trillion stimulus plan today friday, march 27, 2020 "squawk box" begins right now. good morning i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin if you were watching this, the dow over the last three sessions, up more than 20% this is why they say you have to stay invested. yesterday, the s&p was up. nasdaq up by 5.6%. this morning, we are seeing some red arrows s&p down about 70 points nasdaq down about 214 points treasury yields, the 10-year at

0.769% a little lower than we've seen in weeks leading up to this. joe, the most important thing you've said is it is friday. >> is it friday? >> the days are all -- it has been months. >> and then again, it feels like one whole long day for the week. in this new bull market we are in >> we will see, hopefully. three days i'm not saying that we are they make no sense anymore. i guess it is possible we could look back a year or two now and say, wow

or as paul tudor jones said. are we opening he said we could probably see some new lows. we are still on the front edge of this horrible thing that will play out in new york and other cities hopefully not as bad as people thought. >> the coronavirus cases surging to nearly 86,000 passing italy and china and making america the site of the largiest outbreak. the death toll is nearing 1,300 in the u.s. so far those number doubling somewhere around every three days right about now, a little less.

>> lots of questions about other areas too now how this is playing out in new york and seattle but chicago, boston, los angeles, washington, d.c leaders of both parties in the house of representatives were scrambling to try to get enough members back to washington, d.c. to override a proceedal block by one kentucky congressman every time we think they've cleared the last hurdle, another pops up. >> no question this is going to pass the house the question is now when they thought they would be able to do it today if any member objects that could throw a wrinkle. thomas massy of kentucky has been suggesting, or there is speculation around that he would be the one to object

that means they have to have a quorum of 216 members actually on the floor they are rushing back. the issues with flight cancellations, a number diagnosed with covid already one congressman driving back from michigan now. in any case, they are going to vote on this might be today, tomorrow, over the weekend. it is now a proceedal hurdle here there is a fight over the cruise lines and how this bailout money might impact remember, a lot of those are registered offshore. here is what the president said about them yesterday >> i do like the concept of

perhaps coming in and registering here, coming it in to the united states it is tough 20 make a loan to a company based in a different country. they have thousands and thousands of people that work there and maybe almost as importantly on shore filling the ships with goods and products. the cruise line business is very important. >> so that is one of a number of different problems monday is the 15th day of the 15-day shutdown. now the question of whether they'll reopen the country they are working on a county-by county update of which countries would be safe and how they would go back restarting the business. not clear where this will land

advice from the medical team are very, very different on this issue. >> just talking to a friend who lives in minneapolis they are not even getting to a point of the lockdown until tomorrow night, i think. >> right this has rolled out very unevenly across the united states and some are calling for a massive nation-wide lockdown if you declare one county is virus free and the county next door is not, how will you keep others from getting in their car. that is very tricky to lock the country down the president doesn't like that. he wants to do it stay by state

and start opening rather than closing even more. >> can you speak to especially the small business owners. i keep getting notes from people saying, i am hearing that the president might try to reopen parts of the country i think i live in a part of the country not very affected. given the advice of dr. fauci and others, is it realistic to believe we'll reopen any part of this country in the next two or three weeks? >> i don't see it from where i stand. i'm hunkered down in my house outside of washington, d.c. now. i think the real ziedeciders of this will be the school boards looking at medical advice and

decide whether students can go back to school and then parents can decide they can go back to businesses the child care issue is enormous, the commute issue is enormous the other question there was a piece overnight about the haggling over the price of ventilators and there was a comment the president made suggesting that new york city was going to need 30,000 ventilators. that causing quite a commotion in the state of new york that he would be making those comments since they've been saying that is the number that they need >> look, the "new york times" is

reporting that new york spent a billion on new ventilators new york governor has been adamant that he needs 30,000 ventilators immediately. he's saying the federal effort isn't nearly enough to send 4,000 ventilators. the president dismissed the claim of the need. he's just skeptical of that. pld that a number are complaining to him. the president wants to follow here he does not want to lead he wants the states to be in charge of the response he's said that again and again he's skeptical of the worst case scenario planning we have seen since day one of this. he's at odds of what some of the governors are saying we'll see how that resolves.

>> thank you in the meantime, a programming note for you spri vice president mike pence will be speaking with will frost at 10:15 eastern time >> that's good we'll be carrying that the dow gaining 20% over the past three sessions. futures are giving back some of those gains. you saw it yesterday mike santoli joins us with more. now i'm looking at things that have been through a week or one long day now i'm back to thinking if we go back down to 500 to 600 a day, we are sort of where we

were at 1:00 or 2:00 yesterday when we had given back 600 points with all of that said, crazy that is the violent, perhaps bare market values we'll see early on >> the expression of these moves is amazing it didn't hold i want to say that that was a little bull market there. early this week, we are at a point we are so stretched for the down side. >> that could be a reflex

balance. the market has made the case for a fairly steady bid. decent demand for stocks that perhaps it was saying was an overturn to the down side. that stuff has been taken care of right now, if we go up 4% from this moment we get back to where we closed on march 11. that would be the floor. i also think there is legitimate money has rotated back

earlier there was a spread in total bond market. people were telling me at the close, we got that ramp. it seemed like reallocation money. that wasn't just the pin ballplayers that got the tip people were deciding it was overdone to the down side. >> we are still held hostage not by what happened in the house and the senate that is partly what is responsible for this then there is what is happening in new york city we are all watching on a daily basis. we don't know, is it because we are doing a lot of testing we were warned to expect this in terms of the cases exploding

but then it is more than we were expecting and we'll see this in other cities it is a very tenuous position. i've seen governor cuomo say that the hospitals were ramping up quite as quickly. i went out yesterday to pick up some food at curb-side delivery. there is a huge hospital in new jersey, the parking lot is empty. it is almost as if they are waiting. i may be totally wrong it looks like they are not doing any elective things. people are avoiding the place. i've never seen this parking lot so empty >> joe, i'll tell you, the

hospitals here in bergen county are not allowing any visitors. a friend of mine is pregnant and due to give birth. she's now been told she can't even bring her husband into the delivery room. they are trying to product everybody there. the number of visitors way down, you are right. even if you are giving birth, you have got to go in by yourself and do it >> i wanted to ask mike a question more on the fundamentals what are you hearing from invoei investors that forecast for 20/21 at this point? i have heard such a wide variance from 170 down to 140.

you can be in very different places of where the market should be. that would be leading to the up trends >> i don't think there is any depth of conviction. you would think next year, fine, you would get back up towards trend. then it would look like 15, 16 times trailing they are talking about growth rates near 120 we are in this duration of the

cycle at this point. companies right now are not in a mode to deliver earnings i think it is very difficult to pin a number right now it is easier longer term to say, fine, it is annual return for earnings maybe markets got cheap enough to say that it looks okay from here mike, thank you. we'll sea a little later this morning. when we come back, bill 5:0man speak out about a hedging trade after he warned here on cnbc last week that hell is coming. and later, we'll teak to lee cooperman. first we'll look at the biggest gainers in the s&p 500 today

>> announcer: today's big number, 19.99% that's how much the s&p has gained since monday'inads tray low. logged the first straight positive day in more than a month.

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>> hell is coming. okay i never had this experience before in my life. the last time was the financial crisis but this is a feeling like i've never had. like a tsunami is coming and you feel it in the air >> that was bill ackman back on march 18 that comment stoked a lot of controversy after it was revealed that the percenting square netted a $2 billion gain. yesterday, i took a swipe after reading a lot that came out, in a letter released he describes what happened. i spent a lot of time on the phone with him yesterday back in february, he bought credit default swaps because he was convinced bad things wither

coming he had been watching things in china. he was convinced that there would be some sort of economic shutdown in the europe and the united states. he put out a press release on march 3 saying he was making the bet to protect the positions at that point, he said the bet he made was worth $0 disclosing on march 9, disclosing it was worth a lot of money at that point. on march 12, that was the day the market was down about 10%. he said on that day, he started unwinding that and taking it off. it took him about 10 days to gut out of that. then he tweeted to the president to shut down the country he agreed to go on half time at that point the call was stunning. people heard how panicked he

sounded. he did say in the call, he was buying stocks and was feeling better about how things were coming he didn't finish winding that trade. he said he had already sold half of the position. in reading through it and talking, it was not a profit on what was happening as much as it was on covering positions where he was long. he took the profits and hut tpum back in. he was hedging incase a selloff would come a lot of controversy out there i was one of the critics yesterday but in talking to him, i understand more what happened

and went on with all of that >> the bigger issue, he was genuinely was concerned and panicked only time will tell. i ask a lot of people about the idea that we could have millions of deaths in the u.s. because i think that day the global number of deaths where they would seem to have a grip on it the idea of trying to connect the dots and millions of deaths, he did acknowledge he was buying stocks to be that panicked and getting better prices for all of his positions that day, still rubbed me the wrong way >> what he told me was that his position didn't improve at all he was still unwinding

his position did not improve after that >> the defaults on the credit defaults >> he said that didn't change. >> i don't know. it wasn't on stocks. it was on a position on the index. the high yield one i got to take his word on it >> he was redeploying some cash into the stocks -- if he would have been on fire in a crowded theater. >> he was yelling fire in a crowded theater because there was a fire in the crowded theater. people haven't been screaming fire enough. i want to make a point -- >> there is a difference between

a couple million deaths and acknowledging a problem. it hopefully will not be the dire thing you described, 30% unemployment >> joe, at every point throughout this process, this country has gotten it wrong so far, period, full stop, impericly. i would argue with you i looked at an email from bill mentioning it to me even casually back in the middle of february the idea of somehow his concern is not genuine this wasn't about the stock market this is about what was happening with the world and how screwed up our plans had been and how terrible the planning about getting ahead of this would have

been the entire time you can knock him and claim that this guy is either doing some kind of insider trading with the stock market just based on looking at old he mails, this guy was there before any of us and clearly you and i have been on opposite ends on this one >> can i just say -- >> it upsets me on a personal basis. every day, joe, it appears you are trying to talk down the numbers. i would love the numbers to be wrong -- >> andrew, we are back -- >> so far -- >> we have a problem when this is going to be looked at whether we overreacted or didn't the markets at this point have rebounded to a level that i'm sure you think is absolutely

