february, 2021, "squawk box" begins right now ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. joe, welcome back. you got to sleep in yesterday. >> it's hard to sleep. it's hard to sleep, for a lot of reasons. you know that. did you make it past eight ever make it past eight? i never make it past eight. >> no, but i'll take 5:45, any day of the week. >> believe me, when it's 4:00 a.m., and i got like two or lee more hours, but i have two huge animals that are just like, they're like animals one of them is in a cage got that going on: i get up. i've told you this before. i'm up a lot

i know what time it is most of the time it's okay. >> sorry i asked welcome back >> yeah, thanks. folks, let's take a look at what's been happening with the u.s. equity markets. yesterday markets were up across the board, and you had all three of the major averages closing at new highs once again actually, the dow was there for the first time in a while, but the s&p 500 this morning indicated down by about 7 points, dow off by 73, the nasdaq off by 21 as i mentioned all three of these indices hitting record levels yesterday at the close. you also have had the dow, it's been up six days in a row. s&p has too. best streak since august red arrows this morning but this is not too definitive a move at this point take a look at what's happening in the treasury market you'll see right now the ten-year is yielding just about 1.48%. a little bit lower than yesterday. we were creeping back toward

1.2% crude oil prices, brent crude crossed $60 a barrel for the first time in over a year. this is happening as you're seeing a supply cut. opec cutting taking place there, and hopes for a big stimulus package in the united states we'll see what that does crude, on the brent level, $60.64 a barrel. wti at $58 it was just about 23 hours ago that a tesla regulatory filing revealed that the company bought 1 1/2 billion dollars in bitcoin and said that it planned to accept bitcoin as payment in the future for cars. since then, the price of bitcoin has soared setting a new high at $47,500. that's right $47,500 after the gains we saw yesterday after another 5.3% today. we're also watching the price of doge coin. rapper snoop dogg and kiss rocker, gene simmons, but the biggie here is elon musk

matt levine wrote a really interesting column about how in the market these days it's not fundamentals that are driving things but proximity to elon musk, and i thought that was pretty accurate given some of the swings we have seen recently. >> oddly enough, he is -- it's not odd that matt's right, but oddly enough, he is right in this case. proximity to elon. let's check out some of the reddit hyped stock moves right now because gamestop is under pressure again, after a decline of about 6% in yesterday's session. let's show you what's going on with that stock. it's at 56.27 right now. amc falling this morning after a decline of 9.5% yesterday. a little bit of the wind coming out of -- continuing, i should say, to come out of the sales of those stocks meantime, reddit taking advantage of the recent market attention surrounding the wall street bets forum. the company said it raised $250 million in a late stage funding round that was led by

venture firm vy capital. bringing the valuation to $6 billion, double where it was at the last funding round in february of 2019 so they're getting a little bit of a push, and of course we saw them take advantage of this moment as well with that five-second ad during the super bowl joe. >> i thought about that with elon musk, something we used to say. actually i think it was way back during the tech bubble when you would see really high priced companies be able to buy other companies for really high prices, remember that? and we used to talk about exchanging, you know, ten overpriced dogs for five overpriced cats, and i'm not saying that's what's happening with tesla, but i mean, the's te richest guy in the world when we heard about those new employment contracts, we didn't

know this was going to happen necessarily. remember how cheap the stock was. if i do this, i get this we knew it was a lot of money. he hits them all and all of a sudden the valuation of tesla is where it is. i mean, it's a lot easier to buy a billion and a half dollars worth of bitcoin when your own currency, i'm not saying he's using tesla stock, but everything about tesla and elon musk is overvalued . >> but he's. if you look at what he did, he basically issued new shares, raised money, and in part, took some of the money that he raised and went and bought bitcoin. >> so it is ten cats for five dogs over valued dogs. >> and it's a significant portion of their cash. we were talking about this yesterday, they had $19.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year 1 1/2 billion dollars is 7 1/2%. that's a significant amount of the cash they have this is not playing with the coins you find in the couch.

