration, fancy word. capitol hill reacting by playing the blame game. john harwood on the case. hi, john. >> hi, tyler. the question is soon about when you deal with the fiscal cliff and what constitutes soon. as of now, between now and the election, all you canposturing, we heard from republicans and democrats today. here is speaker john boehner. >> i'm not confident at all. listen, the house has done its job on both the sequester around on the looming tax hikes that will cost our economy some

700,000 jobs. the senate at some point has to act. and on both of these, where's the president? where's the leadership? absent without leave. >> you get precisely the opposite message from democrats. john boehner says where are democrats? where is president obama? democrats say where are republicans who are going to step up and provide the revenues we need to avoid the fiscal cliff? here's john larson. >> what i heard from people is how is it that, a, you can be home now, how is it that we hear you are leaving without doing the complete work of the congress, knowing what's at stake here, knowing how this was visited last year, knowing how there seems to be this blind drive toward another fiscal cliff. >> so, what you have is each party taking their best hold,

tyler, between now and election day smartest money is on -- in the lame duck session beginning to deal with the problem probably not have legislation that avoids the fiscal cliff or digs out of it when the tax cuts expire the first month of next year. >> john haw wood on the lawn of the white house. thank you. moody's is threatening to cut the debt rating if congress gets too close to the fiscal cliff s it the right thing to do? talk to us go vote. finance.yahoo!.com, the results are coming up. sue? as you know this is day two of a massive teachers strike in the nation's third largest school district t left parents struggling to find doctor their kids a nnd many cases, parents are simply not able to go to work. the president of the chicago board of education today says it is taking the teachers union "more time than we think it should." 350,000 students right now are being impacted. more with michael lewis straight ahead on power lunch, including details of his days inside the white house.

the market's roaring back after a late-day drop yesterday, up 87 points now. we are talking about just how high they might go, coming up. plus, we are waiting for mark z. and julia boorstin is live in san francisco with that. hi, julia. >> that's right, sue, a ima he here at the tech crunch disrupt conference in san francisco where everyone is eagerly awaiting for facebook ceo mark zuckerberg to speak. he will will be soon and give you a heads up on what he will say, next on power lunch.

i've been a superintendent for 30 some years at many different park service units across the united states. the only time i've ever had a break is when i was on maternity leave. i have retired from doing this one thing that i loved. now, i'm going to be able to have the time to explore something different. it's like another chapter.

mark zuckerberg may be coming out of his shell or fox hole, depending on your perspective. he will make his first public appearance since facebook's ipo back in may. shares have lost half their value since that date. right now, the stock is up about half a buck at $19.33. julia boorstin is live in san francisco waiting for julia? >> reporter: facebook ceo mark zuckerberg chose to make hisz first appearance at tech crunch because those that pack the hall this afternoon tend to be more focused on product than profits but even this silicon valley audience wants to hear about the meaty financial issues. zuckerberg's vision for the company, making money from mobile and his plans to stem the stock's dramatic slide, which threatens to hurt employee morale and tension, topics he is sure to address r the stock is

trading higher today ahead of zuckerberg's q & a with tech crunch founder michael arrington, scheduled to start at 5 p.m. eastern and last 25 minutes. we expect to hear a broad overview what the company has been focused on since the ipo and not anticipating any major news, but at this point, anything zuckerberg says could move the stock. now, security here at the tech crunch conference is incredibly tight, much tighter than any prior tech crunch conference. we can assume that is all because of zuckerberg. the hot topic so far today, how to attract talent and retain talent and what to do to drive innovation. one of the first speakers that morning was san francisco's mayor, talking about those very issues. guys, back over to you. >> thank you very much. a quick programming note do not miss "fast money's" live coverage of the facebook ceo, mark zuckerberg's speech, from tech crunch disrupt conference at 5 p.m. eastern time today on cnbc.

gold mining executives trying to persuade investors that miners are the place to be despite a tough year for them. all the major producers down 20% or more the last month but they are rebounding, over the last week, up 5% or more s this the beginning of a new leg for a new rally in the chief executive officer of anglo gold ashanti is with us live. thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much, sue. thank you. >> talk to me about demand, because there have been several speakers at the forum who predicted sharply higher prices for gold. one of them this morning or yesterday afternoon talking about a $5,000 mark on gold. are you as bullish on that? >> well, i think we will hit $5,000, just a matter of when. in the shorter term, i think certainly $2,000 is very likely, given political uncertainty and what's happening across both the u.s. or north america and europe. so i'm more likely talking about