unwarranted given what we are still facing you can still stay bearish obviously from 3,300 to 2,300 all the way up, you were right >> this isn't about the market, joe. >> yes, it is. that's what we are talking about. >> we have a rolling health crisis across the country and that we are not trying to stop it the way that way should i don't know any health expert that said the opposite about that -- >> andrew. >> the only people saying the opposite are in the economic world, period. we have not had a medical expert the scientists that you are come on the air and say we are doing a bangup job except the president of the united states and a number of

business people. i'm sorry to get so upset but it is true. >> we don't know right now i don't know what grandizement any of this means. i know you are on top of the last financial crisis and you are on top of this we all see that. we'll know in hind sight whether this worse case scenario comes about or if we are like china or south korea. i was hartened by what paul tudor said we can look through this we are going to come out of the other side of this without millions of deaths >> there are people out there

with with 401 ks and you hear millions of deaths you find out the guy has hedged his position and buying stocks at the lows, that creates a lot of problems. face the facts some worse case scenarios are 60 to 70,000 and that is horrible but a far cry from millions of people >> i think the tens of thousands of people that need ventilators is happening >> that is trumped's fault too no one had a chance to prepare a lot of countries are trying to their best we are trying our best with what we are trying to do here when we come back, we'll talk about the surge of the

coronavirus cases in the united states dr. scott gottlieb will give us an update of concerns and positive surprises >> let's get some of the images from the pandemic outbreak from yesterday across america tomorrow. it's a day filled with promise and new beginnings, challenges and opportunities. at ameriprise financial we can't predict what tomorrow will bring.

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the northbound of coronavirus cases in the united states has risen to nearly 86,000 passing italy and china the death toll in america is nearly 1,300 joining us now dr. scott gottlieb a cnbc contributor you are looking through this to maybe a second wave or if this becomes something we need to deal with again, we need to get more prepared next time. i've seen conflicting things stated as fact, then i heard it

walked back. do you know if people are being denied ventilators in the united states at this point >> not at this point the data in new york still shows they have some open beds but they will likely overflow this weekend and head into the javits center that they've got set up the numbers show they'll run out of ventilators in the next week, week and a half. hopefully there will be additional supplies coming into the city >> enough?

that implies more cases that were only at 3% of the total right? >> the percentage ais higher thn that the modelling that we did early on had a lower total what the government is putting out is ranges. i think the bigger number is one side of the range now. a lot of times, they don't take into account, those stay at home orders the hospitals are not going to be able to keep up and they'll have to put patients into these other sites they are building outright now they are going to need thousands more based on the new cases they are seeing

>> each day that goes by, the governor is talking about that we are getting closer but we are not there yet. you think the mitigation efforts will not be sufficient to head that off so there will be doctors making a decision of who gets a ventilator and who won't, do you think that is inevitable >> i don't think anything is inevitable we should be pouring resources china's numbers peeked four weeks later. if new york does peak in the next two weeks, that would be the optimistic scenario, their hospitalizations will continue to rise two to four weeks after that you can look at the apex hospitals aren't going to be out of the woods for at least

another six weeks orlonger based on the burden to the health care system in new york city they have a long way to go >> in terms of the next response, i think you had three or four key things we had to prepare for if there is a second round of covid-19 or something similar. we need testing, all the things we've talked about all along, i would think. >> right the question is what does this look like in the united states is new york the epicenter or will we see other epicenters detroit, chicago, miami, dallas, new orleans with almost 1,000. one of the parishes with the highest death rates per capita this is starting to look like more of a national threat.

that will by a different scenario we'll have a very tough april before we can get to the apex of the curve. we need widespread screening this is after the peek so we can start coming down and withdraw these tactics. you need a point of care diagnostics. so doctors can swab people in their offices easily we are not going to get a vax seen probably a year or two away. direct anti-viral that can treat people early in the course to prevent people from getting in trouble. that's what gilead and others are working on i think we will have something late summer, early fall. regeneron said they could have hundreds of thousands of doses

available in late summer the screening system, we should be able to get in place. we have capacity now we have a very strong surveillance system in place in this country >> thank you we appreciate it we'll see you again, i'm sure, next week more than a few times. thanks companies that produce household cleaning products are working overtime to meet the consumer demand. let's welcome our next guest, they are the maker of lysol, so soaps and sanitizers thank you for being with us. tell us what you fwirs saw and when you first started trying to change operations to meet

demand >> caller: go morning. one of our largest factories for a lysol product is in hubei province we've worked very closely with the chinese government our front line has been tremendous in terms of stepping up demand. we've always done a lot of things in china. protecting our people, consumers and customers. we are now seeing this play out around the world we are doing our part to try to ensure our people are safe, our consumers and customers are served and that we do our part as well in helping out >> what does that mean when you see this massive demand for all kinds of things, how do you ramp things up when we talked to the target

ceo, he said they were trying to ramp up to three eight-hour shifts to work around the clock? >> we have been working around the clock since middle to end of january. we saw this happen in parts of asia you know, it is not easy we are asking a lot of our front lines. the protection and safety of our front line is very important i'm very proud of our team in china. and similar, our team in the u.s. is working flatout to meet the demand we are looking at very nontraditional things, working closely with customers, simplifying and moving things that really matter to consumers. i've been in touch with 125 of

our customers around the world to make sure they know we are operating on their behalf and we are doing what we can to keep shelves full there is no question, demand is greater than the supply. >> laxman, it is andrew here to understand the experience in china, what demand looks like that, i know you have factories there. what you are doing for employees. are they all back at work? do they wear masks or not? >> china was before this happened that factory worked all the way through the chinese holiday. working closely with authorities and following every single rule. the idea of checking, testing,

isolating worked very well we haven't had one factory worker actually had any exposure we rented hotels near the factory so if some of them wanted to stay there, they could. some of them chose to do that. we have scaled in china in terms of our factories what we are doing around our people, just ensuring that physical health is a big part of this we can't forget the mental health we've moved to a work from home. china has opened up. people in china are wearing masks. they are maintaining the distance they are being very careful but we are open for business in china. it is slowly coming back

>> laxman, i'm guessing you are doing what all of us are doing trying to figure out how long this will last, when this will go back to normal? how do you staff for that or make your plans accordingly? it seems like an impossible task >> becky, it is very difficult in the short term, what we are prioritizing is the demands of consumers and customers and focusing on our people that is really taking 120% of ourtime. in parallel, thinking of the long term, there are shifts taking place there are three areas of change. clearly change is taking place with the consumer. what they buy, how they buy. we are clearly seeing e commerce grow but also how they get informed i'll give you a statistic of this one of the things we are doing

is we announced a fund we put aside 1% of our rating prophet and making sure that we get access considering the way they get informed we did tic toc only 17% of people wash their hands after going to the toilet. >> what? >> 17. this is a statistic. from unicef. by the way, if you look at developed markets, the study done by london school of hygiene. a third of men and 64% of women wash their hands after going to the toilet despite the fact that 99% of people will tell you that they did. hand washing is a big deal the partnership attic to tic ts

been about changing. consumers are changing what they buy, how they buy and how they get informed second, businesses are changing. you've got people first, the focus on supply. long term, the focus on resill zens and innovation. clearly there is time. this is natural in an era like this is leadership and character. how we interact with the world and partner with the authorities. it is not an easy job at all when we are seeing these three

dimensions of change the test for the future is how we respond to this >> right laxman, thank you for your time. we'll have you back. obviously, consumer patterns are g going to change. i hope those numbers of people washing their hands change and you sell a lot more soop >> coming up, airlines and autos have been hit hard we'll talk about the bail outin antch and what goes next for the compies that employ millions of american workers, when "squawk box" returns w?w?uhi?só'ó

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning auto plants are going to be shut down longer than expected and a very large number of world airlines have stopped flying phil lebeau gets us caught up on both of those industries and where we may be headed phil >> reporter: andrew, let's start off with the auto industry general motors yesterday ceo marry barra out with a video message saying 70,000 of the workers, salary workers are going to have their pay deferred by 20%. senior executives, 25 to 30% yes, the production will not start up until sometime in april, a definitive date has not been set before that they were out with a similar note jim hackett saying for top executives, 20 to 50% of their pay will be cut at least in the short term, deferred at some point they may get it in the future meantime, you have them cutting their plants at least until april 6th. let's switch gears this is video you have to see.

the number of planes that are parked we're going to show you a slew of them here, whether it's american, delta, united. it's all because they've been cutting their schedules. look at the percentages here southwest only cutting 1/4 of its schedule you can see it's parking planes, parking them out in victorville, california the airline stocks have come back this week so to speak but they were just hammered before then american's officers, they are going to be seeing 50% of their pay. they're foregoing 50% of their salary the aircraft leasing companies, air lease, air cap, they've come back as well they were at one point down more than the airlines. the general feeling is these leases on aircraft, well, the planes are not being used now. at some point, who knows when, but at some point they will be back in service and the leasing companies should not take a huge hit relative to what they did, let's say back after 9/11 or during the financial crisis. guys, back to you. >> okay. phil, thank you for that

joining us now to talk more about the airline industry and where all of this is headed, joseph denardi managing director of stefel. we've all been talking about the length and duration of what the course of this looks like. the big question is when do you think people get back on planes and what kind of volume? how do you even begin to measure that as an investor? >> yeah, it's very challenging i think that's the primary overhang on airlines and cruise lines, probably the whole travel sector right now along with what the terms of the financial assistance from the government are going to be. so the way that we're currently estimating is that there's very little demand, essentially no demand over the next few months to travel and then starts to return towards the end of the summer and then gradually gets back to some sort of normal

environment by the middle to late part of next year >> middle to late part of next year, of 2021? >> yeah. a lot of the fleet decisions that airlines are implementing now to reduce cap ex and conserve cash are going to pretty materially lower the capacity that they're going to be able to fly into next year even when they return to normal, and so that's going to create -- you know, that's going to have an effect on demand as well. >> joe, you know, we have a banner on the screen right now you can see it airline bailout, stocks investable again do you think this bailout is the only bailout >> depends yeah, the need for financial

assistance from the government varies airline to airline, and then it varies based on the duration and so if demand starts to return within a couple months, most airlines may not need any financial assistance if it goes on for 12 months, they're probably all going to need some form of assistance and then it comes down to labor and how many employees the government wants to keep employed so, yeah, i think investing in airlines is difficult right now unless you can feel comfortable that demand's going to return in the near term. >> okay. joe, we appreciate your time thank you, sir joe, over to you, the other joe that is. >> yeah. the other joe. coming up, market watch with jim grant is going to join us to talk about the big rally in stocks this week he didn't get to finish some of

his thoughts then later congressman kevin brady weighs in on the $2 trillion package set for vote in the house today. "squawk box" coming right back (gasps and screams) i got in! yes!

