business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." >> good morning. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin. joe is out today. joining us is gillian tet, and peter boockvar. great to see you. >> hi. >> we'll get to them in a moment. futures are higher. the dow up by 163 points after the fed decided not to raise rates. that's a gain of less than 1%. you wonder how much more potential upside is really in this entire market at this point. again, you see the futures, up by about 54 points. we have been up every morning as we come in. s&p 500 up by six. nasdaq up by 16. doesn't always translate into gains. we'll see as we get closer to the opening bell. overnight in asia, japan closed

for a market holiday. the hang seng up by a third of a percentage point. the shanghai up bay hay a half percent. the kospi up. in europe, in early trading. green arrows there. much bigger adavans than here. this is playing catch up and then some. the dax up 1.9%. the cac up by 1.8%. the ftse up 1%. crude oil having its best day in two weeks yesterday. it was up nearly 3% at 45.34. this morning up 1% to 45.79. big question around whether opec can pull anything off with this meeting they have next week or whether this is nor jawboning. we'll continue to watch this. >> let's get you through some big top stories. weekly jobless claims come out at 8:30 eastern time. filings are expected to hold

steady at 260,000. then at 10:00 a.m., august existing home sales which are forecast to have risen more than 1%. yahoo! reportedly expected to confirm a massive data breach exposing millions of user accounts. re/code saying the breach was widespread and serious. the data allegedly includes user names, passwords and personal information such as birth dates. warning users if they use the same password and berth date on any of these, they are likely exposed. >> i have never given my real birth date on these things. >> good for you. i tell the truth. i have a problem on my hands. >> there's no reason for them to know that information, and there's a real chance it could get hacked.

>> you can get that off of google in about ten seconds. >> like yahoo! or retailer or somebody else gets hacked, it's happening all the time. a story we'll talk about today, a frequent guest of this program, leon cooperman in the hot seat telling investors that he's refusing to settle insider trading charges that came yesterday because he won't let anyone destroy his legacy. the s.e.c. charged the 73-year-old and his $5 billion firm yesterday with illegal trading in atlas pipeline partners six years ago after they found out a planned sale of one of the units. cooperman says he will continue to fight the charges and continue to invest money for clients. did you guys read this letter? >> yeah. >> he says he got the inside information, but that the trades he made because he had been invested in it prior don't make those trades illegal.

i don't know. i will try to give him the benefit of the doubt. i know mark cuban won, but it seems strange. the soak you know something you become restricted you can't do anything. >> i don't understand enough of the terms of the detail, but he could have settled this for a lot less money, and he wants to fight this because he's concerned about his reputation. >> everything is going to rest on whether there's e-mails that can back up his point. unless he can provide documents to show they already had these plans plans, it will be difficult. >> isn't that going to be on the prosecutors in. >> it goes both ways. but hedge funds are under scrutiny and the heat is on. >> we'll talk more about this story in a bit. >> we have another person in the hot seat. >> it has been a busy week in washington. mylan's ceo, heather bresch, got

her turn for a grilling yesterday. lawmakers blasted the steam prices in the epipen. >> after mylan takes our punches, they'll fly back to their mansions in their private jets and laugh all the way to the bank. while constituents suffer, file for bankruptcy, and watch their children get sicker or die. >> one lawmaker noted that mylan said it would soon sell a generic version of its epipen for about half of the price on after the price increases ignited national uproar. mylan's chief defends the company's response to the controversy. >> i'm honored and proud to be the ceo of mylan. i spent my career working to break down barriers to access and expand access to high quality medicine and lower healthcare cost.

i wish we had better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration of the rising financial issues for a growing minority of patients who may have ended up paying the full wholesale acquisition costs or more. we never intended this. we listened and focused on this issue and came up with an immediate and sustainable solution. >> shares of mylan actually rose in yesterday's session. what do you think? >> i think investors are baking in a lot of concern about the wider political backlash. it comes at a time when in many ways as the election draws close, lawmakers are shifting their attention away from typicbanks and on to other sectors. we have a story today about $10 thoish $10,000 acne cream. and the news to investors is

pharmaceutical stocks right now are in the spotlight and will stay that way, particularly in the run up to the election. >> we'll talk nor about that story as well. we have an update on the escalating violence in north carolina. police say a man in critical condition this morning was shot by an unknown person and not an officer, he is now on life support. hundreds took to the streets protesting the shooting of 43-year-o4a 43-year-old. >> the unrest in charlotte continues. a second night of violent protests brings out police in riot gear using flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd. hundreds taking to the streets with signs protesting the death of 43-year-old keith scott, killed tuesday by police. overnight, loud booms sent demonstrators running for cover. at least one person was not. the gunman was not a police

officer. >> i don't know. he was just lying there. >> reporter: on tuesday night demonstrators shut down an interstate, looting trucks, setting fires,. police justified the shooting saying scott ignored commands to drop his weapon, that despite witnesses saying he did not have a gun but was holding a book waiting for his son to get off the bus. an evening beginning with a peaceful candlelight vigil was overshadowed with a display of violence. sarah rosario, nbc news. >> the governor of north carolina declared a state of emergency in charlotte sending in the national guard and highway patrol to help police. we'll continue to monitor the

situation and bring you updates as we get them. you had an update down there. >> it's a tense situation down there. people i know working down there are saying groups like bank of america -- >> a large employer. >> telling people to stay home or be vigilant today. there's a lot of anger right now. back to the markets. the fed's decision to hold rates steady. janet yellen saying she expects to see a rate increase this year. bill gross said that the fed contradiction, after expecting, leading people to this conclusion, has left investors confused. here was his reaction to that decision. >> i'm choked with emotion and hardly able to speak. after hawkish talks and saying there would be two hikes in 2016, they deferred to interest rate hikes and provide savers

with a bit of thin gruel to work with to provide for education retirement and healthcare needs. so i would say if not now, when? >> he's asking if not now when. and the market is maybe saying -- maybe, with a big maybe, december at this point. steve liesman has more. >> i have more on gross. this is -- i want to say, be careful investors. don't let what you want to happen pollute your forecast for what you think will happen. >> bill gross had come out -- >> he said 50/50. he obviously wants it to happen. i don't think any fed observer looking at it would have put those odds at 50/50. you can see why he did that. he wants it to happen. he thinks it's the right nithin to do. the idea what he wants to happen pollute what he thought would happen -- >> you walked away from jackson hole thinking a rate hike would

be coming. >> i did then i changed my mind when i saw the two isms come this soft, we covered branard. you put all the that together and you come to the right conclusion. >> the fed keeps saying, yes, we're going to do it, and then pulls back. that leads to wall street thinking is this ever going to happen? >> that's the interesting thing from yesterday, the new metric put out there. let's forget the script go to the chart room to run on jobs. if you wouldn't mind putting that up. talk about what janet yellen is saying. you guys are great in the back. this is the new thing up. this chart shows that the unemployment rate has held steady since october, while jobs have gone up. this is telling the fed that there's more slack out there in

the market than they think. >> duh. >> what's happened is 2.5 million people have come back into the work force in the past year. watch what morgan stanley says about this and what this means for rates to go up. they said -- let me find this quote here. we believe the key determinant of a rate hike this year is the amount of slack in the labor market. we think the unemployment rate needs to decline again for the fed to hike rates. many people are banking on december. but right now that probability is just 51%. it's kind of an even chance here. >> you're saying you disagree -- you don't think we'll necessarily see something in december? >> i need to put meat on the bones of this new metric the fed is talking about. this concept of room to run. a new goalpost. i went back and looked at yellen's testimony in july, her speech in august. she has not talked about slack animating monetary policy.

what we've had is we had the du dual mandate, jobs were cool, looking at inflation. now we're back at jobs. >> how does this explain two years after qe ends, they raise once and they are creating this new rule. the problem with this analysis of the labor market, it's a lagging indicator. when the labor market is perfect, that's usually the end of a cycle. they'll wait to raise interest rates when the market is perfect, but that is the end of a cycle. we're at a 1.5% run rate in gdp. the fed is looking to raise interest rates? they're looking now to raise interest rates? >> the other problem s the fed keeps saying it's data dependent. there are two problems with that. firstly, it's also indicating it's time dependent, too. secondly the data goalpost keeps

shifting. essentially what they're saying now is we have this new data metric, we think there's slack in the economy, slack in the labor market. we don't know what's happening with productivity. >> let me push back on that here. what is new is the chart we put up. we've been running average 200,000 plus jobs, which according to the fed's estimate is 100,000 more than is needed to reduce the unemployment rate. yet the unemployment rate does not decline. there are 94 million americans who are not in the labor force. 16 years and older. this is a combination of people in school, people who are retired, and people who have dropped out of the work force. we have had this story on "squawk box" for several years now. you guys remember alan kruger. he said they ain't coming back. now they are coming back. >> this contradicts that entire theory that this is all the about demographics, that there are more baby boomers aging out. >> no, no, it says that's still

happening but there's a portion of folks who have dropped out that are coming back in. >> because they want and need jobs. >> remember the cramer economy? h >> the depressing chart is the participation rate of 25 to 54-year-olds what are these people doing every day? the participation of baby boomers has gone up in the recovery. >> we will make this more confusing. >> joining us is tlet's go to o now. matt, weigh in on this debate. if you're looking at what has been happening with the bond markets, what's happening with the pension plans, with retirement plans, a lot of this explains why baby boomers need

to keep working. >> absolutely. the fed will be patient here. appropriately so. they have an intent to try to move fire. but it's more of a bias than a clear objective. we think they're following the bond market here. they're afraid to move too quickly, flatten the yield curve that they have done multiple times. >> but is there damage that's being done as a result? again, if you look at pension funds, retirees, if you look at the insurance companies, if you look at the financial institutions, this is something that the boston fed has been raising all these issues about. we hear it from richard fisher, the former dallas fed president. the longer you stay at zero, the more pain you inflict on those areas. that's why they're getting nervous. is that something doing damage? >> absolutely. we think that's why they have that bias and we've heard that out of japan with the

acknowledgment that there are unintended consequences of this aggressive monetary policy. the fed clearly stated that they intend to keep with the qe measures by buying up the 2 trillion assets. >> so we're worried, but we won't do anything about it. >> i think they're trying to. >> that's the question. they have the concerns about this. do they have the fortitude to go ahead and do it? which one does this? a dove or hawk case come december? >> you know, into september this was about if the data were strong enough they could go. now in december there's meaningful disse meaningf meaningful dissent on the board, so this comes to growth and the lack of it. it has been a mini temper tantrum a smaller version of

what we saw in 2013. when you look at interest rates, earnings in a discounted cash flow model, if the ten-year were to back up 20 basis points, it would be overvalued. if earnings growth goes to 6%, the earnings market would still be undervalued. it's talking about movements in interest rates when there's not enough growth to handle it. that's the fundamental problem we have with this cycle. that's why the market is looking through this and seeing only about one more hike for the cycle, which is the right way to look at it. if you watched the market activity yesterday, people talked about this rally of stocks. the dow up 0.9%. didn't even make a 1% move. this morning futures up by 50 points, 60 points above fair value. not a whole lot of bang for your buck. what the fed did was not a huge surprise. it makes you wonder.