>> and you just, you know, tesla is out there it's not like j.p. morgan suddenly is putting its balance sheet in bitcoin, but you're seeing more and more of that it's pretty interesting. >> paypal, i thought that was a significant move they would allow transactions to take place in bitcoin too. >> we have to decide if it really is 21 million total, what part of the global financial system does it eventually occupy and what does that mean per 21 million coins, and i would say 100,000. i have seen people say more than that, but i really don't know. i don't know what regulators do. i don't know i don't know that's a lot of money for a bitcoin, though, isn't it? it's pretty incredible. >> but the things, i mean, look, i could give you the up side argument we know that >> why didn't you tell me when i was giving it to you at 8,000, now you're giving it to me >> oh, come on i was talking about -- anyway, we're not going to get into that >> you can google it >> we can google it.

we can go back and find it is what happens when the u.s. government and i'm very curious what you think, joe and becky, on both of these, i know you have become a bitcoin o . >> i haven't talked about it in a year. >> if the u.s. creates a digital dollar, an actual stable coin that is its own, does that effectively credentialize bitcoin as something else? or does it crowd it out forever? >> i don't know. the way that bitcoin works is very elegant i don't know why you need to actually replace i don't know if you do it the same way with distributed ledger and everything i don't know how the u.s. would do it, but we had big arguments, andrew, about libra. where is libra that was like a proxy for feiat, and i said this is not a cryptocurrency this is like a venmo or

something. >> the value of libra at the time for bitcoin was really in the wallet, was just the idea that -- it was actually very similar to what paypal is actually doing in so far as the view at the time was if every facebook crewser aluser all of n had a wallet that could interact in bitcoin and cryptocurrency, that was going to be a huge boon for crypto that's what that was about, and the same way, i think the move on paypal, back probably when we were about 10,000, was one of the moments that sort of pushed this having said that, i think there's been a lot of other things that have happened since then. >> with bitcoin, it's gotten to where it is without anyone acknowledging it's any closer to being a currency it's gotten to where it is based on the fed printing and -- >> it's hard to say it's a currency when it swings that much on a daily basis. it's so volatile. >> it has gotten to 45,000 without being a currency,

without anyone saying it's a currency it got there based on its inherent value, even though the mathematics of bitcoin em imbuet with value if you look at how it works, it actually has value, i think. >> someone has to decide it has value, though. >> i don't look at it that way. >> i could dig a hole, there's value in the time and labor of digging the hole, but if nobody wants the hole, it has no value. >> you wouldn't dig it if no one wanted the hole. if you're on an island, and distribute everyone's duties, and you all keep track of what all of you do. >> you can find that work is valuable, though >> you do valuable things like cleaning out the latrine or whatever it is you want to do, something no one else wants to do. >> some people would say there's no value in bitcoin unto itself. look, ooui'm not that making tht argument. >> have you read a treatise.

>> i have for better or worse read a lot i don't know which treatise you're referring to. >> the bitcoin standard, anything, so all these guys can arrive at this, and you're still not convinced. >> look, i published the first mark andres essay on this, a 5,000 word essay explaining why everybody should buy bitcoin and how it's going to change the world. >> amazing i thought you were a skeptic all the way up i thought that was me saying that stuff but anyway >> coming up, democrats looking to increase payments to families with children, as part of president biden's relief package. w we'll get reaction from former white house chief of staff mick mulvaney next. futures are down whistl we're coming right back.

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welcome back, everybody. the house democrats unveiled a new plan yesterday to send up to $3,600 per child to families as part of a relief plan. the money would be distributed in monthly installments by the irs starting in july $3,600 would go to parents a child under 6 years old, and would be $3,000 for children between the ages of 6 and 18

payments would phase out for individuals making more than $75,000 a year, and for couples making more than $150,000 a year joe. >> okay. thanks a new cbo report finds raising the national minimum wage to $15 would reduce poverty but increase the deficit and cause 1.4 million jobs to be lost. a look at fight over the national minimum wage and potential impact, let's welcome mick mulvaney, u.s. special envoy to northern ireland, thanks for joining us. i'm finding out, victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. i guess everyone was bullish on bitcoin. you're tell me you were bullish. what did you do? i know that you were listening to that last discussion saying you started a caucus in congress >> yeah, i thought of the bitcoin caucus in congress when i think bitcoin was at $200.