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the morning after the dow knocked its biggest three-day surge in nearly 90 years in washington house leaders are scrambling to get lawmakers back to capitol hill over new worries on getting the $2 trillion economic relief package approved and the u.s. now the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak we're going to talk to top health care experts as cnbc's coverage of the crisis continues right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. let's take a look at the u.s. equity futures this morning after three big days in a row for gains for both the dow and the s&p 500. you are looking at red arrows. dow futures down by 626 points s&p down by 72 it's worth noting that over the last three trading sessions the

dow is up 20%. that's right, 20%. actually ability more than that with the last three days of gains we've seen nasdaq this morning is indicated down by 210 points it's been up two out of the last three sessions keeping an eye on the treasury markets. the yields have gotten weaker. ten year is getting at a yield of 0.8%. last i looked it was at 0.761% joe? thanks, becky. it's been an historic week on wall street from fed actions to a big stimulus package in washington to the dow's biggest three-day rally since 1931 steve liesman joins us now with a look at the fed actions and much more. buzz light year had no idea, did he, steve, to infinity and beyond, how prescient he was going to be? >> reporter: i didn't know he was talking about monetary

policy, joe. that's exactly right the fed out showing its balance sheet indeed has hit $5 trillion for the first time ever. it is an absolutely historic -- we look at the speed of fed purchases and of course the magnitude. here's a chart that's shown what's happened since the first of march the last three weeks have seen this huge ramp up in ways that you've never seen before in fact, if you go back and you look at the week-to-week change in the fed's balance sheet, at least on a weekly basis, what happened in the past week or so has dwarfed what we did in the financial crisis by a very long way. let's go back and take a look. there's actually more to come from the federal reserve some details are trickling out about how the program from the stimulus bill might actually work the senate bill gives the treasury $454 billion. the treasury will use that money as call it an equity investment

or backstop for additional federal reserve programs that backstop if you use the same sort of 10 to 1 ratio that the fed has been using with the treasury backstop, it could be another 4.5 trillion that would sort of double the fed's balance sheet size depending on the term of those loans and some of those loans will be aimed at small and medium-sized businesses and the fed right now figuring out how it's going to do that. among other things it could be using the regional central banks to oversee these loans all of this borrowing by the treasury and purchases by the fed not going unnoticed by ratings agencies the fitch out last night with the first comment on u.s. sovereign debt those are our treasuries here. basically what they did was they affirmed and they also warned, it was the least positive affirmation i've ever seen so he starts out and says the u.s. sovereign rating is

supported by structural strengths that include the size of the economy, high per capita income and a dynamic business environment. then it gets to the real point the risk of a near-term negative rating action has risen given the magnitude of shock to the economy and public finances. there are dislocations out there, but there's plenty more to come. we'll see, joe, if that issue of the amount of debt we're issuing is going to be something the bond market is going to be concerned about. >> hey, steve, i was talking to people who play in the treasury market yesterday, and they told me something i didn't realize. i think it's a rule, maybe you know this better, a rule that the treasury itself can't take a negative bid on the treasuries they're selling. obviously we're seeing the three-month trading negative i think -- but is that an actual rule >> reporter: i don't know. i've not heard that. i do know that some on the short

end in the secondary market in three month and six months have turned negative yields, and that's just people paying up for that paper right now because everybody wants short-term risk-free paper from the u.s. government i don't know that the treasury has a rule on negative i guess we call it primary issues. >> right right. i mean, i guess they can change the rule like they've changed every other rule, but from what i was hearing yesterday, that is a rule we'll see how that plays out when you're seeing the secondary market negative rates. thank you. we'll check in a little bit later. >> i think -- >> oh, go ahead. >> reporter: no, i was just going to say, i think a lot of what the fed is doing right now is to avoid having negative rates on the funds i think it wants to avoid that problem. i think the u.s. banking system is different on europe and other places and the negative interest rate would not be good for the latest financial system and how

it works a lot of what it's doing is to avoid the negative interest rate. >> okay. thanks, steve. we'll see you later. joining us right now is jim grant. he's the founder and editor of grant's interest rate observer you've been warning us for a long time that you thought the fed was doing too much what do you think of what you've seen in the last week or so? >> i think it's doing more on the "today" show yesterday the chairman was asked whether he was concerned about long-term inflationary consequences of these actions. he said, no, we're not seeing that just now. and, you know, i know he has to project confidence that's part of his job, but how many of us say as long ago as six weeks would have predicted this the world, of course, is ever changing the simple assertion that we see no prospective consequences of these actions with regard to the power of the dollar is very,

very concerning. i think that is clear and present danger for creditors of the united states. >> jim, we have not seen business shut down like this ever, this rapidly and this globally what do you think should be done if not having the fed step in and take these emergency actions? >> well, i am -- this gets us into epidemiology, in which i'm one of the world's leading authorities of not knowing about it the question i guess before the house is whether the cessation of commercial life is worth it is there not a tradeoff with health and other -- i mean, one can die of despair as well as disease, and i notice that joseph wall lenberg, the swedish industrialist said we wanted to start a debate about the consequences of mass

self-incarceration and -- i share his concerns and i think that the way forward perhaps is to -- i am in favor of life going on and the alternative is to try to put the government in charge that's where the programs are leading. bernie may not be out of the presidential race. his program is by degree being implemented in fact daily. the fed to do what it does -- people say we must have yield curve control as we did in 1946. in 1946 we had price controls. the fed is turning into its own kind of commercial bank. >> hey, jim -- >> yes >> these are -- desperate times may call for desperate measures.

if you're talking about a situation where the country shuts down for a number of weeks or a couple of months and as a result it prevents the hospital system from being overwhelmed as all of these people are reacting to a new virus that none of us have ever been exposed to before, if that flattens the curve it means the health care system doesn't get completely overwhelmed, i don't know, maybe i'd take that trade. >> well, the health care system has had a couple of weeks to get its act together there was an op ed piece in the wall street journal, the headline is covid-19 as deadly as they say? and two credentialed scientists argued that current estimates of the fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude. bill gates was on cnn yesterday saying the exact opposite. you know, experts simply are not expert in a dispositive way. there is no certainty about this, even as there is no certainty about finance or indeed life. i say that the cure is

prospectively worse than the disease. that is an amature's opinion i say that the delegation of political and economic authority to the united states government to suppress this crisis is a clear and present danger these are opinions i can't defend it any more than that >> you started with -- down this line of thinking last time you were on, you were bringing up flu deaths and things like that. you just mentioned a couple of scientists it's been posi'posited that onl economic people have talked about the threat of the virus. there was an epidemiologist in the u.k. with unfortunately the same name as neil ferguson he had dire forecasts. he ratcheted that down do you think because you're an economics guy or business guy

that you just can't see the actual threat of this pandemic at this point? i mean, are you actually biased because of that, because you have skin in the game? >> well, i am the husband of a physician, therefore, i have a bit of thinking. there are health consequences to depressions. there are health consequences to unemployment i have -- you know, if we all could agree to drive 35 miles an hour on the interstate highways, that would save perhaps tens of thousands of deaths a year how many would sign up for that? if we did sign up would we be accused of being auto mowtivelily centric because we drive? i like to think the way that i've thought about this is to weigh cost/benefits and my

conclusion is that life as it must go on is a precious thing, too, and we ought to at least consider what we are condemning ourselves to if we choose to shut everything down for another month or two months or three months i think it would be a fatal error. that's an opinion of a journalist. >> hey, jim, do you have any numbers, and i have been looking for them because there are so many anecdotal stories about what happens in a depression, and the health risks of that and the health risks of what they call deaths of despair you're looking even now in certain segments of our population irrespective of covid of life -- of age coming down, meaning rather than going up we're seeing it go down. have you seen real numbers that could be put on that i think part of the issue of this conversation is that on one

side you have estimates of impending potential death or people in hospitals but it's very hard or at least we have not seen real numbers about what happens post a financial crisis in terms of the other health impacts. i absolutely agree with you. i very much feel that if you think the opioid crisis was bad, you know, that could be a dry run. >> the opioid crisis has, i think, a direct -- at least connection, an analogy in the early opts, the medical profession, they said pain was the vital sign and no one ought to be in pain. and this led to perhaps the drastic over prescription of opioids. by the same token it seems to me, at least in an analogy, the federal reserve has intervened

in ever closer intervals to suppress the symptoms of misallocation of resources and the mispricing of credit these radical interventions have become ever more drastic and the doctor feel goods of our central banks have worked to destroy the price mechanism in credit. interest rates are the most sensitive prices in capitalism they serve to do all sorts of useful things. discount future cash flow. estimates are to measure credit risk, to set investment hurdle rates. these prices have become administered government set indicators rather than sensitive prices and we are paying the price for that in terms of resources. and so what do corrections correct? that is the question i have with respect to the federal reserve and to all of these programs and to all of its interventions. is there no saliatory role of

bear markets and recessions? of course there is they separate the sound from the unsound. they separate the well-financed from the over leveraged. and if we never had them, if we never had these episodes of economic pain, we would be much the worst for it >> okay. jim grant, thank you for joining us we do have other breaking news to join you boris johnson has now tested positive for covid-19. we've been told that the symptoms thus far are mild, but another national or global figure getting the virus we'll talk more about that in just a little bit. when we come back though, he runs the nation's largest chain of truck stops and owns the cleveland browns he's going to join us to discuss the state of the economy, the

trucking industry and the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. first, as we head to a break, check out the biggest s&p winners and losers this morning. ♪