if we are hitting a sort of ceiling in terms of als will ge. what do you think? >> we had a mini temper tantrum. we are sort of reversing some of the gains now that the fed is holding off until december. but, you know, it's what i said before. if there's no earnings growth, and there is no earnings growth, earnings are contracting by about 1%, there's only so much you can do in terms of a market rally no matter what the fed does. and that's why we're kind of stuck in this holding pattern. >> matt, what do you tell investors when it comes to bonds? >> be wary of negative rates. we think negative rates are destined to fail. that's led to a rise in rates as the boj and fed signaled that

those rates are likely to work. it's a time to be cautious as a bond investor and look for high income and low volatility strategies. >> thank you for joining us. our guest hosts will stick around. steve, we'll see you in a bit? >> perhaps. >> stick around. >> we have a great lineup of experts to react to the fed decision including chris -- >> good guy. >> and we have dino kos. >> smart guy. >> and james paulsen. kneel irwin. >> he was with the post. >> >> now with the times. >> mark will join us with his best bets in the tech sector. why netflix has some room to run. ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. look at the u.s. equity futures. at least at this point things are solidly in the green. dow futures up by 75.

s&p 500 futures up by 7. nasdaq up close to 20, this after gains yesterday after the fed decided not to move. that was good for just over 160 points for the dow rally yesterday. let's talk tech. the tech sector surging up more than 16% in the last year. joining us with top tech picks, mark mahaney from rbc capital markets. should we talk about some things you love these days? >> let's do it. we can talk about some things i don't love. >> netflix is high on your list. >> among the large cap internet strongs, the f.a.n.g. names -- >> is that an internet stock or media stock? >> it's both. but on demand streaming company. it's where tv viewing, video -- entertainment is moving towards. it's a global company. 80 million subscribers. we think it will double, 150, 160 million subscribers. in the u.s. we see rising

subscription levels. >> when you say it's a tech company and media company, those are different valuation scales. which do you measure it by? >> based on cash flow it kicks off, the earnings it kicks off. did i get around that question? >> in terms of the multiple. you're assigning a tech multiple to the company? >> i'm serious when it depends on the earnings growth. we think this is generate $10 of gaap earnings in 2020. we think it could be a $200 stock. at $95 now. that's i wouwhy it could double three years. they implemented a price increase, 7.99 to 9.99. they had a sub shortfall. if there is another sub shortfall this quarter, the

stock won't move. >> i'm curious, do you think most of the growth will come internationally or inside the u.s.? the u.s. market is saturated. >> 50% of u.s. broadband households are netflix subscribers. 50% of amazon prime subscribers. in the uk, it's 40%. in almost every market they entered, within three years they reached 10%. they did it in latin america, france and germany different countries. >> how does that complete to hbo now, hulu, amazon, there's so much overlap. do they become substitutes for each other or not? >> they could be. right now they're about eight times bigger than the closest

competitor in terms of paid subscribers. the closest company is huely with 8 million. >> you're not counting amazon because -- >> it is. the biggest push back i get, bulls like myself get on netflix, isn't amazon prime going to destroy net flick? we ran this survey of 2,000 amazon customers. 50% sign up to netflix. 70% of the amazon prime customers sign up for netflix. i don't think they're a threat. >> do you see where all this supply of content overwhelms the viewer and there's too much to watch and that they lose some pricing power? there's only should many shows we all can watch. i see that there's potentially an overwhelming amount that

swamps demand. >> i think there's already an overwhelming amount of content out there. there's big bundles people have been buying. i think we're going through an unbundling of content. in 10, 15 years i would imagine people will bring it down to five or six mini bundles they'll buy for much lower prices than today. one of those five bundles is going to be netflix. >> let me talk about two other stocks. expedia. you love expedia. >> yeah. >> tell us what you like about that. >> one of the best executers in the internet space. we like to see that consistency. a good play in online travel. two great companies in that space, priceline and expedia. we would be long both stocks. expedia now seems more dislocated. >> do you like the operations or you like what's going on in the economy and travel broadly? >> i think travel turns out to be much more of a fixed expense

item than discretionary. we don't really see -- especially in europe, where priceline is strong. europeans will give up almost anything before they give up travel. am i right? >> absolutely. these days betting on services is much more important than spending on goods. >> says the person with the accent at the table. >> i single handedly represent europe as a whole. >> who do you hate? >> the ones we're most cautious on, we saw a fall off in consumer interest in ebay. the other one, the real disappointment in the large cap internet space is twitter. even with nfl streaming on thursday nights. i'm not sure it moves the needle. if that happens, does that company get picked off? >> maybe, but not any time soon. there's not a strategic bidder in the internet space. traditional media, are they going to step in and buy

twitter? i think there's a yahoo! scenario for twitter. but yahoo! got bought after years of no growth. >> one more working is google? >> i think so. >> it's working already. >> $1,000 price target on google. it's risen with the market. no dramatic outperformance. there's a deceleration debate, i think people are missing basic things about google, particularly the power of youtube. >> i love that you can't call it alphabet either. >> terrible name. >> why google over facebook or alphabet over facebook? this is probably the most -- investor sentiment is more bulled up on internet stocks than two years. when i talk with investors in new york, we're not -- i've had many opportunities to really pitch aggressively stocks in the past. this is not one of those types, with the exception of netflix. >> thanks for coming. when we come back, we're

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welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. the u.s. equity futures have been indicating higher. the dow futures up by 73 points. s&p 500 futures up by 7. nasdaq up by 18 after a market gain. yesterday the dow was up, less than 1%. s&p 500 up by 1%. it was all because of the fed. >> let's talk politics. new nbc "wall street journal" poll out for the 2016 election. john harwood joins us with some results. >> andrew, the interesting thing about this poll is that for all the twists and turns we've seen in the race over donald trump's comments and birtherism, hillary clinton's health problems, all sorts of headlines that tru s s fluctuated day-to-day, this is a stable race. this is the first poll we've

done that screens leikely voter, hillary clinton has a six percent lead over donald trump. 43% to 37%. gary johnson gets 9. jill stein, the green party person gets 3%. if you look at a two-party race, hillary clinton gets 48%, trump 41%. seven-point lead, a substantial lead. if you look at the contributors to that lead first donald trump is doing less well than mitt romney. he's leading among those people but not overwhelmingly, and less than romney did. hillary clinton is winning college educated white voters. that's extremely rare for a democrat.

in the history of exit polls we've never seen that happen. she has a lead of six points among that group. though hillary clinton does less well than barack obama among young people, 18 to 19, these doing better than him among 30 to 44 and among senior citizens. those are the foundations of hillary clinton's strength. it's heading into the debate next week. peter heart, the democratic pollster, and the republican who do our polls say something has got to change for donald trump to get back into this contest. what happened? there seemed to be such a momentum shift after 9/11 and hillary's fainting or whatever it was. the numbers come all neck and neck, and some say trump has a legitimate chance.

>> he still has a chance, however not all polls are created equal. our poll, i'm biased because i worked with it for 25 years. i think our poll is among the very small number of elite polls. some national polls you can throw out. secondly, the day-to-day fluctuations in headlines have less effect than we typically assign them. hillary clinton's lead got too big. got bigger than could be sustained. donald trump had some republicans come home. our poll in the two-way shows her lead down from 9 to 7. a shrinkage. >> when were the polls? >> september 16th to 19th. the last day of polling was monday. the first day was friday. what about states like ohio, pennsylvania, florida? if you look at the electoral

college, they'll make all the difference. >> donald trump is doing well in ohio. he's leading many ohio. he's very close in florida. that looks like an even race. we had a poll that showed this week donald trump behind by one in florida. others have shown him ahead. three polls yesterday by fox showed him leading north carolina, though there was a new one out this morning showing her ahead. north carolina, nevada, donald trump had a lead as well as ohio. here's the thing. because of the patterns of support we've seen in past elections, donald trump could win ohio, florida, and nevada and still lose this race if hillary clinton can win colorado and virginia. there was a poll that showed hillary clinton up nine in new hampshire. a new poll out just a few minutes ago that showed her up nine in colorado. she's got the advantage. no question about that.

there's always a question about margin. there's a three-point error margin in our poll. nevertheless, she has got an edge and this shows it's fairly stable. >> john, thank you for this. we'll continue the conversation now. for more on the presidential election, let's bring in ben white, cnbc contributor. we don't talk about it in that poll and in many polls, what has been polled which is the enthusiasm gap, which is to say who will show up at the poll ultimately. it's one thing to tell a pollster on the phone how you feel. it's another to get out of the house and wait on line. >> that's true. the clinton campaign has to contend with that. has to get their vote out. they have to drive up big margins in urban areas, particularly in places like north carolina to overcome

trump's strength. he has motivated supporters, particularly in rural areas with less educated white voters. a lot of them will turn out. the clinton campaign is working hard on turnout models, what the electorate will look like and getting those people to the polls. the advantage she has there over trump, she has massive organization in all of these swing states. he doesn't. they have much more money. they have a lot more tv ads on the air. in addition to everything john talked about, all those advantages, particularly the electoral college which tilts in her favor, they have a structural organizational advantage. >> based on john's poll, does that assume hillary survived the deplorables comment? >> i think she survived it. and he made the point that a lot of these headlines that people in the media say this will shift the race that will shift the race, they don't shift the race that much. we have a traditional democrat versus republican presidential

election, despite all the craziness. despite all the stuff donald trump says. he is close, but not close enough to win. her advantage is such in the states that getting over the top will be hard for him. >> this issue of enthusiasm or what people call intensity of electoral intentions, it's fascinating. it's something that pollsters cannot measure accurately. if you look back at the brexit vote, it can matter enormously. one of the reasons why brexit happened is because it turned out the pro brexit camp were that much more intense and committed to getting to the polls, even on a rainy day. >> you hear a lot from clinton supporters about brexit and are we in for a big surprise like brexit. i don't think we are, partly because of the organizational advantage that democrats have. maybe there's not the same enthusiasm for clinton as there

was for obama -- >> jack welch was on earlier this week. did kellyanne conway tweet it out? >> was a cnbc.com article. >> i can't tell you -- when i tell you the rabid following to watch what happened to that, it was astonishing to me in terms of the enthusiasm, which i don't believe would have had had we had a guest come on and say similar things about hillary clinton. >> that's true. his supporters online -- >> i'm not saying twitter is representative. but it suggests something -- >> there's an intensity there. no question. no question. his rallies are huge. hers are not. he has an intensity of support. we don't know the extent to which that will translate into election day. gillian is right we can't test it. there's an unknown factor that maybe there are secret trump voters who show up and blow her out in places like pennsylvania.

