you have different interests. i am watching over everybody. you're in good hands. okay. you're in good hands. believe me. you can tell the people of new york. even though i didn't win new york state, i should have won new york state, but i didn't. [ applause ] >> mr. president, i want to return to a conversation we just had with ivanka, dean and wilbur on the job and workforce of the future. as we think about that and our skill sets, in new york city alone, our public high school graduation rate is at 70%. but the readiness of our students for college and careers is assessed at 37%. so as we look at the pace of change, we look at the digital transformation we all see in business and the marketplace, and we look at the skills, the disconnect between what employers need and what our students coming into our workforces are prepared to

deliver, it would be great to get your thoughts on the priorities of the administration around education, around what i like to call not the future of work but the work of the future because the future works sounds ominous but work of the future sounds visionary. so if you could give us those priorities and how -- >> before you sit, you're giving me numbers from new york. you're a proud new yorker. you're giving me numbers. why is it doing so badly? tell me. why are numbers so horrific in terms of education and what happens when somebody goes through school and they can't read after they graduate from high school and they can barely read? so what's the answer? >> so first i would say that as we look at new york, new york made enormous progress in a decade. that 70% was 50% so a 40% increase so we're making enormous progress in making an impact -- >> see how quickly she's changing. >> making enormous progress. we're not done. a lot of work to do.

i think we talked earlier about public/private partnerships, apprenticeship models. we have a beautiful model that works and brings our next generation of leaders. there's a lot we can do through relooking at funding programs. we talked earlier about co consolidating many programs out there. we can make a huge impact together. >> i know you work hard on it. you have made progress. charter schools are another thing that people are talking about a lot. and some of the charter schools in new york have been amazing. they've done incredibly well. people can't get in. you can't get in. it's been -- i don't call it an experiment anymore. it's far beyond an experiment. if you look at so many elements of education and it's so sad to see what's happening in the country, even the numbers as good as you say we're doing better, numbers in new york, numbers in chicago are very rough. the numbers in los angeles, the

cities, it's a very rough situation. common core, i mean, we have to bring education more local. we can't manage education from washington. when i go out to iowa, when i go out to different states and talk, they want to run school programs locally and they'll do a better job than somebody -- look, these are some very good people in washington. but you also have bureaucrats that make a lot of money and don't really care that much about what they're doing or about the community that they have never seen and they'll never meet and they never will see. i like the fact of getting rid -- common core to me we have to end it. we have to bring education local. to me. i've always said it. i've been saying it during the campaign. we're doing it. betsy devos is doing a terrific job. highly respected. tremendous track record. but she's got one of the toughest johns of atough est jobs of any of our

secretaries to me. it's a tough job. she has one of the toughest jobs. we'll spend a lot of money and expertise and have great talent having to do with education because there's nothing more important than education. we've got to get those numbers in new york better. i think they will be better. greatest people i know in new york are totally in love -- including ivanka and jared. they are so much involved and it's so important to them the word education. it's happening. i see it happening in new york very much. it's happening elsewhere too. i think we'll have a great four years. >> mr. president, i know you have a pressing issue to deal with. steve and mike i think just wanted to thank you for attending today and maybe make a final comment on behalf of the roundtable. >> thanks a lot for being here.

thanks for everybody for being here. it's been really interesting day, and you've had everybody of importance at the event. i think it's terrific in terms of the stuff you're trying to do to modernize the government, educate and so forth. i think we have to keep a focus on that. the outside world doesn't always get the message that that's really what's going on because you're doing profound things. you take on enormous embedded issues. i think with the kind of effort that can be marshalled, you can do amazing things. that's on behalf of those that chair the partnership.

trust gets rotated from person to person every two years. i want to wish you really good luck with the chinese. that's an important thing as we all know. i think there's a real opportunity to make progress with them. you should have a good time in florida. i hope the weather is good. >> the weather will be beautiful. thank you, steve. i just want to finish by saying that we are absolutely destroying these horrible regulations that have been placed on your heads over not eight years but over the last 20 and 25 years. you have regulations that are horrendous. dodd/frank is an example of what we're working on and we're working on it right now. we'll come out with some very strong -- far beyond recommendations. we'll do things that are good for the banking industry so banks can loan money to people that need it. i speak to people all the time.

