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tv   The Kudlow Report  CNBC  September 4, 2013 7:00pm-8:01pm EDT

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and i have to suggest the same for you. i think it actually is the right thing to do when we get the up 100, up 150 dow days. i wish everyone a happy jewish new year. okay? and i hope you pick really well in your fantasy. there's always a bull market senator john mccain succeeded in getting a much more muscular war resolution in the senate. this brings the nation one step closer to military bombing in syria. noteworthy is the fact, however, the stocks rally nicely and the gold rallies despite impending war. why is president obama steering away from creating his red line. now he's going into conflict and the rest of the world, really, mr. president, take a listen to
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this. >> a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. we have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that's a red line for us. i didn't set a red line, the world set a red line. congress set a red line. >> all right. the first one of 2012. the second one was today in stockholm. plus this evening an upbeat fed outlook points to a slowdown in bond purchases at the september 17th and 18th meeting, but that's likely to be right smack in the middle of the syrian bombing, and more than likely the fed will have to wait. and will a little shut eye help make you healthy, wealthy or wise? i do it. we'll explore the science behind power naps and the benefits that may surprise you. all those stories and more coming up on "the kudlow report" beginning right now.
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first up tonight, from europe today president obama kept lobbying congress to green light u.s. military intervention in syria. the new muscular plan to do that was approved by a key senate committee. nbc steve handelsman joins us now from washington with all the details. good evening, steve. >> reporter: larry, compared to business as usual on capitol hill, this is different. it's bipartisan. really bipartisan. house and senate, democrats and republicans on both sides of this issue for and against what president obama called a limited military strike to deter the syrians from using chemical weapons again. this vote by the senate committee today keeps this thing on a fast track. the betting is still on an obama win by most people here. john mccain again succeeded in forcing changes and grabbing
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headlines. for days they said he was going to be a no vote in the committee and then voting yes after he got an amendment passed and approved by the committee that requires the obama administration to help the syrian rebels overthrow the syrian dictator credited with ordering the use of chemical weapons. here's mccain. >> the president has said bashar assad must go so our policy has to be to implement what the president of the united states has said. >> reporter: all the polls, all of them, show most americans opposed to even a limited airstrike on syria. here's another republican, texas senator ted cruz. he's a no vote. >> i believe the u.s. military should be focused on one thing, protecting the vital national security interests of the united states of america. >> reporter: so how to pressure the congress when the commander in chief on his way to russia where he's meeting u.s. allies stopped over in stockholm. he made a point of going to the
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grand synagogue there to personally pay tribute to a hero of the holocaust, swedish diplomat in hungary during world war ii who's credited with saving at least 10,000 jews, maybe more. and it allowed -- the visit did, allowed the president of the united states to claim that what he wants to do now in syria is kind of like what volenberg did. >> when i see 400 children subjected to gas, the moral thing to do is not to stand by and do nothing. >> reporter: finally the red line that a lot of people speculate, you heard what larry said, that the president wishes he didn't say that in august of last year. well, he said today basically that it was the world who drew that line. >> my credibility is not on the line. >> the international community's credibility is on the line.