2000 in the short term. >> what about demand versus supply. are you actively finding new supplies? if so, where and how much is it costing you to extract that metal, given the price of gold right now? >> well, i think first thing to say is supply has been very tough. it's tough to get access to areas that have gold. mines currently operating are mature so production has been tough to improve upon. so across the industry it has been very flat for the last seven or eight years and it is probably going to get tougher, given we are not getting the access to the ground we'd like. as a company, we have been very successful. at an industry level it has been very tough. i don't think supply will do much despite the increasing pricing. >> you have been returning 3 to

4% for investors since 2008. how do you do that? >> we have done a lot of works success envelope explore ray restructured businesses and taken more a manufacturing industry approach to the way we run our operation and has been very successful. we have improved cash flows by $1 billion during those improvements and the gold prices but we have been focused on returns for the last four years and we are delivering. >> can you comment on a report that s & p put out just the other day about the gold miners? their thesis is that, in general, your industry has been shielded somewhat by the increasing cost of gold, given the fact that it is very expensive to get that gold out of the ground. but the underlying threat is that the long-term profitability and credit ratings could head south for the miner it is, if w a softening in prices. do you agree with that thesis or not? >> we have seen costs creep across the industry, they are right in saying that, but the same things that are driving

inflation on costs are driving the price. so i think the two are connected. i think many analysts missed that point and forecast a softening to some extent on the gold price. i think that's unlikely. but what we have got do as businesses is improve our cost performance. we have been doing that as a company that's why we are leading the industry in terms of returns but as an industry, we have done poorly and quite frankly, in terms of managing our prices, i think we are well behind industry sectors like the manufacturing sector around the opportunity for guys like us to do much better. >> best of luck with that. thank you so much for joining us, sir, mark cutifani is the ceo of the gold mining company. ty? sue, when we come back, we will mark september 11th. it has been 11 years since the terrorist attacks and we will hear one amazing story of survival and i guarantee you, this is one you've never heard before. at usaa, we believe honor is not

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as you all know, it was 11 years ago on a day very similar to the one we are having here in the new york area today, beautiful weather. it's a day none of us, of course, will ever forget and there are tributes throughout the nation, but certainly here at the nyse, at ground zero,

right around the corner from us, in washington, d.c. and in shanksville, pennsylvania. president obama marked the day payiday, paying tribute at the pentagon. as you all know, we often have kenny poll carry on to talk markets but today, he is sharing his, to be frank about it pretty amazing story about how he survived september 11th. he was working in the north tower that day and, you know, kenny, i have known you many, many years. this is a story i had never heard and you were kind enough to relay it to me and to my nephew and to me, it struck me as just an amazing tale of timing. you were in the tower. normally, you are here? >> we actually had office space in the first tour, 25th and 26th floor and the second tower, the 55th floor, where my office was. and i had this great office, you know? i was looking right outside over the hudson river, i looked out

the windows of that office and you could see the statue of liberty to one side, the gw bridge on the other side it was just a -- >> stunning. >> it was stunning. i used to walk into that office every day and pinch myself and dance around and say if my friend does see me now, you were in this spectacular space. i was there at 7 a.m., doing the cleanup, date before, the month before. >> the beginning of september. >> the month of august just ended, odd stack of bills to clean up for the month, to reconcile. so i was doing that work and the other guys that worked with us mr. doing their work in their office and about a quart other of eight, they came into the office and they said come on, we are going to go to the exchange and have breakfast. i said, listen, i cannot go with you, i have got all that work, you guys go i will just meet you over there and so they said, okay. so-and-so they got their stuff together and they left about five after 8. used to take you ten minutes to get all the way down to the lobby. >> 'cause you had to transfer. >> two elevators. >> a lot of people didn't know. took a long time, such a huge

building go down one floor, transfer to another elevator and go down again. >> take eight to ten minutes if you hit it just right, got all the way down stairs, come outside a spectacular day. >> yes. >> one of the guys turned around and said to the others, you guys of go over there and get a table, i'm going to go back up and get kenny. >> who was that guy? >> it was jonathan corpina, who is one of your frequent guests. >> yes, he is. >> get back in the elevator by himself, the first tower had not got hit yet. got back in the elevator, comes up, sticks his head in my office, like 8:20. i looked at him, said, jonathan what are you doing? come on, kenny, come to breakfast with us it is a beautiful day we will come back at the end of the day help you clean up the work. you know what i spun around in the chair and i looked out the window and it was just spectacular, right? i thought to myself, you know what, i'm gonna go for some reason, i just said i'm gonna go i picked up my smock and i walked out the door, i left everything else behind. and really, the rest is history, right? we came over here and we were having breakfast upstairs and i