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welcome back check out the dow jones transportation index month to date the sector is down more than 14%, on pace for its worst monthly performance since december of 2018 and a bright spot this week, the average is up 17% and will likely break a four-week long losing streak. becky, we're similar on this, aren't we? as i switch to the next story. this is all being done manually. no one needs to know how the sausage is made. it's unbelievable. i've got the tv on over here i feel like i'm in a different time zone. >> ten seconds >> central mountain time or something. it's unreal. i look up there. you know, as a result, you know, i'm not -- you know, my nose is

itching. itch there is a seinfeld episode -- our next guest follows the transportation sector. you don't know what you're going to do that goes up he owns the truck stops and owns the cleveland browns jimmy has let ones hazlet owns the cleveland browns can you describe how your business is doing and your overall view for these unprecedented times that we find ourselves in as a ceo of your company? >> yeah, good morning, joe thanks for having us on. i think it's important to understand that 70% of the goods that are consumed and used in the united states are moved around by truck, and almost all of the food and consumer products that are in such high demand are moved which trucks. and so back on march 15th and 16th when we could see how serious this was going to be, we

went to the department of transportation and white house and made sure truck stops/travel centers were declared an essential service which allows us to stay open despite what states, counties, municipalities might do we've been able to, as has our industry, stay open, stay in fuel, have our stores staffed and stocked and help keep america moving during this extremely difficult time >> anecdotally, what are you seeing flying j has how many -- you have 750 or so all over the world so -- i mean, all over the country. sorry, all over the country. we've got hot spots that are really isolated. the most cases, you know, in either, you know, new york city or washington. i mean, are a lot of your employees and people that run the centers, are they wondering what all the fuss is or is it coming there?

i mean, it is coming there eventually do they think it's an over reaction based on the urban area >> no. well, fortunately, joe, as you know, most of our stops are not located in urban areas we do have one in newark right by the port where you are, but most of our stops are spread out and they're in more rural areas. we are fortunate, knock on wood, not to have anyone test positive in our stores. on the other hand, we're aware that's coming and we're prepared to take the necessary stops to -- steps to protect our people, our customers. we have a procedure in place to come in, close down the store, clean the store and get the store back open. so it's only a matter of time. we operate 750 to 800 truck stops, before one of our team members does get infected with this terrible disease. >> so what -- what'sdifferent? what have you -- for your 2800 people, what has changed and how

have you reacted to this to keep them safe? >> we have 25,000 team members out in the field, and so here's what all we have instituted for our team members and our customers. before i get to that, i thought you might be interested in what we're seeing from an overall economic perspective, and that is that gasoline demand, because we sell gas to individuals in cars driving up and down the highway, diesel obviously to trucks gasoline demand in the last five or six days is down 35 to 40%. so this stay at home edict that is in place has had a dramatic impact on gasoline sales diesel sales are down much less, but there was a huge push by the trucking industries to stock and restock the stores as everyone went to the big box retailers. that is now tailing off and we're starting to see diesel demans soften fairly dramatically here over the last

three or four days in terms of what we've done at our stops, i think it's important for everyone at home to understand the average truck driver is on the road for five days at a time five days and five nights. their life revolves around their truck and the truck stops so they eat, shower, obviously use the restrooms and all the other facilities we have at our truck stops and they sleep in their trucks so keeping our stops open and functioning being able to serve food, have retail items, showers and restrooms open is vital to them steps we have taken at our stops include closing down the seating area in our restaurants and so a driver can come in, order food but then will need to eat it in his truck, and that hasworked well and the drivers after a couple of initial hiccups have accepted it well we have driver's lounges in our stops. those have closed down and we're practicing -- and i will give the american public -- i was in a couple of our stores earlier this week -- great credit for

quickly picking up social distancing you all have gone to various retail places and we wait in pretty close proximity in line to pay i was in one of our big stores and people were literally standing six feet apart in our stores as they went to pay one other thing i think is important to remember is with gasoline demand being off so much, there are a lot fewer customers in our stops than normal, which allow us to do two things one, it makes social distancing easier in protecting our team members and guests but secondly it allows us to pay more attention to take care of the professional drivers. >> we've got to run, jimmy this last one. the supply chain worries that we had, you're servicing all the truckers the hoarding, everything we were worried about, can you say that's not going to happen at this point >> i think it could -- >> go on >> excuse me, joe. we talked to the big retailers

and we work closely with walmart on different issues, and i think -- i can't answer for them, but in talking to the trucking companies who were literally in contact with daily, it feels like we're over the hump as one of the trucking company ceos told me you only need so much toilet paper, so many cans of soup, et cetera, and i think the system is over the hump there could be spot outages. in our stores, we are a big retailer, we are not having any problems with the supply chain the fuel supply chain in particular, joe, is in great shape. >> jimmy, thank you. >> joe, thanks for having us on. >> all right thanks for doing everything, too, and keeping everything running. we love the truckers >> thank you. >> we love them. >> thank you >> let's hope we are over the hump when it comes to hoarding that would be fantastic. when we come back, banking analyst mike mayo will join us on the financials during the

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to discover learning collections for all ages from our partners at common sense media, curiosity stream, history vault, reading corner and many others. for more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity.com/prepare. welcome back, everybody. news out in the last few minutes that boris johnson, the u.k.

prime minister, has tested positive for coronavirus karen cho joins us live in london karen? >> reporter: good morning, becky. yes, we've had the news that's just crossed u.k. prime minister boris johnson confirming he has tested positive for coronavirus a statement released a short time ago from downing street this is the latest after experiencing mild symptoms yesterday, the prime minister was tested for coronavirus on the personal advice of england's chief medical officer, professor chris whitey the test was carried out in number 10 by staff and the result of that test was positive in keeping with the guidance, the prime minister is self-isolating on downing street he is continuing to lead the government's response to coronavirus. that is one of the interesting comments already the prime minister taking to twitter with a two-minute video posting what was a reassuring message that he's still in control of the crisis as it unfolds across the country. don't forget, about 11,000

people here in the u.k. already been confirmed as positive for coronavirus. already more than thatbecause there's not much testing taking place here in the u.k. you have to imagine the numbers are much, much higher than what has been confirmed so far 578 people have died here in the u.k so the prime minister last seen in public outside number 10 last night when there was cheering for nhs staff. there was a rally across london yesterday to clap outside your house or your residence for the support of the staff and the hard-working efforts that they have all brought to the table to try and conquer the spread of a pandemic and no more deaths in the country. it was the last time he was seen in public outside of his residence. just keep in mind, there have been a number of press conferences where he was with the chancellor the stock market has been around the lows here. the ftse 100 becky, back to you >> karen, thank you very much. bank stocks rising sharply here in the united states along

with the broader market as well. of course, it's all been helped out by the $2 trillion stimulus bill still being worked on in the house at this point. wilfred frost covers the sector. wilf, good morning what are you seeing with the banks? >> reporter: becky, the stimulus bill helps the bank to keep people in work and corporate america healthier. anything good for the economy is good for the banks, too. there are also provisions that directly relate to the banks the biggest piece of that is the option for banks to delay an expected change in loan loss provision accounting that was supposed to go into effect this quarter. it's called cecl regulators will temporarily reduce the community bank leverage ratio from community banks from 9% to 8%. now along with other measures, these are designed to prevent the banks from having to hold more capital against loans that may be rising in terms of risk as would have typically been the case which would have led to

lower lending and lower liquidity. the added positive for banks' investors is outright fresh lending or bailouts addressed in the bill is done outside of the bankingsystem for the most part for example, by the treasury's exchange stabilization fund or the small business administration so the banks don't have to make new risky loans and instead will probably focus on existing customers. add that to the relaxing of the capital funds we're seeing to the fed's massive injection of liquidity and the banks are certainly more free from fresh restrictions than sectors that will be receiving direct bailouts and definitely more free than they were post the 2008, 2009 stimulus bill something they'll feel is warranted since they're not the source of the problem this time. the kbm banks index, guys, was down 51% based on interday peak to trough this year. it's since rallied 26% from that

low, but it's still down 38% from that interday peak earlier in the year. and trading down a bit this morning in the free market and the banks. andrew >> okay. wilfred frost, i like the lighting i like the lighting in the apartment look it's good. >> well, i'm lucky because i'm sitting in the kitchen and i can point the lights this way. >> i like the back lighting is what i'm referring to. meantime --. >> oh, right i see. it works over to you. >> it works. it works we're going to talk to mike mayo. >> do you read at all? do you read at all, wilf not a single book. you haven't seen all of us your a a millennial that watches netflix. not a single book. >> it's funny you ask that i love your library, i do. this is my one it's called a kindle you can get them now, joe, in

stores even more books than you have behind you all on this single device i'm going to send you one for christmas maybe. >> what's it called? >> i do admire the churchill book behind you, joe we've texted about that. >> someone spotted a danielle steele book back there i'm embarrassed. i said that earlier. anyway -- >> meantime, we're going to get to mike mayo as wilf just said these are sobering times for our banks. our next guest is pleased they're part of the economic solution instead of the problem this time around the banks have been enlisted to help fight the covid-19. mike mayo at wells fargo good morning, mike. >> thanks for having me. >> so, you know, you talk about how the banks are being enlisted, and it's true, to help in this fight, the economic