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>> reporter: he said again in sweden that if in the end, which looks like probably next week, lawmakers up here vote no which looks like they probably will not do, but if they vote no the president said he might go ahead and order an attack on syria anyway, but he said, larry, he's betting congress approves. back to you. >> let me ask you a couple of questions. great report, steve. let me ask you a couple of questions. regarding the mccain amendments, okay, i read the new resolution. these things are not so easy. it just sounds to me like he's basically opened the door and that the resolution allows for regime change. that's basically what i see. degrade the capability of the assad regime to use weapons of mass destruction and that, of course, as you accurately reported, upgrade the capability of the syrian rebels, the good syrian rebels. it sounds like mccain's amendment basically will allow
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u.s. to bomb, you know, the air force, the air fields, all of the moving -- all of the parts that put together the weapons of mass destruction. that's a step up from what we heard from obama. secondly, basically to remove assad. that's a big leap forward from where obama was whenever, 48 hours ago. >> and i think the key word that you used, larry, was allow. i mean, remember, this is a president that's going to do what he's going to do. he just wanted the approval of congress. he doesn't want congress to decide or direct. he wants congress to approve. let's say for the moment that this version of bill that was passed in committee today actually gets through the senate and let's say it actually gets approved in the house, those are a lot of actuallies, maybes, maybe ifs. that doesn't compel the president in the president's view to do anything more than the limited military strike that he says he's going to do. >> that's a good point. i think the way this is moving
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is mccain is making the whole thing more muscular and bringing out into the -- otherwise they're going to have trouble getting this thing passed. >> larry, let's look at the reality up here. they may have trouble getting it passed but i don't think it's because it's not muscular enough. i think the lawmakers that are still on the fence, if you believe the surveys, that's most lawmakers, they're not even back here in washington. most are back home. the ones who are waffling are not waffling because like john mccain they don't believe it's strong enough, they believe it's too strong. it will get us in too much trouble. mccain, lindsey graham, a few others are out there. they're in the minority. >> very good. we're going to talk with one of the distinguished house members in just a moment. steve handelsman, nbc, thank you ever so much. we appreciate it. folks, we're going to examine why the president abandoned his own red line in the show. leave that later in the show. right now i want to get back to where the action is on capitol hill. we're honored to be joined by
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the chair of the house armed services committee, california republican buck mckeon. chairman mckeon, thank you ever so much for coming on. let me begin with this point. where are you in this process? are you inclined to favor a war resolution or to oppose one, sir? >> you know, i've been listening to this back and forth and how things are changing by the minute. thanks for having me on, larry, but it's becoming laughable. i mean, the president made an announcement that he met with his cabinet. they went out and said, we have to strike immediately. i was first called last week to get my input on this. i thought this attack would have been over by now, but it's changed daily.
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yesterday i told the president in that meeting that we can't keep asking the military to do more with less. you know, over the last couple of years he has surged the troops in afghanistan and cut the military budget. he had flights over libya and cut the military budget. he changed to a pacific strategy while cutting the navy back to smaller than it's been since world war i and the pacific's a pretty big place, a lot of responsibility for the navy and cut the military budget. we've cut over a trillion dollars over the last couple of years and going forward for the next ten years and then turn around and ask them to do something else. well, yesterday in the meeting he said this was going to be a limited response, but a very powerful response. i don't know how you equate those two things. >> i don't understand that. i get your point. i think the military budget has
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been cut too much. i know a lot of veteran and military analysts believe the same thing. we don't even have enough bombers. we don't have enough bombers. i don't know whether we're going to run out of tomahawks or not. what i'm asking is in that white house meeting, in your own thinking, mr. chairman, in your own thinking, shouldn't -- to make this worthwhile, shouldn't we take out the air force, shouldn't we take out the air field, the artillery, the supply depots and so forth? in other words, there is in effect a de facto regime change whether the president wants to acknowledge that or not. his credibility and the credibility of america is on the line. we can't just stand by and let these, you know, two bit dictators have weapons of mass destruction without doing anything. did that come up in the white house meeting? did anybody put it like that? it's our credibility. it's our white house. it's our own presidency. >> well, that's what everything
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was up until today because yesterday the president had been the one that drew the red line. now today i guess he says he didn't draw the red line. i'm a little befuddled, but america is -- our credibility may be -- i don't know if america's credibility is on the line. i think that the commander in chief's credibility is on the line, and i told him yesterday he needs to go to the american people. he's the one that's elected by everybody. he needs to look in the camera, look them right in the eye and tell them how he made the decision. that didn't sit too well with him. he said, you know, it's not just the president. you guys have to go out and basically sell it, too. it's more than just the president. but then i talked to him about you need to tell them how you made the decision. they need to understand. you're the one that has all the
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facts, all the information and they need to understand how you came to this decision. that bothered him a little bit, too. he said, well, there was no -- i guess he thought i was saying that his decision-making process wasn't good because the decision friday and the decision saturday. >> you wouldn't being the only one. i was on tv friday night waiting for it to happen and i was on radio saturday morning waiting for it to happen and so were a lot of other reporters and anchors. i mean, you know general keene, general keene has said publicly on a number of occasions, former four star retired and a brilliant guy in my own opinion, keene said that this policy and hesitation has done our credibility a lot of harm and it's also helped assad. it's helped him get out of the way. it's helped him move stuff that we maybe can't bomb. we can bomb the stuff that's standing still but we can't bomb the stuff in the suburbs of damascus. in that white house meeting did you, mr. mccain, other people
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mention this kind of thing? >> mr. mccain wasn't there. it was the chairman of the committees and it -- and the leadership. mccain had met privately the day before with lindsey graham and the president. that's been kind of the whole purpose of this week is the president's credibility. we have to stand behind the president because he made a statement and if we don't stand behind him and if we don't follow through because he drew the red line and they crossed the red line, they actually crossed it almost a year ago they used chemical weapons and he ignored that. this time they did it in a bigger way and a lot of people were killed and the media picked up on it and we've seen all these children that were killed. there have been over 100,000 people killed in the last couple of years in this battle over there. it's a proxy fight. russia is on the other side.