had no clue whatsoever what had happened. >> the timing, did you not have that much time before the first tower was hit? >> we got downstairs and out by about 8:30. then we walked over here. i must have just sat upstairs for breakfast when the first plane got hit, the first one hit way up -- way up high coming north to south and didn't hear a thing. and when we came down in between the two hits, i came down, got to the lobby, there was all this commotion going on, you could tell, right? >> yes, something was happening. >> i said to the guard, what's going on? he tells us the story the plane inside the trade center and you thought to yourself, had to be like a commuter jet, some guy had a heart attack, maybe, whatever, it happened? he said no, it was a gentlemen. i said jets don't fly the down the west side of manhattan. wasn't making sense. i went into the booth to call my wife who i'm sure wasn't sitting around watching tv, 'cause my kids were little, she was getting them off to school. unbeknownst to me, friends of ours at work, seen the event, called my wife at the first one and said where's kenny what building is he in? what floor is he on?

you have to call him. my wife was unaware what had gone on, she turned on the tv, saw it trying to figure out where i am in her head. calling the office, naturally, there was no answer. she calls down here in the booth and no answer because i'm upstairs having breakfast. so when i came down i went in the booth to call her to say to her, because you can't see anything from in here, right? >> it's closed. you cannot -- you can see a little bit outside. >> but you can't see. >> you would never know. >> so when i called her, picked up the phone she was crying, i'm not understanding why she is krichlg she is saying too me, where are you? where are you? i'm at work. and i said, turn on the tv and then she started to just ramble about flew a plane into the trade center it doesn't make sense. who's? he what are you talking about? as i'm on the phone with her, the second plane, she starts screaming, 'cause she is watching t and i'm just hearing it, right? we are down here and the second plane came west to east, smacked right the middle of the building. over here, there was this tremendous explosion. >> you knew? >> it was something. i had no idea what it was and she starts screaming, they flew

another plane, they flew another plane. then the alarge thes here at the exchange went off and they started to evacuate. we walked out the east side of the building and down -- started to walk down wall street and as you moved toward the east river, you could start to see the tops of the buildings and then you saw. >> and the debris. >> and the debris. you saw what everyone else saw, saw it engulfed in flames, could you see, without you knowing who it was, you could see, you know, the bodies. i will never forget it not in a million yearsly forget t. >> what are your thoughts though of having -- i don't mean to be trite when i say timing is everything. >> no. trust me. listen, you almost go through almost survivor's remorse because there were plenty of people my age, had young families. >> yes. >> young kids who were not as lucky. for a long time, i struggled with why me? you know, why -- 'cause i was there. i told those guys to leave without me. in fact, they did. it was only because for some reason, jonathan said let me goo back. otherwise, i may not be sitting

here talking to you today. >> i know. we are glad you are. >> as i am. >> we all lost a lot of friends, i think so fondly of david alligers, such a dapper, wonderful man, bill men of cantor fitzgerald. >> a lot of them. >> a lot of friends that we are remembering today. >> i had gone to high school with a kid in boston, i grew up in boston, a kid a year younger on me on the plane that went through my building, unbeknownst to me at the time, i found out days afterwards, it was traumatic. just traumatic. >> we are glad that timing was everything for you. thank you for sharing your story. >> so am i. >> thank you, kenny. in the next half hour, we are live with author michael lewis about the unprecedented amount of time he was give within president obama. it's a fascinating story. that and much more coming up as we leave you with more sights and sounds -- fothe spender who s a little help saving. for adding "& sons." for the dreamer, planning an early escape. for the mother of the bride.