they used to borrow money from banks to open up a pizza shop here, he had a bank, he said, you know, at that time he called me mr. trump because i hadn't won yet, but he said, mr. trump, i can't open up anything. i can't do anything. the banks don't even -- i had a bank for 20 years. now they don't take my phone call. i was always a very good customer. i haven't been able to do what i do. they can't do it. the banks got so restricted. i always said and some people get insulted, but, you know, it's not necessarily the man that's making money that's running the bank. you look at the folks from government that are running all over the banks. they are running the banks. the people that are really the head people, they are petrified of regulators. they can't move. the regulators are running the banks. so we're going to do a very major haircut on dod frad/frank. we want strong regulation but

not regulations that make it impossible for banks to lend money to people that are doing the jobs. we have a book on regulations and if you add them all up, it goes up to the ceiling three times over. it's just one after another after another. it's just like that chart. i thought that chart was so descriptive. every industry is like that chart to build a simple roadway or highway that's what you have to go through. we'll get through 95% of that and still have the same kind of protection. we want safety. we want environmental. we want environmental protection. i have won awards on environmental protection. i'm a big believer. believe it or not. we want that kind of protection. we want clean air. we want clean water. but we shouldn't have to get the approval from 16 different agencies for almost the same

thing. so we have a country with tremendous potential. we have the greatest people on earth but we have to use the potential and we have to let those people do their thing and with that i want to thank you all. you'll see a different environment than you've been used to over the last 20, 25 years. we're going to unleash the country, and i'm willing to take the heat and that's okay. i've been taking heat my whole life. in the end, i know it's the right thing to do. we're going to create a lot of jobs. 100 million people if you look. the real number is not 4.6%. they told me i had 4.6% last month. i'm doing great. i said what about the 100 million people? a lot of those people came out and voted for me. i call them forgotten man and forgotten woman. a lot of those people, a good percentage of them, would like to have jobs and they don't. one of the statistics that to me

is just ridiculous so the 4.6 sounds good but when you look for a job, you can't find it, and you give up. you are now considered statistically employed. but i don't consider those people employed. if you look at what's happened with ford and with general motors and with other companies back in michigan and ohio, they were leaving. they were going to mexico and many other places. they're now staying here. now, i did say -- you have seen me say it many times to big auto companies in meetings. enjoy your new plant. when you make your car or when you make your air conditioner and you think you'll fire all of our workers and open up a new place in another country and you're going to come through what will be a very strong border, which you've seen what happened. 61% down now in terms of illegal

people coming in, way down in terms of drugs pouring into our country and poisoning our youth. general kelly has done a great job. when you think you're going to sell that car or air conditioner, it's not going to happen. you're going to have a tax. the tax may be 35%. you know what? every single major company that i've had that conversation with has said, you know, we decided to stay in the united states. it's amazing. you would have thought they would have said this frankly for years. nobody has ever said it. we've lost close to 70,000 factories over a relatively short period of time. 70,000. you wouldn't believe it's possible to lose 70,000 factories. 70,000. you look at a map of the united states, how many factories can you list? we lost almost 70,000 factories. and i will tell you, that's not happening because now they're all staying here and they're all

expanding here. ford announced last week a massive expansion of three of its plants. that was not going to happen. believe me. if i didn't win. good luck, everybody. enjoy yourselves. you're my friends. you're amazing people. i'm going to put you to work. thank you. [ applause ] >> that is the president meeting with ceos of probably the most vivid example we've seen of the potential synergy between business and government. obviously an emphasis on new york real estate. new york financials. big implications for markets and investors in an area that the president obviously knows well. good morning. welcome to "squawk alley." post nine watching this fascinating town hall. kayla, you have been following this all morning long. your reaction to what we just heard from the president? >> interestingly, carl, there was a lot of mentioning of new

york, about the new york economy, about old friends of his, where he was referring to them by their first name including a question that came from jerry, a new york developer, that he has a long history with and eliciting laughs but on the policy, we did get nuts and bolts of where the president's head is at. on infrastructure, he doesn't want to award any money for projects that cannot be spent in 90 days. that's a very short window for the scale of the projects that his administration is currently targeting. the criticism of prior infrastructure projects is that they were small bore projects. they were piecemeal and didn't make a dent in the economy. large interstate projects do require a lot of regulation, a lot of permitting, and it's that permitting that he took specific aim at showing all of the different agencies that had to be involved in a single permit. he said he basically wanted to