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iran's on the other side. we're on this side and we don't even know who's really on our side. >> well -- >> it's a big mess. >> mr. chairman, it is a big mess, sir. we're running out of time. just in the last few moments. you're undecided. many republicans are undecided in the house and in the senate for that matter. what would it take, is there one single aspect that you'd like to see that would put you on the side, i'm going to use john mccain as an indicator here, this is a meaningful bombing indication that takes assad out of play, brings in a new group and stops the weapons of mass destruction. is there one element that you'd need to see to vote in favor of these resolutions? >> yes. i want to see sequestration stopped. i want to see these harmful cuts to the military stopped when we're asking them to do more. if they would do that, if they would get rid of sequestration
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and let the military know so that they can plan properly. i mean, you're an economist. you're a businessman. you know that you have to make plans. these chiefs have not been able to plan one year ahead on their spending. it's ludicrous. >> i hear you, sir. i hear you. it's a very interesting response, but you're probably going to be right, to make this thing work sequester has to be vastly amended to accommodate the military budget. chairman buck mckeon, head of the armed services committee, we appreciate your thoughts and coming here and the best of luck on the vexing syrian crisis. interestingly, stocks rally. gold and oil fell. what should we make of it all? we'll ask our market experts in just a moment. why don't folks understand my afternoon naps? take them all the time. we're going to talk to a doctor who says my cat naps are
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actually good for me. you folks out there should try it. don't forget, clear market capitalism is still the best path to prosperity. you need to be well rested to promote this economic model. i'm kudlow, and we'll be right back. it starts with little things. tiny changes in the brain. little things anyone can do. it steals your memories. your independence. ensures support, a breakthrough. and sooner than you'd like. sooner than you'd think. you die from alzheimer's disease. we cure alzheimer's disease. every little click, call or donation adds up to something big.
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stocks in rally mode today while gold and commodities kind of got crushed. investors put syria on the back burner. what's going on with the market? we have josh and jack, ceo of bull and bear partners. josh, thank you for coming back. we appreciate it. it just didn't seem like syria was very important. yesterday was a big ism number, okay, and today was this ford motor company. they're increasing their production and we had fabulous car sales. what, 16.1 million, the best in many years. maybe the stock market is just responding to better news. >> you know, larry, that's a really great question. i think we have to kind of compartmentalize autos. the replacement cycle got stretched for way too long and boomers are choosing to spend their retirement years buying cars more so than any other age group. let's talk about syria very briefly. i have maintained that this is
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really a side show. even -- and you saw that today. you saw congress give approval for a strike and the market yawned at it. i think the big threat to markets that we should be focused on, and by threat i mean something that could stall the rally, not put us back into a recision, but the real threat is interest rates. that is really the only thing i think investors should be focused on, and not the absolute rate but the velocity at which it gets there. so i think if we have a gradual rise because the economy's improving, no problem. but if interest rates throw a monkey wrench into the housing market, mortgage market, if they hinder corporate america's ability to buy back stock and raise dividends, that will stop the rally. >> jack, i'm glad to see the good news, okay? i'm an optomist at heart. i worry about the jobs story. i worry about consumer incomes. i worry about part-time workers. i'm not 100% convinced that this economy is taking off. be that as it may, let's assume
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that economic growth is driving up the interest rates like, josh, let's put syria aside. let's assume better economic growth is driving up real and market interest rates. let's say the treasury, the ten year treasury which is closing in on 3% rose 50 or 75 bases points higher. would that be bad for the stock market? real rates and real growth? higher stocks? >> well, i think it's exactly what he was saying. it's the velocity at which it moves. look, are higher rates necessarily bad for the market? of course not. if you think about it, you know, you should see that asset allocation, you should see a re-allocation going out of fixed income to equities. in fact, i wouldn't be worried about interest rates until we see maybe a 4 or 5% number on that ten year. that's when you see competition for capital. over the next couple of years we'll see the gradual rise in the ten year, in the 30 year.