>> in morning money this is about elizabeth warren and how far left she can pull hillary clinton. she said she is warning on wall street picks this revolving door issue, you say if you get into office there will be nobody from the financial sector -- >> is allowed. >> i find this odd. >> do you want experts? >> this is the heart surgeon argument. you're having heart surgery, you're not going a psychologist. >> there's also the argument that people who were in the industry sometimes are tougher on it than people who never were. gary ginsler is a perfect example of that. he's a hero on the left. he was at goldman forever. but she will put pressure on people like larry fink, because they worked in these places they

on a black list. >> i know they're playing the music. donald trump talking about his support for stop and frisk at the same time that he is courting the african-american vote. how does that work? >> badly. it's not going to work out well for him. his african-american outreach is question the president's birth, talk about stop and frisk this won't take him from the 1% where he is right now with african-americans and may take him to zero. >> great to see you. when we come back, a top lif the top universities, and for the first time a u.s. school is not at the top of the list.

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welcome back to "squawk box." it's time for our executive edge. on cnbc.com, folks went through all the interviews becky has done with warren buffett and found the five best tips investing. here's one. >> a decent productive asset will kill a nonproductive asset.

if you buy an ounce of gold, you can go to it everybody day, fondle it, caress it, 100 years from now, will you have one ounce of gold and it won't have done anything in between. >> the writes is losing its status as the home of the world's top university. according to time's higher education table of best colleges, the university of oxford coming in in first place. gillian. this is the first time in 13 years of the newspapers rankings that a u.s. university was not at the top. after that, california institute of technology, stanford, cambridge and m.i.t. >> this is streaking. are you an oxford grad? >> i went to cambridge, the other place. >> you're still on the list. >> you can tell from my accent. what's fascinating is that oxford unlike most american

colleges does not have a big endowment fund. the funding in the uk is different. in some ways that makes this achievement more striking. when we come back, we'll talk about leon cooperman, the s.e.c. accusing that billionaire and telling his investors he is not settling that case and won't let anyone destroy his legacy. kate kelly is going to join us to talk about it when we return. both on the track and thousands of miles away. with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm. confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. giving them the agility to have speed & precision. because no one knows & like at&t. what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth?

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welcome back to "squawk box." the s.e.c. announcing wednesday they're charging leon cooperman with insider trading. kate kelly joining us to break it down. >> good morning. this happened after the show yesterday. we haven't had a chance to discuss it. the s.e.c.'s suit against cooperman is a move against a hedge fund manager that enjoyed returns of 14% for nearly 25 years. but the allegations in the suit appear damning. about a pending asset sale at pipeline partners. and then bought shares based on that tip that helped create $4 million in ill gotten gains. shortly before getting that tip and taking that long position. the suit alleges. and beginning to have sold it. it got worse. cooperman's buying actions struck a family member at the fund. that relative called the trades fishy and shady.

even saying somebody should investigate. once served with a subpoena, cooperman tried to fabricate a cover story with the executive he betrayed. that executive looks to have cooperated on the case against cooperman. cooperman whose assets have sunk to about $5 billion after two difficult years in the market has come out swinging. in a five-page letter and on an investor call yesterday afternoon, he called the charges baseless. he vowed to fight them vigorously. he notes that atlas purchases the ones in question were to personal accounts he maintained and they weren't sold for a year or more. hardly evidence of a get rich quick insider scheme. he wants to protect his legacy which he said on his phone call took 50 years of hard work and playing by the rules to establish. cooperman is not shy when it comes to a fight.

and in an infamous 2011 letter he accused president obama of embracing desperate demagoguery with partisan anti-elitist rhetoric. >> we're going to have to run but real quick, once you have insider information you can't buy it or sell. it doesn't matter if you buy it and own for the year, that's not the measure. >> that's the question here. in this case it's a simple chain of communications. there was an insider at the company. cooperman a longtime shareholder. the executive told the s.e.c. i assumed cooperman knew he had a duty not to trade upon this and it seems he did. cooperman says it's not cut and dry. he's a character like ken langone. maybe a hank greenburg. he is not going to take this lying down. >> mark cuban as well. >> and he prevailed.

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a global market rally. stocks rising around the world as the fed kicks the can on raising rates. what it all means for your money and the chances of a december rate hike. special market round table covering all the angles straight ahead. heather bresch grilled on capitol hill. >> are you telling us you're doing us a favor? >> a closer look at the political fire storm over pharmaceutical profits is straight ahead. and we hit the campaign trail and get an update on which candidate is spending more as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." >> welcome back to "squawk box,"

everybody. this is cnbc. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin. joe has the day off. peter boockvar is here. he is also a cnbc contributor. and julianne teff is also here. we're looking at the gains in the morning. markets building this morning. yesterday the dow was up by just over 160 points. this morning the futures are indicated up another 64 points. s&p futures are above fair value, the nasdaq by about 16. the dow rallying yesterday for its second positive session in a row. went from a loss to a gain as i mentioned of about 163 points. that was its best day since september 15th which is a week ago. the nasdaq hitting an all-time intraday and closing high. but again, these gains were not blowout gains that you might expect when the fed says it's

not going to be raising rates. let's continue the conversation about the fed because they are holding rates steady, but odds of december hike now only about 50/50 after chair yellen saying she expects to see a rate increase this year. steve leisman is here with more. >> the new mantra at the fed is to give the economy, quote, room to run. with inflation low, gdp weak, job growth strong but the unemployment rate not moving. >> we're not seeing strong pressures on utilization suggesting overheating. and my assessment would be based on this evidence that the economy has a little more room to run than might have been previously thought. that's good news. >> there it was. she said it, i didn't make it up. room to run. most economists now pegging december as the likely time for the next fed rate hike. the fed market sees a 12% chance for november and at 50% in december. at oxford, they're saying it was

with several key indications and indications from chair yellen suggests the fed is strongly poised to raise rates in december. not so much belief over there by mike england. he says the three dissents suggests the fed is on the brink of taking action perhaps thumbing their nose at a new administration in november after all. insisted yesterday the fed not motivated by politics in this decision, guys. >> why doesn't she just raise in november? >> that would be six days before the election. >> she's not motivated by politics. >> it would be interesting to see if they come up with another reason not a hike. there are those who accuse the federal reserve of moving the goal posts yet again. >> can i wind back to the brexit vote again? do you remember how the fed delayed the rate move because of the brexit issue or rather because of fears of turmoil in the markets? this could play out again come november. if there is going to be a close race, if there are signs of

market turmoil, that's going to be yet another reason for the fed to sit on its hands. >> she was asked about that yesterday and i think if there is actual volatility in the market, if there's a big selloff in one way or the other, remember the fed meets before the election. so it's really hard in my opinion for the fed to say we are not hiking because of the democratic process in america. i think that's a really troublesome excuse from the central bank. >> but it can certainly say we're not hiking because we're concerned about the market volatility and we don't want to add to it. >> we're going to continue this fed conversation in just a minute. actually we're going to do headlines but maybe we'll continue right this minute because dean is here to talk about this. deano is bank executive haven't. both previously worked at the

fed. steve is going to stick around. i have one question -- we can follow up on what was just being said here. on the political front, i thought one of the most fascinating things that was said was she said, look, when transcripts of all of this come out five years from now, i assure you you will not find any political influence. i agree. i imagine in five years we won't see anything in the transcript. but my question is since you guys have been part of this, are there phone calls going on or other things that wouldn't be recorded in the transcript where people are saying, look, we should just not talk about politics? >> you're absolutely right. the people know that they're being recorded. there's other things that might be said behind the scenes in phone calls, side bars, et cetera. and they're aware of the political calendar. and to julianne's point, they're aware of the volatility. it's not about the election. it's not about the outcomes.

it's about how the market might react. it's a ready made excuse for november. you're asking for my opinion, i would say yes. >> yes they stand fast. so nothing in '16? >> that's my view. again, it's like -- you know, if you think about the three dissents, to me that's yellen putting a stake in the ground. she was willing to take the three dissents because she had conviction. she wanted to stay where she was willing to take the three dissents. therefore now that those guys have played their hand, those three presidents, they played their hand. now what? >> is there a new metric out there. they said we have a jobs and inflation. we've done it on jobs waiting for inflation to come up. now we're back looking at the jobs mandate because there's this notion of room to run. is that a new metric out there for the fed? and how do you work with that? >> you know, how many metrics have we had over the last few years? every year this seems like there's a new metric.