streamline that process, but that he's an environmental guy and that scott pruitt at the epa is an environmental guy himself. they're not trying to do this according to the president at the expense of the environment, at the expense of the safety and security of the american people, but trying to pump money directly into the u.s. economy. they're trying to do it quickly and take regulations away. i think it will be met with criticism about exactly how much of this is feasible to do in the timetable that the president is suggesting. >> jon harwood, he said you're my friends. you're amazing people. we'll put you to work. this was an audience in which he was comfortable. >> absolutely. he was preaching to the choir. speaking to a lot of people who feel aggrieved by the levels of government regulation. but to kayla's point, the idea of cutting 95% of regulation and

accomplishing the same objectives that the regulations were meant to do sounds a little bit like an ice cream diet. on other issues, you know, the president was saying things that everyone agrees with. modernizing government is good. some of the earlier panelists as well before the president spoke modernizing government is good. efficiency. technology is good. but those were also things that we heard from the obama administration and they brought in silicon valley experts on a year-long fellowships to improve government i.t. but that takes money. ivanka and others in the discussion talked about the need for government to scale these up. to scale them up, you need money and of course the trump administration has proposed huge cuts in the parts of the government that would go toward

apprenticeship programs and technology infrastructure. >> all right. john and kayla, thank you this morning. with markets turning positive, dow up 18 points. here with us at post nine is ceo himself, president and ceo of kbw. good morning. thank you for your patience. what struck you about comments from the president and this whole meeting that he just had? >> i think there's a big willingness to do what the executive branch can do to change regulations. president mentioned they would change dodd/frank but the reality is that the regulators can change a lot even without just changing the law. so you don't need congress to act so as soon as these agencies gets staffed, i believe quickly you'll see proposals to rollback some of the regulation. >> there's good news in there for financials which you follow closely. one thing pressing against that is interest rates. just this morning the 10-year is 2.3%. so if you don't have that going up and we could argue about

reasons why, budoes that take t steam out of the ship you described? >> yield curve is flatter. steeper yield curve would be better for finance industry. short-term rates moved up. that's going to be very impactful. even with the flatter yield curve, we believe that net interest margins will inflect this year after six years of declining. that's a very powerful force. >> you mentioned there's a lot that the president can do, administration can do without congress. how important is that now post the failure of obamacare repeal and replace? to your calculations on what's likely to get done. look at what the administration can do without having to get it through congress? >> first of all, let me give perspective to this point, which is that the u.s. banking regulators have gold plated the capital standards for banks so the u.s. banks have higher capital standards than the rest of the world essentially. what we've done to answer your

question is we've taken those calculations from the higher standards and just gone to what are global standards. if you do that and if everything were to break for the banks in their direction, you could say there could be a 30% improvement in earnings if it all happens. my sense is that it probably all won't happen, but you could get a very meaningful improvement. why that's important is that nine months ago we were talking about whether or not the big banks can earn their cost to capital. going to an international standard rather than higher standard could help these banks, the biggest banks, earn their cost to capital which takes a lot of pressure off them and i think frankly helps the economy overall. >> stay with us. we want to get to eamon javers in the room where the president was just addressing those ceos. >> you heard the president call them all the killers from new york. this is a really high profile high powered group gathered here in the south court auditorium of the eisenhower executive office building. you saw the president's remarks.