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it's a question of how fast it goes up there. i agree. i think the velocities will scare people. just to go back to that -- >> you get corrections. you get corrections. >> that's exactly right. >> if josh is worried about a rapid rise in rates, fair enough. that's a good point. you'll get corrections. then you come back into the market. josh, that's the way i see it. now i'm not -- again, we have tax increases and we've got obama care regulations and who knows what we've got, shutdowns coming and debt ceiling s, so im not convinced all will be well. i do like your analysis. i don't think the syria thing will matter unless oil goes higher. profits, the mother's milk of stocks, and interest rates, josh. right now both seem to be doing pretty well. >> so let me share with you what i believe to be the most bullish underpinning to the current market environment. the simple fact is this, every time -- and so we're in a correction right now and stocks
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don't necessarily have to correct through price only. sometimes they correct through time. we hit a near term peak in the market on august 2nd. we're still in that same correction but it's largely not damaged to prices. it's more of a time correction. so far. here's the key though, every time we have a down couple of days, you get that aaii survey of investors. they imimmediately shift to bears, immediately. there is still no conviction. it's very, very, very much reminiscent of the early '80s which were not the days of wine and roses. it took people a long time to get comfortable with the fact that the market was ready for new levels. that's exactly what we're seeing now. i think that that more than anything else augers well for stocks to continue. the other thing i'll mention quickly, larry, look, if you run money for a living as we do, if you allocate assets for people, what happens? you get a headline on syria. you get a negative print on a jobs number. you sell. however much you want to sell of your equity portfolio. a day passes, two days pass,
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three days pass, you look around, what am i doing? you buy something else. this has happened for 18 months. show me the evidence this will change. >> it's continued for five years. jack, i'll give you the last word. most of the great bull markets in stocks, including the '80s, including the '90s, including parts of the 2000s even though we had an iraq war that went awry, the fact is earnings kept rising and stocks kept rising to levels that nobody dreamed possible and people got a lot wealthier. we're due, we're due, jack, for a long-term bull market. we went 10, 12 years without one. we're overdue, jack. i'll give you the last word. >> larry, i have a he been saying that for the last few years. in fact, we've been looking at this expansion in the multiple. we've been looking at corporate america as lean and mean as it is. josh is absolutely right. this is a bull market break. >> i like the guy, larry.
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>> but what we need to do is understand that it always looks the worst on the bottom. unfortunately we haven't seen the worst yet. wait until that happens. wait until there's blood out there. keep the powder dry and when you have protection, roll it down and monetize it. >> josh brown and jack, thank you gentlemen. i appreciate it, very, very much. up next, is it simply a case of sour grapes? standard & poor's claims that the government is targeting it unfairly as retaliation for downgrading the u.s. back in 2011. we're going to explain when "the kudlow report" comes right back. [ male announcer ] this is the age of knowing what you're made of.
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strong car sales. actually 16.1 million in annual rate is one of the big reasons why stocks rallied today. courtney reagan has all of those details for us. >> consumers may not be buying clothes. the retail reports were pretty disappointing last month, but they sure are buying cars. sales for u.s. cars hit a six-year high. it's more than 60 million vehicles. nearly all of the automakers beating bullish sales expectations with double digit sales across the board. the average transaction price in fact topping $31,000. lease payments are said to be spurring demand for new cars. if we break it down and look at the best players, the asian automakers had the best sales. honda and niece is a and toyota.