>> every month maybe. >> i don't want to exaggerate, but certainly there's ban new metric. we've been focused on different metrics over different times the last few years. so absolutely, that is an issue with moving goal posts. >> if i could jump in for a second. i think you're overdoing the moving the goal post move. it's maximum employment and price stability defined as 2% inflation. people only looking at payrolls have been missing the larger point which is that unemployment hasn't declined this year. total hours worked have barely moved since february. at the same time core pc inflation, same as it was in february. inflation expectations still soft. and then the most recent run of the data, a little soggy. it's perfectly reasonable and consistent in this situation to let the economy run a bit more, let this second half play through and move at the end of

the year. which i'm confident they will do. >> this is peter. the unemployment rate has fallen from 10% to 5% essentially. core pci is high for ten straight months and hive raised once. >> can i comment on that? i went back this morning and looked at chair yellen's speech in august at jackson hole and i looked at her testimony. this notion that se possibility that there's more labor should determine policy is nonexistent in both of those two speeches. >> so i think it's fair, steve, to say that the committee has drawn too much attention to the payroll numbers themselves rather than looking at the broader picture of the labor market as well as the fact that there still isn't the progress yet definitive progress that they'd like to see on the inflation side of the mandate. but we know what the mandate is.

we know what the data is. it would be curious to push rates higher in an effort to raise inflation and inflation expectation. that's your goal without a very convincing backdrop of firming up in the labor market. >> given what you just said, what are you telling your clients? what do they raise if they raise ever? >> i think they are raising 60%, 65% probability they're raising in december. >> give me a reason why you think that. >> because i have reason to be optimistic for the second balance of the year. >> can i follow up on that? i want a number that i can follow to try to get a sense of what the fed's going to do. do you need to see the unemployment rate decline? or some form of the decline and even the u-6 which is the broader measure of labor slack in order for the fed to get convinced that the amount of job

growth out there is actually tightening up the labor market? >> as you well know, steve, it's never down to any one single metric which was the mistake of focusing exclusively on payrolls in this debate. but certainly i think if they were to see a combination of strength in the payrolls -- the last payroll report was a bit soggy. wier seeing a little bit more firming in the private payrolls combined with, you know, a tenth down or so resumption of declines. this is the larger picture you want to see. you also want to see this second half growth finally played through. it's a sense of the momentum here that's pushing you. gives you more confidence on the inflation front. remember we still need that progress on inflation. >> dino does -- krishna has his reasoning or understanding.

on the other hand is the fed undermining its correct going to what appears to some as new metrics here? >> i think the credibility of the argument is overdone. they can say, look, we're being analytical. we are adjusting to a new environment and trying to find metrics to suit that new environment. i'm not so much concerned about that specific aspect about credibility. you know, i think the question is, you know, what -- where are they right now with their policy mix? where are they going? you know, have they clearly arctically what is driving the function because you could make the argument that all as has been said, you know, all of the goal posts that they set out some time back have been met. the employment, the picture where the economy is relative to potential. that's all been met. but on the other hand they clearly want coming out of the crisis still that they want to

be sure. they don't want to have a boj style reversal and go back to zero. and that's really the strategic asset. >> this debate is going to continue, guys. we got to leave it there. we appreciate it. dino, thank you. krishna, thank you. let's get to some of the morning's top headlines. it is a busy day for economic numbers today. in 90 minutes' time we'll get the jobless department claims. and out we the august existing home sales. automakers are pushing the white house. industry officials will tell a house panel today that low gas prices and weak demand for electric vehicles will make it pretty difficult and expensive to meet those targets. when prices are low, consumers just don't want cars that are supposedly more gas efficient. and after a 74-day run

pokemon go is no longer the top seller in apple's app store. its streak was snapped despite the release of a wearable device that makes the game easier to display. the next is crash royale. red hat reporting better than expected results. numbers above analyst estimates and is lifting the full year guidance. jabil circuits revenue dropped less than expected. the electronics supplier also plans to streamline its capacity and support infrastructure which will result in nooerly $200 million over a two-year period. and bed bath & beyond missed forecasts. i guess joe and i aren't spending as much time there this quarter. same store sales fell more than 1% despite soft results. the retailer is sticking with

its profit outlook for the year. and finally housing industry deal announced lennar buying rival wci communities. the deal is worth $643 million in cash and stock. the deal in stock term is at $23.50 per share. that's a 37% premium to yesterday's close. would have been nice to be in that stock yesterday. >> yeah. the governor of north carolina declaring a state of emergency in charlotte after protests overnight led to gunfire all in response to tuesday's officer involved shooting of a black man. we are joined now with the latest on the investigation and the public outcry. sarah, it has been a very long night there. >> reporter: that's right, becky. it's been a violent night here in charlotte, north carolina. and things right now are actually very calm. much different from what they were than a couple hours ago when hundreds of people were marching through the streets.

it was anger and rising racial tensions here after yet another officer involved shooting. so this brought out protesters to the street. forced to use tear gas all in an effort to disperse the crowd and protest peacefully. originally it started out as a peaceful protest. but things started getting more violent. protesters taken to the streets. we're told they even broke into hotels, broke through windows of stores, had beer bottles smashed all along the floor here. we had people riding and demonstrating in front after a line of cops just blocking the street there. and at one point when they got to the center of the city, that's when shots rang out and a protester was shot. police say that protester was shot by a civilian and not by a police officers. we're told that that protester is now fighting for his life on life support right now.

other police officers and civilians were also taken to the hospital. they were injured in those protests. governor pat mccrory declaring a state of emergency bringing in the national guard and highway patrol here to bring -- for support just in case if more protests arrive today. reporting live in charlotte, sarah rosario, back to owe. coming up, the business round table president will join us. he's here to explain why. we will debate that with him. meantime check out the futures flight. lao looks like it would open up 65 points. the nasdaq up about 16 points. we are back in just a moment. 're. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future.

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apple could be facing $14 billion in back taxes to the european union after its executive arm ruled that the company has got illegal state aid from ireland. tried to put a positive spin on that action against apple. >> the takeaway is that europe is open for business. and we welcome anyone who wants to do business in europe, be successful, attract customers. but europe is not open for a tax evasion. >> joining us is john engler.

he issued a letter to the eu states to issue a return on apple. and we should point out that ireland itself is fighting this. good to see you. >> great to be with you. >> so the basic thrust of your letter was what? >> you made the point in the question. ireland is the country that's the taxes country in this case. they have a law. the company in this case apple followed that law is now finding out years later the european commission and really the competition had is saying you're doing something wrong and we're going to retroactively point out this burden. that you're creating great uncertainty. it'd be like me offering something when a company located -- a new plant there and then later on finding out in

washington they objected to michigan's policy and overrode that. that's what's happening. the eu is overriding ireland's policy and that's why ireland is fighting this. and the company in this case is -- our worry is that could spread. this could be something and the commissioner even hinted at this that we could reach after other companies and try to assess liability to them. >> john, it's jillian. hi. we've been paying attention to this story. i'm curious. i recently spoke with official who is said they are concerned that there may be a bigger message sent to international investors from this case. they insist that there are still plenty of investment coming into ireland. but are you seeing any of your members saying actually we're going to put plans on hold? >> they haven't said that. but i think this is the kind of

inside companies that are members of the business round table, this is the kind of thing that alarms them. it's sort of like our own treasury here on 3785 looking at how they handled that. these kinds of sort of taxing official decisions that end up overturning what we thought was settled law creates great confusion. i think with the slow growth around the world, that's what we don't need at the moment. i think the u.s. could fix its own tax system and we could help reduce the risk. but the european decision, this one's far reaching and very different than what we've seen. this is why we rope ahead of the countries and say look you need to pay attention to what the bureaucrats are doing. they're going at your decisions and your tax structure. >> john, i wonder if there's an irony in all this. we've watched american companies pursue inversions, take their

business abroad because they thought the tax rates were going to be lower or environment more hospitable. we've argued in the united states that we need to change things here because our policies are not conducive enough to business. i wonder whether this decision in part changes the calculus which is to say to jillian's point whether american companies plan to decide to put those on hold and whether it takes any pressure off oddly enough congress or others in washington to actually make some of the hard decisions we've talked about. because they say to themselves, actually, this is a pretty attractive environment relative to the possibility that you're going to get sued and find out retroactively that your tax bill is different than what you thought it was. >> that's an interesting question. i actually think it ups the ante here in washington. remember, we've still got more than $2 trillion trapped offshore. and i'd like to see that money come home. i'd like to see the u.s. make

the policy decision -- i'd hope the new administration might think this. we ought to be a magnet for all headquarters to be here. let's fix our tax code and then have a predictable, reliable, set of administratable followons and it can be attractive again. i don't think any would like to be prefers elsewhere in the u.s. the tax code we have today has dictated that if you want to get your foreign earnings home. >> there have been suggestions that the u.s. fine that they're asking for of deutsche bank is tit for tat in this. the number is right at $14 billion both. any truth to that? >> i haven't heard that. but these boxcar sized fines that we're seeing, i'm not sure they're really helping anybody get their economies straightened out. i really think back to fundamental right tax policy, right economic strategies and

the whole world would be better off with greater growth. >> do you think that the relations -- trade relations between us and the eu, trade relations between us and china and other places, are they under more strain than recently s? or am i reading the tea leaves wrong? >> no. you're reading those collective collectivecollecrrectly. we've seen some of the european reaction to the negotiations in pretty early stages. and clear le aren't going to get across the finish line before the end of this year. then the problems we're having in trying to get tpp which has been signed, agreed to, passed by the congress, we still hope that that can happen at the end of the year. but boy, trade pressure around the world is i think probably as tough as it's been. >> what odds would you put on tpp actually getting passed here? >> you know -- >> if you're betting your money? >> look, let's see what happens in the election.

let's see where we go. i think there's -- senator hatch was encouraging a week ago. the pieces are in place. i think the administration's worked hard. and the public support, that's important. the polling that we see really hasn't wavered very much. there's still recognition for the u.s. that 4% of the world's population, we can make food and provide services. we sure can't consume them all. we need to sell them to the world if we're going to be a wealthier country. >> john, thank you for joining us today. great to see you. >> thank you. and good luck with the baby. >> coming up when we return, donald trump spending on the rise thanks to climbing donations. we've got details straight ahead. we'll be right back with more on "squawk" in a moment. ey just dr. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets

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among the stories front and center right now, the labor department to release jobless claims. they think the claims came in at 260,000 last week which would be the same last week. joe biden says he sees a less than even chance that congress improves the tpp before the next president takes office.

both candidates oppose the pact. and the fed's move to keep interest rates steady has taken its toll on the dollar this morning. it's touched a four-week low against the japanese yen even though the fed did say that the case for a rate increase has strengthened. also big news this morning, yahoo expected to confirm a massive data breach involving accounts. the breach is widespread and serious. earlier in the summer yahoo said it was investigating an incident where hackers claimed to hack the account and were selling them online. the data includes, user names, passwords, and personal information such as birth dates. it could have major implication on the sale of yahoo's core business to verizon. we'll keep an eye on that. becky says she lies about her birth date. >> there's no reason they should have that information. you want to wish me a happy birthday? why should i give you my birth date. i don't want to hear from you.