i'll step out of the shot here and let the cameraman get a shot of conversations happening in the room now. you see gary gathered with executives and number of top folks throughout the new york business community here meeting with the vice president, the head of the nyse is here. this is value really of this type of event as much as ceos and executives here like to sit through panel conversations and hear topics, they also like to talk to each other and engage with the members of this administration and here they have access to all of the top members of this administration from the president on down. so when you convene a group like this at the white house, one of the major things that you're trying to do is get them all talking to each other and get them talking to administration and pull ideas out of there. boy, did we hear a wide ranging conversation here. everything from gary cohen talking about elan musk to ivanka trump talking about women

in the workforce. a lot of ideas percolating in the room here. now the challenge for this administration is how much of that they can transform into reality. >> does seem like that transformation is a big point. tom, i don't know how much magic there is in resurrecting the old boys network and idea that 14 golf course trips and being able to summon ceos to the white house is amazing. when do we see actual results? >> i think what it's going to take is getting folks in the right spots in the administration because still many seats have not been filled yet. once you get those seats filled, you'll see the executive action that can happen on regulations that the president talked about and then eventually you would like to see dodd/frank reform. remember, congressman barney frank has said it should be modified. i think there's a general unanimous opinion that dodd/frank should have something done with it to be amended. >> something about it strikes me as dangerous as what happened with health care. if the president doesn't realize those voters in pennsylvania and

michigan, whomever, that swung for him and elected him, do you think they want dodd/frank rolled back so the gold plated capital buffers come off and you can increase by 30%. there's a sense it needs to be a deregulatory environment. wall street is not that semitic -- simple thetympetthetic to t the country. >> it caused institutions to focus on these areas which really means they're not out lending money that would help the overall economy to grow. >> something where you stepped up said look at how we're going to help finance this infrastructure thing. is there a role to play in explaining to the public that we'll get benefit but we'll also get something done that needs to

get done as just described? >> i think the financial services industry is really what serves main street america. 98% of the banks in america are below 10 billion in assets. we're not just talking about the new york wall street banks. it's the whole industry. i think it's the folks who are looking to open businesses in those small communities and getting back to a little bit of that perspective will answer a lot of the questions you just asked. >> president seemed to acknowledge that there would be some heat in rolling back some of these regs from main street. i'm willing to take the heat. i've been taking heat my whole life. >> the banking industry right now has the most capital it has had in 70 years. american finance is the leader in the global financial services industry. so these banks, i think, have really come a long way to addressing a lot of the balance sheet issues and other earnings and liquidity issues precrisis and nobody wants to do that again. the industry doesn't want to do that again.

the question is there ever a point where the aggressive regulation should go back to closer to a neutral position? i've even heard industry leaders say many parts of dodd/frank are good. very few industry leaders really say let's repeal it and stop it. most say let's modify it. no one really thought even congressman frank that you could write that bill and seven years later there wasn't one idea that's better than what was written in that bill. >> tom, thank you for your time this morning. >> thank you. >> appreciate your perspective on what's happening. >> all right. much more on the president's comments to ceos and wall street's reaction when we come back. tom farley from new york stock exchange was there in the room and will join us as well. stocks at this hour about at the flat line. dow up slightly. had been negative. up 35 points. s&p about at even and nasdaq up three points. we'll be right back.

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>> you look at the folks from government running all over the banks. they're running the banks. the people that are really the head people, they are petrified of the regulators. they are petpetrified. they can't move. we are going to do a major haircut on dodd/frank. >> watching the president address a town hall of ceos in washington d.c. tom, you were in the meeting. good to have you. >> thanks for holding it down at the new york stocks exchange this morning. >> safe travels home. remarkable from what we could see from here. your reflections and based on what you heard over the last hour or so? >> just an incredible morning. it reflects the government that's responsive to business. you really got the sense this morning that this government does not view business as a problem or the problem but on

the contrary views it as quite possibly the solution to many problems. we had visits from secretary ross and choi. that group talked about infrastructure and education. i thought what was interesting was vice president pence followed by president trump, they really focused on regulation, what can we do to create a more business friendly environment in this country as well as taxes and really emphasizing the importance of a lower tax rate. >> and a lot of those things would help your business and parent company. what are specific items that might help the new yoorew york exchange and things that could be reopened. what kind of issues are you talking about that could change at the regulatory landscape changes? >> sure. it could be good for our business but it could be good for his at large.