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asian automakers selling 47.8% of all vehicles sold in the u.s. more than the big three, but the big three, ford, g.m., chrysler sold 44.1% of vehicles in the u.s. a pretty strong number. general motors u.s. auto sales topped 15.1%. its strongest performance. ford motors and general motors had increases up 12%. that's the best in seven years. chrysler set august sales records. ford also increasing production by 7% in the fourth quarter. the automaker will be producing 785,000 vehicles in north america. that's the highest level since malawi has been ceo. stronger car sales, that's part of the reason for the economic boom or modest pace, to use their words that we saw this summer. >> right. let's get back to the fed in a second. courtney's going to stay with
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me. i need help on this one. look, strong car sales combined with an upbeat outbook from the fed's beige book was out today point to a lot of strength in the economy, but the fed's not going to slow their bond sales. that's the catch. i want to talk about all of this. we're bringing in john rutledge, chief investment strategist and joe. gentlemen, where is all of this money coming from that courtney was talking about these car sales? >> your income is understated. >> part-time jobs, lower hours worked, wages, i don't see it. what's going on with this? >> the employment numbers as you know are notoriously volatile. they're almost always understated. we've seen that time and time again in business cycle after business cycle. the hard data like vehicle sales tell us that there's a lot of pent-up demand and there's actually good income out there.
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people have jobs because you wouldn't buy a car if you didn't have a job to go to. >> john rutledge, whattest yo's take on this? you wouldn't buy a car if you didn't have a job to go to. i believe the job numbers are not fabulous and the income numbers are not fabulous. >> you wouldn't buy a job if you couldn't get a loan either, and what's happening is that the lending is becoming easier as we go along. both business loans and consumer loans are loosening up. that's what happens when you increase bank reserves by 2,300%. yo >> you're saying it's easy money, cheap money? >> the money is breaking through the banks. they're beginning to let it go. >> joe, do you agree with that? >> john is right. they show tremendous easing of lending standards, however, the vast bulk of the excess reserves are sitting on the fed's balance sheet and they're not being
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lent. however, as the balance sheets improve, banks will lend. that will provide monetary fuel and inflation. that's still a few years away. >> few years away. i'm going to go to courtney on this story. what are you hearing in your reporting, a lot of optimism. fair enough. the ism number yesterday. i don't want to be the grinch here, but last month we had a good ism number and a very mediocre jobs number and we had part-time jobs with low income. i'm not 100%. is everybody euphoric that you talked to today? >> i don't really think so. i don't think it's euphoria. i do agree with the point of the pent-up demand. the average car is about 11 years old. i think over time as you hold back buying new cars eventually you have to break down and buy the new car before the car breaks down. consumers are very concerned about their spending. they're very, very value conscious. they'll spend their money where
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they need to and have to. in other places they'll pull back. we heard today that p and g is launching this new mid tier laundry deterge gernt becaunt t losing some people to the higher priced tide. >> i'm going to buy that. what's it called? >> it's not available yesterday. it's called clean and fresh. >> every once in a while i do my own laundry. good to know that. >> i'm glad to know that. who doesn't like clean laundry. >> while i'm not taking naps i do laundry. john roberts, should the fed slow down the bond purchases? september 17th, we'll be in the middle of a syrian bombing campaign. how's the fed going to take action? they're going to have to wait, aren't they? >> that question requires you to get inside the fed's head. we know how they think, they think consensus. they are not going to slow down purchases while there's any fear out on the street and i don't think they're going to slow them down either. whether they're buying or selling doesn't make a bit of
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difference for the interest rate. we have $240 trillion of assets. whether people want them, that's the issue. but it does build up this huge time bomb. the fed's got $3 trillion of assets on their bookins that th will eventually have to sell. >> i want to weigh in on this. the fed is going to taper in september. >> even though we may be in a bombing campaign? >> yes. they tightened when we had hurricane katrina. they aren't going to worry about geo politics. they'll tighten on the fact that they dominate the market. there are a lot of financial stability risks. they do not want to keep purchasing at the rate they are. even if the numbers are terrible, they will still do something. they will still reduce the amount of purchases. >> you don't think they're going to wait? >> no. no. >> for the bombing campaign? >> no. >> you don't think they'll wait for an intermediary action? >> no. >> or wait until the next meeting? >> no. >> are you sure about that, joe? >> yes.