>> i think if you have a user name or password on yahoo and use them on other sites, you should think about changing it. >> i don't do those things. mylan ceo testifying before the house oversight committee getting grilled over the epipen price hikes as we expected. meg tirrell joins us with more. >> it was a very long hearing lasting into the evening last night. they kept having to break for votes. but it went on for several hours. very heated questions to heather bresch. not just over the price of the epipen but everything was on the table from her compensation to usa today story about her mother's involvement about getting epipens into schools. you could sense the frustration among the congressmen on this panel. they've had a lot of drug price hearings before. this wasn't the first one. you could hear that frustration coming through from elijah

cummings in his opening statements. take a look. >> i begged martin shkreli to use whatever influence he still had over his company to lower their prices. i pleaded with valeant executives to lower their prices. i called on mylan to reverse its drastic increases. but they all refuse. >> cummings saying that mylan executives were going to laugh all the way home to their mansions on their private jets after the hearing. later in the hearing bresch was questioned whether she did fly there on a private jet and she said she actually had. so she didn't apologize -- >> didn't they learn from the auto bailout? do you remember that? >> it was because of safety and because of convenience she'd flown there with employees earlier in the week. >> safety? >> yeah. they didn't give her a chance to answer that. that's a common theme for the day. >> maybe because people might throw rocks on me? >> i don't know. well, they're coming from pittsburgh. anyway, she didn't apologize.

she did say she thinks the $600 price initially was fair. it's interesting she didn't get a lot of chances to even complete a sentence or a thought. here is where she explained what went into it. >> i hope no one would want to go back to where the awareness was so shockingly low and the access was almost nonexistent for epipens. i believe that we have continued to balance that access. it does come at a price and we've tried to balance that price and access while at the same time continuing to have access in more places. >> so her argument there is that they've invested in awareness of anaphylax anaphylaxis. >> that's a fair point. the other issue is there's pressure on the fda. they need to start looking at some of these areas where you have these drugs that have no competition. is that a message you think is getting through on the hill too?

>> i think the main focus was on heather bresch. however, from the fda getting a lot of heated questions as well about the pipeline of drugs for generi generics, why it takes so long to improve them. >> in cases where with the epipen they're protecting the delivery system. there was a viable competitor that the fda has turned down. >> that's right. but we don't know exactly why the teva generic was turned down. we haven't seen exactly what was wrong with their application. why it wasn't identical. but this morning ronny gal put out a word saying the sanofi product, there was a lot of talk about whether it could come back on. they discontinued that product but it's not necessarily dead. another small company has reacquired the license to that product and there's questions over whether that will come back. you have to wonder would somebody buy that product and bring it to market. >> bossidy said when he was at ge, they could not raise prices

on anything because they had massive competition. that's the thing that keeps you in check. >> and the problem with the epipen, if it is such a clearly understood products in so many households, so many kids, it's such a symbolic issue that anyone can understand. >> after the wells fargo grilling two days ago, there was a real sense that congress may really push not just on wells but banking broadly. did you feel after this that that is clear not just from mylan but for the industry, that it is actually going to get worse for them in terms of there's a new target on their back that there wasn't before? >> i'm not sure there's a new target on their back. a lot of people trying to see what actions will come out of this. people are in agreement there is a clear focus on the epipen. we will see changes around that and on the fda, but whether more broadly there will be practices in the drug industry. the things that drive up the prices, is there even an understanding in congress about that? >> does bresch keep her job?

>> there were no questions about whether she should resign. so we'll see. >> thank you. when we come back, wells capital management strategist jim paulsen will join us. first look at the futures. s&p up close to eight. "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back, everybody. we've been watching the futures this morning. they have been higher all through the day. or all through the morning, i should say. getting back to that story right now, dow futures up by about 73 points. joining us more to talk about it is jim paulsen. he is chief investment strategist at wells capital management. we did see the markets rally although the dow was up by less than 1%. you can green arrows this morning but that's what we've seen every morning. we've seen stronger gains in the futures up triple digits. what do you think about what the fed said yesterday and where does this lead you in terms of what you're thinking about about the markets over the next couple of months? >> well, becky, i'd like to have the fed get on with it. the market always pauses

historically whenever the fed is involved in e the first rate hike of the recovery cycle. and they've sort of like perpetuated this process now for over two years starting with putting qe back in 2014. it's kind of keeping us at the starting line which is probably the worst place for the markets to be. i wish they'd get on with it. i hope they do in december. but really i think the market was ready for it, becky. and would have been fine if the fed came through. i'm sure it would have had a knee jerk reaction but then probably recovered and done okay. i think the biggest -- one of the big variables that has been involved in this cycle i think has been earnings. in other words, about the time that we reached full employment at the end of 2014 or early 2015 when the fed discussion really heated up, you saw earnings fade. earnings growth rolled over with the commodity collapse and they've been down ever since. and it's difficult to raise

rates in the face of negative earnings growth. but i do think that's about to change. i think we're going to head now in the second half this year back towards positive earnings growth. what i've looked at back to 1950 is whenever we've raised rates with when the earnings growth rate exceeds the 10-year yield, stocks have annualized almost 10% annualized gains. so i think the market can handle rate increases as long as earnings return a little bit. >> jim, this is peter. why do you think earnings are about to reverse higher? what factors are telling you that? >> well, i think one big part of the negative earnings decline was the collapse in commodity prices. and that's still working through the system. but it's clearly ended. you could argue about we haven't had full recovery by any means but just the ending of the collapse in -- is going to make

a big push back. i also think, peter, that we're going to have much better growth. we've got a gdp close to three for this quarter. i think we're going to do three or better in the fourth quarter. the global leading economic indicator index has been rising of late. the ecri has been rising. our leading economic indicator just went to a new high for the cycle. i do think we get better growth and better earnings. >> isn't the issue right now with profit margins labor costs are rising as a percent of profits and that's going to continue? that's my concern with earnings is the profit margins to where it would be good for employees but not necessarily be good for employers. >> i totally agree, peter. i think the earnings story and the rest of the cycle will be far more muted than what we've already seen. but here's the deal. as i said about the earnings relationship, it's not like it's the late 70s or early 80s where

growth had exceed 15% bond rate in order to be positive for stocks. right now if earnings grow 2% year on year, it's going to exceed the current 10-year rate. even if we had manage modest 3% to 5% growth, we're probably still going to have a positive impact on stocks overall against a low hurdle rate on the debt rate. so i think the history suggests doesn't take much earnings to get an okay stock market from here. >> we're also seeing a slowdown in stock buybacks. do you see that continuing or do you think the high level will persist? >> i think it might slow a little bit. and part of that, i think, is also because i think capital spending might pick up a little bit here over the next year. >> why? >> well, i've looked back historically and if you look at cap spending generally picks up whenever the factor rates tend

to rise. we've been flu this period of energy and materials companies causing a big collapse over the last two years. but now that's starting to pick up. and if the utilization rate picks up, i think capital spending will follow a little bit. i'm not talking about super robust growth, but let's say we go back to zero year on year back to 3% or 4%. that might make quite a difference. to peter's point, that may take away from stock buybacks. >> this recovery has not been like previous recoveries. and there's a lot of signs that capex is not behaving as anyone had predicted. >> that's true. there's no doubt about that. but i think it's -- in the last two years the primary reason has been a falling factor of utilization rate due to collapse in energy which has ended. and i think what's different going forward, too, for the first time i would argue we have

synchronized economic policies across the globe. this is e the first time in this recovery that every policy official in the world is pushing upward on the cycle at the same time. i think it's likely to work. i think we're likely to get a little balance in growth everywhere. and if there's one thing as a ceo that keeps me from a capital spending program is i look at europe and they can't get out of the way. if i see everyone bouncing even if it's not robust, i think that's going to help capital spending and the rest of the cycle. >> i think we're out of time here, jim thank you for joining us. it's great to see you. >> thanks for having me, guys. when we return, the campaign spending is heating up with just 46 days to the election. a closer look at trump's recent rampup in spending. robert frank is going to join us with that story. back in a moment. everyone thought i was crazy to open a hotel here. everyone said it's so hard to be a musician, but i can't imagine doing anything else. now that the train makes it easier to get here,

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what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley welcome back, everybody. donald trump's spending level jumped to the highest in august but still trailing hillary clinton's campaign cash. robert frank joins us with more. >> good morning. donald trump's campaign did ramp up its spending in august but cut back on the controversial payments to his own companies. trump's campaign spending top

$30 million in august. that was up from $18 million in july. so big jump there. hillary clinton still vastly outspending him with $50 million in august. now, his biggest expense was $11 million to giles parscale that does work for trump's private companies. to date his campaign has spent more than $8 million on his own businesses like his golf courses, his office tower rent, and that aircraft company that he owns. but that amount dropped dramatically in august. only about half a million dollars went to trump and his company. most of that was going to tag air, that's the aircraft company he owns. he's now chattering planes from a new hampshire company called private jet services. the campaign spent a total of $2 million on companies affiliated with him or his children in august. that includes $1.6 million to the maker of those make america great hats.

the owner of that company sits on the board of eric trump's foundation. a data on littics firm who happens to be one of trump's biggest private donors. trump has also given his own campaign around $50 million. so we kind of have to balance that against the charges that he is using his campaign to enrich his company. >> where is hillary clinton spending the $50 million? >> on the traditional political pollsters, advisers, you know, very few if any of the people who are getting paid by the trump campaign have ever worked on a campaign. hillary's campaign is more the traditional groups and her staff the more than ten times what trump's staff is. he of course saying he has lean staff and that's a good thing. >> there's been so many questions this time where raising money has always been seen as a bragging point. maybe not so much this time because of just the politics in the nation at this point and how

angry people are at traditional politics. how do you measure that out? >> with trump both and the foundation and the campaign the question is these blurred lines between the foundation, campaign, and private companies. the campaign finance law never pondered the idea you could have a campaign benefit someone's company. the laws are prevented from a corporation to bribe a campaign. so the laws never envisioned that someone could use their own campaign to benefit their own companies. and that's the issue both with this and the foundation. he of course would say i want to use companies and people i trust and that's why i'm using them. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you. when we come back, stocks on the move ahead of the opening on wall street. on the top of the hour, david perdue will join us to talk about the election and why he suz he thinks trump's going to win big. "squawk box" will be right back. coming up, the business of optimism.

how one apparel company is betting on positive state of mind styles. the cofounder of life is good will join us live from the iconic conference. "squawk box" will be right back. with handles designed here, made here, shipped from here, on this plane flown by this pilot, who owns stock in this company, that builds big things and provides benefits to this woman, with new cabinets. they all have insurance crafted personally for them. not just coverage, craftsmanship. not just insured. chubb insured. now that fedex has helped us we could focus on bigger issues, like our passive aggressive environment. we're not passive aggressive. hey, hey, hey, there are no bad suggestions here... no matter how lame they are. well said, ann. i've always admired how you just say what's in your head, without thinking. very brave. good point ted. you're living proof that looks aren't everything. thank you. welcome. so, fedex helped simplify our e-commerce business

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let's take a quick look at some stocks to watch this morning. seaworld entertainment upgraded to buy. citi says that the theme park

operator could if it is toward capital expenditures. also autozone reported quarterly profit of $14.30 per share. that's 5 cents above estimates with comparable store sales rising by 1%. also a double digit increase in year over year earnings. and cbs was downgraded at tel see -- telsey. they said cbs has better metrics by itself than it would with viacom. going to be stepping down in november. there's also questions about leadership and this is at viacom, that is. >> story to watch. >> we want to thank our guest host for the last two hours. peter boockvar. >> i might be here for another hour. >> are you sticking with us in. >> we finally lured you in. never mind. they're staying. we're staying. we're back in just a moment. when we come back, former

dollar general ceo turned republican senator from georgia david perdue joins us to talk about the election. plus the business of optimism. apparel maker life is good is building an empire out of positivity. the company's cofounder will join us in a bit. "squawk box" will be right back. it's me, arty! come see what i collected

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new this morning, hillary clinton leads donald trump in the latest national poll. but the race is tightening ahead of next week's debate. grilled on the hill. >> billions of dollars in profits. >> we cut the price -- >> you cut the price in half. do not do that to me. >> heather bresch fields tough questions from lawmakers and defends the drug company's epipen price hike. plus the multimillion-dollar business of optimism. apparel maker life is good is building an empire out of positivity. the cofounder joins us as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ . . live from the most powerful city in the world, new york, this is "squawk box."

>> welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick. our guest hosts jillian tett and peter boockvar. take a look at the futures this morning after we got that news from the fed yet. markets look like they're going to be up today. nasdaq up about 22 points. among our top stories today, just this story. asian markets closed higher as well. you saw our futures. asian markets we should point out the nikkei was closed in japan for a holiday but the hang seng up by a third of a percentage point. shanghai over half a percentage point. and the kospi gained more than that. the dax up by better than 2% in

europe. and so is the cac in france. ftse up about 1.3%. gu gundlach says he sees december hike as a possibility. >> i think december is a huge who knows at this point. think of the magnitude the fed guessed for today's non-move. and how that's changed over the past months. which thinking of presidential debates, election. this is highly unknown what's going to happen in december. and so i'm not surprised that the work function that shows the embedded probability of the fed moving from the short end of the bond market is right about 50%. because that's probably what the -- any rational person would put the odds at. there's too much wood to chop economically between now and

december. in corporate news yahoo is reportedly expected to confirm a massive data breach exposing millions of accounts. the breach is widespread and serious. earlier in the summer, 200 million yahoo user accounts were announced. that data allegedly includes user names, passwords, and personal information like birth dates. we're going to do stocks to watch quick. lennar is building wci communities for $643 million in cash and stock. it's $23.50 per share. it is a nice little 37% premium compared to yesterday's close. also seaworld entertainment upgraded to buy from neutral. the firm says that pricing pressure should be offset by cost cuts. seaworld believes it will benefit from recent dividend cuts by capital expenditures. and cbs down to market perform. that firm siting an increased

likelihood cbs will combine perhaps with viacom. it is the open opera that keeps on rolling. telsey says that -- well, that the chances are much better. so we'll see. we are just seven short weeks away from the presidential election. a new nbc news wall street journal poll today shows clinton is leading trump in a four-way race. 43% to 37% with gary johnson taking 9% and jill stein 3%. u.s. senator david perdue says that the country is in need of a major change and he thinks donald trump can and will be the guy to do it. he joins us this morning from washington. senator perdue, by the way, is also the former ceo of reebok and dollar general. senator, thank you for joining us. >> good morning. >> so we're looking at these new polls and obviously polls have been up, polls have been down. momentum seems to be flowing all over the place. but the latest poll we've been talking about this morning does give a significant advantage to

hillary clinton. why is it that you think the poll is picking up? >> first of all, this same poll had me down four points. the national polls had me going down six point and we won by more than eight points. so i don't put a lot of stock in the current polling. for a lot of reasons. we have a lot of new voters this time and an unusual candidate. we have an outsider. frankly the polling industry as well as the media frankly look at these candidates through the lens of the washington bubble. so i'm not putting a lot of stock in these polls yet. and frankly i think a lot's going to happen over the next few weeks as we move into the election and have these debates, by the way. >> let me point out the polls. it's kind of struck me as amusing to watch. each camp on both sides of the spectrum on this. the democrats and the republicans trash the polls say they're no good until the polls have them up. in which case they tout the polls. you're saying forget all the polls, right? >> i'm just saying you have to take it with a grain of salt.

we're looking at the. the intensity that you see behind a donald trump candidacy belies the favorables and unfavorables. going into the final weeks of a race. what i see going on right now is these polls are not picking up on new voters. they're not picking up the intensity. so i think what you're seeing is a greater range of variability in these polls and you're going to see that over the next few weeks. i would predict that trump is going to out perform these poll nos matter what they say. >> senator, i'm curious. the race being watched closely around the world. if you had one or two key pieces of advice that you would give donald trump right now for how to keep building on this momentum, what would they be? >> i think to talk to people

about the obama administration and how hillary clinton is going to double down on the failed policies. we have exampled around the world too. the united kingdom reduced their corporate tax rate in 2009 over five years from 28% to 18%. they got rid of their repatriation tax and we now see in london as a mecca for corporate headquarters. i think these are the things we ought to see him talking about. he's beginning to do that. his economic policy is a great first step. to get the economy going again. that's what people want to hear out there. people are hurting. i mean, between unemployed, underemployed, and people who have stopped looking for work, people are struggling getting from payday to payday. >> but do you think that he's doing enough to reassure people who were worried about some of the inflammatory language? because, you know, i speak to business leaders who say to me we like some of these points talking about business and taxation. yes we recognize that people were hungry for change, but some of that language makes me very scared.

>> we have the weakest recovery in 70 years. we have fewer people working as a percentage of the workforce than any time since jimmy carter was president. we have a gdp that's growing under 1% on a compound basis under this president. and in the last seven years we let 4 million women fall into poverty. that's what we should be scared of which is the status quo which is what hillary clinton is promising us. >> can you speak to the temperament issue? i have to imagine there are comments that he has made during this campaign that you would not be proud to say out of your mouth. >> he's a different person. i'm a different person. he's had a business career though. and look at the stark contrast between these two candidates. on the one hand we've got a person who's a derivative of the political bubble who in some cases in my mind believes she's above the law.

then an outsider guy, a business guy who's been a fighter his entire career and is listening to the people back home. i think we've got a stark contrast of two individuals. i'm excited about what's going to happen over the next few weeks. >> would you do business with donald trump? >> i have, absolutely i would. >> you have and you did. >> yes. this is a guy in the real world. this is what washington misses. people who have been in washington, never been in the enterprise world in the real world have no clue in what's happening in capital employeeing people. >> do you think it was a mistake for macy's to stop doing business with him? >> i'm sorry. >> do you think it was a mistake for macy's, for example -- there's a list of companies that stopped doing business with donald trump for doing -- >> macy's said it was because he was running for campaign. >> that's part of it. >> i think what you've got to do is look at each situation. the bigger picture here -- >> some was the inflammatory

language. nbc universal stopped because of the inflammatory language. >> that's their decision. if you need somebody to get this country going, many think rereally -- they're really concerned about their own security. if you look at the national security situation, the two go hand in glove. because of aur debt situation we're not really able to defend our country the way we need to right now. i think donald trump is talking about getting the economy going and developing a long-term strategy to become responsible again financially. >> let's talk about the debt because the committee for a responsible federal budget, this is the group. the bipartisan group that had been going around trying to get people to come to the table and deal with that they say looking at the latest numbers clinton has released and the numbers that trump has released, they're now expecting that clinton's plans would be over the current law levels. they would now, that's down from what they were expecting before.

what do you think when you see numbers like that that are assessed and tossed around? >> see, the media looks at numbers like that as absolute. i'm a business guy. i understand what happens when you adjust the tax rates, when you get after regulation, then you unleash this energy boom. what an effect that will have on the economy. that's a forecasting model i'm not sure i agree with these people with an increase. >> it's hard -- granted, it is really hard when you look at dynamic scoring and say, you know, i'm going to get 5.5% growth of gdp which is quite a bit higher than we've seen for a very long time. you're looking at the lowest gdp we've seen in years right now. obviously regulatory stripping away some of that would probably help. a lot of these things to unleash it. but it's hard to come up with a way to score the growth you're going to get out of these things. >> of course it is. >> remember when ronald reagan cut taxes in the '80s. nobody thought it was a good idea and it worked.

we have the highest corporate tax rate both nominal and effective tax rate in the world. we know we have to deal with that. we've got a lot of regulations right now that are sucking the very life out of our economy. we know we have to deal with that. what hillary clinton is talking about in her model is basically a continuation of these failed policies we've seen in the last eight years. the last thing the business community wants to see in my opinion is a continuation of this environment that frankly is shutting us down. let me put out a warning here. we don't talk about this a lot, but china right now has a larger economy. when you have parity than the united states. they're informsing $300 million in their military which on paper is half of what we're spending. but they're about the same as we are. we're moving into a situation where china could do to us over the next decade what we did to the soviet union and that is bankrupt them trying to defend their country. i think we're in a dangerous time right now. i really want somebody in the white house who understands our free enterprise system and wants

a different direction for our country. >> senator perdue, thank you for your time today. >> thank you, guys. coming up when we return, the big business of optimism. apparel company life is good doubling down on positivity in the wake of the election season. the cofounder is going to join us live from the iconic conference in just a moment.