that's good for saturday. it's money that could go back to the economy. it could go back into investors pockets which is not bad thing and move toward innovation and the latter part of your question, when you think about regulation -- let me take a step back. for the last three years when i talked to ceos, two issues in particular they want us as nyse to come down and advocate on their behalf about. taxes and reduced regulation. you talk about specific regulations and president trump mentioned dodd/frank. there are a few regulations that we take a fresh look at and make sure they are serving a bona fide purpose and not hindering business. for example, the proxy access rules, even the conflict rules. a goal to make sure people are not exploited in the pursuit of minerals but the way the rule was implemented if you talk to corporate leaders they say it's more a problem than anything. >> not every day you get that

caliber of ceos gathered together in one room. give us a sense of the conversation in the room whether on these topics you mentioned already or other topics. here we are at the start of the second quarter with confidence high but issues looming. >> like i said, it was fun. i was in the room with several masters of the universe new york business type that are close personal friends of president trump and he called a few out by name. steve roth comes to mind. as well as just titans of industry. i didn't know exactly what to expect. i can tell you that my sense -- i don't want to speak for others. my sense is there was a consensus that this administration and this president is moving in the right direction specifically with respect to regulation and taxes so there was a good feeling in the room and appreciation for that business agenda and it went very well. it felt like a good two-way

dialogue and felt like the administration is taking into account the business leaders. >> here's a brief bit of sound regarding regulation. let's take a listen. >> we are destroying these horrible regulations placed on your heads over not eight years but the last 20 and 25 years. you have regulations that are horrendous. dodd/frank is an example of what we're working on and we're working on it right now and we'll come out with some strong -- yar beyond recommendations. we'll do things that are going to be very good for branging industry so they can lend money to people who need it. >> things we hear from the president today are not different than we heard during the campaign or during the transition. yet we're still waiting for this hard economic data to catch up

with sentiment. so why are we waiting. why is it taking so long? does today accelerate that in any way? >> i want to say two things. i think you could also extend the question and say we're waiting to see some of this policy implemented. it hasn't been implemented. one of the themes i heard this morning and i appreciate it because i felt like the administration was being honest with us.governing is hard. you have to touch on federal policies. state policies. and these things aren't going to happen overnight. i did walk out of that room after listening to people like gary and ivanka saying there's a lot of competence in there and energy to implement policy effectively. with respect to your question, carl, i'm not sure what numbers you're referring to. the hard economic -- >> i just mean consumer stuff, consumer spending, auto sales, that kind of thing.

>> sure. although confidence is higher since president took effect. that's a leading indicator. in our business, ipos are up dramatically. we had zero in the first quarter last year. we ended up 18 at the new yoore stock exchange in the first quarter. four or five this week. stock prices are near all-time highs notwithstanding the retrenchment over the last few weeks or month. so things are still heading in a positive direction. i think everybody is waiting to see will this administration working with congress be able to affect business friendly policy and back up words with deeds. i'm leaving here today with a better sense. >> maybe the markets too. we turn positive. dow up 30 points. don't want to make too much of it. could be other things going on there. when you come back here and look at the ipo pipeline you mention, going back to last summer we were talking about how strength was building up and now it feels like maybe with snap and canada

goose and other things we've seen, we're going to get more of a flow coming. do you think that's the case? any of the big bold names this year? do we need that or might it just be a steady trickle of more companies going public? >> from your lips to god's ears. i certainly hope this positive momentum continues. last night i was at the governor's mansion and in doing preparation for that meeting, we realize that we have gas companies that want to go public here in the short-term and select new york stock exchange and ready to do so. we do have consumer businesses and exciting tech companies we're working with. people very quickly jump to he must talk about uber, i'm not referring to specifically companies.

don't get overchiexcited. snap ipo went well. ipos are beneficial for a variety of reasons. do i need liquidity for employees or investors? i suspect a few more will decide that the right answer is an ipo this year and early into next year than otherwise might have been not for snap. >> you said uber. it wasn't us. >> i have to caveat that. people want to know. >> thank you so much for joining us this morning. appreciate hearing more about the meeting that you guys had. >> it's my pleasure. just an honor to be here advocating on behalf of the companies. >> tomorrow farley, president of the new york stock exchange. >> "squawk alley" will be right back after this.