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>> look at the -- >> look, this isn't back in '03 when we were going into iraq signing a major ground defensive, major war where the fed didn't have any view of the outlook. they were so uncertain. they've been laying the ground work for tapering for a long time. they think the financial risks are high if they continue to do this. they told us they will not sell any of these assets which at some point they have to stop buying. if i let this balance sheet naturally mature. >> wait a minute. wait a minute. this argument that somehow allowing these assets to mature makes this problem go away is absolutely wrong. >> i'm not saying that. maturing portfolio is the same as an open market -- >> one at a time. one at a time. joe. joe. hang on. let john make his point. go ahead, john. >> no, the point is that if they shrink their balance sheet, whether it's by long assets that mature or by selling them, it has exactly the same effect on monetary policy. >> no, it doesn't, john.
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>> the end of the tapering isn't the issue, it's the sale that follows it. >> john, bernanke told us, the whole committee said they're not going to sell any assets. if they sell they can sell 15 or 16. if these things mature it will take them 10 to 15 years to get out of the position. >> i'm not interested what's coming out of bernanke's mouth, i'm interested in what's actually going to happen. the moment the banks return to normal and begin to loan out these reserves, the fed is going to start selling the assets or allowing monetary aggregates and the price levels to go up. >> they won't be selling these assets. trust me on that. there's two things you can never say never on. that's one of them. >> it's a great debate. we'll see how strong the economy is on friday. that's jobs day. we'll see come september 17th, 18th whether the fed wants to take any action in the middle of a bombing war. john rutledge, thank you very much. joe, thank you very much. courtney reagan, thank you very much. folks, be sure to tune in tomorrow night. i'm going to be joined
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exclusively by ed lazear. we'll weigh in on all of this and more. up next, courtney will come back with the latest headlines coming into the cnbc newsroom right after the break. please don't go away. >> announcer: news alert is sponsored by expedia. hero: (laughs) and i just go? this is for real right? this is for real? i always said one day i'd go to china, just never thought it'd be today. anncr: we're giving away a trip every day. download the expedia app and your next trip could be on us. expedia, find yours. it's been that way since the day you met. but your erectile dysfunction - it could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph
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samsung today unveiling a product that's being called the
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smart watch. cnbc's courtney reagan is here back to explain it to us. samsung smart watch. >> yeah. so samsung is calling it the galaxy gear watch. it's basically a smartphone for your wrist. it's a watch that can receive phone calls, it takes pictures, runs apps. it has a touchscreen. it's designed to hook up to your samsung smartphone. it will be a line of wearable smart products. s&p believes the government is retaliating against it for taking away the perfect aaa rating. the s&p says it is the only rating agency the government is suing over the 2008 financial crash because it's the only one that downgraded america's status. do you think that's true? >> yes, i actually do. maybe i shouldn't but, yes, i do. >> you do? >> i think this is the most political justice department and s.e.c. in the history of -- i'm not absolving the other credit raters, i'm not, i'm just
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saying, yeah, i think they're going at s&p. thank you, courtney. up next, call it the tower of zs. proof that a little shut eye could actually make you healthy, wealthy, and wise. we're going to explain when "the kudlow report" comes right back. building animatronics
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a new piece in the wall street journal is proving what i already know, naps are good for you, all right? but it's the length of the nap and the time of day. that can be a crucial difference. let's bring in our sleep expert, dr. sarah medrick. and cnbc's own courtney reagan is napping with me right here on the set. all right. sarah, thank you for helping us out. what's the best time of day to take this nap? >> it depends on when you wake up. if you're somebody who wakes up between 6 and 8:00, probably between 1:00 and 3:00. >> check on that. i'm there. 1:00 to 2:00, 1:00 to 3:00, that's me. what's the right length of time