portion of this fight. the question that i would ask you is whether you think they're going to be up to it in terms of their ability to actually distribute money at a rapid pace over the next couple weeks >> well, look, it's night and day versus the financial crisis. banks are excited. they're excited to be part of the solution many have suspended layoffs. bank of america actually hired 2,000 people in the last month they're making new loans they're staying open for business goldman now has over 95% of their employees working remotely i mean, there's a reason that bank employees are deemed, quote, essential outside of health care, that category only includes groceries, pharmacies and banks, and you're about to find out why even more now. when the dust settles, we think that banks will likely contribute to about half of the stimulus plan. this is a herculean task, getting $2 trillion in the right hands, in the right place and doing so very, very quickly for

something that has never been done before. wow. banks have the incentive to make this work otherwise they will be eating a lot of bad loans, but if successful, banks can complete their rehab from the financial crisis, and it will be like going from the evil step sister to the fairy godmother. the opportunity is there. >> let me ask you a question, mike we talk about how the banking system is so much stronger than it was obviously in 2008 so many of the steps that are being taken today are this time to save main street. i would argue saving main street hopefully as a fire wall, i don't want to be dumb to say wall street, but if we don't save main street we will get to wall street. in terms of how you're looking at analyzing the situation in terms of where corporates are, where the cnbs market is, where the risks and exposures are that banks have, how do you see it? >> these are sobering times. there's no escaping the painful

two quarters ahead we analyze three scenarios, recovery shaped like a v, a year recovery u, 2 1/2 years or an l and it's a pan like recovery in five years we still model bank loan losses at least doubling. bank earnings down 1/3 so it's still not easy so, yes, loan losses are going to go higher, there's no escaping that but banks come into this -- banks come into this recession with stronger balance sheets than any other time before recession in the last half century. so that helps. >> in terms of the banks and the valuations of the banks, we can maybe put a chart up that you can see where they stand right now, but which banks do you think have the most value at this point and would you buy them

>> look, i have no idea what's happening in the next day and the next three weeks i think you need the banks to come out and talk about their earnings we're looking for kitchen sink first quarter, maybe second quarter. what i would suggest is the largest banks take as much reserve as possible loan losses and show how much capital you have left over having said that, if you're looking out over the next two yeef years, this group is a complete buy. they'll weather through this not only do we think they will weather through this crisis, we think once they get to the other side the bank stocks will be re-rated higher for demonstrating their strength and resiliency with a bar bell strategy on the one hand, the higher baited names like citigroup, which is -- you know, they were the poster child among banks in the financial crisis they should demonstrate their resiliency goldman sachs, great risk manager. the other side are high beta

the other side are high quality banks. during this downdraft we upgraded u.s. bancorp and pnc. you're getting great companies at great prices. >> mike mayo, stay safe and healthy out there. we appreciate you calling in this morning. >> you do the same thank you. >> thanks. when we come back, the coronavirus crisis we'll talk to the head of haven, a health care joint venture formed by jpmorgan, amazon and berkshire haawthay he's a doctor and he can tell you what's happening on the front lines. stay tuned ♪ yes i'm stuck in the middle with you, ♪ no one likes to feel stuck, boxed in, or held back. especially by something like your cloud. it's a problem. but the ibm cloud is different.

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still to come this morning, the united states now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than china or any other country in the world health care professionals here are trying to figure out where we are on the curve. we're gog tintoalk about that next right here on "squawk box."

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welcome back. the united states now has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world at this point. joining us now to assess the situation find out where we're headed is a doctor that is the head of haven formed by jpmorgan, amazon and berkshire hathaway and a surgeon at brigham and women's hospital and staff writer for "the new yorker." doctor, thank you for being with us today. >> glad to be here >> you know, you wrote an article for "the new yorker" that caught our attention. shed light on what's happening you talked about what happened in china, how their first response in wuhan failed but how they came back so much stronger and managed to contain things. talk about those extreme measures they took and whether or not you think we can do that here. >> there was china including then hong kong reacting then

singapore and there are lessons coming that suggest there are a few critical elements. you got to recognize this is a national epidemic and we haven't woken up to that i'm worried about what is emerging in a bunch of cities not just in new york we're talking new orleans, atlanta, dallas, miami, detroit, philadelphia, chicago, our death toll curve is now worse than when china was at the same stage. we have 12 states with more than 1500 cases, china had one province so what works on the flip side washington state is flattening the death toll curve and there are key steps borrowed from that experience in asia shelter in place which some states are doing. we have about 20 we don't have the others on board and we need really a national shelter in place. it's physical distancing and being critical about that. it's testing and tracing contacts and then there's work

to do to recognize hospitals cannot become sources of infection and we've got to make that not happen like it's happening in italy and spain >> how do we do that >> well, the lesson out of singapore and hong kong in particular i dove into, there's a playbook and it includes that health care workers when they come into work they have a daily symptom check to make sure they don't have symptoms of covid-19 and go home if they don't and then they have a surgical mask from the moment that they come into the work and throughout the day taking care of any patients. that's not just because you keep them from getting affected, it's that they're picking up infections in the community and it keeps them from spreading infection to others and that's the critical thing another part of their playbook which is interesting, they found that they did not have to automatically quarantine staff, workers when they were exposed to a coronavirus patient

they only needed to quarantine in singapore they did it only if it was greater than 30 minutes at less than six feet from the person for if you didn't have a surgical mask and, you know, otherwise people kept going and they had no transmissions in the health care space and i think health care turns out to be so important because we're learning now what keeps health care workers safe that's going to show us how we can get everybody back to work safely >> you know, in italy i read something like 8.3% of the cases they've reported have been health care workers. are were they not doing any of this? >> they weren't and frankly we haven't been doing it either i wrote this article about a week ago today we now have most hospitals starting to flip into taking these core measures but it's still way too slow in the hospital setting we need to have that process

where you come into work, you are checked for and asked do you have -- have you had a feeling of fever today have you had a new cough, new shortness of breath, new loss of taste has turned out to be a potential indicator of covid turning up as a problem and any new muscle aches if you do, you stay home, you have to self-isolate for a period of time what we should do is be able to offer tests and more and baltimore places are offering health care workers tests to know if they can come back that part is critical and then having masks while we're at work, supplies are critical issue, so in some places we have to ration the masks. in my hospital i get one mask for the day and that's the way it's got to work >> dr. gawande, there is a

conversation happening in financial circles and in the white house about the cure being worse than the disease and i'm hoping you can speak to that from a medical perspective but also from an economic perspective because some people look at this and say if there is a financial crisis that is lasting there are health impacts from that. how do you think about that? i know you spent a lot of time thinking about all of this. >> yeah, in a national epidemic where it's picking up speed in places that haven't had it, the economic damage is going to be worse if we don't lock down. understand, there's this talk like, you know, it's only the elderly and the frail who get sick they are at the most risk of dying. but look at people just middle-aged, 45 years old. a quarter of them need to be hospitalized in order to survive when they have this virus. and about 5% to 10% of them need to be on a venice beach for

days you have this sweep through, infect 60 million people, we're done we will not be able to have those people -- forget getting them back to work. we will not have those people come through and survive if we can't take care of them so the idea that this is -- maybe we should just go back to work and this will all be fine and just let those old folks get sick or maybe we'll quarantine the nursing homes, that's not going to do it >> dr. gawande, you mentioned the shortage we have when it comes to supplies. what about the potential shortage when it comes to health care workers, either those who get self-quarantined, those who get the virus, those who don't feel comfortable working because they're afraid of exposing their family. >> here in boston, we have more than 100 health care workers who tested positive, largely from -- virtually all from picking it up in the community but we're finding that the practices that

you -- you borrow those from singapore and hong kong, they're able to keep spread from happening and able to keep the workers safe the critical things we got to have are masks and gloves and those are so far we've got supply for the next few days i see the supply chains continuing to improve. you know, there's been this lag. we didn't get on it early enough and so when i talk to the manufacturers, i talk to the government officials, we're seeing that there is product getting into the pipeline and then, you know, it's distribution isn't perfect we will get through it but the next couple of weeks are not going to be great and so, yes, we have to make sure those health care workers are a priority if you have masks, any of your businesses get them in to your hospitals. >> dr. gawande, thank you for your time. we hope to talk to you soon. >> thank you when we come back, a lot more on "squawk box. leon cooperman will join us live

with his advice for investors in volatile markets later, michael rubin and pennsylvania governor tom wolf will join us to talk about how they're teaming up to help fight the coronavirus outbreak we'll be right back right after this at leaf blowers. you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. make ice. making ice. but you're not mad because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler so you can take on the markets with confidence. don't get mad get e*trade and start trading commission free today. don't get mad get e*trade and start trading edward jones is it'swell aware of that.et. which is why we're ready to listen. and ready to help you find opportunity. so. let's talk. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

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breaking news, stocks pointing to big losses at the open reversing a three-day market surge that put the dow on pace for its best week in nearly 90 years. a special interview with billionaire investor leon cooperman is straight ahead. the finish line in sight on congress' $2 trillion stimulus bill aimed at blunting the impact of the coronavirus but there's a last-minute scram toll try to avoid a procedural hurdle and the united states has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world more than 85,000 this hour we'll hear how lawmakers and big businesses are fighting back. cnbc's breaking news coverage of the market impact continues right now. good morning i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin

some of the worst levels for the futures we've seen this morning out of that 1300 points we gained yesterday which came after a couple of big gains, the two previous day, now giving back over 800 points on the dow at this point as you can see, looks like 730 -- implied open is more than800 points we're going to take a quick look at treasury yields this morning which stopped being the story. we're still watching oil very closely obviously but it's been all about the equity markets at this point i'm looking up seeing the delay. we were less than 800 but as i said just shows you five or ten-second delay on some of the boards i'm seeing it can be 100 points different which is a reflection of what we're seeing and the ten-year below 0.8% now. i don't know who i'm going to.