didn't buy any because i thought it would be a conflict of interest, so there was a mistake, but also once sit on the board of the digital chamber of commerce, the largest bitcoin trade association. i wish i could have been in on that conversation. but let's talk aboutminimum wage. >> let's do. because in this day and age, i've seen so much criticism for people that say that anyone that says alternative facts or alternate facts, i guess that was kellyanne conway, a lot of people say you're entitled to your opinion and not the facts, then they tell you a fact that's an opinion people are still tell ying you facts are opinions if you say to jared burnstein, he will tell you absolutely studies have shown there's no negative impacts for the minimum wage there's a new cbo report that says, abcdef, and they will say

none of those things matter and none are true. >> it comes back to the conversations we had in the previous administration when the criticism of president trump, when are you going to start listening to the experts larry summers is an expert, a former treasury secretary, the chief of commerce of the world bank and wrote a good piece. i don't usually say that about larry's stuff, saying we should be worried about inflation, especially with the $1.9 t $1.9 trillion stimulus package they're talking about. there's other things we need to worry about, the understanding of the relationship between the citizenship and government keep in mind, much of what you talked about or becky talked about in they are introduction isn't tied to covid. it's a give away it doesn't depend on whether or not you lost your job. it's another give away we're starting to create this impression that government is free, and you can spend as much money at the government that you want to and give it away to people as freely as you want to, and it doesn't have any negative consequences in the future

i think that's what bernstein was willing to accept the other day. it doesn't make any difference if experts say it's a bad idea we want to do it and therefore we're going to do it that's sort of the detachment from science and economics and politics. >> the president himself acknowledges that he'd need a separate bill. do you think that this would, what's it called, a birdbath, this would get lost in the birdbath if they try to do it in reconciliation, the $15 an hour. >> i'll try to do this quickly and not too boring a fashion the budget reconciliation, which is what they want to use to pass a covid bill, a stimulus bill with less than 60 votes, with just 50 votes has to be budget related and anything in there has to be related to the budget, which is why bernie sanders asked for the cbo report that just came out about the minimum wage he wanted the cbo to tell him there would be an impact on the budget and a significant one

he didn't like the fact he said there would be a million and a half job losses. he liked the fact that it would cost a lot of money. that makes it look more like a budget item, and increases his chances of including the minimum wage into the reconciliation bill so while bernie is sort of crying crocodile tears over the job losses, he got the exact result he wanted the report increases the chances that the minimum wage language could be in the reconciliation bill doesn't speak whether or not people will vote for it but it speaks to the procedure, the bird rule they have to follow in order to use it in reconciliation. >> hey, mick, i hear your point about how -- good morning. i hear your point about how this is a big give away, this is not related to covid, there are a lot of things that this would be changing in terms of who's getting this money, and what's going to happen with it. but it's no different than what the republicans had been working for before this all happened this is the plan that donald trump wanted, to give $2,000 to

americans at these same levels, the democrats talked about lowering the levels and saying you had to make less to get it but they have circled back now, and said, okay, we're going to stick with the numbers that president trump put out there. this is $1,400 on top of the 60 and that's what president trump wanted. >> back when donald trump was talking about it during the end of his term it was going to be a bipartisan bill, and not all republicans in the senate supported it then, and not all of them support it now it wasn't part of budget reconciliation it was going to be something that needed 60 votes in the senate that sort of gets bypassed now, lost in a lot of the discussion about the stimulus bill is where the bipartisanship gone? and i think what folks are starting to learn is it's easy to talk about bipartisanship and really hard to do it it takes the majority party. it takes the leader of the majority party to sort of force his party to do stuff that they don't want to do reagan was good at getting republicans to go along with democrats. clinton was good at getting

democrats to go along with republicans. will joe biden be good at getting democrats to go along with republicans we don't see it. he's in a unique situation he had the highest vote total but not a lot of them voted for him. they voted against the other guy. he doesn't come into office with a great deal of political capital. you're seeing bipartisanship break down joe biden left to his own devices probably would try and facts a bipartisan bill. he doesn't have the pull in his own party to do that. >> i hear you, and that's a fair point, but i think you would be hard pressed to say the last congress was bipartisan in terms of working with the administration on stuff. i hear your point. it's a fair one to say that it was going to be a bipartisan deal, but i don't think if you looked at last four years that that was a situation of a lot of bipartisanship . >> but that's a fair point, becky, but keep in mind, only on reg reconciliation bills, bills that use the strange tool was the previous administration able to do something without any democrat votes at all in the senate they needed 60 votes which means

