good mortgages, everybody. we have a huge show on tap this morning. in the next hour alone, we'll be hearing from the ceo of at&t, randall stephenson. and the head of what is possibly the company of the moment, exxon mobil's rex tillerson. in just a couple of hours from now, these ceos we're speaking with will be face-to-face with president obama and fed chair janet yellen. we are bringing you exclusive access, yes, it's a key moment, the key time to be here. people concerned that maybe nothing is going to get done in washington over the next two years. that's not what these executives want to see happen. >> tillerson with crude where it is. i talked to him a little bit about that.

operations which will benefit certain input, but it's difficult for a lot of all these companies, even caterpillar, they all have some involvement with oil and gas, especially with all the republic sans of the domestic oil and gas industry. and then they're not that optimistic, these guys. >> they're not. it's surprising. if you look at what we hear from we talk to economist, things are better. >> with capital spending decreasing. >> that is the big concern. if you don't see more capital expenditure, you're fought going to see -- >> the regulation with randall stephenson, right over there. >> but it's the same story for four or five years where some of our viewers are tired of hearing about taxes and regulation. but these guys look at it every day. they see it.

the economy is still growing based on problems with government, based on government helping. we talked about all of that. we'll tell you about some of the morning headlines. we have three big stories to watch this morning. an important snapshot on the jobs, at the adp employment report, the economy likely adding 223,000 private jobs. eurozone business equity slumping to 16-month lows. the numbers confirming concerns about the region's economy still struggling and could put pressure on the ecb to increase stimulus measures when they meet tomorrow. and president obama is expected to announce his pick for a new defense secretary this

week. he is likely to pick aspen carter. the wall street judicial on the front page says he is known more as a technocrat. this is more continuity than change. you kick out hagel and then you choose him, it's like the same thing. >> i saw that yesterday and i thought, you have got to be kidding me. >> you thought it was jimmy carter? >> not really. but this is for you, andrew. the heartland, bob evans is the first stock to watch this morning. have you ever been to one? >> yes. >> sausage, all kinds of breakfast meats, eggs. bob evans, down on the farm? >> i'm afraid to say, no. >> it was a mixed quarter for bob evans. earning he beat the street. revenue, posting flat.

same-store sales. it's hard to, as you're flying over all those states, it's hard to stop in. >> that's something for your bucket list, andrew. >> as you're flying over, it doesn't really matter much, anyway. >> which ones are those? >> microchip technology says it's bookings and billings have improved since the company's last earnings report. the semi conductor company is offering a bit more optimistic guidance for the current quarter. and puma biotechnology announcing it will postpone its cancer drug until 2016. that is putting pressure on the stock. down almost 42 points, although it is a $200 stock, but that's almost a 20% decline. >> 18%, yeah. that's a big number. let's get a check on the markets this morning. yesterday was a strong day for the markets. the dow closing at a record. there are red arrows this morning, but these are modest

declines. s&p down by less than half a point. the nasdaq down by less than a third of a point. yesterday was a record close for the dow. it was the best day for the dow since november 20 05. that is the best numbers in more than a month. you'll see at least right now, things are relatively flat for germany, for france and for the ftse. in asia overnight, you can see that things were mixed. the hang seng down by about 1 %. you did see gains of the nikkei of about 0.3% and the shanghai xot composite was up 0.6%. oil prices, this was the big story. all the ground oil made, it gave back yesterday. 67.25 is where oil stands right now. wti. take a look at what's been happening in the bond market.

the ten-year note looks at this point like it is yielding 2.96%. the dollar is up against the euro. down against the pound. and if you check out was been happening with gold prices this morning, you'll see right now gold prices are slightly higher. 1,200 an ounce, sitting just above that line. >> it's called the round table and there must be a king arthur for any round table. and we are joined now ahead of today's ceo summit. i'm going to tell you first what happened here. the round table pulled the ceos that are members in one of the most interesting headlines, 40% do plan to hire more workers. that is up from 34% in the third quarter. but there are some worries. as you can see right there, about why the economy continues to grow below its potential.

and a lot of it is regulation and a lot of it is taxes. kidnapping arthur joins us now. the head of the -- you walk around here and i watch people, someone is holding your coat behind you. >> there is nobody bowing to me. i don't think anybody even listens to me. >> we'll get this jobs number from adp. one of the reasons that the fed exited pretty easily and one of the reasons we're talking about maybe rates going up in june next year is because there's a perception, at least an optimism that we're going to hit 3% on gdp and things have gone into a higher gear given that we've been above 2000 on all these jobs numbers. your members polled sans 2.4% flat last year. that's an outlier. that is worrisome if we think we're going to start growing quicker. >> who knows if that is accurate or not. last year at this same time, the

ceos were polled. and the ceos said 2.2%. this year, it's going to come in pretty close to 2 ma.2%. as we look into the future, all of us as ceos tend to be conservative. we are looking at something that's about 2.4%, 2.5%, let's call it just for rounding. and look, that is good relative to the rest of the world. i think that's about as good as you're going to see around the rest of the world. but i think what the ceos are saying is let's not do high fives. we're of a mind-set this could be four, this could be a 4% growth economy. if just a few fundamental things are done in terms of tax reform and in terms of regulation and how we think about regulating business. so, you know, i think we're all apprehensive to do a high five and is declare victory when so much more is possible. >> you've mentioned a lot of these concerns to him before. the business round table has.

how many times? did you expect any different reception to -- from what you tell them today? >> this will be the fourth time the president has joined us. he will be joining us today. and actually, the president, i expect the president will outline an agenda that doesn't look too dissimilar from what we established as priorities if you want to get this growth rate moving up. we hope that he makes it a priority. we met with both speaker boehner and leader mcconnell yesterday to clue us in about their interest in doing tax reform. we are the highest tax rate in the oecd countries. and if we want to move it further, we have to change the tax code. there's general agreement this needs to be done. it will be interesting to see if something can happen here. >> the white house just scuttled

the deal that reid was working on with the house to try and get a few things done. do you think that was done with the intention of hoping for a broader reform next year? >> that was an extender package. in january of this year, a lot of tax provisions expired. so people were hoping you could get a broader deal done in the lame duck session. this is about what you would expect in a lame duck session. rarely do you see much get done. >> that was just a housekeeping deal. that want even trying -- >> it keep taxes from going up. >> why do ceos think capital spending will decline this year? you guys are kind of getting on everybody's nerves at this point. we would like to say ceos should just play along, but if you

don't have the demand, it doesn't make sense for shareholders. that it is what it is. when you guys say 2.4 or 2.2, economists have a lot of numbers, but you guys have your hands on the knobs of what does end up being 2.4% or 2.3%. >> in this survey, what would cause you to invest more? it was no surprise, the first was taxes, tax reform. and, look, when we talk about investing more, you invest more for one reason. and the whole agenda is to drive economic growth. what are the policies that will drive economic growth? middle class job creation, innovation. tax reform continues to come at the top of everybody's list.

we're moving in a direction where the united states has a very uncompetitive tax structure. if we have not that capital being invested in the u.s., we need to fix the tax code. the second is regulation. the cost of regulation is a big concern with people. we're seeing a lot of uncertainty. when you have uncertainty in an environment where you're investing billions of dollars of capital, that can recuse -- >> i'm going to recuse myself because you're looking at possibly new regulation and the president will be here today. net knew at that time, i don't think we've talked to you since then. that could be some totally new regulation. it's dated 1932 or something. >> you're overstating. it was 1934. >>. >> 1934. andrew, this is something we need desperately to keep you corporate profit mongers from ruining the internet.

have i got this right? >> no, no. >> listen, i want him to invest and he's not going to until -- >> one thing on the tax issue. between taxes and regulation for at&t right now, do you flip those issues in terms of your decision to make additional capital spend temperatures? because of what the s.e.c. said and the debate, i assume you pulled back on those? >> yeah. do we know what the rules are? it's a pause. these are multibillion dollar investments. >> it's the president telling the s.e.c. what to do. >> this. >> here is the internet, right? there are some concerns people have about how the internet will

be treated in the future, you know? is there going be blocking inspect paid prioritization. and the president articulated that we need to guard against these things. we all got that. what has created the noise, the president said to joe's point, he wants to put the internet into regulations that were written in 1934. these regulations were written for the black rotary dial telephone. at&t, the monopoly. we're going to take this dynamic echo system and shove it into this regime. this regime says we're going to formulate prices. these services will now be subject to taxes they're not normally subject to. this will increase the average internet bill for a family by $19 a month.

we have said our objective is to increase penetration. increasing the price of it is not exactly a formula for increasing penetration. >> no, $19 is straight on taxes? >> taxes and universal service fees and so forth. >> i wanted to inspire innovation so the next time an amc comes along with joe's favorite "walking dead" and is wants to go over the top of it, that that's not going to buffer because they're a new guy on the street and they can't afford to pay some extra fast speed where the other -- where netflix or somebody can. how do you balance that?