i would have to -- someone would have to tell me. >> you're going to me. the dow just had its best three-day surge since the 1930s and s&p is now up 20% just since monday's intraday low, of course, before the futures being off 800 this morning both are still more than 20% below their all time highs we set last month for a look at what investors should be doing, we're joined on the phone by investor leon cooperman, the chairman of me megafamily office and great to talk to you today. >> thanks. nice to be with you. you guys are doing a great job on covering this whole situation. >> thanks, we appreciate it. lee, i've been asking for at least a week or two to come on you didn't want to do that at first and wanted to wait until you had something to say what are you thinking based on what we've seen, the crazy swings over the last several weeks? >> i would say this is the eighth recession in deuce bear market i've lived through. different than the ones in the past this is a combination of a financial crisis, oil price

collapse and, of course, the coronavirus which has caused a broad scale shutdown of the economy. and this occurred at a time when the stock market was expensive by any historical standard if you study, it's important to understand history past cycles you'll find on average a bear market decline is about 25%. this one i guess peaked so far down 35% so not terribly out of line but down 25% typically the decline lasts about a year which is about how long a recession lasts. gdp contracts 2% and earnings dropped 15%, 20% and this is important, importantly the market on average bottoms out three months before the recession ends the stock market leads the economy. i think what happens from here is a function of your view of how the coronavirus plays out. call me an uninformed optimist keep telling people, i don't

have a medical degree. i have two ph.d.s, both honorary but if i'm right on the virus call, if i'm right and that's the big if i have no particular expertise i think the market at the recent low of 2187 was close enough to the bottom to be called the bottom if the economic shutdown goes beyond april into the third quarter, i would be less optimistic on the virus, my general view is with the world focusing on a problem, governments, corporations, independent scientists, when the world is focusing on a problem it'll be solved quicker than most people think. i'm guessing june but that is a pure guess i think we all have to put this into perspective whether the loss of any human life is tragic, the coronavirus has had much more serious impact on business activity than on human life thus far and let's hope and pray it continues that way and i want to cite statistics. during the last year flu season

2018/2019, 35.5 million flu cases, 35,200 deaths 1718 flu season, 45 million cases, 61,000 deaths and in the '16/'17, 38,000 deaths it is bewildering to me -- not bewildering, interesting to me people react so strongly to every new development. the fear factor has exploded in the united states and thankfully it's a different number this morning. as of yesterday afternoon, there are approximately 82,000 people in the united states and the three u.s. territories that tested positive and approximately 1290 deaths, which is tragic but, you know, very, very, very small relative to the past flu seasons i would point out that apple is starting up production this china. starbucks is announcing they are re-opening many stores in china and i think last night lululemon

said they opened all but one store in china these are all good signs so as we go out to coronavirus i'm in the view of it will be contained sooner than when things -- hopefully the curves start to flatten out by the end of april and there's no question the economy is in a meaningful decline but i think a recession has already been discounted at the recent low level now, i got to get beyond the near term. for the last three years every term i was on cnbc, i said investors have to understand that we are at an abnormal world, abnormal world. why did i say that and still to a degree, $14 trillion of sovereign debt carried at negative interest rate made no sense to me at that time still doesn't so i've been spending my time trying to figure out what is normal. you have to look at normalized earnings in the current cycle. we don't have that we have recession low type earnings so normal to me i've said is

that the labor force grows at half of 1% th in any economy labor force growth and productivity growth determines real growth and added to that assumption of inflation, i assume 2%, that's 4% nominal in the 4% nominal growth world fed funds would be around 3% currently on the one adding to zero maybe those numbers are three years away given what's going on, okay in that normal world i was saying to myself, 17 times 150 earnings, 150 times normal earn lthsz, my view, 2550 which is about where we are presently and for the year i'm thinking if we get -- speaking of curves in april i think the s&p this year, i'm working on assumption of 2200 lee, 2800 high and i feel very strongly that individual stocks are much more attractive

than the s&p 500 and my advice to you listeners is simple. don't panic. don't borrow money to buy stocks this is not the last opportunity you're going to have be very careful with your bonds. limit duration no return with plenty of risk or return-free risk as someone said return-free risk help others less fortunate we are our brother's keeper. if you're lucky enough to be in a good liquidity position let's help others. so yesterday, for example, i practice what i preach and shut off my screen on mie tv and looked -- called up my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter and said who needs help and we sent out three wires to three organizations we support to help them and lastly stay safe and healthy government is doing exactly what they should be doing, okay but there are long-term costs. i say the government i'm referring to the fed and congress, i'll get to the s.e.c.

in a moment. the combination of trump's tax cuts a few years ago with the current virus-related stimulus implies to me that an increase share of national income generated by that 4% nominal growth that i'm referring to will go to interest and principle payments on a national debt in coming years and decades. that is disposable income after tax profits will be restrained relative to gdp by taxes and probably this will happen for a generation of people there are two mitigating factors, one is the fed is monetizing debt and yields are well below nommal gdp growth postponing a day of reckoning but we should all be understanding of the notion that this will have a long-term effect on future returns but, you know, i also say watch credit markets and spreads very carefully. but, you know, we have to watch the tracking of the virus. that's critical. if you don't have a strong view of the virus you can't have a

strong view of the market. >> hey, lee, that is so much to try to go through and just break down i hear what you're saying overall. makes a lot of sense doing things carefully, trying to go through. can i ask what you're doing in your home office, what you've been personally doing? >> we've been personally losing money but we've added some google we're looking to add to facebook and adobe. we own amazon. look to add to that and we're buying individual stocks i made my money over the last 50 odd years by being stock specific i'm not a big mac crow player. i have a knowledge and view of the overall picture of the market and think there's an element of risk out there. i would not want to borrow a lot of money i found the rally off the bottom in the last few days impressive. i think it's gone as far as it should go and think the markets are a fair evaluation and until we get more of a handle on the virus, i would think that one should be very defensive

and i emphasize strongly, this is not your last chance. do not go out and -- this is my view, you know, if you're a speculator, fine but i would not want to borrow money i would want to be a cash basis investor and want to stick with quality in the market. and know what you own and stick with quality and don't borrow money. >> and just to emphasize your call, you think that where we've been could be the bottom put in or at least close enough based on your guess that a lot of these social distancing measures and kind of stay at home forced orders are going to end come may? >> yeah, well, you know, tom friedman wrote an interesting editorial page in "the new york times" a few days ago and i'm sympathetic to the view, i think somebody said that the cure could be worse than the disease. i'm not a doctor i'm not going to give the doctor's advice. i'm on the board of the david runyan cancer research foundation and the docs on the

board tell me fauci is the most knowledgeable guy in the world on this type of problem and i would rather listen to the most knowledgeable guys in the world than myself. i'm confident my view of the market and there's an unknown, okay i think that if the curves peak out before the end of april, that 21, whatever it is high, 2187, turn out to be the low if we go on and have two quarters of shutdown, america is not built for a shutdown we've never been through a past recession, you know. i went through the fiscal crunch with volker and the opec situation. i went through the technology bubble bursting. i went to the housing bubble burst. past sessions. never ever did the economy close down any broad scale way there was always counter cyclical activity in the economy. this is something unusual so i'm making an assumption but the assumption i'm making does not lead me to want to go out and agree with some of the people on

your program that this is the greatest opportunity to buy in a lifetime i would like to have a little more certainty, a little less risk probably the biggest area that i'm taking a bet on at a consensus is i'm about i'd say now twice weighted, maybe 2 1/2 times weighted to relative energy you know, we -- the best cure for low oil price is low oil price, at these prices a lot of company also go out of business and supply and demand will tighten up if the economy starts to grow demand will pick up and stocks are selling at a fraction of underlying asset value some are having a decent yield and the industry will ultimately consolidate and we own companies that we think have the ability to be consolidated wpx, parks energy are two examples and so, you know, that's probably our big added consensus bet and we'll have to wait and see >> hey, lee, what would be your forecast for the s&p 500 for

this year and also for 2021 if you were to try to look out 12 months ahead if that's what the market is going to try to do to discount all of this >> well, i said this year, you know, i think it was arthur burns told one of his students at columbia when running the ph.d. program, forecast well but forecast often i think i made the mistake, he said if you give him a date don't give him a level if you give him a level don't give him a date. i said the rank the rest of the year would be 2200 to 2800 i think about 2800 would possibly surprise me it would take very good news o the virus and to get below 2200, again, i think would require the virus situation to deteriorate long-term there is a message, there is a message, you don't make 70 basis points in bonds and zero in fed funds to make 15% or 20% in the stock market the stock market will probably

give you 5%, 6% or 7% and that's out there. we have to spend a lot of time repairing the damage to the fed's balance sheet and the economy resulting from this virus. and but i believe as i said before the fed and congress are doing exactly the right things the area that surprises me and i'm not looking to pick a fight with the ftc but i'm splz surprised that the s.e.c. is not weighed in here. you know, certain countries are banning -- >> lee, in what regard about the up tick rule >> yeah, exactly if there's something i'm missing but in 1938 in response to the abuses of '29 they enacted the uptick rule. that functioneffectively, somewhat effectively for 70 years, in 2007 for some unexplained reason they removed it which aided and abetted a lot of trading systems that are

accentuating volatility in the market and buying strength, selling weakness so works both ways, okay certain countries have banned short selling. i'm not in favor of banning short selling. i think it should be allowed but we should have the uptick rule to slow things down. they're scaring the hell out of the public and scaring the hell out of the professionals, okay, and the s.e.c. should weigh in and to do something here and the fact that they haven't surprises me and, you know, i don't understand it and i think that they should modify their view. and but long-term i'm fully of the belief that we're going to have more modest returns going forward. you know, let's face it. the country is moving to the left you know, these progressives who want us to deal with income disparity which i'm sympathetic to and i pay college tuition for 500 kids in newark, new jersey they wanted narrow income disparity, wealth disparity and taking care of that because a

lot of wealth has been lost by the wealthy. the market structure has been destroyed. i'm shocked as i said the s.e.c. has not reinstated the uptick rule or other rules to deal with the quantitative traders certain countries are banned short selling. i'm not in favor of that but they've done something we've done nothing as regards the s.e.c. and finally the success in the system, you know, debt is growing more rapidly in the economy. if debt is $21 trillion and we're going to get into a 3, $4 trillion deficit we're adding at a rate more rapidly than the economy is growing and not a healthy situation and we have to understand that. >> lee, you've got kind of a rational approach, not a panic-stricken sort of approach. i'm not hearing you talk about millions of deaths do you attribute it to lee that he's one of the financial guys with not the scientific background what lee is saying sounds in

stark contrast to what we were talking about earlier. i thought you might want to ask lee -- >> i'll ask lee the question lee, you hear doctors. we had dr. gottlieb on before and atul even in new york city which is the hot spot epicenter it's almost impossible to believe that in new york state this would end by the end of april in a meaningful way and somehow business would just open up let alone areas like new orleans or atlanta which are just becoming a hot spot and other cities and towns that are likely to get it. so the time line that you're talking about, can you sort of walk through sort of your analysis of how you get to the end of april i get if you're following china completely by the book but clearly we haven't followed china by the book at all