on every single piece of legislation that wasn't a budget reconciliation, they needed some democrat support that's what i was talking about on the discussions about the stimulus bill coming into the end of the trump administration. they needed to have democrat support in the senate. if they had passed anything, it would have been by definition with some democrats support in the senate kr you're not seeing that anymore. >> mick, if you don't get the $15 in reconciliation, you're not going to get it, i don't think, are you >> there's no chance, and one of the things i think we have not talked about is there's a really good chance you can't get $15 minimum wage even at the 50 vote threshold. joe manchin has expressed concern. other democrats have as well. >> that's what i mean, but, you know, manchin hasn't been whipped yet. he hasn't been whipped on the filibuster he hasn't been whipped there would be a lot of pressure obviously. >> there was a test vote over the weekend about not raising

the minimum wage during the covid crisis, and manchin voted for that, i think another democrat did as well, and it passed, so i think that's sort of a good indicator at least of where the folks are right now in the senate on an immediate increase to the minimum wage. >> what do you think manchin's constituents in west virginia would think of $15 i mean, can you imagine. that's a pretty high wage for some jobs in west virginia entry level positions, et cetera >> i think it's note worthy that there's not a single state in the nation right now that has a $15 an hour wage states can and do raise their own minimum wage in fact, i think more than 40 have their own minimum wage and it's oftentimes above the federal $7.25. they can do it california can do it west virginia can do it. illinois can do it, and they're not doing it because they don't want to do it. it doesn't fit their local needs. why we're talking about a federal minimum wage makes no sense to me. the cost of living in west

virginia and south dakota is dramatically different than it is in new york city, so why we should have a federal minimum wage makes no sense to me, but the really good question for folks like bernie sanders is why is vermont's minimum wage $11.25, you could raise it to $15 right now if you wanted to, go do it they could do that in illinois, a bunch of left leaning states, but they don't want to they want the federal government to do it for them, and i think that's where some of the tension and the static is coming even among democrats. >> i thought south dakota had higher wages that won't last for long >> they have higher wages. >> put that industry out of business >> or attempt to we're in the process anyway, mick mulvaney, i said anyway again in other news, no, in other -- oh, and did you see, i'm trying to get a new transition, mick, for how i -- because anyway, i use it way too much. anyway, thanks mick mulvaney, we will see you >> say that again. >> we'll see you again soon.

take it easy andrew okay coming up, when we return, doordash buying a company that makes food preparing robots. we'll bring you the details about that after the break plus, here's a look at the markets pre-market winners and losers in the s&p 500 right now. you're looking at simon property up about 2 1/2%. back in a moment it's hard to hope, hard to cope with crisis. so we get to work. we mend, fighting for every person in every neighborhood; we, the coming of the common good. so dare to care, to be hope-sided. we're never divided, when we live to give, we always live united.

welcome back to "squawk. time now for the executive edge. we told you yesterday about softbank's record breaking quarter. an $8 billion profit thanks to strong returns on investments in uber and doordash. that stock up more than 4% yesterday before the results came out now, the stock reacted to the results when tokyo's market opened last night, gaining another 3.4% you're looking at that on the screen right now meantime, speaking of doordash, companies buying chowbotics in terms of the deal not disclosed. the company's technology uses robotics to help restaurants expand their menu. a pizzeria can add a salad robot to include custom salads they have been installed in airports, universities, hospitals, grocery stores to offer food options without the need for more manpower so guys, we're talking about the minimum wage well, i'm not even sure whether

the minimum wage is going to matter in the end. >> a machine that makes a salad. >> the robot makes the salad. >> that's kind of cool >> it is unless you're somebody who makes a salad for a living. >> caesar made the salad that's the old commercial. you know what, i'm okay with that i'd prefer, you know, a clean robot. maybe a little lubricant on my salad is better than whatever. how about salad bars is that the one up side. another up side to the pandemic, that we don't have to -- achoo. >> there's a reason the sneeze guard is there but then you see people going under the sneeze guard >> what we used to do, we go to kings, the supermarket, there used to be cheese with little