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welcome back to ""power lunc lunch"" i'm kayla tausche with comments from jamie dimon at the barically's services conference, the first comments following his

congressional testimony over the london well. he moved first to address the critics of big banks at the size they are now, saying breaking up a bank for near-term investors concerns is "no way to run a business" and actually noting that jpmorgan has performed better than it would have if it were broken up. die mon also going on to highlight the client efficiencies that come from having all those business lines together, especially where treasury services, capital markets, lending and investment banking are concerned. he then moved on to take the u.s. fiscal cliff, simps simpson-boles is the way to handle the tax budget but the moment in time leading up to the election doesn't have the will. moving of ton europe, he said he believes the leaders in europe when they say the euro is here to stay and that jpmorgan has identified what a "reasonable worst case scenario" would be for the bank, a hit of $3 billion p he said the worst worst case scenario, stuff really sticky over there, not willing to go there right now

and they haven't seen big opportunity come yet and they hope the leaders in europe get their act together. nice rally i confirmation of the internals? >> we are seeing europe do well, germany at a new high. we have buying and etfs associated with stocks. for example, the japanese etf, you can buy in a single etf doing very well that is the e -- you see the ewj there is the australian, the ewa, the good volume today, the spdr trust, you know that one, financials and material etfs strong volume-wise the last few days you can the xlf. of course, anything associated with vix products well, betting volatility not going to rise, not a good trade, selling the vxx there sue, treasury

successfully selling 18 billion of aig stock, titanic volume in aig today. we are close to 200 million shares in aig so far. it is going to get bigger because aig, because government has sold its share, there's a bigger float now, a public float. that means that the indexers are going to have to buy more aig. the s & p 500, at the close, aig reweighed. its weighting is going to essentially double. you will see very big volume at the close. this is speculation. but indexers are going to have to buy a lot of aig stock to account for the new weighting in the s & p 500. gulf you more figures at 2:00. >> sounds good bob, thank you very much. to jackie deangeles for a market flash. yaki? >> thanks, sue. want to look at shares of groupon. more than 6% pop in the stock today. a susquehanna analyst is pointing to con score data for this, showing an increase in traffic to the site, a plus 7% increase we saw in august

compared to a 9% decline that we saw the previous month. so, as you can see, they are up 6.67% at $4.55. tyler? >> jackie, thank you. a new york city judge ruling that twitter has to hand over tweets from an occupy wall street protesters. julia boorstin live in san francisco with the details. julia? >> tyler, this legal battle could be precedent setting not just for twitter but for all social media companies. if twitter doesn't hand over three months of tweets in an occupy wall street protesters to a manhattan prosecutor by friday, it faces a fine and civil contempt. twitter says its users own its tweets, it doesn't, there for example the company has no right to turn them over to the government. the judge has twice denied twitter's attempts to quash the protester's subpoena -- the prosecutor's subpoena for the protester's tweets. twitter is pushing for the user -- the privacy of its users because this lawsuit will have long-lasting imp plic quags

beyond this case. it will determine what information twitter has to hand over to the government. next up, twitter's lawyer has said she will file a brief in opposition to the contempt order that is sought by prosecutors som, so, tyler this is a battle sure to drag on some time. back to you. >> thank you very much. next up, one of today's best authors with his view and the time he spent with president obama. that and more when we return right after this. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it!

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wall street doesn't seem to be paying too much attention to t 66% said yes, it is warranted. 6% said, no the situation isn't dire. and 28% said moody's shouldn't make threats. l let's see what's coming up on "street signs." >> okay. coming up on "street signs," top of this hour, we look at the silver bull that's could solve the u.s. debt crisis and why only a select few are even talking about it. plus, how the jailed whistleblower at the center on of a huge tax evasion case just got as 100 million wind fall. as mark zuckerberg prepares to speak for the first time since the facebook ipo what do you want to hear from him this afternoon? you can tweet us, many of you have already, street signs at cnbc. read your tweets on the air at the top of hour. see you top of the hour. >> thank you very much, mandy. now rejoined by michael lewis to talk about his amazing "vanity fair" piece on president obama. he spent six months really work

alongside the president. welcome back, michael. i want to make an oaks some of us here have had as we read your story. that is that president obama seems like a guy who is really trying very, very hard to be normal. in fact, you point out that on his first day in office, and i want to quote from the piece now, if we can look at it you say that basically, he brought some junior staffers into the oval office and he wanted them to see what it was like there they had been with him long before anybody cared who he was and he said to them at this time, let's just keep it normal this is a guy who wants to be normal, isn't he? >> no he is a very natural kind of guy in a very unfarm job. i mean, that's the -- i set out to basically write more about the presidency than the president himself and i ended up writing about both. presidency, increase laying weird job.