welcome back, everybody. a deal just announced between cisco systems and salesforce. those two companies going to be integrated cloud based platforms and marketing various solutions enhancing business productivity. the companies did not reveal the financial terms of the deal. if you can get your head around what they're doing, more power to you. now to a business success story. we love these stories. from selling t-shirts on the street to earning over $100 million in revenue, one company has found success in building a brand of optimism. joining us now is the cofounder of life is good. good morning. john, can you hear us? >> yeah, andrew. how are you? >> how are you doing? >> i'm doing well. >> tell us for those uninitiated how you started your company and

what this is all about. >> well, that's -- the short version is my brother and i wanted to convert art and business somehow. we found t-shirts to do that. we basically lived out of a van for five years trying to sell shirts to kids in college dorms without much success. finally we landed on something after some being wildly unsuccessful. we found this one shirt that said life is good with this character named jake. and that changed our lives forever. that shirt took off and we started building on that. over the years we built so much from our customers on that message. that life isn't easy, life isn't perfect. the people that are most loyal to our brand are the ones that have been through the most adversity. >> and what was it about that moment? was it just the t-shirt itself? was there a marketing opportunity around it? what was the inflection point there? >> it was actually a conversation we had a lot about

how people get fed a lot of negative news and it's hard to navigate and we wondered how to create a rallying cry for optimists. that's where the first life is good shirt came from. people we've realized since then whether it's a wartime, whether the economy is struggling, people want something positive to rally around. and fortunately our brand has become one of those things. >> it's one of the great things about america, isn't it? i've noticed in the past that pessimism sells in europe and optimism sells in america. but i'm curious are you seeing at the moment more demand for optimism amongst the consumers you're selling to given the gloomy tone of the election and all the fear amongering and stuff? >> we actually are, absolutely. and we've seen it as i mentioned in wartime. and at first when something terrible happens in this country, let's say 9/11, we didn't know if it was probably

to send out. but they want it more than ever. to a lesser degree right now, it's a strange year and there's a lot of tension on different levels. and people that the demand is higher. and i think people are looking for ways to rise above the noise and the mud slinging. and we're trying to provide that. we started something monday called positive state. and we're highlighting people that are doing good in every state in the 50 days leading up to the election and we're giving out grants to people in every state to help them grow good in their community. >> that's another question i had. when you look at your consumers, is there a particular demographic that is hungry for optimism or a particular part of the country? and is it correlated to sunshine? >> we actually -- it's not a demographic based on age or background. it's really, you know, it's about optimists and then ast about people who are trying to help convert to optimism.

it's as simple as that. >> john, this is a business question. maybe it's a hard business question. what's the defensibility of a t-shirt company in this day and age when i imagine if many of us had a great slogan and i can't claim i have one at the moment could start a t-shirt company tomorrow? >> it's a low barrier to entry. so absolutely. it's one of the reasons we jumped in. fortunately we found something with much greater depth than a trendy slogan. we learned that from our customers. we didn't know at the beginning we're trying to celebrate the good, help people focus on the good. we learned something much greater which is life isn't easy, life isn't perfect, life is good. and again, people seem to be drawn to our brand even more when they go through difficult adversity. >> john, we love the message of optimism. especially given the doomsday scenarios talked about at this table.

and it's great seeing a success story like yours. wish you a lot of luck at the conference today and with your business. thanks. >> thank you so much for having us on. >> great to see you. when we come back, the zuckerberg family announcing one of its biggest investments ever. a multi-billion-dollar initiative to try to wipe out diseases around the world. no small goal, but they are not putting up any small dollars either. we're going to hear from p priscilla chan right after the break. hey! nikki! what are you doing here? you tell me, stephen. what? i'm snapping. you've been streaming my videos all morning. now you're with this thing? no! it's not you! it's verizon! they limit my data. i had to choose. come on, girl. let's get us a man with unlimited data. why pay verizon more for data limits? introducing t-mobile one. one price. unlimited data for everyone. ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. we've been watching the futures this morning. they have been higher all morning long. right now the dow futures up about 75 points above fair value. s&p futures up by 7.5. spurred by the fed's decision not to raise rates. we saw the dow up by about 163 points yesterday. let's give you some stocks to watch this morning. a mixed quarter for autozone. earnings beating the street although revenue did fall short. still that stock is up by about $1.65. rite aid earnings topping estimates. although same store sales -- to be acquired and still expects the deal to close before the end of the year. and facebook ceo mark zuckerberg and wife priscilla chan are pledging $3 billion over the next decade to try to

cure disease. they are funding a $600 million research center in san francisco called the biohub. priscilla talked about the initiative on the "today" show. >> i think what's important to us is to actually invest now to work towards a future where our children are living in a better world. >> pretty cool to see them do this kind of thing. >> not only that, you know, zuckerberg i heard him make comments how priscilla herself is a doctor and has seen this up close. she's been so touched by having to give bad news to parents and families. and zuckerberg has added we spend something like 50 times the amount in terms of trying to help people who have these diseases and cure them afterwards than we do on research going into how to fight the diseases rather than just deal with it with understand it's here. >> gates have been at this. they've spent about 14 so far. >> and they've almost eradicated

polio from the globe as a result. >> that's the model they're looking at, the gates family. we should give them credit. >> oh, no. i wasn't being cynical. i was just suggesting unfortunately i think this is going to cost a lot of money. >> but it's interesting how they're stepping into a place that used to be the reserve of the state increasingly we're seeing ngos and entrepreneurs who are billionaires coming in and providing the backbone. >> the philanthropy, that money is good at going in and funding the projects that government money won't quite fund. it's good at finding solutions that you have government -- >> this goes to the larger question. the government used to do these moon shot projects. >> thank god somebody's doing it. it has been an incredibly contentious election season here. we think thinks are bad here but

check this out. nothing like a european political brawl. but we've seen good ones out of asia too. this comes to us from the country of georgia. two candidates starting insulting each other on set. it erupted into a physical fight. the election is scheduled for october 8th. now, we think we're going to see some fireworks out of our debate season, but nothing like this i'm guessing. >> i've got to say, this is eastern europe. it's not quite brussels. >> although brussels can get into tussles as well. we're just minutes away from the jobless data. plus is the fed on the hunt for a new framework? neil irwin friend of mine and favorite joins us next. "squawk box" will return.

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report on initial jobless claims. but several other reports are ahead today. 10:00 eastern time we get august existing home sales as well as the index of leading economic indicators. we're now about ten seconds from the big numbers. >> that's right. we've been watching the futures. they have been higher. let's get down to rick santelli. he's got the jobless claims. rick? >> we are looking at a jobless claim move of down 8,000 from an unrevised 260,000 last week. we now sit at 252,000. obviously these are pretty low levels historically. and there's no bad news inherent in this number. the jobs market at least the creation numbers we see every first friday haven't been too bad. the big story continues to be the digestion process. stocks up. dollar down. rates down. going more negative again in the uk -- excuse me, in the eurozone back to about a minus five,

minus six basis point boom. and we do have more data points today. it's going to be more digestion especially when you consider what's going on with all the central banks and how investors may react. have they reached the end of their limits? many believe that time has come and gone. but we'll continue to monitor. becky, back to you. >> rick, you keep saying the digestion process. are you feeling any indigestion over any of this? >> well, i don't think anybody holding the long equity position is going to get any indigestion. and i think when it comes to interest rates, everybody knows that there's been a lot of thumbs on the scale there. but i do think that in the end the notion that the governor for all the policy is 2% inflation rate -- it creates a dynamic where theoretically if that's the litmus test, we could be at the same rate for years.

>> japan -- >> because it is possible with low growth and productivity you're not going to have the pricing pressures. to me they should target something else. even though you may not reach the new rate, the fact is the patient has a host of other symptoms that are being completely ignored. >> yeah. and we have a real life example of it when you look to japan. >> absolutely. you know, and japan -- if we over simplify, their compounded loss of productivity over the years is something you can't get back. the easiest thing to think about when we think about our lack of growth is how many trillions of dollars over a ten-year period you get in the economy by just increasing gdp a half a percent. and i think that the metrics need to shift. we have stable -- to talk about

the dual mandate. this is arbitrary. they need to be more flexible on it. they need to treat that 2% the same way they treat the notion of their variables and how they refrain from normalization. they're very flexible on that. they're inflexible on the 2%. i think history will deem that a large mistake. >> you did have three fed officials voting against this yesterday. so we'll see what happens in november and december. rick, thank you. see you soon. >> thank you. joining us right now is steve leisman. also "new york times" senior economic correspondent neil irwin. neil, welcome to the table. it's good to see you this morning, sir. >> thanks, you too. >> so what do you think about what the fed said yesterday? because janet yellen did say a rate hike is likely this year. then she laid out three contingencies that she'd need to see. jobs, growth continuing. need to be looking at unemployment rate down. in order for all of this to stay in what she's calling for fair

balance. how likely is it that you do see a rate hike this year? >> i think it's quite likely. what we're seeing is janet yellen threading a needle. that for risk management reasons, for international reasons you need to really hold off a long time on rate increases. and she's trying to keep this committee together. this is a group of policy makers and it's clear the move is going in december barring some real setback. >> she doesn't seem to have bought into what eric rosengren has been buying either which is this is dangerous to keep rates at these levels. it hurts retirees, pension companies, and the longer you keep it here the more pain you could inflict. >> yeah. i think that's telling. eric rosengren was dovish just three years ago. now he's hawkish. if you look around the system, the advocates for keeping low longer are few and far between. keeping that policy in place, it's taking every bit of kind of

maneuvering that janet yellen has on a committee. >> steve, i'd like to ask you a question and maybe neil would like to come in here as well. we've seen the recent election that donald trump has directly attacked janet yellen and in a sense politicized the fed. how do you think this is going to play into the fed's decision making process in the coming months? >> well, it's an interesting question because it's one thing to say they're not political. but that's to say they're not human beings. the idea that somehow they can be -- they can live in the vacuum and make policy in the vacuum is just not credible. they have to be aware in how their policy plays. if nothing else in order to secure the future of the institution. that's something that has to play into it.

i think that ultimately they would prefer not to have any roll in it. i think they don't want to be blamed for having an influence such that they can say the fed hike, the market tanked, trump was elected. or the idea that they held. the way trump has set it up for better or worse, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't decision. >> i tend to agree with that. but i do think there's a way trump is so critical saying these low interest rate policies are about trying to get hillary clinton elected or help obama i think that can create a counter reaction. if anything i would imagine that it increases the resolve to stick with the policy they've laid forth and tighten when they think it's time. >> i think the conversation on tightening has changed here. in the data dependency we've been pounding in our heads over

the last couple of years. the data has deteriorated over the past months. now we're hearing they want to raise rates. i think it's shifted to oh my god we've raised rates once in ten years. we have all these excesses that have been building for years. we've reached an inflection point. oh, my god. and that's a different conversation. oh, we're data dependent and focused on that. >> there is something both camps can point to. first of all, can you really be sitting at zero interest rates this far after a financial crisis when it seems like the appropriate time to be at zero? second of all, can you raise rates when the economy is on wobbly ground? >> it is the absolute scenario for the fed. trying to imagine a room with donald trump and janet yellen facing each other off and talking about this. the mind boggles. >> i want to just interrupt that thought for a second. look. everybody always says the fed is in a box. guess what. that's their job. their job is always to be in the

box somewhere between maximum employment and stable inflation. that creates an ongoing dilemma. and every four years, that box includes a political dilemma. so it's not a nightmare scenario. it's a scenario. it's a rather normal and regular scenario. >> this is no usual box they put themselves in. this is a corner that they put themselves in. one thing to remember, eight years into a recovery. >> look. the one thing of all things yellen wants to avoid is the scenario of hiking and having to go back. if nothing else is consistent in fed policy, it's the need or the desire to avoid that. >> trying to avoid the financial crisis? maybe that's the top priority.