>> i do record -- >> what you just identified or articulated you desire is what we have today. so just recognize, that's where we are today. now, there are people who are concerned there might be bad behavior if there aren't rules around it. we got that. let's not take a 1934 system and shove it into this. >> andrew, you have to get into your rant about it's not a free market to be made right now -- >> there's an argument to be made that it's not a true, free market in that there are franchises in each municipality. if i decide i want to start a cable company or i want to start a telephone company and build one directly into somebody's home, not so clear i can do that. >> like somebody like google if they want to do that in kansas

city or austin. >> in some municipalities they can. in other blass they're told to talk to the hand. >> the efforts, in part, look at what's going on in the uk or other places, where there's faster service and it's cheaper. why is that. >> europe, i've been to europe. i've it's mobile. europe is not where the united states is today. the it's in terms of capital investment going into broadband is unparalleled in the world. now, you can see japan has better bandwidth. you're talking about a company the size of montana. in fact, we have invested at&t

over the last five years at record levels. i do not believe there's another company that's invested in the level that we have in the united states of america. >> you've been the top company. my concern is when you say this is going to put a pause on things, we could be looking at a situation that takes years to resolve these years. does that mean over the next several years, you'll be ratcheting down significantly in terms of cap ex. >> we find a way to give the fcc and the policymakers the comfort against the kind of potential behaviors andrew has identified. we'll all feel better about investing. where we are right now is we made some commitments in the directv deal for deployed fiber. we're going to live up to those commitments. but anything beyond that, we are on a pure pause mode so we understand how these gets

flushed out. you need some type of compromise with the fcc. at left it's with the fcc which is not -- the administration can't specifically dictate. if it was just with the administration, i would say you -- >> we're very open and collaborative. we've been working -- >> do you think le land is urchbtd pressure from the president? >> i think the president has been very straightforward about what his expectations are. i do believe that wheeler will be practical in terms of how we do this without years of litigation. >> randall, thank you for having us today. we appreciate that. >> i appreciate you guys joining us. we enjoy having you here. >> thank you. good seeing you. when we come back this morning, a man whose company is

mission critical in the communications world. greg brown sounds off on everything from immigration to tax inversion. stick around. "squawk box" will be right back.

ceos are calling on congress and the white house to work together. greg brown, the chairman of

solutions, he's the chair of the business round table's immigration committee. good morning. >> good morning, andrew. >> to help us with this, the immigration policy gets announced. you come out with a statement, you are the head of the group. are you -- i couldn't really tell from reading your statement, are you happy about what's happened or not? >> look, at the end of the day, things that keep the discussion we are happy about. the executive action, yes, it's controversial. yes, it makes things a little harder. but if, andrew, it serves as a catalyst to continue these conversations around immigration reform, i'm happy. now in the statement as you may have seen, i acknowledged and gave credit to the president that he remains committed to this. it's not without controversy. i think it stays at the forefront of the conversation.

the president remaineds steadfast this is important. >> they support some form of immigration reform. yet when you think about what's happened politically here in washington, so much money has moved towards republicans as opposed to democrats which are in large part against some of these policies. >> i wouldn't say it that way. i'd say the debate is more around the how than the what. the business round table has been consistent that we want comprehensive or common sense reform. what does that mean? order security, interior enforceme enforcement, ee verify. and legal united statesing all

that goes with that. we want reform that's broad based. we've been consistent about that. the senate addressed it. the house didn't say we're against that. they said we think reform shouldn't be a 1200 page bill. it should be more surgical in individual pieces of legislation. that's fine. we don't care about the how. we care about the what. >> greg, you said you're glad the president has remained true to this and is keeping the issue in the forefront. do you think executive action makes it easier to get more legislation or more difficult? >>. >> my personal opinion, i believe the prospects for 2015 are pretty good. it's a tough situation, but at the end of the day, he's saying he wants something done. i think the republicans also want to do something. by the way, as you know, reform

increases gdp 4 had.8% over 20 years. it's a 1.2 trillion dollar -- it makes economic sense, job sense. it improves the competitiveness of the business community in our country. it's one of the few -- that you'll see the business community as united as we are. >> you had a comment recently, there was a statement that went out, and then you supported abbott in that shire deal on inversion saying it is not unpatriotic to leave the country to speak to that. >> it was a q & a in chicago. inference was ceos are big, bad people that are purposely deploying offshore to stay jobs away from america. i just said to the interviewer, ceos are following the law. so to characterize us as unpatriotic is a bit interesting to me, given the fact that we're complying with the law.

we've been very specific about randall talked about it before, comprehensive tax reform. the last tax reform was '86. we have the highest tax rate in the world. so we global -- capital is global. so we deploy it where it makes sense. so i just found it a bit ironic to characterize the ceo community that way. it was all a good exchange. >> so motorola conversions is not considering. >> no, not at all. >> we will have you back. there's a lot we didn't get to. >> thanks. coming up, the biggest market, we've been watching energy prices. it's a great time to talk to the head of the nation's biggest oil player. exxon mobil's rex tillerson is here. he will be our special guest when "squawk box" returns, live from the business round table.

welcome back, everybody. take a look at what's happening with energy prices. they just keep falling. today, prices well below $68 a barrel. $67.20 for wti. rick is the chairman of exxon mobil. he is the chair of the business round table, education and workforce committee. rex, thank you so much for being here today. >> my pleasure, becky. >> so we watch wti just about every day. it's been a stunning decline, down about 35% from june. what does it mean for exxon mobil? >> we've been through a price correction. for al a lot of our younger people, this will be the first experience to go through a price xhot commodity correction. it means a return to fundamentals for us. it's important about watching your cash, watching your investment decisions, being very disciplined about everything and

looking for opportunities that may present themselves in an environment like this. >> it's interesting that you called this a correction, returning to correct prices. you don't see this as something where we are looking at deflated prices over a long period. you think prices are too inflated when they were trading up around $100 plus? >> well, if you look at the reasons for the price correction, it's been at the fundamentals supply demand. demand from this year to last year is up fairley modestly. but if you look at demand in the united states, it's flat. demand in europe is down and has been down for a koump years. japan is down. so modest demand growth of about a million barrels a day, plus or minus. in the face of supply growth driven by north america, last year or this year, we will add about 1.6 million barrels a day for new supply. from nonopec areas, that's largely the u.s. and dan da. you put it on top of $1 million

a day growth you've got capacity. at a time when opec members are by and large holding their production flat. so you fill storage up, you fill inventories up, but at some point, it has to show up in the price. >> with jim kraker last night, boone said he sees prices rising to $100 by next year. you sound more skeptical. >> i'm not any good at predicting prices. that is his business, i think, to do that. but, again, i think it's keep an eye on the fundamentals in terms of what happens with demand, there likely will be some correction. it's hard to say what that will be and when it will become material.

>> how does it affect your thinking in terms of investment? you make big investments har 5, 10, 20-year investments. overnight, there was a report out that 40% of the permits of drilling for december are down. i was a bit surprised by that. what do you see? >> well, i think in terms of investments here in north america, companies are able to adjust fairley quickly because it is the nature of itself. it is a well at a time, a rig at a time. so your ability to adjust your investment profile is -- you know, you do have some capacity to do that. for a lot of the big investments we make, these are decade long decisions. so all of the investment decisions we take have been tested across a range of pricing and it accommodates these type

of price swings. what you do is ensure that you can invest and be successful at the bottom of the cycle. >> what's the threshold? what's the bottom for you? >> we test across a range down to $40 and up to $120. that is for a number of reasons. it's as dirchly as price changes, because of fiscal regimes and government companies around the world. >> big oil has not been a big -- production in the united states. they haven't invested heavily themselves. is that because it's more expensive to get that oil out of the grouped? >> no. i think we are a big investor in the shales in the united states through our acquisition of xto additionally into the shale gas. we have been expanding our holdings. we have significant holdings in the bakken, the permian, and some in oklahoma in the bakken. it is a huge resource base.

so if you're in our business, you have to be in the big resource bases around the world. and this is one of the largest new resource plays in the world, what's happening in north america. >> certain parts of either the environmental movement or the left have indicated that exxon is the major producer of power and energy in the united states. and needs to move quickly to the next generation sources like renewables, wind, solar. and they wanted you to be a solar company now. at this point, some of those investments might not look so attractive. did you go slow with the knowledge that maybe the stone age didn't end when we ran out of stones?

>> we look at the full array of energy sources, all the renewables, all the emerging technologies. we have been in the solar business. we were one of the early movers in solar power 20 years ago. we lost a lot of money in solar at that stage. but it's not that we do not pay attention to these things. and we do evaluate their commerciallty, their effectiveness, their competitiveness. importantly, they're going to be material for the energy balance. >> the shareholders? >> and the shareholders because, obviously, that's where our obligations are, too. >> going slow might have been the prudent thing to do even though you're going to be criticized for it. >> well, i think we just look at the commercial aspects of it themselves. if there is money to be made there and we think that is a good investment and we have something we can bring, we're going to invest where we can add some capabilities, our technologies, what we have to bring to that. so we are continuing a lot of

work in areas of alternative fuels from the biofuels space. we have a lot of technology capabilities in those areas. >> given where oil has gone in terms of pricing, is that relevant? >> the keystones are an important piece of infrastructure for north america. the canadians are our best trading partners in the world. considering how the u.s. economy will benefit from this enormous energy boom we have experienced is to connect north america from canada to mexico and operate that north american system in a very integrated fashion. >> does the economic still make sense? >> the economic still makes

sense. >> i don't know if exxon was happy about it. that is a competition to your sources. >> we're one of the largest investors up there in canada. >> you just said how great it's going to be. but then look at what happens to exxon, you look at what happens to producers, look at what happens to you politically and some of the things that this could cause. who knows what putin -- can you smile and are you happy for consumers that oil is at $60 a barrel? >> well, whatever the market wants to wants to give us, we take. >> are you hedge to this? >> no, we do not hedge. we take whatever the market gives us and i think corrections like this are actually in the

industry, they refocus people on the fundamentals. all industries go through these swings where when you get to the top of stock oil, things get crazy. this happens a way of refocusing everyone. and we'll use this internally with our organization to refocus on the things that we can control, work hard on that, be very disciplined. they create our own margins through efficiencies and is better reliability of our assets. >> does it advantageous in that it washes ott the weaker affairs? >> there will always be some sorting out at the margin whys. whether we're at that point at this price point or not is hard to say. but clearly, the barriers to entry to what's happening in this particular explosion in the u.s. with the unconventionals have been particularly low. so there's been a lot of people enter the space. some are good, some are not

good. >> do you have an indication about what is going to happen in the middle east? >> clearly, this is going to have some effect. it's hard for me to predict. and it depends ow they're broadly performing. >> i know how it thinks. they're going to think this is going to cause people to dodge big cars again. it's going to delay the migration to renewables. the time when it makes more economic sense to transfer to less -- you know, to cleaner, lower emission type technology. should there be a gas tax levied now, a large one, so people don't migrate back to suvs so we

continue our conservation efforts and we use this gas tax to fix our infrastructure? it almost makes sense, doesn't it? >>. >> it is a result of. it is not providing the revenues necessary. now, whether that is done through an increased gas tax or other funding mechanisms, i think it's something that does need to be addressed. i think focusing narrowly on one element of it is probably not a good long-term solution, either. part of the reason the funding has been lower, it's because we've become much more efficient. automobiles and vehicles are much more efficient. how do you want to deal with this over the long run? >> some of these are going to be expensive for the automakers that we've just bailed out. if oil is $ 6/0 a barrel, do we need to keep the same -- that we

have, these stringent ones that are going to hurt the industry in the future? >> that is a policy question for people here in washington to deal with in terms of what are you trying too chief with that policy objective? >> if climate change is in the background, we should do it no matter what, right? >> if that's your policy -- >> it is. it will be for the next few years. this is a priority at this point. >> rex, you offered the chair of the business round table education and workforce task force, this is a huge problem facing business right now, finding qualified employees. can you describe how big of a problem it is based on what you hear from your members? >> we just conducked a survey in conjunction with change the equation. we surveyed their member companies, as well. what we found is a serious issue for their companies. today there are something north of 4 million jobs open simply because we cannot find the right skilled employees to fill those

jobs. this is symptomatic of a workforce not improving. how do we make improvements in k through 12 education? how do we improve the teacher capacity to given us better educational outcomes? how do we incentivize states to put in high standards and to put an assessment capability to test their performance against those standards and then if he skills gap level, we can't wait 12 years for the first grader to graduate and fill that, we work with a number of local community colleges to put in place curriculum that we are helping them design that will train people, high school graduates returning military veterans and others to fill the jobs we have. in the case of exxon mobil, we have an alliance with nine community colleges in the houston area to train, process operators, we're building new

petrochemical facilities down there, we're going to have to have new operators for those facilities and to replace our retiring employees, as well. we have a number of solutions to address this. the real critical issue, though, is improving the educational outcome in the k through 12 system. >> back seat as you mentioned, that's a long-term issue, something that's going to take some time. sglts going to take some time. what we have been proven to do is take those programs to scale. >> rex, thank you so much for your time today. we really appreciate your coming in and we're going to be watching this issue, too. hope you'll join us again to talk about it. >> thanks, becky. my pleasure. >>. >> about this parade. it's a stretch and -- you know, marching along. our parade of ceos is just beginning this morning. still to come, the head of manufacturing giant caterpillar, doug oberhelman will be here.