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>> okay. i can solve the problem. i can tunnel the whole way. he's been tunneling out in the desert and tunneling in california to prove it can get done. he can beat high-speed rail and put you in a tube getting you from washington to new york in substantially less than an hour. >> that's gary cohn just talking about elan musk. tesla passing ford in terms of market cap passing $47 billion mark. the second largest u.s.

automaker by market cap at least behind gm. musk meantime taking to twitter on the market cap news saying stormy weather in shortville encountering some blowback on that from lots of critics saying i admires at the la and elon musk but this is an example of why stock market valuations don't reflect reality. the stock price represents risk adjusted future cash flows. let's bring in a professor at nyu stern school of business and welcome to both of you. professor, this issue of tesla's market cap versus existing car companies.

i've been trying to wrap my head around just what would have to happen in the future for tesla and for the car companies for that to make sense. give a sense of what this really means? >> so does tomorrow ever have to become today? it makes no sense on any tangible level. the core confidence in the market is story telling painting a huge vision and making progress against that vision and you're able to sort of establish this anti-gravity like trajectory for your stock and tesla is in that anti-gravity bucket because on any rationale measure, this doesn't make sense. 30,000 employees versus ford's 200,000. 80,000 cars versus how many cars did ford produce last year? over a million. >> much bigger company by far. >> if you look for rationale behavior, you won't find it in valuation of this company nor any of the others. we're looking at the snap logo. talk about irrational. >> you don't think that makes

sense with facebook's valuation and price? >> it has entered into that anti-gravity bucket. it's worth now more than any media company combined. it's also entered that sort of consensual hallucination bucket. >> to musk's point, they are called forward multiples for a reason. what's wrong -- >> adjusted cash flow. look, i think there was an interesting discussion. we're not talking about the past. we're talking about the future. the promise of this company is worth more than ford is what this is about. we are getting into these bizarrely stratospheric levels.

>> back to apple where you have a huge run-up in anticipation of the iphone 10. could be a huge seller for them. if tesla comes out with model 3 and we speak to millennials and so forth that say this is an object of desire. if they come to market any time soon, that dramatically changes the landscape of where they've come from. >> as long as there's some reality behind the story telling, right? the story telling is this is the future of transportation. >> that is reality. huge boom from model 3 is coming. >> we hope. he's missed every projection around volume production since he's made them. i think they plan to go from 80,000 to 500,000, which is just extraordinary. so the ability to put out a car for less than six figures is obviously going to be another big milestone for the company. to a certain extent they already

won. at some point you can build your own future and try ten things for every one thing general motors or ford can. it's like playing texas hold them poker. you win because you have more chips. >> this is unnoticed. look at what just happened. reusable rocket landed barely not national attention. it's a huge advance. the fact that elon musk is involved with that company makes you think if there's somebody you might give benefit of the doubt to, maybe it's this guy. >> they are betting on his leadership. i think that's a good example. he was successfully able to reuse a rocket and land it again. he's missed certain delivery on the cars. cars are hard to build. model 3 is mass produced for everybody electric vehicle. that's the promise. that's what people are betting on. >> last year number of cars sold, 9.6 million at ford.

>> every one car tesla produced, 100 at ford. same market cap. >> amazon very reinvicinitentin mortar stores. >> good morning, guys. now, the store just behind me has been open for an hour. we had to see it ourselves. customers walking out not standing in a line or checkout. they scan their phone when they enter. grab what they need and walk out. sichl as that. amazon calls it just walk out technology. it uses the same type of sensors and deep learning that self-driving cars employee. amazon is keeping the wraps on its physical grocery experiments like this store only open to employees in beta mode. it's been expanding brick and mortar bookstores.

now, at first glance it looks like a regular bookstore. when you pull out your phone and open amazon app, visual search technologies identifies books and object around you including what you're holding. when we tried it out, it even identified a shopper's blue shirt next to me and pulled up options to buy it on amazon.com. if adopted at a larger scale and applied to other industries like groceries or recent "the new york times" suggested furniture in the future, amazon would turn a new omni channel retail experience. guys? >> scott, this reminds me of exactly the counterargument to what you were saying about the nose bleed valuations. amazon trading 888 bucks a share last time i looked. absolutely ridiculous except for the fact that they keep winning. they keep shrug off losses like fire phone and innovating. so what are the scenarios in which the valuations actually

make sense? how do you explain amazon? >> effectively amazon is becoming all of retail. how do you grow into valuation of amazon? artificial intelligence, purchase history, credit card, basically takes you off the table and they start sending you two boxes twice a week. one with stuff they think you want. one empty. put stuff you don't want back in the box. you stop shopping everywhere but amazon. zero click. send them on a rocket ship to a trillion dollars. the most disruptive company in the largest economy in the world. >> we're talking about the store. interesting concept store. what amazon is trying to become is a delivery company. that's where they see they can get the most benefit and give the most value. >> a delivery company? >> that's what they are trying to win here. they own less inventory. they are just doing arbitrage on warehousing.