>> i can't add to your knowledge or your view it's not an area i have any expertise in i think that there is a movement in the country to try to get the country back to work we've pointed out the fatalities of past, you know, flu seasons, we are nowhere near them i don't want to start talking about analytically a loss of human life is tragic but a lot of these people had diseases, diabetes, in their 80s, et cetera you know, i don't want to pontificate where i don't have any credentials. all i'm saying is if you want me to make an assumption, we have the economy shutdown for two full quarter, the market has not seen its lows. the market will go lower don't borrow money nobody knows the answer. god knows the answer i don't know the answer. all i know is that everyone around the world is focused on this problem whether it's government, whether it's, you know, the scientific industry,

whether it's independent physicians, everyone is focused on it. the people are more careful. if we see a peaking out in the curves that will be a good signal to the market but, andrew, i would be making up something, you know, and i'm not really -- i'm not comfortable making things up i don't like to talk about what i don't know all i know is i think we're in a bear market and it's gone down 25% on average this has gone down 35% government was not in the greatest of health running a trillion dollar deficit in a fully employed economy which was wrong and now we'll print a tremendous amount of debt but corporate america is in good shape. one of the things, you know, if you put all this stuff through a dividend discount model, what do you earn in alternatives to common stocks? you can't earn anything in the world we live in so that could be a support to common stocks. i'd rather take risk in a well

researched common stock than i would in a government bond that's just my view. that's where i made my money >> hey, lee, thank you so much for talking to us today. really helpful and we hope to talk to you again. >> let me emphasize one thing, i mean for those of us that have excess resources if you're going to die with excess resources help people now. not in the future. now. good luck. thank you. >> thank you, lee. see you soon >> thank you, lee. please stay safe and stay healthy. meantime, when we return, coming up, pinstripe personnel protective equipment we're going to tell you about a partnership between a sports merchandise giant and one of the country's most popular states to meet a critical need for face masks in america we're back right after this. it's a thirteen-hour flight, that's not a weekend trip.

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what we want to tell you, about a partnership between business and government focusing on fighting the virus, sports merchandise giant fanatics is

using a factory used to make major league baseball apparel to produce masks and gowns for health care workers. this is in partnership with the mlb and the state of pennsylvania, joining us now michael rubin, executive chairman of fanatics, partner of the philadelphia 76ers and pennsylvania governor tom wolf welcome to you both. thank you, governor, for coming on today and, michael, make it clear. so major league baseball is the only sport where you handle all the manufacturing of all the -- of everything baseball related so you were able to do this with that facility and turn it over completely to masks and gowns. that's pretty amazing. >> yes, so fanatics makes all of the merchandise for more than just baseball, actually we do it for baseball and the nfl with nike except for baseball is the only sport where we make the merchandise domestically in

america. all baseball uniforms the players play on are made in america, in pennsylvania in easton and realized kind of last week that we had this 360,000 square-foot apparel manufacturing facility that has a million yards of fabric that actually has 100 plus sewers that make uniforms day in and day out and can use those people to make masks and gowns. >> amazing all right. so governor, how did you get involved in this what other initiatives do you think this could be the beginning of something big, i think, for another one of these corporate partnerships with the government what else? >> absolutely. i think this is a really big thing. first of all, i got to give full credit to michael, michael called me with this idea and i actually visited the plant and i know michael and he's just a really good citizen, major

league baseball and the fanatics wanted to make a contribution to this effort and i think it's part of a broader trend that businesses are stepping up to volunteer to retool, to reorient their production lines to make sure that they're making a big contribution to this epidemic we're facing but i can't say enough about michael rubin and fanatics and what they're doing, the role they're playing in making sure pennsylvania, especially, is up to speed >> i appreciate those kind words. >> michael, yeah, this is a great -- not only a great example but you know everyone. i mean, there must be a lot of other companies that could do some similar things. i don't know if everyone is obviously maybe the sports world hasn't got a whole lot of other things to do at this point which is unfortunate as you know, i'm sure fanatics' business is affected to some extent by that but couldn't this be repeated, this model again and again

>> yeah, i think it really can be i never really thought about it until last week. this whole thing happened and woke up in the middle of the night after watching television last week. i really have only watched live sports on tv most of my adult life and after having nothing else to watch and, you know, you hear on the news there's not enough testing, not enough ventilators but i think companies, leaders in business whether in the sports business or in a traditional business, i think if you can help make a difference that's your responsibility and so when tom and i started talking about it and the attorney general of pennsylvania started talking about it i think we all realized that together with major league baseball we could make, you know, we could have some impact here and certainly i think there's lots of companies that can do that. from my perspective my message to others would be, you know, think about how your business could help this. look, all of us are in the -- probably the most unique

position we've been in, people worried about themselves from a medical perspective and also many people from a financial perspective and so the sooner we can peak this and move forward with our lives the better we are. i think in addition to the government we need, you know, private businesses to help make a difference and i think there's many businesses that haven't been asked by the government to help that could help and i think that's a big opportunity to try to speed this process of recovery up. >> governor -- >> i'd like to add -- >> go ahead. and then i'll ask you about the state of the state in terms of dealing with the coronavirus >> okay, i just want to add to what michael said. i think this is a heaven sent opportunity for businesses and governments to work together and in pennsylvania we're trying to figure out how we can do a better job of working together there are a lot of businesses to

michael's point who are doing what he's done and that is coming to us and saying how can i help how can we help? and we are trying to do everything we can to provide the access they need so that when they want a volunteer we're saying here's the opportunity. we also need to do a better job of reaching out saying, here's what we need so we're learning as we go but it really helps having entrepreneurs like michael rubin who recognized that citizenship has certain obligations that go beyond just living your daily life and i really appreciate that he's making life better for countless pennsylvanians so now in pennsylvania, we're facing the virus, we're trying to take a measured approach but a decisive approach so shut down schools, shut down nonessential businesses, and in counties where we've had a severe

outbreak like especially the southeast also out in pittsburgh, that we have actually issued a stay at home order. the city of philadelphia has its own stay at home order, shelter in place and, you know, to the question that i think you've raised earlier, you know, is the medicine, is the cure worse than the disease, there is no question that the cure is draconian. we are trying to buy time for our health care systems to build the capacity like masks that they need to deal with this situation. but that medicine as bad as it is is better than the alternative and so we're all working hard to make sure that we keep pennsylvanians safe and other states are doing the same thing to keep their citizens safe and so we're seeing a big increase in cases in certain

areas but we're doing everything we can to make sure that we bend the curve so that the demand on our health care care system does not outstrip the supply. >> governor, thank you governor wolf, thanks and michael rubin, thank you and thanks for thinking about this, waking up in the middle of the night and admitting you finally started watching a little "squawk box" now that you don't want to watch classic sports from the ncaa finals in 2015 i'm not watching those either. >> i just want to acknowledge i really like this work at home thing. i'm in sweat pants on my bottom so may never come back on with a suit for you again >> don't do that. >> you can wear whatever you want in. all right. >> thanks, guys. >> coming up two important -- thank you, two important perspectives on how america is dealing with the coronavirus first we'll talk to texas congressman kevin brady as the house gears up to pass that $2 trillion economic stimulus package and shake shack founder

danny meyer tells us how they're holding up and so many have had sisshange the way they do basic bune i miss when we talked about reclining airplane seats life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

the house is expected to vote on and pass the relief bill but a potential wrinkle now has members of congress scrambling to get back to washington for that vote. joining us now congressman kevin brady, ranking member of the house ways and means committee where does it stand? welcome, by the way, sir it's great to have you this morning. where are we >> yeah, thanks, joe so we get this done one way or the other today or tomorrow, i think there is a better chance we get it -- better than even chance we get it done today. we do have some names mentioned of people who might call for a roll call vote but hope that doesn't happen in case it does members are coming back for this vote. it's unfortunate because truthfully we want them in their districts and want to keep them safe but one way or the other we'll get this done.