then at the top of the hour, walmart's chief executive doug mcmillan joins us. later, we're going to make a deal with blacktone's co-founder. we've got a packed agenda that you can't afford to miss, so don't.

once there was a girl who always mixed and matched. even in her laundry room. with downy unstopables for long-lasting scent. and infusions for softness. she created her own mix, match, magic. downy, wash in the wow.

caterpillar, those big earthly machines come to mind. they say that crude prices also affect this company's bottom line. this is caterpillar's chairman and ceo. how big is the company? cat's revenues last year more than the gdp of costa rica. doug's a chairman of the business round table's international engagement committee, and one of the things you stress, though, doug, and, thanks, again, for coming in here. >> you bet. great to be here. that's a nice fact. i didn't know that about costa rica. been there many times. remind myself next time. >> great line. >> yeah. great zip lines too. >> dow component three for three this morning. >> yeah. >> what i noticed is you stress a lot of the equipment you sell for transmission, and that's not going to change, is it?

>> shouldn't change too much. the vast majority of the transportation and energy business is outside. gas compression, a lot around marine, rail, and industrial engines, engines we sell to ag makers, to lift truck makers, to handling makers. so some of that gets the benefit of lower prices. oil fracking business is watching that. >> counting on it. this is the renaissance when everyone says where are the jobs coming from for the future in the united states. how can we bring manufacturing back? it's the energy story that we site for the renaissance. hopefully a manufacturer like you will benefit from lower input. >> lower energy -- let's face it, lower energy and inexpensive energy made this country what it is. if you think about it. we had the most abundant lowest source of energy supply for a hundred years, and now we have -- i would like to say we have a renaissance in manufacturing ahead of us as this comes back. think about canada, u.s., and mexico, think what we can do in terms of supplying the world its

energy. this risk premium i've had on my shoulders since college in the 70's oil embargo, it's gone. it's good if we apply it right. no federal reserve here, china, japan, could drop a stimulus package in our laps like the oil. overall, it's good, but there's going to be adjustments and transition. >> we went to college at the same time. i've been waiting -- >> i think i'm older. >> maybe a little. waiting for oil to go down. always seems -- i never liked it, 30, 40 a barrel is fair to me. >> that would be low. >> buck and a kwaufrt a gallon. >> everyone would like that, i think. >> we talked to randall about what a lot of your members feel about the current economy, and you probably have a good eidea. you're an international company. is the united states the place to be now for caterpillar? >> well, it is. i would say we are probably the

least ill patient in the world. >> nthat's a half empty way of characterizing. >> or half full. next year, we'll be healthierment right now, we are running sub 3% growth. we have a high correlation of 3% growth in job creation. simple. almost in any economy in the world. where we see 3% gdp growth, we are adding jobs. >> if you don't, we're flat. we've been flat two years in a row. two years -- next year, we'll be flight to slightly up. third year at flat. >> they don't believe government numbers when we say we have 6% unfloi unemployment? >> it's hard to say. there's no question there's statistics are what they are, but at the same time, as we said in business round tables and elsewhere, were skilled trades, difficult jobs, service technicians, hard to find qualified people. it's tough. talking about education, we have to work on that. for us, infrastructure's a key play. if you take a road, a pipeline,

a bridge, whatever it is, we have people to make equipment. that's what makes us grow. that's a big piece of how we get out of this and raise our economic growth i think. you know, look at infrastructure. you're going to hear this all day. i suspect things are after tax reform, infrastructure, immigration, two or three small pieces of this makes a difference in the next 18 months if we get it done. >> a big discussion on infrastructure on how to do it. the state should do it, the federal government? >> all of the above, all of the above. >> how does immigration play out for caterpillar? >> we have several things going on. we're like everyone else trying to compete for the best brains in the world. we want them to work for our company. we bring them in here. we educate. we give internships, co-ops. we send them home, and we have many examples of this five years later. we see the same folks across the table with us with our competitors. i'd like to keep them here. not only that, but there's a

huge hidden economy here in the country. with illegal and legal immigrants. we have to embrace our economy. we need growth. look at japan. no immigration. dropping 20 million people in the next few years, dead economy. we -- these people can help us grow the economy. big piece of what we need to do. >> we've talked about the past in the mining acquisition and, initially, it ran into head winds with the global economy, and then it was good. it was coming back. >> yeah. >> what about now? commodity prices again in australia, in, you know, the oil -- in the strong dollar, in the oil slides, seems like commodities are lower and again mining is hurt again. >> that may be, but i guess the truth about our mining business is we're so low in terms of new equipment production, we don't see how it can go much lower. with that, we have seen, and i think we've turned a corp.er in the after market. we're see trucks come back into

production. there's a lot of cannibalization by using parked trucks. we are seeing some of that. what we're waiting for, and it will happen, is simply the replacement sickle. customers run trucks and equipment longer. at some point, that has to stop. that comes back to us. that's going to be nice, not a big boom like in 2010, but it'll be good. >> we ask you more, but we have 30 seconds. you'll be back, a faithful guest, which we love. >> well, we have fun here. good to see you. >> great. >> a plash. >> thank you, doug. >> thank you. when we come back, the man running one of the most powerful companies in the world right now, doug mcmillion with his take on the economy. do you know walmart averages a profit of $1.8 million an hour? that's for every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year. we'll be right back, live from the business round table in washington, d.c. this morning.

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welcome back to a special edition of "squawk box," the ceo edition live from washington, d.c. another big hour of ceos tackling the biggest problems facing washington and wall street. >> walmart's ceo doug mcmillon on winning customers. >> joined by the chairman and ceo of blackstone as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now.

welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc, first in business worldwide. we are live in washington with the huge lineup of ceos all from the business round tables meeting in washington where they're attempting to tackle the country's biggest issues from immigration to tax reform, from health care to hiring. the ceo of walmart will be joining us on set, but first, andrew has the top stories. >> let's get you through headlines this hour. early read on jobs at 8:15 eastern time from adp's employment report showing they are expecting an added 23,000 private sector jobs last month. the beige book, assessment of the nation's economy coming at at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by banks over last

year's payment card data breach. becky? holiday shopping season is setting records for walmart, talking strategy, consumer confidence, and fepding off the competition, is doug mcmillon. this is his first -- >> i'm not the chairman, though. >> that's right. as the ceo. thank you very much for joining us today, doug. >> happy to be here. >> we hear stories about what's happening with the holiday shopping season. the nrf with amazing statistics saying based on their survey, sales were down 11%. ibm ease numbers for cyber monday sales up 8%. does that match what you see in the stores and online. >> i can't talk about results until the end of the quarter, but i can give color on themes you talked about in figures it out. there's a transformation going on. the move to e-commerce and how

stores work together, and mobile, and we knew, for example, this holiday mobile would be really important for us. it's been 70% of the orders we've taken through our digital business. >> how does that match up to a year ago? >> a dramatic increase. >> doubling? >> happening all over the world. mobile is a driving force in the country's that we operate in. today, we're in 27 countries, and it's just a global phenomena that mobile is taking over, and, for us, finding a way to bring these two things together is a tremendous opportunity, so if you fake what we did over the weekend, for example, the internet's on all the time. customers shop whenever they want. thursday morning before thanksgiving meal, you can be online checking out what the deals are and go into the store thursday night at 6:00, in our case, 8:00, and the next morning experience what we do now with the one-hour guarantee where we can have some items if they are sold out in the store, there's inventory back stream through the e-commerce business to ship

to your home. we satisfy all the demands. >> people shop at home, pick up in the store, or how can we track people who go into the store, browse around, and then go home and end up buying online? >> it's small, andrew, but it's growing quickly. you might be interested to know that 10 % of the mobile orders that we're receiving in the country are coming while someone is in the store. >> wow. >> so they are in the store. either we're out of stock or there's something they want that we don't have, they buy it then and have it delivered to the store or their house. it's still small, but it's really growing. people, i believe, and we're seeing this in the u.k., which i think is a forerunner to what happens in this country, people are very interested in picking up in store. either coming in the store or on the parking lot. we have driver-thrus in the u.k. stores. it's popular. they don't want to wait at home on an item, especially if it's a food item. it's convenient after work to swing through the parking lot

and pick it up. pick up today business in the u.s. grew this year 50%. >> wow. >> it's happening. >> it feels like it's a water shed moment. >> yes. >> this is the year, a holiday season when a retailer does not have online options is going to be falling behind. >> yeah, customers are getting almost everything. i mean, the real winner in the whole scenario is the customer. think about what's changed in retail over the last few years. they have access to an incredible assortment of goods between online and stores. they've got more transparency relative to price. they got more ways to take delivery, so, for us, we're actually excited about the opportunity to figure out how to receiver the customer in all those ways, and they will choose how they want to interact with our brand. we're there for low price and providing a broad assortment, and they can choose what the channel or the path is. i hear people all the time asking, well, how much of your