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for the nap? this is a crucial question. >> right. it depends on what you want. within that 1:00 to 3:00 period you can say the first half hour of sleep is going to be good for alertness, motor performance, pushing that reset button. if you sleep for longer than a half an hour, up to 60 minutes, you'll get into the slow rate sleep which is a deep, very restorative sleep, but it's also good for learning things, processing memory. the problem with that is it's very easy to get into sleep inertia. when you wake up you feel very groggy and you can't process the world like when we wake up. that's one of the issues. >> for an old kbguy like me, i need a memory refreshment. >> better the memory if you sleep longer. the best thing, 20 minutes or sleep beyond 60 minutes up to, say, 65, 70, 90 minutes because then you're actually getting what's called rem sleep, that's good for creativity, heightening
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of perceptual systems, increase your visual auditory processing. a 90-minute nap would be the best. >> whoa. >> i know. this is a business show. everybody is thinking about the bottom line. hard to figure out. i would start with a 20-minute nap. >> courtney what about the 10 to 20 power nap, can you do that? >> i don't think i can do that. i need 10 to 20 minutes to calm down my brain to sleep. >> 60 to 90 minute nap. >> that is luxurious. i'd nap for four hours. if you're tired, you should sleep. i'm not a doctor, i don't know. >> every now and then i like the 10 to 20-minute power nap. i actually can -- if i go out, if i'm out i wake up and i really feel sharp so that's different than this, you know, 60 minute or 90 minute experience. why is that? why is there such a gap between the two? >> it's quite amazing. if you look at people who are napping one to two minutes, you get into stage one sleep. that doesn't do anything. what you need is stage two
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sleep. that's within the 20-minute period. it's hard to see exactly what's going on, but somehow the change in our metabolism, the change in our heart rate, the change in our blood flow, everything that happens when we go to sleep, somehow it resets the system. there's a lot of electrical activity that can only happen during sleep and that happens in the brain and you need that period of sleep to sort of recharge yourself. >> bottom line. bottom line, naps are good. that's what i hear you saying. i know there's different times, but naps are good. nothing to be ashamed of. here's something in the article that i did not understand. it says that you can drink coffee before the nap. now i don't get that. i thought coffee keeps you up. >> well, i don't necessarily recommend that, actually, because caffeine later in the day you'll exacerbate any kind of sleep problems. there is this idea that if you want to sleep and wake up and feel really alert, coffee takes about 20 minutes to really get into the blood system and turn
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on. if you can get to sleep really quickly, right after you drink a little bit of caffeine, then the caffeine will wake you up and you'll be alert. i think there are cultures that practice this. >> i don't believe that. >> i would say practice napping. practice becoming efficient, really good nappers. 10, 15 minutes a day -- >> yeah. >> -- that's all you need. >> yeah. >> i think you'll find the same benefits. >> maybe 30 for me if there's time. thank you. we appreciate it. courtney reagan, did you say 60 to 9 the 0 minutes? >> oh, yes. you have to bring the sleep pods here. >> we'll all practice napping like the doctor suggests. up next, why is president obama blaming congress and even the rest of the world for a red line stand on the use of chemical weapons in syria in ? w now he's boxed into a policy that he himself created. we'll be right back.
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finally tonight, president obama's backing away from his now infamous red line comment meant to warn syria about the use of chemical weapons. listen to what he said earlier today. >> i didn't set a red line, the world set a red line. the world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war. >> all right. but was president obama really talking about the world when he said this last year?