>> congressman, wanted to ask you about a comment by the president and a number of our guests in the business community recently about trying to get the country back to work the president specifically mentioned trying to get certain areas back to work including parts potentially of texas or the entire state, i don't know we've had a number of experts that think the entire country should be locked down. >> i don't know that's the indication i'm not sure one size fits all solution wyoming is different than new york and texas but i do think, one, you know, this health care threat is growing. so we need maximum pressure now. secondly we ought to be def deferring to state and local leaders to make those decisions which the president is doing i think rightly so i do think, you know, as we lock down this virus, we can unlock the economy. that's what today is about as well besides the injecting this cash flow into our businesses, small and large, to keep them intact we're providing dollars for

those local hospitals, those local communities as they fight the virus. >> and the state of preparedness in your home state how would you characterize that, congressman then we'll get back to whether we -- what we need to do to pass the bill today. >> yeah, so we're fortunate, texas i think governor abbott has been leading very strongly we're fortunate the cases aren't large yet and the fatalities aren't large but we are on full alert. our hospitals are fully engaged, enga engaging, enlarging their bed capacity, the tests have increased dramatically and so, look, we know we've got to lock down this virus and it's all hands on deck. >> so we had a pretty good economy as i said going to break that it really doesn't seem that long ago that we were three times in a single show we were talking about reclining airplane

seats and seems so ridiculous now and frivolous. >> yeah. >> and now we're talking about this how long are we in this crisis mode do you think and does the economy have a chance to get back close to where it was any time soon or is this going to be just years and years before we -- and how much will the bill help >> no, i think -- i think we rebound strongly i think these next weeks really matter i think we've got the opportunity, look, if congress stays on this and does our part, if we inject this capital into our local businesses, if we can keep workers attached to their companies so they can ride this out and we can strongly rebound, i think we got a chance really to return consumer spending to previrus levels in the third quarter. i think, look, we came into this with one of the strongest economies on the planet. that puts news a good position to rebound but, look, these next few weeks matter and this bill

is going to help both for our local businesses for those workers and just this is a cash flow crisis, that's what this bill does, inject dollars into those local businesses to stop that crisis >> and you don't see anything that is going to come along at the last minute in the house at this point to scuttle things >> no, yeah, so there may be an effort from one side or the other or both to delay this day. i hope that doesn't happen and we're preparing for it but one way or the other this gets done. >> okay. congressman, thank you we appreciate it thanks congressman brady. program note, don't miss -- don't miss the first interview later, vice president mike pence who's going to update us at 10:15 eastern time. still to come the coronavirus outbreak sparking a

crisis of the global restaurant industry we'll speak with restaurant mogul and shake shack founder danny meyer, that's coming up next in the meantime, the u.s. equity markets under pressure dow futures down by 650 points, that's after the dow gained 20% over the last three trading sessions stick around "squawk box" will be right back. you can't predict the market, but through good times and bad at t. rowe price we've helped our investors stay confident for over 80 years. call us or your advisor. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. they get that no two people are alike and customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. what do you think?

i don't see it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ we see eat emerson,mulating when issues become inspiration, creating a better world isn't just a result, it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved. edward jones is it'swell aware of that.et. which is why we're ready to listen. and ready to help you find opportunity. so. let's talk. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

dan, we got a look at the investor letter you sent out when the s&p was at its low down 30% year to date and understand that your fund was barely down and is now actually up in 2020 so we all want to know what you're doing and what you're going to do next >> well, i mean i can't get into specifics about performance, andrew, given the fund's private registration, but for investors that want more, we actually launched a new website this morning, danniles.com and they can get more information there in terms of how we're thinking about things, a real key to that performance was really the fact that as you said, we didn't lose much money on the way down and, you know, if you look at where things stand right now, the latest bounce, you know, we tweeted about the fact on march 23rd we thought the market would bounce at least be 10% and then at the time that that happened

we start putting back on our shorts and that's what we've been doing over the last couple of days. on march 23rd -- >> so you bottomed -- >> no, i don't think we bottomed on march 23rd i thought we got a big rally of at least 10% then thousand dollar we'd go back and retest the lows and we got a typical bear market rally. if you go back and look at typical rallies after the market has gone down 30%, whether it's, you know, after world war ii or before we put back on a lot of our shorts only 6% of it short on march 23rd now it's over 50% of our portfolio is back to being short and, you know, we have more longs than shorts right now but, you know, that's how we sort of try to manage the risk in a market moving this quickly

>> in terms of retesting these lows how low do you think it goes >> well, i mean i think there's two parts to that, andrew, i mean the first one is obviously valuations and, you know, my favorite is market cap to gdp and if you look at that it's about 1.1 times the average since 1970, 0.8, so, you know, if things get really bad you could say, well, it could go down another 30% from here, that would make sense and know the gdp numbers are too high in corporation earnings so that's what you need to guard against hard for me to imagine with a 3 million unemployment number which probably gets worse, you know, it's four times greater than anything we've seen that, you know, we have seen the bottoms in terms of how bad earnings are going to get, companies filing for bankruptcy. people losing jobs and things like that. >> okay. dan niles, it's a longer conversation, i'm sure we will have you back to continue that but want to go to becky for such

a moment becks. >> all right, andrew, thank you very much. jim cramer is standing by at the headquarters for cnbc and, jim, we've looked at the huge gains the dow has made, up 20% or a little better than that over three trading sessions we had lee cooperman on. he said if things go the way he's guessing they might go in terms of how this all plays out he thinks we may have gotten close enough to call it a bottom what do you think. >> i think it's harder i listened to what dan had to say and i like to listen to those with the clearest head look, i have loved lee for a long time but heard dan nail it. if dan is nailing it i have to say, wait a second i don't want to be too bullish he is the guy who has the best perspective, simply because he's doing the best and so i listen and i say to myself, okay, the employment numbers are not so good. a three-week hopefully just three-week lag between when the money comes from the treasury to

the workers and so i think this is kind of a perilous time i also -- what mayor de blasio is still mayor which is obviously shocking and new york is just terrible and then i listen to dr. gottlieb and it's breaking out all over the country so then you start thinking was the new jersey public health commissioner right last weekend when she said that, listen, everybody is going to get it if everybody is going to get it. we're too high i don't agree with that but i do think that pessimism once again is returned with a vengeance and a lot is because we know there are the outbreaks are just shocking and we started to realize you know what maybe we move on maybe we are madrid. madrid being someplace where more than 700 people died last night. it's not the cold. it's not the flu i don't know anyone who has had to be on a ventilator with a cold we're short of the stuff we need and dan niles is short the stocks that people don't need. >> okay.

jim, thank you we'll see you in just a few moments coming up on >> all right when we return, danny meyer will join us after a very quick break. we're back with danny in just a moment ♪ ♪ why do things that are supposed to make life easier sometimes feel so complicated? ibm watson is different. it's ai that works on any cloud to help your business tackle problems... from building smarter cars to predicting sales trends to improving customer service... without slowing you down. ♪ ♪

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changes lives everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. welcome back to "squawk box" is among the businesses suffering due to the coronavirus, restaurants have been hit hard with layoffs and dining room closures, owners are expected to get some relief from the $2 trillion stimulus package, but there's questions about how much and how it would work. joining us is danny meyer, founder of union square hospi l hospitality group and founder of shake shack. he was forced early on to lay off about 80% of his staff about 2,000 people danny, you've been combing through this bill to try to understand what it means for you. i'm hoping we can do that together and for so many other small businesses out there that

are trying to understand was may come or not over the next several weeks. what are you seeing in the bill? how will it impact your business >> as you said, we're definitely combing through it in realtime it's not even done at this minute but our banks have been fantastic, our accountants have been fantastic there's webinars almost round the clock now trying to define what relief there may be for the restaurant industry. a quick reminder for your viewers. while you may not think of the restaurant industry being a massive employer in the country, we're two or three after the government because there are 660,000 restaurants in the country, it's hard to get your arms around how big that is. it's not like the auto industry or the airline industry where there's a small number of players. what we've seen is promising this should contain aspects that will help the people who were

laid off and every restaurateur i've spoken to has had to lay off a prominent part of their team or maybe even the whole team there's measures to help people with unemployment insurance. should be measures to help with small business loans to keep restaurants afloat because the two things that always mattered in this are when it is safe to come back to work and to open our restaurants as great places that people gather, we need two things we need a work force that is healthy, emotionally as well as physically and we need to have businesses that are safe and solvent. >> speak about the calculus. what i keep hearing from small business people, they say to themselves, okay, i know i'm running out of money if i keep everybody on the staff now i don't know what this money that i'm getting will be in three weeks. part of it is i'm taking a gamble on whether i can get the

loan then i have to figure out whether the loan is going to be ultimately forgiven or 90% of it will be forgiven am i better off if i think that i can actually rehire these people later keeping them off of my payroll i heard that i know you care so much about your employees, but people are thinking about the economics of this walk through the calculus in your head for your company and how, again, you think people need to think about that particular issue, even if they get the relief again, from what the bill looks like, it's a four-month program in restaurants even in places where we may have a return to business, it may not be a return to business as normal there may be social distancing efforts, every other table empty. it's going to be complicated walk us through the economics of it for you >> it's going to be really complicated. i have no idea to be prescriptive for others. i'll tell you what we're doing what we're doing is to leave

things where they are for now, which was we took the bitterest pill a week ago and laid off over 2,000 people in a company that had about 2,200 employees that's massive we have done everything we can to help every one of those people to get access to unemployment insurance, provide all kinds of resources in every language that our team members speak to help them with child care, to help them -- even women who were pregnant when they got laid off have a special opportunity in our company to retain the benefits that they had so that they can have that special day, god forbid someb y something happens in their hospital it is a horrible situation when you say to yourself the best thing i can do is to be the best unemployer that i can possibly be that's just an unfathomable

idea we don't have the confidence yet to bring those people back on until we see exactly what is in this bill. the minute we understand what's in the bill and the minute we understand that our business can be back in business, we will do that we cannot wait for that. but let's just remember one thing, we're dealing with two very, very different crises that are absolutely intersecting but they're different. one is a health crisis i have to -- i have to share in this last couple days, welost one of our most cherished long-time colleagues, a chef by the name floyd, that hit our company hard in the gut. what that experience does that hits you hard, while we're trying to deal with the economic ramifications of this, which are massive, at its core, this is a

health crisis. we're about bringing people together, bringing people to cook i don't know how to cook lots of meals being six feet apart from one another. now that it's legal to serve food in a takeout model and in a to-go model, a lot of the people on our team are saying please, let's wait until it feels safer. until we get that part done, i cannot imagine bringing people back on to our payrolls to do nothing at this point. as long as we know the government is taking care of our people, that's where we're going to leave them. >> danny, we have to go, even if you -- if you got 90% of it paid for by the government you wouldn't put those people back on your payrolls >> as long as i knew that it was safe to bring them back and that i'm not putting them in harm's way by so doing, yes, i would

bring them back. >> okay. we wish you a lot of luck and so many other restaurateurs and small businesses a lot of luck danny, thank you for joining us. we are going to be right back next week, cnbc's special coverage continues right now welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim cramer as we put social distancing to work here at cnbc, we are still in different locations we're about to begin trading today to end a tumultuous week a historic week as well, jim one in which we saw a three-day winning streak for the