business do you want e-commerce? the lines are so blurry, it's irrelevant. the question needs to be tell us about the overall business, what do you see from the customer? that customer one dayments to pick it up, the next day, it's delivered to the house, but the next time, they want to pick it up. in the u.k. doing food delivery for 15 years, and now we have store pick up level that's strong, we do 90% of the business still in the store. customers still want to have that demand met immediately. they just want new things. it's new things that drive the growth. >> when we talk about oil prices, gas prices, the consumer, we don't usually think, wow, tiffany's going to do well, gas prices are down. because, that's, affabobviously with walmart, that's what we think about. the lower prices could help you. you can't talk results yet, but was there a discernible, in your view, impact over the past two

weeks with gas prices 12? >> i don't think there's any doubt that low fuel prices help us and have a tail wind. >> just a little bit? are there other head winds that come with lower oil prices that hurt you? you sell goose too, right? >> customers are under pressure. there's a health care bill to pay. they need to pay down debt, which is happening a little bit. there are pressures. they shift around a little bit, but no doubt, fuel prices are helping. yesterday, rex from eon says i don't have a thank you note for low oil prices. no doubt it helps. important to remember for us in the u.s., we serve the u.s. demographic. our customer base looks like the bell curve in the u.s. from the income point of view. we have a important middle and lower income customers, and 25% of the transactions are done in cash. it's that customer in particular that if it went into the gas tank, it wouldn't be spent on an item in the store. >> doug, you know, before the

segment started, there was a headline on target and data breach. how much money are you guys now spending on data security? there was an announcement on sony, the fbi put out a statement. >> it's one area in the information systems budget where i don't put much pressure on that number. our team does a great job of working every day to try to keep our data secure, but it is a daily battle, and it's difficult. attacks occur all the time. >> do you think the customer just decided to accept it? do you think it's materially -- i mean, look at target, other stores, home depot's come back. how do you think about how the customer thinks about the store in the context of a breach? >> yeah. i think it's still mattering. people are not used to it. i hope we don't get used to it. trust is the number one asset we have, whether it's how we protect their data or the prices we sell to them at, and so we're very serious about doing anything we can to build trust, especially in data security.

>> attacks come in every day, though. >> everyone lives with it, yeah. >> when you look at the health of the consumer, you mentioned already that the gasoline helped things here in the united states, but overall, how would you grade the consumer right now? how have we done since the recession in this country in particular? >> i think we are like we were. just 2 to 3% growth range number feels like it's perpetual. there's customers that are under pressure, trying to stretch it to the next paycheck. we see the pay cycle play out the first of the month demand goes up and sales are better. we're like we were last year. as i look ahead to next year, feels like more of the same. >> japan? walmart is closing stores in japan. >> sqwe are, but i'm encouraged about the business in japan. we are growing same store sales, and the teams are doing a great job. >> why close stores?

>> they are is stores that don't fit the formats. they are on an acquisition from years ago. they are too large and too many floors, and we are moving to supermarkets in japan. those are doing great. >> the bumpy stretch with pr predates you, but there's -- to me, it's a disconcerning take on what walmart does. i think of 2 million jobs, but there's a perception that the jobs at walmart are, you know, there's minimum wage discussions. there's discussions that these are not the jobs that we wanted to create because they are not high paying. there's, you know, you can't open a store within new york city because that's not the kind of retailer we want in our town. i mean, do you -- do you think about that? do you just do your -- >> our reputation matters, and we have a lot of pride, and we have a great -- >> does it bother you when you

see a mischaracterized like that? >> i think the way to think about it and the way we have been thinking about it in recent times for sure is to take the criticism and figure out what makes sense and what can we do to get better. let me talk about employment and min mim wage for a sec. how i view walmart rpgs the reality, social security a ladder. where we set that first rung matters. what the first starting rate is matters, and of the 1 preponderate 3 million soerlgs in the u.s., less than 6,000 make current federal minimum wage. within a few months, we hope to resolve that so i can tell you no one makes federal minimum wage. once in, opportunity is the issue. we promoted in the u.s. last year 140,000 people. these people are doing more than they dreamt they could do. when you are a store manager for walmart, it's a great job. around the country, people took advantage of the opportunities they couldn't have dreamed.

i took one, my first job was with trucks in a warehouse. >> you talked about the effect of walmart on the cpi over the last, 10, 15 years, allowing interest rates to be low, and the feds can be accommodative. how much, on cpi, do you think walmart contributed? >> a few percentage points according to the studies done over the year or per year. >> the consumer side, but the labor side where you hear the grousing most of the time, which i think is -- don't -- i said 2 million, that's globally. >> yeah, that's right. >> but that's 1.2 million here paying -- getting a paycheck and paying taxes on that too, right? 1.2 million jobs. >> right. we'll keep working to make it a great place to work, and as sometime goes on, truth will be known that we got great jobs, and our associates are pleased to be there and want to be there and taking advantage of an opportunity.

>> what do you think about the health care plan, the position that some business leaders have been concern about is the eeoc actually coming back and saying that you can't have health care plans, wellness plans, that hand out carrots and sticks. what do you think about the concerns? >> health care is a big issue. we have over a million covered lives in our plan, and we work really hard to make sure that we got flexible plans, affordable plans, and $2 1.90 a pay period is the plan most popular, opening price point plan. we have continued to make adjustments to make is so our associates can afford health care. we cover as a company 75% of the premiums, 60% of the total costs considering outs of pocket, so it's a big issue for us. it's a big pressure point relating to costs, and we have to constantly stay on top of it. >> what do you hope to hear from the president today visiting the business round table later this morning?

>> yeah, i think it's going to be great to hear what he thinks about tax reform, extenders, those need to be taken care of. what we're hearing is they will be extended for another year. it would be great to have a longer term view as so what happens, but let's at least get that done. bigger piece of reform to take place is important for global competition. i mean, we work against people from other countries with the advantage. it's a reality. so tax reform would be one thing. trade, some of the tpa authority, i think, is something we're supportive of. we want trade progress to be made. immigration. you know, what's the current thinking there? we heard from some members of congress yesterday, and it seems like -- >> what's the walmart position on immigration? >> we think that an appropriate plan would be good for the economy and it's just about growth and jobs, how it's done specifically is for someone in d.c. to work out. >> well, doug, we thank you very much for joining us today and

spending time with us. see you again soon. >> thanks for having me. >> appreciate. thank you so much. it's been a busy morning so far, but we have seven more, if you can believe it, ceos lined up here. up next, a deal for deal making and blackstone, and they have been putting money to work, stephen schwartzman after the break. coming up, m&a expert at 7:45, the ceo of the giant advertising group interpublic. at 8:00 a.m., larry fink. at 8:30, i can go all day, the ceo of honeywell, all that and more in just a moment.

welcome back to "squawk box" live from washington, d.c. break ups, shake ups, and blackstone is a part of the action. one of the world's largest private equity firms, 2,000 employees, and more than $28 4 million assets under management. i could argue you have more employees thinking about the companies you own. blackstone chairman, steve schwartzman. how many do you have with all the companies? >> 650,000, approximately the

12th largest company in the united states. >> unbelievable number. from a deal's perspective, tell me this, where do you think we -- if you think of deals as a barometer of confidence and where we are in the market, what inning are we in? >> probably in the 5th inning. >> fifth? >> maybe somewhere between the fourth and 5th. >> stocks have been on a tear, valuations have been on a tear. you don't think we're near the highs? >> no. what happened is the economy is starting to do much better. there's a lot of liquidity in companies. you have $2 trillion of cash, and so in the normal m&a cycle, you see companies buying similar kinds of businesses that make sense for positive synergy. that part of the cycle is going on now. >> how much of the little

interest rate environment or no interest rate environment impact that? >> that's normally whap lly wha. you saw it with the japanese coming in the 1980s, no interest rates, so no cost of buying anything so every deal was earnings secretive. we have something similar to that. the feds's approach to raising interest rates, i think, is a little overrated in terms of the impact, and i think they are going to be quite cautious. they worked since the crisis to make sure the u.s. has got positive momentum economically, and they are not going to stop that voluntarily, i don't think, and for some period of time so if there's gradual rate increase, whether it's 50 point or a hundred does not make a difference to the u.s. economy. it makes news. you'll have something to do. markets will respond on an interim basis, but

fundamentally, the economy grows through that. i don't think the fed is trying to throw us into a next recession. >> you know, it's interesting. we talked about how president obama's headed here later today to address the group. janet yellen is coming as well. who will you pay attention to? what mathers most to your business? >> good to pay attention to both. you know, i think janet yellen does a terrific job. she was at the right hand of ben b bernanke, through the crisis, best record at the fed in terms of predictability of the economy, so she's always good to talk with and learn from, and the president, of course, is the president has that role, helps control what we end up doing or not, so it's useful to hear what he has to say. >> steve, there's a report that suggests you may be trying to put together a permanent capital base. i don't know if you saw the report. >> no, i didn't see it. >> this is november 20th saying

that blackstone chases buffet, but maintains traditional strategy. do you plan on putting together a core base of capital? >> well, in the private equity area, there's an opportunity for institutions to buy companies at lower rates of return than we can deliver with our private equity funds, but with much longer holds. so what institutions need in the one hand, everyone likes high returns, which is what we deliver, but long term, some institutions would prefer a lower rate of return. still quite high, but hold it for 10 to 20 years, so that they have no money not at work at that high rate, so it's a different approach, not replacing the normal private business. >> what about calpers getting out of the hedge funds space? they're not getting out of private equity?