technology changed it, the speed which newses changed it the expectation that is a president is supposed to basically respond to every crisis in realtime has changed it the threats to his life that are perpetual has changed it. he li he lives in a -- he is cut off. this is a guy, all happened very fast in his life. he was a writer sensibility and lived, thrived for natural interactions with percentage he was an observer of human nature, cut off from all of that now. he insists when he is done being president, emdrive himself. he noticed his driver's license was expired. one of his aides looked at him and said are you out of your mind? you will never drive a car again. it upsets hirnlgt idea he won't go back to normal life. >> you point out that was one of the few moments he saw not his

temper so much as his annoyance, when you challenged him with the idea when he leaves the presidency, it's not just gonna go back to normal. it seemed to several of us, myself included, michael, that he enjoyed having you around as much as maybe you enjoyed being with him. >> um, so it was this great question, why on earth he let me basically move into his life the way he did. 'cause his -- the people basically around him, i don't think they thought it was that great an idea. they were polite to me, but it was -- nobody was really terribly enthusiastic to see me show up when i showed up at the white house. but he was very good about it. and i don't know how much he enjoyed it, but i was coming from a different angle, because i was an interloper in their world. i was asking him just very basic questions like how does it feel to open the newspaper and see all the stories be about you and half of them be nasty? and -- >> how does it feel to him?

>> he said -- he said that you very quickly -- so much of it -- if you just -- so much about him out there all the time, he says you quickly realize that almost none of it's actually about you, that it's a projection of the person who's speaking or writing. and so you become this sort of -- this screen onto which people project their anger or their hope or their resentment or whatever it is. sew just -- so he has learned to kind of detach himself. >> he doesn't watch cable news. he does watch cable sports. i can envision him after 10:00 at night when the kids are in bet, his wife has gone to sleep, watching espn. one of the other ways he tries to stay normal is by playing a lot of basketball. you played with him. one of the things, throw up another quote from the article about playing ball with him, and he sort of took you to task. he said you say he chattered constantly, you can't leave him open like that, money. and i suppose money is a reference to you and "moneyball." take your shot and don't be looking at the sidelines, all

sheepish, he hollered at me. you've got to get back and play d. what did you learn about him from the way he plays ball and he plays in a very competitive game that you say is really probably over his skill level, over his head? >> it is close to over his head. he can function in it. i couldn't. next time guy back, i think i'll ask him to play in biden's game instead. he wasn't calling me money. he was shouting you at somebody who made a shot, money. but the minute i jacked up a shot, he started hollering at me because he could see that i was jeopardizing his team's chance to win the game. he is -- you saw several things, it was interesting, actually. one was that he chooses to play in this game. it's a very -- it's like a good college basketball game. and's -- he can help his team but he is a weaker player on the court. he is not the weakest, but a weaker player. so that -- he likes working in that kind of environment, it was interesting to me. two none of the players, you would never guess from watching the game who was president. everybody treats him normally.

they don't pass to him when he is open if there's a better shooter available, they drive over his, he has got his lip busted, lost teeth in the game it is kind of incredible to see. the third thing is he plays s plays shrewd, like an old squash player, knows the angles of the court. he is shrewd and plays a game that seems like he is kind of risk averse but when he gets himself open, he takes the shot. >> calculating, you say, he is an analyzer and on the court around in his decisionmaking, you characterize him, we are going to come back and talk more in a moment, as kind of a sniper's personality, he wants to do what's best for the team? right? >> correct. well, he has now figured out that his best role is -- strongest role is his ability to prevent his teammates from taking stupid shots. a lot of times screaming at people. >> we will come back and talk more, michael, in just a moment about president obama and the road not taken on wall street and whether you think we have

been a good, maybe even a great executive on wall street. we will find out what michael lewis' next project is. they keep coming. a real life "moneyball" decision in washington, d.c. we are going to get mr. lewis' take on stephen strasburg, coming up. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital

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for those of you on satellite radio take a listen to this up almost 100 points on the dow industrial average, up 9844, a strong day despite that moody's threat of a downgrade. special edition of the power run down with michael lewis now as you know, he is the author of many wonderful books a and a great "vanity fair" profile of president obama. michael, first up, mr. obama and the road not taken, that on wall street. you point out that you are the same age, same ivy league background. but mr. obama did not choose to go to wall street. why did he tell you? i mean, i remember this guy could give the perfect def mission of credit default swaps in the 2008 financial crisis. >> you know, it is funny this i talked to him about the financial crisis some. he completely -- he put his finger right on the issues, right away.