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>> a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons being moved around and being utilized. that would change my calculus. that would change my equation. >> well, i sure don't get it. anyway, we've got two national view editors here to talk about this. gentlemen, thank you. we may or may not get terry to represent the left of center side. we'll see if we can hook her in or not. robert, let me begin with you. why does president obama think he has to go into this? it's very clear that he talked about a red line. it's very clear that he let chemical weapons pass last year and it's also very clear that all his hesitation and dithering has made the matter worse so why is he doing it? >> it's an interesting rhetorical strategy, larry. what he's trying to do is appeal to democrats on capitol hill. he's boxed into a corner. he's making a broad,
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international play by setting the geneva protocol which ban chemical weapons in the use of war. he's trying to cite that to get people to come to his side. >> ramesh, whether you're for this war or against this war, don't you have to tell the truth if you're president? i'm going to use the word credibility. i'm going to use it in several contexts this evening. everybody knows he said this. now he wants to blame congress for something he said a year ago when he didn't take action on a chemical warfare action by syria. in other words, none of this makes any sense, ramesh. >> i completely agree. you know, the thing that strikes me about this is one of the arguments among hawks and national security conservatives who are supporting him is that we have to make sure that his remark about the red line is a credible statement because when the president says it, he's putting the u.s. on the line. that's a commitment we have to make credible. here we have the president walking away from his own statement and we're supposed to go to war to help make it
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credible? >> this is just one of these things that undermines credibility and i am, i guess, one of these hawks. if the action was done right i could support it, unfortunately, i don't know what the action is going to be. terry, are you there? did you get hooked in? >> i'm there. thanks very much. >> pleasure to have you. >> thank you. >> you know ramesh and you know bob. give me your reaction. this is president obama, why do you suppose he's going through these mental gymnastics which are doing him no good politically or in terms of national security? why does he have to say this? >> it is an important issue. i think a year ago when he said the use of chemical weapons would be a red line for us, the word us was not insignificant. the word us represented the moral and political consensus that chemical weapons are inhumane. that consensus is represented by the republican leadership in washington. this is not a partisan issue. you have john boehner, the republican speaker of the house calling on his colleagues to support the president's call to
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action. eric cantor saying that we must act. >> they're for t okay? i'm prepared to be for it. ramesh is for it. i don't know what robert's position is. if i thought it was going to do good and we were going to wipe out the entire syrian air force and all the other movable parts to stop the army, i'd be for it. i don't know if they know -- >> as did john mccain and lindsey graham. >> they're all for it. you didn't answer the question, terry. the question is why does obama have to get out in front of full world view in stockholm and lie about his commitment for a red line to stop chemical weapons warfare? why? it's not even cognitive dissidence. it's a lie. >> it's not a lie. he said a red line for us and he was representing the country, including congress. that's one reason that he has drawn congress into this decision is he wants the --
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everybody to come together and say there are times when we stop the partisanship. there are times when the partisanship ends and we stand up for -- >> that may be true. >> the senate forch relations committee -- >> bob, i want to get you back in here. what do you make of in? >> the president is pretty nervous because he's looking at the rip count, but on the democratic side in the senate. he needs those senate democrats on his side and he needs to count on boehner and cantore to get republicans to support this. what the president is doing is going out there and making a case, a broad case for anyone who will listen in congress to try to get them to vote aye. >> ramesh, what's your position? i know you oppose the war. >> congress is skeptical, the public is opposed, the president is saying this isn't a test of my credibility, this is a test of the credibility of every person in the world except for me. i do not see -- i do not see how
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that kind of rhetoric is going to persuade people who have genuine questions, not political questions but questions about the merits of this enterprise. >> and people are -- >> i agree. >> -- digging into the merits. it's not partisan. >> i have to leave there. all i have to say is he made a huge mistake on the red line. thank you. that's it for tonight's show. i'm kudlow. i just want a little honesty and credibility and then i'll support this action myself. [ male announcer ] this store knows how to handle a saturday crowd. ♪
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a cnbc original production. [ music ] >> marijuana is the most profitable illegal narcotic. >> this is a huge business. uh, in california alone, it is the number one crop. >> and there's at least 13 gardens within a mile radius of our home. >> thirteen gardens right around your house? >> mmm-hmm. >> yes. >> wow! >> thousands of growers, millions of users, and a market in the billions. >> how much money was coming in to your marijuana smuggling operations every year? >> about 50 million. >> it's a multi-billion dollar business rife with guns, gangs, and plenty of money. i'm trish regan. join me for an unprecedented look inside america's marijuana industry.

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