>> well, i think their returns were not satisfactory for their needs. as a result, they decided to exit that asset class, and, you know, they were running their own program. they run their own program very successfully in liquid securities as opposed to hedge funds, and so this was just an adjustment for them. i think it's a little over blown. you know, in terms of people looking at that. >> do you imagine it's a trend? do you hear from funds looking at where they're allocating assets saying -- question is whether they -- calpers was just late, right? late, wrong, and whether everybody else isn't? >> well, calpers aside, companies use hedge funds as downside protection in markets. it's not a huge part of their allocation at all, but, you know, we're actually the largest

manager of hedge funds money that comes from institutions. there's still a very active interest in that area. >> all right. i was going to ask about real estate and where real estate is right now. john gray runs a real estate maybe mewants to buy publicly traded reits. said that in a limited partner meeting of things that could be happening over the next year or two if the fed raises rates, if reits go down as a result of that. would be an interesting thing to do. we've done that in the past. it's really part of the cycle. real estate's been terrific asset class, really remarkable. we just sold a company yesterday for over $8 billion that we assembled in a two and a half year period with 14 acquisitions, and, you know, the rates of return on that are extremely high, and we invested

a billion-seven and got out 2.2 billion, and we built the second largest warehouse company in the united states. there's a lot of opportunity in real estate in the united states, but particularly in europe where things are growing slowly, and people are very pessimistic, and so the yields that you can buy and then you borrow on top of it, you can create very, very good returns in a no-growth environment. >> back at home, single family, multifamily? >> well, multifamily, interestingly, is where all the cranes are, and it's always a worry when you see a lot of cranes if you're a real estate investor because supply goes up. we're the largest owner of single family homes in the united states, about 50,000 of them, about 9.5 billion dollars worth, and that area has done

well, certainly as an investment. the house building cycle is a little below where it should be because the regulatory environment made it difficult for people to get mortgages. >> right. >> what's the synergy of all the single family homes? that's maintaining single families homes has been a tough job, and you put a lot of them together with the thesis that somehow you can bring down the costs of maintaining those homes. does that work the way you wanted? >> i don't think that's the thesis. >> no? okay. >> the thesis is if you buy at the right time, you have appreciation, the market was done 40% from the top, and we kpnlted appreciation. we wanted to fix up those homes to make sure they are great for people to be in them. that employees a lot of people. we set up a monitoring group to make sure that if there's a problem, it's fixed. >> when do you exit that investment? >> we'll exit it at some point over the next few years. there's a lot of ways to exit.

you can create a reit. you can take it public. you can sell individual houses. you can sell them all together. you can sell them in geographic pieces. there's a lot of ways to realize on that, but what's important is that we've created a place for other people to live in that's high quality places, and, you know, we charge them rent, and they get to be in excellent school districts, so it's a win-win for the people involved in this, for our investors who are pension funds. we manage money for half the pensioneers in the country, so they benefit from this. >> wow. >> thank you for joining us. >> good to see everybody. >> absolutely. when we come back this morning, considering buying a streaming device this winter? new survey data shows a shakeup in popularity among the top three brands, that story right after this. then the ceo of ad giant

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welcome back, everyone. live from the business round table meeting in washington, d.c. today. among the stories this morning, teen retailer ab com abercrombie & fitch, sales dropped by 10%, you see the stock is down today. >> and the battle of the streaming content to the living room is heating up according to the survey. google's chrome cast took over apple tv. according those who purchased a streaming device, croakcast was second and apple tv was third with 17%. fire tv stick was fourth with 10 % of the those are the little ubs devices you stick in your tv. that's the google chromecast

thing. the apple tv are the boxes. >> yeah. >> interesting. >> it's official, there can only be one kim jong un. the people have been forbid p to use the leader's name. in 2011, his father ordered citizens with the same name as his son to get new names. i don't know what it means. >> don't they know imitation is the highest form of flattery? >> nothing i read about -- i don't expect to understand what goes on there, and i just read what it says. there is a movie -- >> yeah. >> "the interview." >> with seth rogan and the green goblin. what's his name? hand sm. james dean type character. there's an actor portraying kim in that movie -- >> a little more effective than the actual guy. >> well, that's in the eye of

the beholder, i guess, becky. >> watch yourself. check your e-mail now. i'm not going to north korea soon. >> apparently, they are coming here with all the hacking. >> sony? >> yeah. >> anyway. >> did they hack the movie? >> that was part of the -- >> that was part of the -- >> that's what caused them to hack the other one. by the way, they just started shipping the salaries, did you see that? of all the people at sony and hollywood. they made it public. well, anyway, the parade of ceos continues here in washington. coming up next, talking deal making, m&a is back in a big way, and ken moelis the most recognized adviser behind wall street's big deals. he's joining us right after the break. impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 70% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average.

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welcome back to "squawk box." we have this morning's top stories. the adp report at 8:30 eastern time gifs a forecast of the economy, and they say they added 23,000 private sector jobs last month. on the corporate prompt,

activist investor getting a seat on the board of new york mellon saying they own 3 % of the company in terms of the shares outstanding. if you watch the futures at this hour, things are relatively flat, modest declines this morning, but that's turned around. still looking at a flat open this morning after a strong day of the markets yesterday with the dow setting a new high. >> as we discussed all morning, the m&a market is back, ballooning to over $1 trillion, highest year to date since 2008. the question is, is the market picking up steam or in for a slow down? with us at the business round stable is an expert on this topic, ken moelis, founder of moelis and company, you advised on 1 trillion since 2007, is that true? trillion? seven years? >> dollars. >> in dollars. a few more yen. >> becky mentioned it's on the

front page of "the wall street journal," getting a seat on the board, and how much do you think the m&a activity is driven by activists getting on the boards and forcing or at least pushing ceos to explore breaking up or splitting up or selling off piases of the business? >> well, it's the same forces, andrew. you got -- there's a low growth environment, and i think you also have -- people talk about interest rates staying lower longer than anybody expected, so you know, allocations are an issue for people that they have not thought about. how do you deal in an environment where interest rates stay low for a long period of time? there's activists triggering people to think about that. this is really an m&a boom. i think it's driven by trying to take costs out from the cost of goods sold line down to the tax line which are just different ways of taking costs out of the income statement. >> we often talk about m&a in

the contest of the buyer. you have a view about the seller. when you're a seller, you have to either -- you have no confidence in your business at that point, or prices 10 high i take it? what's the thought process? >> i hear morning after morning watching you guys talking about the confidence and the buyers driving m&a. that's an interesting point that you need a seller in the transactions too. no one talks about the second half of the transaction. i believe we've buyers. from the moment the crisis ended -- for a while, people were in the cellars with guns and canned foods, but the minute the crisis was over, buyers asked for anything to buy. there was plans to buy quality assets at deep discounts. >> those sellers were stupid. now the ones selling now are probably smarter. it signals a top. you're right, there's buyers and sellers. >> there were no sellers back then. sorry, but the interesting part there were not a lot of sellers. sure, there's going to be someone who has to sell for some

reason. >> lucky they didn't, right? equity holders too. >> today there's people waking up, saying, okay, well, in 9, 10, 11, 12, they are half of what they were in 2007. now they are 50% higher. >> makes you worry if the selling -- people with comfortable selling, isn't that not necessarily a great forecast for the next couple years of m&a? >> no. i think it actually -- bus there's always buyers. interesting. take a quality asset and you offer it for sale, quality, there's always a buyer. buyers are in for different reasons, long term, 20, 30, all different strategic reasons. talk about housing, in the business of timing cycles. most strategics are not, but in the business of putting together an effective, permanent business for 20, 30 years. those people might sell for other reasons. >> steve did okay. remember selling at the top,

always making out on that deal, right? that was not a great -- >> no one knows what the top is exactly. >> sam seems to. >> where do you think we are? steve mentioned we were in the fourth or fifth inning? >> earlier. i think you're seeing quality businesses willing to accept the price, and there's people also, boards and ceos recognize that no matter how many times they grow at 4 %, which has been every year, we end up growing at 2 or 2.are 5. that's a hundred percent difference in the growth rate. you have people saying, i don't think we'll make the numbers without cost synergies. if we want the bottom line, we need to make synergy. >> what tells you we're in the seventh inning stretch? what are the signs? >> i think when capital becomes hard to obtain.

so quality businesses will get -- one of the reasons people, boards, ceos enter a transaction is the transaction is completed. probably the riskiest thing a corporate undertakes is a sale because the risk of noncompletion to your employees, to your morale and brand is high. when capital is available as it is now and liquid as it is, once you enter the market, chances of getting successful completion is high. that's a capital availability issue. >> ken, i'm remiss since we're in washington, d.c. not to ask, but we have to run in a second, inversions. since the new -- i don't know if it's laws or new rules, but what are you seeing? what do people talk about in the board rooms? >> that particular inversion, international inversion, is cloudy, risky, you have to assess chances of success. i think people factor that into the conversation. andrew, inversions are just, as i said, three places to take a

cost out, cost to goods sold, sgna, and taxes. you have to expect managements to look at that. interesting because we don't talk about inversions from california to texas. >> right. intra-u.s. inversions going on forever. >> right. daily interstate inversion, and no one talks about that as a problem. it's -- you've got to look at the costs in the environment. it's going to be a low-growth environment i think when taxes are a valid place to look. >> ken, thank you this morning. great to see you. >> thank you very much. when we come back, a closer look at the world of advertising through the fourth largest advertising company with 935 agencies worldwide. that's a long history of success from classic commercials like got milk to the current lebron james campaign for beats by dre. the ceo will join us right after this.

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we'll have the same conversation -- no, maybe not. don't count out media, interpublic is the advertising giant behind dozens of brands you know including beats by dre.

that campaign with lebron and produces ads for pizza hut, for patron, and many other ad agencies. and we have more now on how competitive it is in the business, and we do talk about crazy things. we talked about "bewitched," wracking your brain. seems like a hard time. you don't have to, you manage the place, but creativity and something that sticks and that might be funny, but causes you to buy something. that never changes. that's why people are in the business. >> no matter how much you talk about digital versus tv, fact is, you have to have a creative big idea. >> content. >> yep. >> we keep talking about that here as well, and you would say, and note splitting up between the different types of media now, but the growth is doable?

you call it okay? >> 7% of the the quality. full year, we have 5% or better, hopefully better. >> how is that? >> that's okay. >> it's okay. >> it is. historically the industry is at 5%. we think 3 to 5%. the forecasts for the year, in the third quarter, doing over 4%, and that's on a global basis. there's margtss like latin america and asia doing better e and there's europe which is challenged. 57% of the business is from the united states, so that's helping if we put in those numbers. >> if people in the last five or ten years, things change, figure out what to do. it still has not changed that much, right? i mean, but is there something on the horizon that changes your business? >> well, clearly, the shift to digital is -- >> managing that okay? >> yes.