toothpick every day, i think about that now, and boy, were those the good old days or what was i thinking. >> my dad used to go to costco for lunch because they would have so many of those things out. walk around the aisles that's never coming back. >> that's not happening. are salad bars coming back what about buffets are those coming back? >> they try to say they will, golden corral, they say they got plans, they got ways to do it. if everybody's vaccinated. >> as a former golden corral salad bar girl, i used to work one summer. >> did you >> i did i worked at a golden corral one summer, the summer i was 16. >> no kidding. how often do they change the tongs or they don't, do they >> i will tell you, i didn't eat out for a while after seeing what happens behind the scenes that's any restaurant.

that's not golden corral you see what happens where there's a bunch of teenagers working. >> robots making the salads, two thumbs up, right three thumbs, six thumbs. >> if you can let a pizza place expand offerings and have it there without the manpower having to pay for it, i think that's great for small businesses they can probably use the help right now. >> all right any who. >> when we come back, any who, that's a good one. former caesar's ceo gary loveman is going to be joining us to talk about how we can apply lessons to encourage vaccines. the new health care start up he's running. as we head to a break, take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers ♪ i've been around the world an never in my wildest dreams ♪ ♪ would i come running home to you ♪ ♪ i've told a million lies but now i tell a single truth ♪ ♪ there's you ♪

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♪ when i say i love you you say you better ♪ >> good morning, welcome back. welcome back to "squawk box. u.s. equity futures are indicated down about 68 points on the dow we're looking at the nasdaq down 25 the s&p down 7 as well would you like to welcome the viewers back as well, becky? >> welcome back. >> thank you i mean, it's nice to do that, i think. and we know, even though they don't leave during the commercial, it's still okay to welcome them back. >> we do >> yeah, we do >> we didn't go anywhere either. >> right >> all right after nearly one year of the coronavirus pandemic, many adults report delaying medical care for routine or serious non-covid issues joining us on the need to try and encourage regular medical care and communication is gave loveman, the ceo of the health start up well. gary was the long time ceo of caesar's entertainment and he

knows a lot about people's behaviors and the incentives for consumers. gary, i want to thank you for being here today it's good to see you >> my pleasure, becky. good to be with you. >> when i first heard about this app, i thought it was going to tell me to do things like more sit ups or go for a run or something, but this is really aimed at making sure people are getting to the doctor's appointments that they should be scheduling, right? >> yeah, you're right. this is a clinically based platform that tries to build a high level of engagement with its users and encourage them to take the actions that will advance their health the biggest problem in american health care, and i think generally across the world is that people do not do simple things that would advance their health, and this is not simply diet and exercise. this is things like preventative medicine including vaccinations, appropriate diagnostic tests, doing things that manage chronic conditions in a way that's consistent with best medical practice, and what they need is

a platform that's constantly sitting on their shoulder like a benevolent force, an angel, if you will, that's saying to them, becky, these are the things you ought to be doing. i want to remind you these are important to you here's how we can help you do them here's a reward and support for taking the right actions and encourage people to live as healthy a life as they're capable of living. >> gary, we mentioned that you're the former ceo of caesar's, but you were also the former etna president of consumer health, and i think you put those two worlds together with this app. what did you learn about people's behavior when you were watching them in the casinos, things like the loyalty programs that help when you try and convince people to actually engage with this app >> well, two things, becky first is that in the health care world, most americans visit a doctor no more than once or perhaps twice a year for a very brief period, and their doctor or nurse may tell themthere ar things they should do, but often those actions are time

consuming, costly, inconvenient. sometimes not very appealing and the notion is that simply having been told to do these things people will immediately respond and do them. yet the data shows that by and large, people don't do them. in the casino business, we never went at it that way. we asked people to do things over and over again. we tried to find the way that made those ideas appealing to them we tried different prices, different promotions, different assortments of services, until we could encourage a person to take the action we hoped they would take we need this in health care. if you're having trouble remembering or taking on the task of getting a test that's important for your chronic condition, you need to be told repeatedly, encouraged, rewarded and cajoled in a positive and supportive way that these actions are necessary. so it's really the application of the same kind of consumer science that we applied in hospitality and gaming now to health care where the stakes are obviously much higher.