>> they want to be fedex? >> i think on some level that's what they're trying to disrupt. they want to close that last mile. >> and upgrade today has nothing to do with selling goods. it's about sponsored goods on your ad business which they say puts them in the league of facebook and google. >> right. that's what they're trying to do. people go to amazon to search for products. not going to google like they used to. that's a big part of how consumers switched their mindset. >> one thing to mention because it happened recently. light bulbs on amazon. if you order light bulbs you are being duped because they don't exist. the light bulbs came in and burn out one by one. i go back and read closely. all of the reviews give it one star. something on ge lighting. who knows what's really going on here. my point is now i have to make sure what i order on amazon is

authentic. i never encountered this in ten plus years of using the website. is this an issue for them? is it undermining the whole experience? >> i think it's a feature not a bug. amazon customer reviews is extraordinary innovation. to ed's point, 28% of people search for products begin on google. 55% begin on amazon. amazon on the most valuable search category of the world is a more important search engine than google. combined market cap of $120 billion. you'll see it leak to amazon in the next 12 months. >> we'll see. scott, ed, thanks. >> when we come back, the president's comments on infrastructure and why one ceo says the administration's plan to rebuild america likely will not work. dow has erased its losses up 48

points as the president spoke. we're back in a minute. so you're having a party?

how nice. i'll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let's go. i'm ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] [ tires screech ] hold on. [ upbeat music ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. welcome back to the dow. we have breaking news out of jpmorgan and jamie diamond's annual letter to shareholders. back at headquarters with more, will. >> hi, yeah, let's break down the headlines. so jamie diamond saying that their stock price, the strong performance they've had recently is a measure of the progress they've made. he talks about that partly coming because of the

business-friendly environment that's come on as well as the reversal of negatives for the banking sector of the past decade. now in terms of whether share price could go, he said clearly, they currently have excess capital. he talked about buybacks and said how in the past, they've got to book one times and the fact they're ahead doesn't stop them and they're happy to keep buying back stock right up to two times book value. that's an interesting clear market for analysts. now moving on and talking now specifically about regulation. he says, essentially, too big to fail has been solved. tax payers will not pay if banks fail. so making it very clear there that he feels like most of the work has been done on the regulatory side saying that we are not looking to throw out the entirety of dodd frank or other rules, but quote, he says, it is an understatement to say improvements could be made. and i'm just going to dive into a little bit more of the regulation topics. in particular, he talks about the gold plating of

international standards. now, the standards have always felt to be pretty restrictive for european banks, but the u.s. regulators went one step further with that he says, america should eliminate it's gold plating of those international standards. he talks about the fact that there is 200 billion in operational risk capital across the u.s. banking system that is not needed. clearly he's a big voice in the room on this. it's an interesting, clear a. money he's saying could be put to use. now talking about one specific area of regulation where he says is it a promising opportunity? he says, mortgage servicing is the most promising opportunity for deregulation. and this is important. he says, there is no need for legislation to implement the necessary coordination to get this done. so again, another indicator that perhaps some of this can be done without the need for legislation to roll back dodd frank and on that particular one, he says we believe the mortgage market could add more than $300 billion

a year in new purchase loans if that sort of thing is done. so some clear indications there on the regulatory side of things. so much more in this letter, it's about 60 pages long, we'll dive in now and bring you more when we've gone through it. >> quickly on the point, it's the second time now today we've heard the gold plating speaking up. there's also one area he thought could be dismantled. what would it meenl if the u.s. -- would it mean we're just coming in line with the international standards here? would it have more of a larger ripple effect across financial services globally if we do away with the extra capital. >> great question, somewhere in between because i think the u.s. bank love to always argue that the test they face are far more stin gent than say europe or the rest of the world. and it's fair to say they are more stringent. i'm not sure how much further there is. when you weigh that up in terms of the rhetoric. the level of deregulation that donald trump and his administration is talking about, it does feel like it could go at least a step easier than some of