>> we have to navigate through a fragmented environment. that's what we're paid to do. we're living in a data diversified media environment, and we have to use that data in analytics and help the clients put money to work where it's most effective. you know, we're predicting that in two years, digital out paces tv. >> tv and broadband? >> just in the advertising span. >> wow. >> that's a major shift. it's all part of navigating how you reach the consumer, and if the consumer's spend all time on digital, then that's where we have to spend our money, and -- >> ads work on digital? >> yes. in fact, what's interesting about digital is because of the analytics and data with it, we target market individuals specifically in terms of the markets we're looking for, and that's a big advantage. >> figure out i'm looking for a new car. >> exactly. >> hire kids out of college i

think. the average age has to be younger than most. not my age, that's for sure. andrew, you better take over. >> right. >> all about digital here. >> what about madison avenue strategy question about your firm, which is, as you know, that way at management taking stake in the company, would like to see, we think, a sale of the company or something. we don't know what yet, but i wanted to get your thoughts on just being independent, do you need to be independent? we saw size. wpp the size of this, trying to do its deal, and where do you stand? >> a major force in the business with 45 billion of media in a year with the clients. there's more than enough scale to have a seat the at table. mergers are not necessary, certainly with the scale we have. the issue is enhancing value, and, certainly, the l.a. group, should be happy campers now given performance of the sale price, out performing peers in

the market place, and they are sharing in that, and so like any other investor, they are looking for us to enhance shareholder value. that's what we are doing. >> are they happen? have you spoke with them is. >> we meet with them all. that's one of the things we take very sleers lseriously in makin there's transparency. >> they have a contest for board seats. >> usually the amount of fight, if there's something going wrong, we're out performing and delivering on the targets, and, yeah, we have a ways to go in expanding marginme memargin. we agree we have to do better in expanding margins, but this year, we grow a hundred points, hopefully better, and on track to grow what we wanted to achieve. >> bigger is not better? >> certainly not. we have enough scale. we're in 120 countries, 147,000 employees. we have enough scale to compete with anyone. >> you figured out how to

advertise on twitter. >> still working on that. >> social media's -- >> twitter five years from now -- >> it may not be twitter, but there's going to be social media. face it, it's a big part of how you reach those types of -- >> this is social. >> this is not. >> i know. different age group. [ laughter ] >> we are. >> all right, michael, thank you. >> that's what i say. set up some satellites on the college campuses. >> absolutely. >> great to see you, michael. >> same here. >> when we return, stock stories to know ahead of the opening bell, and later, jason furman, economic advisers joining us in washington to talk tax reform, imgragsz, and possibility of a government shut down. we're back in just a moment.

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revenue was before forecast and same-store sales fell at greater than expected 10%. they actually use the the word "tumble." i guess double -- you need -- >> 10% is a big deal. >> for a tumble, you need 10%. >> we'll go with that. >> the merchandise, right? they took it off? they thought it was going to help them. >> maybe not. >> apparently not. >> the logo. >> a lot of stuff. >> my -- you're in the allowed to wear those. >> not allowed to wear them. >> much more ahead this morning from the ceo at the business round table. black rock steve's executive, larry fink r, own the health of the economy, and honeywell and frontier communications moments away. stick away. we'll be right back.

"squawk box" in the middle live from the nation's capital. this is the business round table with the who's who of corporate america. >> you fill storage up, inventories up, but at some point, it has to show up in the price. >> face it, lower and

inexpensive energy made this country what it is. >> incredible change of retail, there's a transformation going on. >> starting with larry fink with market predictions for 20 15. >> plus, manufacturing, energy prices, jobs in america, and the great health care debate with h honeywell chief. the third hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ welcome back, first in cnbc business worldwide. we are reporting live from the nation's capital this morning with an exclusive look at the business round table. we've. talking to some of the most powerful leerz in corporate america all morning long and heard from walmart's ceo,

exxon-mobil, at&t, and cat pill hear, and in a moment, larry fink, more money than all those guys, of blackrock is talking oil, fiscal issues facing businesses everywhere, and where economic growth comes from in 2015. blackrock, what, $3 trillion? >> a little more. >> 4 trillion. more than 4 trillion. >> i'm happy, i'm not complaining. >> what's the official number? >> 4.5. >> who's counting. >> adds up. >> later in the hour, david cote is here, doubling the stock since he took over, and the chairman of the counsel of economic advisers, jason furman, will be here. he was on set not too long ago in new jersey. reacting to the conversation with all these. larry, heavy hitting ceos this morning. not disappointing. giving us a look into the

obama's message, and first, andrew has the morning's headlin headlines. >> adp employment report due in less than 15 minutes saying the economy likely added 223,000 private jobs last month, of course, ahead of the government's monthly employment report coming on friday. president obama expected to announce a pick for a new defense secretary as early as this week likely to pick former pentagon official, ashton carter k taking over from chuck hagel who resigned abruptly last month. 40% of the ceos plan to hire more workers up from 34%, but the chief executives have a warning for washington. the corporate bosses they two big things holding back the pace of domestic spending are the nation's tax policy and regulatory issues. >> less that 90 minutes away from the opening bell on wall street, watching the futures this morning, and now things are relatively flat after a strong day yesterday when the dow was

up triple digits with a new high. best day since november 5th, best day for s&p 500 since october 31st. on the heels of better than expected spending in construction. we'll see what's happening near the opening bell. at this point, the markets are relatively flat as well. across the board. looks like things are within just a few points of flat. >> the nation and the world going through an oil shock. crude dropping more than 30% in the last six months driving down prices at the pump. earlier in the show, we asked exxon-mobile about how price wounds affect his company's investment decision. >> for a lot of the big investments that we make, around the world whether it's in large gas projects or deep water developments, they are decade lonic vegsment decisions you take with the view they have to perform across a broad range of pricing. all the investment decisions we make have been tested across a

range of prices accommodating these price swings, and what you do is ensure that you can invest and be successful at the bottom of the cycle. >> talking more oil and business investments with larry fink, chairman and ceo of blackrock, the firm the largest in the world. they have -- going back on forth on the number, but 4.3 trillion? >> four and a half. >> 4.5. >> by the end of the day, 4.6. it'll keep going up. >> one of the fund manager, sam beck, quoted hours ago saying the oil route leaves portfolios, quote, outdated. what's that mean if. >> well, i object to even the commentary of route. you know, we are -- we're overlay i overlaying huge negativity about this. it's a spectacular event for the world. it's going to create -- it's going to move capital to different places, and,

obviously, when sam was talking about it, you look at the portfolios, you have to reassess portfolios. sam is in the emerging market, eastern european, russia, ukraine, so he hassed to do better. >> he has to think about those things from his vantage point where he's investing, but the reality, this is spectacular from india, china, japan, prt american consumer, and for europe. this is is going to help draghi, the europeans in terms of restabilizing the european economy. i just find is shocking that the narrative is negative. this is an incredible tax cut more americans and everyone else around the world. now, does it destabilize venezuela, iran, russia? possibly. does it make some fracking facilities to be less profitle? yes. do we have some corporate credits that may be in trouble?

the corporate -- high yield market went from 5% waiting in companies to 18. i'm confidence some of them will be tested here, and now the question is, what is the length of time of the lower oil prices? i think if you follow the saudis' actions, they are stating, and it was said earlier, the world has more supply than demand. saudis want to keep their market share and willing to watch the prices to fall, resell, and it'll shut down in the short run soft m new oil rigs slowing down activity, but i believe it's going to set the paradigm of oil prices where we used to say 100 to 110, but i think it's closer to 80 to 90.

>> for snoung. >> until we see global demand picking up, crossing over the level of new supply and new creation of oil ratings, and -- >> 7 a to 85 is not out of the question? >> no. maybe it's -- i don't know. used to a cartel, what was when cartels can't control prices? >> when -- this is fine, this is good. we talk about lower prices on so many products whether it's a computer, anything else. here we talk about one of the most important elements of our lives, you know, petroleum for heating, driving the cars, and the natural gas for manufacturing goods and items, this is really good. >> hey, larry, i agree 100%. it's great, but i can't help but wonder about some of the potential instabilities it causes in a place like venezuela, a place like iran, a place like russia, to see prices

down -- >> we normally don't care about them. >> we don't, but from a geopolitical perspective, if they are desperate, what would they do? >> might invade. >> i don't think so. he may. >> he's already done it. >> there may be positive behaviors. you know. i'm not worried about average behavior from venezuela. i'm acustomed to that behavior. >> given what's happened, is the stock market properly reflecting, are companies properly valued given what oil is now? you came on, i think, it was october 15th, told us we were at the bottom, a brilliant call at that moment. what's the call now where the stock market is, and to the extend that people at home need to start thinking about rebalancing, if you think there's opportunity relative to the new issue. >> so, lower oil prices will

allow for nor qe. bank of japan, in october, 17 from when he announced a level of quantitative easing because oil pricing of lower and fieging depolice station issues, and japan can do that now. there's more stability for europe, you know, and so i actually believe, and one thing i said that i thought the fed may be late in easing and tightening, and, now, obviously, the lower deflationary pressures of oil prices, they could keep rates lower longer, which means equity markets are going higher worldwide. they will continue to go higher. most importantly, i have -- since i last saw you, toured many parts of the world. i visited many companies. i actually believe the duration gap of assets and liabilities

have gotten wider. most predicted higher rates. they had a portfolio that was going to be -- that was short their liability, and so i believe the gap widened. there's the issue of longevity on pension funds. hearing pension funds reassess their liability. do they have to have -- extend longer? i actually believe the biggest issue i have is we still have great demand for securities, financial assets. we completed the deleveraging process of europe after the bank stress test. you may see banks lending again. i see it a robust percent for the financial markets subject to, obviously -- >> what about bonds? >> i think there's a high probability bonds stay in a narrow range for some time until we see real growth that forces

behaviors of different makers, so we'll be in a very low range and maybe the new range in u.s. treasuries is 2 to 2.5. it's not 2.23 or 2.75 or 3%. you may see between now and year end, if i'm right, a bunch of insurance companies covering their gap or bonds at 2% again. there's a higher probability of interest rates down in the short run. i don't believe it stays down that low for long term, but there's high probabilities of markets rolling because evaluations of bunds trading at 80 basis points forcing behaviors and forcing investors into equities. >> you mentioned high yield debt of the energy companies. do you just stay away? >> we're light, if not short

credits in energy in the young companies that came to the high yield market. and so we have a new tral to a negative buy on that. we're not making any large statements related to where the credits go. if we see a prolonged level of lower oil prices, if joe is correct saying maybe 75 or 85 is the new pair diparadigm. there's stress credits. >> every time the round table meets for the last six years, it's packed with regulation every time. you know that's why -- in your heart of hearts, do you think anything good happens in the next two years? we've done this. the economy did all this without that. maybe help from the fed, but the energy revolution is without really much? >> it was all private sector. >> i know you guys would like some good things to happen. do you think in your heart of hearts anything happens? >> i think ppp will happen.