>> look, i get what you give me when you're trying to get me into a casino, maybe you offer me, you know, some free chips or something along those lines. what's my reward if i do these things, and make sure i make it to all my doctors' appointments. >> there are two levels of reward here, an extrinsic reward is actually a valuable reward, points that are translatable into things like gift cards or access to services or products that appeal dwto you, and the intrinsic reward is the notion that for the first time you're being successful in pursuing your health, so we have asked you to do something. it's usually rather modest, you have done it, we recognized you for it you have had a success with it and now the likelihood is you'll take another action, programs another small one in the direction of becoming more adherent with your health, and for many americans, health care is not a very successful experience so to the degree we can build the cycle of success, repeated exercises to do the right thing

to improve your health, it becomes easier and easier to continue to do that. >> you sold me even when i was reading the notes on this. i thought it would be helpful to have a reminder of all the things i haven't done, especially this past year, i have not been to the doctors appointments, the dentist appointments, the optometrist, all the things i should have done but you have a model that's based at getting my employer to give this to me. not at targeting me. i understand why i might want to do this. but you have to convince my employer not only to do this, but to pay me to do it what's in it for them? why would they want to do that aside from the standard, oh, we want a happy work force? >> they do want a happy and engaged work force with better attendance and lower lost productivity associated with things like health issues and time away from work, for example, but they do it also because it significantly lowers the trend rate of health care costs. you mentioned my time at etna. if you think about what health

plans do, health plans don't know very well how healthy you are or more importantly how healthy you're capable of being. they exert downward pressure on utilization, and cost. what we try to do is to achieve lower costs through better health, so we know the best way for becky quick's health care costs to be lowered over the arc of her life is to have her be healthier at every point along the way, so to do that, we need to encourage you to take the actions that will improve your health and reduce your need for costly medical care utilization. and employers recognize there's considerable benefit in that, not only in the long-term but in the near term through things like preventative care, getting to the right source of care, preventing the progression of illness that is entirely preventable if the right actions are taken and so on. >> what about the privacy question what information does this app gather does it know more than i went to the doctor or i've set up a mammogram or i've done something like that, does it know the

results of any of those things >> it doesn't typically know day that's in your electronic health record it knows your claims history, it knows you're being treated with certain medications. it knows your doctor has coded you as being involved in certain disease categories, so it would know that you're hypertensive or diabetic or that you have chronic respiratory illness, for example, and that you have been treated with a certain medication it would not necessarily know what your respiration level was or what your pulse was at your last exam. we find that our patients, our members are quite willing to have that information shared with us because we can use it so productively with them and in a proactive way. health care is largely reactive. it's there to help you when you reach out and ask for it to help you. but what it doesn't do is anticipate that you need to further action your physician may tell you to do certain things but they don't reach out to you, i'm sure in your case and the instances you've just described, you're not necessarily being asked by

your care givers to, hey, becky, where have you been, we need you to come do these things, why haven't you taken these actions. that's exactly what we do. we're looking at your health history, we know what you ought to be doing, we encourage you through contact, personalized interventions and through a reward mechanism to take these actions even during covid that would advance your health! gary, we got to run, but very quickly, how many businesses have you signed up >> we have signed up about a dozen businesses now we're only 18 months old, so we're early on, and we had spen a great deal of time to build this platform. but we have some very large businesses, significant fortune 50, fortune 500 companies, and we are also working with community health centers that are serving at risk communities that have never had access to digital support to apply this tool along with their physicians in high risk communities >> gary, it's good to see you. we appreciate your time.

>> great to be with you, becky thank you. >> take care a programming note, folks, this afternoon at 12:30 eastern time, cnbc's healthy return spotlight will update attendees with up to the minute information on the rollout of the vaccine, featured guests include walgreens rick gates, johnson & johnson, alex gorsky, marc rogers, howard university hospital's anita jenkins and more register at cnbcevents.com/healthy returns. >> rick gates, i remember that different rick gates i don't know if people remember at that one rally. or matt gates. anyway, coming up, a disturbing story out of florida where a hacker infiltrated a public utility and attempted to poison the water supply that's troubling details next don't miss our exclusive interview with billionaire sam

zell for his take onartsnd mke a much more. we'll be right back, and we'll welcome you back when we do.