he kind of gets the margeities. he is so competitive, obviously, wildly competitive. yet to me, why didn't he feel the lure to go and make his fortune at goldman sachs or solomon brothers? i asked him this. he said, you know, it just never interested me that much. and i said something like, you know, you're he not really a money person. he stayed is not my way of keeping score. and it was -- and i think that's -- if his character was just slightly different, egg just the sort of person who would have done very, very well on wall street. >> could you see him the head of goldman sachs. >> you could easily. i think it was like not what interested him. it is surprise. i think at the age of 22, 23, i think he was an unusual cat. he just didn't feel the signals. >> mr. "moneyball," we got to talk baseball here, the oakland a's, about which you wrote the wildcard race in years, i want to get your take on the

washington nationals decision to shutdown their rookie pitcher, actually second-year pitcher, stephen strasburg, heading into the playoffs now without their ace, a decision supposedly made with a close analysis of the data. >> so i'm sure they know what they're doing, i'm sure i'm just taking a pot shot. i guess i don't understand if you know he has this innings limit why you don't start him in may instead of april so he is available for the playoffs that didn't make any sense to me. i'm sure there is a reason, i don't know what it is. you know what's interesting? this pitcher's health, along with amateur -- the evaluation of amateur players, are the two areas are where you're likely to see big jumps and gains in efficiency. the team get a point where they are more knowledgeable about how to keep pitchers' arms healthy, they are going to have a huge advantage. interesting to see a team be so aggressive about it, it subjects they are getting there. >> so, michael, always great to have you with us. what's next for you what's on the agenda?

what projects are in the works? >> well in a week, i'm handing into a movie studio the movie script for "liar's poker" what i've been doing, aside from writing about the president for the last six months. >> fantastic. >> so and then after that i have a book that i'm going to get back to and then -- but that's secret, you don't want to hear about it anyway. >> yes, i do. >> i will see you in a year. >> oh, please, before that is the "vanity fair" article the basis of a book perhaps? >> you know, i didn't think of it that way, i thought of it -- just was kind of strange project. can i come hang out with you for six months, mr. president? and he said yes so why not? but i didn't really -- i didn't really imagine it was going to be a book. who knows. >> why do you think they picked you do it? any journalist would have killed to do it. yeah. >> i think maybe because -- i think it was because i was only half-interested. but also, i think he -- it -- he made the decision. and i suspect if i had to guess, he had read a couple of the books. i know he read a couple of my books. i don't know. i didn't want to ask him the question because i was afraid

woe actually think about t. >> michael -- that's great, michael lewis, always a joy to have you with us, appreciate you spending so much time with us today and topped good luck. >> thanks for having me. >> all right. let's take a look at the dow. up triple digits now, just below 100 points higher it is there at 9389. the s & p higher a half percent, nasdaq by a third percent. next, debating weight watchers stock now that the jessica simpson after pictures are out. she was on katie's show yesterday. first guest on katie's debut. what do you want to hear from mark zuckerberg when he speaks this afternoon for the first time since the ipo? your tweets on the air. we are going to talk about that, street signs, top of the hour.

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hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. we were just driving along, comin' back from the lake, and all of a sudden, ka-plam. it blindsided us. what is it? our college savings account. how do you think it happened? not sure.

i think something we bought a while ago turned out to be something else, annnnnd, i remember a lot of other stuff in there had the word "aggressive" in it. is everyone okay? well, now, yeah. who knows later. ♪ dow jones industrial average up 90 points, transports up 45 points, the cnbc realtime board shows some of the biggest gainers. bank of america up better than three and a half%, travelers up as well. kenny polcari joins me, once again thank you for sharing your

memories on this very poignant and sad day but we do appreciate it. >> thank you. >> transition me to the market where we are up 92 points. >> right. i think what the market is telling you, expecting good news out of germany tomorrow, the germans are going to at least support it, may be restrictions around it but the basic part is that they will there will be some clarity finally and if germany supports it then the plan can go forward. whether or not the country is coming out will be another issue, they are there if it happens. >> some of the things the market is telling me are a few mixed signals, the gold market is moving higher, we had record demand in the three-year note auction today ahead of the fed meeting what does the fed do? >> i think what the fed is going to do they are going to come out and do more job money. i do not think they will come out and launch another program. here is the thing, i think the fed is very worried about what is going to happen in january, if the legislate ers doment do something about it the fed will have to be ready in january, have to be liquid and ready to go i think more job right now