>> pacific partnership? >> i think we under estimate how important it is, but trade in asia is the most dome innocent area, where the trade is stable with our trade with europe and our trade in asia, it's grope exponentially, i think there is a realistic probability of some form of tax reform. >> it's the law. >> it's going to take awhile. you know, i think the con cement would be has to be revenue neutral. you have that concept of revenue neutral, companies have to accept they do not get tax deductions they previously get. it would be some form of, you know, a 26 % flat tax rate. >> do you think the business round table still supports it? the devil in the details. >> it's difficult. more important by, and a great reason for our country's success is the research and development in so many different industries. think about the industry

revolution. it's rd in the united states. can you continue that without tax represents related to research and development? i'm not an expert on navigating that, but i think it is going to be difficult in the details. i'm questionably the united states company's facing a high tax burden overall. now, if you subtract deductions, that may not be the highest tax place in the world. people assert that. when you look at the deductions you have. >> some is -- some makes capital go where -- the reason they have lower tax rates is because they move facilities offshore. >> most times people expand overseas because of the demand overseas. let's be honest. i mean, there are -- if we have cheap labor rates, lowest cost

of natural gas. there's a strong reason why so many european companies move to the united states in that effect. i know you -- and -- >> so, again, we have to thank you, larry. steve coming up with adp numbers in a moment. appreciate it. >> thanks. >> right now, going to steve with the numbers. >> reporting that payrolls in the month of november rose by 208,000, a bit shy of the estimate, which is 223,000. october revised up by 3,000 to 233,000. goods producing manufacturing in production up by 32. services surged by 176, and there's the nonfarm payroll estimate, 230, is that in line? depends what happens to government, again, not included in the adp with what the government reports friday. ten puts it closer, otherwise heavy on the non-farm payroll estimate. here's the details of the report. construction up by 17,000.

good number. manufacturing upedly 11,000. trade, transports, utilitieutil about 50,000, and finance keeps going, and business services 37,000. small business had a pretty good month of hiring there, 101,000. this survey is consistently at odds with the nfid numbers. medium bid is 65,000, and large business, the early job adders in this recovery, and them they slacked off here at 42,000. becky, pretty good number, consistently above 200,000 here month after month, and it's nice and roomy here with you guys gone. i can get used to this. >> all right. steve, thank you very much. we'll be watching that very closely and try to figure out what that mean for friday's numbers, and at this point, there's not a huge reaction from the market. following that, though, when we come back, talking about corporate america's push for tax

reform with the ceo of pricewaterhousecoopers. next, jason furman joining us, and the nation's largest providers of dsl, frontier communications ceo is here." squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back, everybody, growth over the next year, pricewaterhou pricewaterhousecoopers asks the question of corporate leaders worldwide, and joining us now is dennis nally. great to have you here today. >> great to be here, thanks. >> what are you finding in the united states? based on the business round tables survey, corporate leaders are not confident about next year, not like you would expect. >> not as confident as you might expect, but more confident today than 12 months ago, which is important. that's the early indicators coming from the global ceo surveys. that's look from around the world. >> breaking it down country by country, is there a sharp distinction or the same?

>> i think it's different. quite different in terms of the developed markets versus developing markets. for example, look at the u.s., higher confidence levels in europe, not surprising, higher confidence levels in india, china, interesting, parts of asia, so you do have to look at the different geographic areas for a better feel for it. >> interesting. larry fink, who we just spoke with, mentioned all of those countries as countries that would benefit greatly from lower oil prices. do you think that's a direct reflecti reflection? >> i think it is. i think it's a factor. i think the economies move in different directions, driving levels how ceos think about the future. >> taxes are an issue all yearlong. playing out here in the united states. what do you hear from the ceos that deal with routinely? >> interesting. we say the number one issue that's out there around the world ask regulation. that is the top issue that's on the minds of ceos today. the second issue is taxes. if you go to the u.s., it's the

exact opposite. u.s., you know, taxes are number one, and regulations are behind it. you know, the bottom line is we have tax systems put in place around the world that are not fit for purpose. they were put into place years ago in the case of the united states as we know, last major tax reform was 1986. massive need for changes to update that making it consistent with today as economy. >> what we hear time again is taxation is a problem here in the united states. why does it rate high globally? if we pay high rates, other people have to feel good about the rates they pay. >> one thing from the financial crisis is we're dealing with global financial markets. everyone in the world use tax systems to insent jobs and investments, and so if our tax systems are not competitive globally, that's a disadvantage whether you're in the united states or parts of europe or asia.

the tax systems put in place by individual countries, you know, dictate economic policies that are put forth to drive jobs and investment. ? dennis, i want to shift gears a bit and just talk about the work force. i read it. ism to know it it's true. two-thirds of the work force are millennials. >> yeah. >> younger than us at the tail. >> exactly right. i have 200,000 employees around the world. we hire about 42,000 people a year. the average age of the pricewaterhousecoopers is 28 or 29 years old. >> what turn do you have? >> 14 %. >> because it's a traveling job? >> it's a great place for individuals to start their career, get great experience. if you're 21, 22, 23, figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life, some want a career in professional services, others want other things. it's a great venue to start off to find out what you want to ultimately do.

>> in terms of millennials, what's the most distinctive? >> millennials want more flexibility than any of us ever dreamt of. when i started with a firm how many years ago, it was a clear, you know, lineal progression, accepted that or you went and do something else. today, the environment is so much different. it's really, you know, how do you create the environment to allow people to achieve what they want to achieve from a career point of view, be successful, but do so more consistent with the way they want to balance careers. it's a different way to think about business, and thinking about how we attract best and brightest is the challenge in front of us. >> word to have the word coddle jump in the brain? i don't think so. the folks are just as committed as any one of us in terms of what they do from a career point of view, how they want to dwoch skills and make a difference, but they want to do it in a different way. that's key. we have to recognize that it is different than what we grew up.

>> dennis, thank you so much for joining us today. >> appreciate it. >> thank you. over there now. okay. let's get a check on the futures right now after the adp employment report, down 255. s&p's up 10 cents, so flat across the board really. nasdaq up fractionally. coming up, honeywell on tax reform to health care to the global economy. she was named one of forchip's most powerful women in business, maggie wilderotter. she's going to join us and andrew can intro her for fun. be right back.

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coming up in washington, honeywell chairman, david cote, and where the white house stands on the state of the economy, counsel of economic advisers chairman, jason furman, will be here. a lot more coming up live from washington, d.c. in just a moment.

>> the equal employment opportunity commission is taking aim at controversial corporate wellness programs offering employeeing inacceptabilityives like things of losing weight or quitting smoking. they file suit against

honeywell, and they got a reprieve where a judge declined it issue a restraining order on the program, but the issue is far from resolved. ceo is our special guest, so many things to talk about. >> an interesting start, joe. country's great, economy's moving, what else is to talk about? >> what was i doing? see me just -- they make me read it. >> oh, it's not your fault. ? they make me read it. they get mad. >> what do you want to know? >> part of obamacare, i mean, if you look really hard, you can find good things in there. this was one of the good things that there was -- try to do it, try to comply, and you don't put any negative things about the law in the business and effects on business, and they sue you for doing what they wanted you to do in the first place. >> i was more than a little surprised by this suit, as you

would imagine. in fact, infuriated is a good way to put it. from the beginning, since getting to the company 13 years ago, we work on how to improve quality outcomes for employees. anything on the medical side. i'm a believer better outcomes for employees result in lower costs for employees. they go together. i thought it fit well. all we're asking is that they get a biometric survey -- blood pressure, cholesterol, weight -- basic stuff. we don't know the datament only they know the data. if they don't get the survey, they have to pay a hundred bucks more a month for the policy. we don't refuse anybody coverage. the point is, why should people who don't care about how they're living, why should they be taking advantage of the people who do care and are doing something about it? you have all the people who say i can take care of myself

subsidizing the people who don't care. it was not right. >> would it be different if you say there's a hundred dollar discount -- a discount? >> you know -- >> i think it's a personal -- >> what i learned, and this was a book "nudge," tremendous, which says people are three times more likely to respond to a negative to that positive. it's really -- i got fascinating stories on the medical side that show that. it's more like the fact if you say you'll get it -- you have to pay more, has a greater effect than saying you pay less. it's interesting. that's why we construct eed it e way we did. we have 85% compliance now. it's not like people are having a hard time with it. >> the e, oc is different than the obama administration. >> totally independent. that's the frustration here. i'm not speaking for them, but if i was the administration i would be frustrated also saying this is what we want people to do, and why would this be -- why

would you do this? they are an independent agency. >> okay. business, you -- i mean, it's been good for a while, and how long have you been in honeywell now? >> 13 years. >> unbelievable. we remember the fight for it and -- >> i was not there, thank god. >> it's more than doubled -- >> oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, when i was there, it was 33, and now we're a hundred. >> plus dividends. >> dividends more than double. >> okay. this point in time, a snapshot, everyone on says business is okay, but nothing owner okay. >> i was going to use the same word. a shame everyone else used it. okay is not great. it's not bad. if there's a shock of some kind, i don't worry about recession. there was not a recovery not

worried about the recession, and as you know, you give me a hard time in the past, i've been more conservative about the outlook more than anyone else working to our advantage. goes our way. >> flat with last year, not the 3% everyone said was in the bag, hoping, and low 2s. >> short on that one. short of three? >> of the three unless we do what we're talking about. so if tax reform is serious, if an infrastructure bill is serious, immigration gets done. taxes. budget. >> any one of those things push above 3%? >> i think you need a combination. there needs to be this feeling that the country has a real momentum, and that things are changing, and that we're really supportive of business again. to the extent we can start doing some of the things and get that

feeling going again, yeah, i think there's a chance to get above 3. europe doing as poorly as it is, it's a drag on us because they are the biggest trading partner. to the extent they are at 0, that's a drag and will hurt us some. oil prices, of course, gas prices help also. >> sure. >> i think if we can start doing some things here along with what we're seeing on oil, i think it could get above 3, but so far, the right bet has been to assume nothing's going to happen. >> yeah, and i'm split because i think when things are going okay, policymakers, i don't think, feel the urgency to get serious, but then we had a time when things were not okay three, four, five years ago, and they didn't do anything then either. there -- >> yeah. >> it's not a business friendly -- well, it's tough -- >> when it comes to the history of it -- >> every year you say the same thing, regulations and taxes.