>> maybe after avoiding the next financial crisis. >> i want to give you the last word, neil. it's hard to edge in when you're not sitting at the table. >> one thing to remember, if you went back in time and told yellen you'd be chairwoman there would be 0% or 0.5% rates, what would you do? she's say tightening. they're moving gradually despite the economics. >> thank you for joining us. coming up when we return, under pressure on capitol hill. heather bresch defending the decision for upping the price of e the epipen. we're going to talk to a pharma guru. ♪ we're drowning in information. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future. how do you solve this? you don't. you partner with a firm that advises governments

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welcome back to "squawk box." another contentious hearing with heather bresch in the hot seat. meg tirrell was there and here with highlight zblps a real attempt on behalf of members of congress to understand the pharmaceutical supply chain and the actual profit mylan makes off the epipen. they've argued they don't profit that much from each epipen. this is how jason chaffetz started off the hearing. >> they're here to tell us they make about $50 profit. which i find a little hard to believe. and that's why i think it's important that the ceo and i appreciate her willingness to come in and talk to us.

is telling us the middle man makes more than we do. >> so they're saying they don't believe that mylan only makes $50 per epipen. there's also a lot of confusion about why introduce a generic version of the price and not just bring down the price of the branded product. listen to this exchange that heather bresch had. >> we're supposed to feel good because you've taken a drug you're overcharging six times what it's worth and drop the price to $300. >> sir, we were receiving $274 out of the $608. >> do you think you were charging too much at $608. >> sir, we believe it was a fair price and we just now lowered that price by half. >> why'd you lower it by half if you thought it was fair? if you thought it was fair, leave it where it's at. >> heather bresch came with props and brought out these giant poster boards and it was just -- you can see here she's showing them -- she's trying to

explain how the profitability works. she had a number of these. and, you know, they were just kind of -- they were trying to understand them but they couldn't get their minds around what the numbers meant. there's a lot of skepticism this was the real profitability. i think if there's one takeaway about what might happen, toward the end they got to a need for transparency. what are the rates getting paid to pbms. pharmacy benefits managers. come back in ten days and share all of the information with pharmacy benefits managers. we don't know if they'll actually do it. >> this carries so many axes of the financial sector. you have middle men, you have confusion. you have the experts trying to blind people with complexity. and yet all the pundits are saying you know what this just smells wrong. >> right. we're going to continue this conversation. thank you, meg. stick around. for more we're bringing in a professor of management at

neeley school of business. good morning to you. we were just talking about this particular grilling. there was another grilling on capitol hill this week as well with john stumpf from wells fargo. i gather you think that he may be on his way out. >> well, it's surprising to me that we haven't heard more on that. it's really interesting to see what's going to happen. it was quite a grilling on tuesday. and i think that he has a difficult situation to deal with. the public is not very happy about these kinds of stories. and i think it feeds into the perception that business is out for greed. with the wells fargo case, it's very difficult because this has been going on for five years. he was asked a lot of questions. and what comes across with john stumpf is that he was talking like a politician or he'd been coached by attorneys or pr people. >> mary, how do you compare the two? how do you compare the heather bresch performance to the degree these are performances --

>> well -- i think that john stumpf didn't come across as very sincere. he looked non-emotional. i think that heather bresch on the other hand tried to take a different tact. she at least tried to tie it more to data, figures, numbers. and i think she was trying to link it to a higher purpose. whether she was successful at that, i don't think that she was. >> and if you were john stumpf, what could have, should have you said and now the damage is done if you think it's done. is there anything he could say now? >> what people want to hear is first they want transparency. but in addition to transparency, they want to hear a sense of remorse. and they want to know that these executives understand what they're dealing with. this raises again the issue of executive pay and the extreme disparity between people, the working people and the executives who were paid exorbitant amounts of money.

so when those questions get asked about the amount of money they're paid, they don't answer that. they try to side track to another issue. so you heard john stumpf talk about the board and the board would make a decision. and you hear the massive numbers coming in in terms of pay. and you know that this is coming off the backs of workers or of people who are trying to take care of their kids. >> mary, i was pretty shocked by the performance of john stumpf in congress. and i'm curious, if he'd gone into that hearing and said i'm going to give up my bonus, i'm deeply sorry. i know we've messed up and i know i have to take a personal financial hit, do you think that would have helped at all? >> i think -- it's always tricky when you think about an apology or a person taking responsibility. i think what was so difficult for john stumpf was he said i take responsibility yet he showed no sign of that at all. i do think that what people want to hear more than an apology is

a sense of understanding. that executives realize that there are people who are suffering. and for them the amount of money that's been -- that's going across the table here is just exorbitant. >> let me ask you this. if you think about -- and i don't mean to describe these things as witch hunts because bad things have taken place. but to the extent these things are theater and if you are a senator or congress person, you want to get your sound bite. and so there is a question, i imagine, going into a hearing like this. do you say i'm not only going to take responsibility, i'm taking back the money, i'm not going to take a salary. do you still get the same sound bite? meaning, does it take the sting out of it or not? >> of course that makes it difficult. and it is theater and we see the congressmen who are trying to make this political theater. but i think it comes down to really an issue, we talk about the performance of the

executives but there's a higher level question here. and that is really about the purpose of business. and what the purpose of business is. what comes across to the american public is that the purpose of business is to make more and more money. i think as a business school professor, i see this quite often. it's frustrating for me because i see the benefits that it offers. but when we see cases like this and they're so extreme and so excessive, it makes others go after business. and so it makes it much harder for businesses trying to do good. >> mary, we appreciate your time this morning. thanks. >> thank you. up next, jim cramer will join us live from the new york stock exchange. once again, take a look at the futures this morning. they've been higher all morning long. right now looks like things are up by about 93 points so you are getting toward triple digit gains for the futures. we've seen that this week and hasn't necessarily meant that you'd close higher. got to watch the opening bell and closing bell too.

"squawk box" will be right back. a

we want to thank jillian for being our guest host and having so much fun with us. >> great to be here. >> a lot of fun. come on back. in the meantime down to the new york stock exchange. jim cramer joins us now. good morning to you, jim.

>> loving the show this morning. just terrific. >> thank you. and lots to talk about. i don't know where you want to go. i wanted to talk briefly about mylan just to figure out where you stand on all this both as a stock and what you saw yesterday. >> i continue to believe that epipen had to be a much bigger source of their profits than they really are kind of -- than the inclination we're hearing. because this is just, you know, frankly, this should have been something that was dropped very quickly. they should have cut the price immediately. they did not do that. i really would like to see the actual p & l. really would. >> i thought you had a great interview last night with brent saunders. just the idea that he is standing up to this trying to lead the industry away. i don't know why none of the other drug ceos seem to be getting the message. >> happy birthday, did you ever raise the right question? >> yeah. >> that's exactly what bothered me, what bothered brent frankly. where are these guys who are all saying, hey, listen, we're not mylan, we're not teva, we're not

valeant. why didn't they sign? they should sign. it's quite embarrassing these other guys didn't sign on. because this is a social contract they have with the country. >> right. >> and i think these drug companies that are good guys ought to stand up and admit that they're the good guys, or maybe they're not. >> jim, talking good guys and bad guys, i don't know if you want to weigh in before we go, leon cooperman, guest of this show often and guest on cnbc frequent lir. >> i'll say two things. lee is a friend. going to put that right up there. he's inspirational from what i got in the business he was the research director at goldman. and the second is how about innocent until proven guilty? it's this novel concept i learned at law school. kind of really helped me through my career. >> good answer. we will leave it there. we look forward to seeing you in just a couple minutes, jim. thanks. coming up this morning's biggest movers plus a programming note, you don't want to miss this, jim cramer has an exclusive interview with the ceo of lululemon. that's tonight on "mad money" at 6:00 eastern time. we're back in a moment. hey gary, what are you doing? oh hey john, i'm connecting our brains

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and each one of us makes that judgment every single day as to what we think the future is of those opportunities. and that's what great portfolio managers do. >> that was j.p. morgan's mary erdoes rejecting the idea active management is dead. you can hear more of what she and other big money managers had to say about watching the entire panel. it's available at deliveringalpha.cnbc.com. our guest list this morning has been peter boockvar, cnbc contributor. peter, just a quick thought on the markets from here. >> i know there's a tremendous amount of focus on what the fed did and what they will do, but don't let that distract you from focusing on long-term interest rates globally. which i think bottomed in the middle of july in the post-brexit blowoff. bank of japan is acknowledging they can't push this any further. that in order to achieve 2% inflation, basically destroying their banking system, the europeans are doing the same. so is the benefit to them of 2%

inflation worth questioning your banking system? so i think we've seen the bottom in global interest rates. and that should be people's focus the longer end of the curve. >> what does that mean? if we've seen a bottom in interest rates, where should we be focusing as the best place to invest? >> well, if long-term interest rates go higher, than all asset prices are as a ruvulnerable. >> lose some steam. >> yes. >> how quickly you think this catches up? >> well, it's going to be a process rather than an event, but the wheels have begun in motion. and japan was the epicenter of it. >> but you've been negative on the stock market for a while now. >> well, i was negative because of the earnings declines and the slowdown in the economy. that has proven to be irrelevant to stock investors. stock investors have only paid attention to interest rates. well, if interest rates are now bottoming and in a process of rising, that's the last crutch that stock prices have. >> and you don't think that if interest rates rise even marginally that somebody will take that as a positive sign?

that's the flip side. because you've made that argument too, i think. >> if interest rates stay low, i think they can keep this equity game going longer. >> okay. >> peter, been great having you here. thank you for joining us. >> a fun couple of hours. make sure you join us tomorrow, everybody. "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber at the new york stock exchange. the s&p set to erase its losses for september at the open in the wake of fed decision. and the stock rallying yesterday. japan was closed for the first day of fall, which they do celebrate. europe solidly in the green. 10-year yield down to 1.63, jobless claims were good, 252, that's the lowest since april. and that is the survey week. road map begins with dissecting the fed. they didn't raise but chair yellen stoking a lot of speculn