these bozle requirements. and then clearly you would have a little bit of a bat federal international regulators to see where they go. i asked about that barclays when i interviewed him a month or so ago. he said we noo watch for that, but he wasn't expecting the level of rollback in the u.s. to suggest that that would be a necessary reaction around the rest of the world and europe in particular. >> all right. and by the way, will, these bank stocks could use help lately. as mike's pointed out, they've kind of stalled since almost for the most part of this year relative to the rest of the market. >> yeah, i think certainly in march as we know, they ended up still nicely for the quarter, but down for the month of march and led markets lower in the month of march. that coming because of the correlation with bond yields. i do think an interesting point is this thing we're getting from aspects from jamie diamond on the deregulation front, they're not expecting, and they're not wanting a full rollback of dodd frank. that would require legislation. there are lots of things to be done with a change in tone and a change in appointments that they think can deliver significant

upside. and more to the point, come back to the stock price for jpmorgan, they have capital, he talks about buybacks ongoing and that's something that can support the stock price regardless of whether any of this happens or not. >> thank you willford, keep an eye on the financials. up more than half a percent in the session today. now president trump meantime promising some infrastructure reform, speaking at the business leaders town hall moments ago. he spoke about the large price tag that often comes with this. >> we have to build roads. we have to build highways. we're talking about a very major infrastructure bill of a trillion dollars. perhaps even more. >> and our next guest says the infrastructure bill may face an uphill battle as younger americans turn away from trade jobs. with us now is john, president and ceo of cooper tee know electric, and welcome to you. >> good morning. >> you know went issue you have here is actually the very same one that was also raised at the meeting. sounds like the problem is who are the workers going to be? >> well, i think that's exactly the issue.

for years there have been it myths around the construction industry that have kept young people away. and myths like low salaries, long periods of unemployment, typically tied to seasons. lack of job opportunities. and that's -- that was true 60 years ago. it's not true of the modern construction economy today. >> john, this is something that mike roe who has the show "dirty jobs" has testified to before congress many times before, what kind of a government program or government incentive or government leadership coupled with business do you think it will take to actually solve this problem? >> you know, mike's done a great job of articulating the problem. i personally don't know that we need government intervention. i wonder if it's not simply coming up with a strategy of communicating the truth about the construction trades, to young people, possibly even more

important than the young people, their parents. >> and if that's the case, john, you know, the question becomes what happens for these big plans that are being bantered about right now? look, as much as an issue this is, if somebody throws a trillion dollars at it, something's going to get done, right? here's the challenge i see today. the bureau put out a report that said there were 147,000 unfilled construction jobs in january of 2017. 147,000 jobs. the continued retirement of baby boomers. modest increases for the first part of the year. but even if we continue at that rate when you lay on top of it a massive infrastructure plan, i don't see how we'll close that gap. i think the key is communicating to young people and catching their ear, catching their attention, getting parents to

understand that there is a outstanding career ahead for people that choose to jump in the trades. i'm not sure i see the role the government would play. >> it's going to be largely about wages into the career because of what it pays. speaking of which i'm curious to know what wage slers is like in your business. men or women. >> it is a union contractor. we have union agreements that dictate the wages. we negotiate wages on a fairly frequent basis. full employment right now, where are the workers going to come from? that's our concern. >> yeah, they're in the poll, the broader poll, they're on the

sidelines. they're not part of the 4.7% rate. i don't know how you get them in there quickly. john, thanks for joining us. >> it was my pleasure. >> yeah, thank you very much. appreciate you talking about the infrastructure plan. busy morning, kelly, thanks for your help today. >> let's get to the judge and the half. welcome to the halftime report, what could be the biggest warning sign for your money and why it has nothing to do with stocks. with us for the hour today, this panel. a big pullback in the cards for stocks if that trend continues. are you worried about what's happening with rates because it's killing your bank trade? it's killing your bank trade. >> absolutely,e