>> yeah. >> if someone said every year regulation and taxes was holding back hiring, and it was my job to get people hire, my job i was elected was the get people hiring, and every year the guys say it's regulations and taxes, it might sink in to do something. >> a different dynamic now than we did before. i actually believe the shift in the senate in particular is going to be hugely beneficial to getting something done. if we didn't have that, there would have been a greater chance that status would have been the previous five years. >> because now it's in the light of day? >> no. because there's republicans who have both houses, and they want to show that they can get something done over the next two years because of the big presidential election. you have the president with two years left to drive his legacy. that, to me, an interesting combination to try to get some thing done here that would have not existed without that change, so i've said you can't be a ceo and not be optimistic.

i think there's a possibility here that did not exist months ago. >> saw the slightest thing reid tried to do working with camp and others, just the extender, just another year, slightest thing, nope, veto, immediately threatened a veto. why would that change after january? >> the issthere was the child t credit was not included. >> did he forget? >> i don't know. i was not involved in that one. it will get sorted out by year end. >> it's voiding a tax increase. it's not like it's a big benefit, but it's a start, right? you have to start somewhere. >> people take it. >> it's a start. >> new hampshire. >> houw long you been here? >> should have heard me before. >> my word. >> thanks for joining us. >> always fun. up next with the president to speak at the business round

table in a couple hours, find out where the white house stands on the state of economy. right now, jason fur man, chairman of the counsel of economic advivisory joining us after the break, and the largest dsl provider joining us, stopping net neutrality and the telecom business. we return in just a moment. ♪ my baby drove up in a brand new cadillac. ♪ ♪ look here, daddy, i'm never coming back... ♪ discover the new spirit of cadillac and the best offers of the season. lease this 2015 standard collection ats for around $329 a month. opinions. there's no shortage in this world. who do you trust? whose analysis is accurate? how do you make sense of it all? a simple, unbiased stock score

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premarket trading, cutting stock to neutral saying competitive changing in the retail industry makes it difficult to achieve financial goals, and abercrombie & fitch falling this morning. quarterly profit beat street estimates, but its revenue fell below forecasts, and some same-store sales greater than expected 10%. president obama is set to speak with the business round table in a couple hours. fed chair janet yellen will be here and joining us now is jason furman, chairman of the president's counsel of economic advisers. jason, thank you. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> and in new jersey with us on set before, but glad you were able to stop by today. you hear from the business roundtable, and i've characterized it earlier today as it almost -- it has less than an effect. taxes and regulation, taxes and regulation, that's all we hear they complain about keeping the economy blow planned.

whenever i ask about it, you say the administration knows about it and wants to do something, and yet we never get anywhere. >> first of all, the economy's doing really well right now. we had the longest consecutive streak of job growth, 10.6 million jobs, pace of job growth is picking up, gdp growth picking up. >> all relative. below the potential that it could be. >> no debate we should be doing better. no debate at all. >> okay. >> the question is what can we do to do better? the president is coming here today to talk to the business community how to work together to advance our economy, and he's going to talk about three things. he's going to be talking about what we can do to reform our tax system, bring rates down, close loopholes, and what we can do to invest in infrastructure, and that's something we can do as part of the tax reform, and what we can do to expand global trades with partners in the pacific and with europe. those are three areas that we

could really work together with the business community to help -- >> regulations seem to be increasing. i don't think there's any hope there in terms of -- i mean, we've got new ones every week whether it's -- not to go down the list with you, but -- >> look at the biggest ones the president's done this year, the clean power plan, for example, for power plants, and that has a very high set of benefits relative to the cost of -- >> people argue with that. >> being as flexible as possible. >> a quick question. you have met with the president since the election. do you notice a -- when people characterize what we are seeing, is there more of an openness, some of a, you know what, maybe i'm getting a message that i should work closely with the other side, or do you see what other people characterize as digging in the heels and becoming more impracticable? >> i see the president continuing to do what he was

doing before. >> digging the heels -- >> which is trying to do everything he can to move the country forward. a way to move the country is to work on immigration, and the other side did not necessarily love the steps. >> that might have -- >> we can -- >> might have hurt possibility for other things happening. >> i hope not. >> just because you disdwrae on imabrasion here, does not mean we can't work on trade here. that's the proposal he'll bring today. let's not let a distraction over here stop us from doing what we need to do here. >> how much do you think the president feels a pull within the own party, arguably fracturing itself. i think now about elizabeth warren on one side, look at the antonio wyche nomination as a symbolic fight, if you will, over what's a division within the party and progressive left that pushed or pulled the president, perhaps, more in that direction. how do you look at that? >> the "new york times" had an

excellent piece about antonio wyche, by you, i want to point out. >> thank you. >> a qualified nominee. >> we hear he may have to get withdrawn, ultimately. apparently the hundred thousand signatures -- >> an outstanding nominee and really excited about it. but i, you know, there's always debates within every party across parties, and what the president has been focused on is not where the ideas come from, but are they good ideas for the economy, and immigration was good for a variety of reasons inco incoming the economy, business tax reforming investments in infrastructure, raising the minimum wage, expanding preschool. ideas from all over the spectrum, and what's in common is they all help strengthen our economy and achieve our goals. >> what do you think about lower gas prices? how does that help the american

consumer? what does it mean for the american economy? >> i think that right now, look at the global economies, two things. one, there's a global slow down, and that's hurting our ability and growth, but at the same time, that's getting offset by the fact that we have dra mat cli dramatically lower oil prices, and prices are lower for the right reasons in that we're producing more in the united states. we discovered the united states has oil equivalent to iraq, just so far, and oil production is continuing to increase. i think that's a good thing for the consumer and country. >> quickly, the ceos surveyed see 2.4% growth next year, economists see 3%. what do you see? these guys can make the difference. >> i see continued robust growth next year m i think consumers have deleveraged, wage gains in the middle and bottom and businesses sitting on cash, and

they chase the demand, and risk from the rest of the world and domestic strength in the united states. >> jason furman, thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for joining us today. when we return, a frontier communications maggie wild ot r octob octobero after the break. on the firewall for customer db access. install version two-point-three of db connector and ensure verbose flag is set in case of problems. (clapping sound) isn't the cloud supposed to make business easier? get the one that can connect to the systems that you already have. today there's a new way to work. and it's made with ibm. i research. i dig. and dig some (trader more. search. because, for me, the challenge of the search... is almost as exciting as the thrill of the find. (announcer) at scottrade, we share your passion for trading.

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welcome back to the business round table. among the most important items on the agenda today, we have jobs and the skills gap. we talked to the exxon ceo about it earlier. it's also a big deal for the ceo of frontier. thanks for being here today. as rex mentioned, there's a huge skills gap. something like 98% of the ceos were questioned about this see this as a big problem, or at least a problem, finding people to fill the jobs. what do you see? >> at frontier we have 17,000 employees. at least 60% of them require some digital literacy and the capability of dealing with ip technology. and because of that, we have a hard time filling those jobs. we're also in about 30,000 communities in rural america. so we partner today with our

community colleges and colleges and universities in our areas in order to put training programs in place to take folks that don't have those skills and train them with those skills. >> i spoke with rex about it last night. he was mentioning part of the problem is you don't have the same strength in vo-tech skills. and it's not offered as part of a lot of high school classes anymore. how do you turn back the clock and change americans' perceptions of that? >> i believe that vocations are important in america. it's a fabric of our country. and what we've done over the years is say to kids, look, if you don't get a four-year degree, it's not worth it for you to go to school. and we disagree with that. what we've actually done is taken our telecommunications labs and put them into the community colleges. we have our employees volunteer and go in and teach people that are taking classes in community college how to use our equipment. so when they come into our work force and we hire from those classes, we already have a great

head start on the training. >> you mentioned you have a huge presence in some of these rural communities. how do you think consumers are doing there in rural america? >> i think consumers are holding their own. we are cautiously optimistic that if the economy continues to inch along the way it has, that consumers will continue to consume and use products. we've also taken a look across the country, and if you think about it, since five years ago, there are 10 million more people working than five years ago. about 200,000 new jobs created every single month. we feel good about that, because we are seeing that happen in rural america. we're also a very large employer of the military, our folks coming back from war, also reservists, and their families. over 13% of our work force are from the military. we also see putting those people back to work when they come back to their communities as extremely important. the other thing i'll say is with gas prices dropping, it will provide consumers with a lot more disposable income, which i think will be good to spur the

economy. if you think about it, the average consumer, you know, spends -- well, actually drives about 12,000 miles a year in rural america. and it will be about $400 in their pockets. that's a big pay increase for them. and they can use that money for other things. >> we talked earlier this morning with randal stephenson about net neutrality. obviously the fcc is an independent agency, can decide what it wants to do with this, but the president has made clear what he would like to see happen. how does that change the equation for you in terms of how you're investing, how you think about the internet and broadband? >> so frontier invests three-quarters of a billion dollars a year in capital in our markets. we've been able to take rural communities and give them the exact same experience from an internet perspective as what you'd have in new york city or chicago. we think it's important not to leave any american behind. if you think about our infrastructure, our average homes per mile is 34. it's a lot more expensive for us to build that infrastructure.

and when we're put in a situation where we can get that return on investment -- because if you think about it, the capital we spent is shareholder money. we want to make sure that there's certainty in the environment and a fair marketplace for all of us to operate. we don't believe that taking a 1934 regulation for telephone monopoly and applying that on the internet is the right solution. we absolutely agree with the principles of net neutrality, which means an open internet. i mean, i've been ceo of frontier for over ten years. we have lived by those principl principles. we don't throttle customers back. we don't prioritize content today. we're not even in the content business. but we have to put in place a mechanism where we can have commerce on that network that's good for the consumer, good for the content provider, and good for the isp. >> maggie, thank you so much for your time today. >> thank you. >> coming up, we're going to look back at some of the great moments here at the business round table. we're back in a moment.

welcome back to "squawk box" live from washington, d.c. we have much more coming up from the business round table. the meeting still ahead today, president obama will be speaking around 11:00 a.m. today and is

expected to take questions from some of the ceos in attendance. keep watching cnbc for the highlights. gentlemen, good work today. >> quite a lineup. >> it was. including the ceos. >> that does it for us today. make sure you join us tomorrow. right now it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ >> what a show from the guys on "squawk." welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber at the new york stock exchange. a day after the dow had its first triple-digit move in a month. a lot of moving parts today. exon ceo responding to oil prices. speaking of which, crude still under $68 today. the ten year edging closer to 2.3. but that italian ten-year dips below two for the first time ever. our road map begins with the marks. oil prices in fus