a water treatment plan in oldsmar, florida, was hacked and the intruder briefly increased the amount of lye used to treat water, increased it to a dangerous level. plant operator noticed the change on friday, immediately reversed it.

authorities said even if the employee hadn't caught the intrusion, other checks are in place that would have alerted operators to the problems before the water was released to residents. but the breach does highlight the exposure of utilities to cyber attacks. the fbi and the u.s. secret service are both investigating coming up when we return, we're going to talk legacy media because it is surging this year, but what's behind the move higher we're going to talk what's working in the sector next and then a note, our parent company comcast getting a price target hike at benchmark, this time from $65 to $75, the analyst cites the broad band 'lvid recovery play. wel talk about that as well when we come back after this cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm.

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welcome back to "squawk

box. legacy media stocks took a tumble last year, but take a look at the performance so far in 2021. disney only up 5% but closing at a record high yesterday. now up more than $190. discovery and viacom cbs both up 40% this year. want to bring in michael m mekkelsen. what is going on here? we talked about our parent company comcast with a new analyst out, i think it was a 70, $75 price target explain. >> okay. these stocks were heavily shorted at the end of last year, right? you had a recipe for short squeeze. valuations were incredibly cheap relative to the market and you started to have better news. cord cutting wasn't as we feared advertising was stronger than we

feared and then on top of it all, as disney has shown, you sprinkle a little bit of streaming magic on to a stock and you start changing the narrative and for viacom, it's coming during the super bowl commercials, discovery plus and all of a sudden you have potentially a new narrative forming, which is these companies are not as dead as you may have thought five, six months ago. >> so of these companies, we've got them on the screen here, walt disney, viacom, discovery, comcast, fox, if you could own one, which one do you want to own? >> so we have a buy on discovery, comcast and fox and i would say it's fox fox is the cheapest of the group. fox has two assets that are potentially interesting longer term they have something called tubie which is like roku and they have a piece of a gambling asset in the u.k. named clutter and own a

piece of fan dual. they have not been seen as a potential streaming winner they have earnings out in about an hour. we think they're going to be strong based on the fourth quarter. >> let me ask you a question, people are asking how quickly the cord is being cut. some of these estimates take you from 75 million households down to 50 million households between now and 2025. >> right. >> if that's true, what does that mean to the economics in these businesses >> oh, yeah. when i say slowing down, the worst quarter ever was the second quarter of last year when basically you had high unemployment, no sports on, no original content so many of us looked at the second quarter down 7% year over year, meaning you lost on average 5 million subs over the 12 months. we thought, wow, this is the beginning of a real death spiral we still think we'll lose a ton

of subs and basically you're going to have to quickly transition to over the top services to find customers who are outside the bundle and that's where i think last year was all about. disney was first in moving aggressively to go over the top. there are more customers outside of the bundle than in the bundle the economics will not be good, we all know that we've seen that for a while now. the question is can these over the top businesses help slow down the erosion in total of the media services. >> mike, i wanted to ask you a question because we were talking about fox. we'll go back to fox now since i can ask you that you like it because it's under valued, but, i mean, what's going on i mean, viacom is as low as 10 it's at 50 fox has done nothing i mean, there are things happening at fox i don't know whether you've

noticed but -- i mean so you like it now, what's the loss, 2.7 billion. smartmatic i don't know what happens. i don't know what you think the merits of that sustr but there's a -- lou dobbs unceremoniously thrown out i don't know what they do at that hour at this point. >> right. >> big fox you've got, you know, a hole at 7. they're playing around why do you like it and what do you really think is going on there >> okay. so one, we like it because the fox news network, 80% of its revenues are tied to affiliate fees which are contractually tithed revenues. >> right >> advertising is problematic. >> joe, if you lined up your advertising revenues from cnbc, msnbc versus fox news and fox business you would say, well, we improved the type of people who are on the air and improve the

mix. they've under monetize the because of shows like lou dobbs, right, where they have not attracted advertisers the way that cnbc and msnbc have the core of the business is not tied at all to advertising i would say what you have seen so far, they really under monetized, joe. >> there's a reason it's lagged every other media stock, don't you think? >> oh, my god. it's the reverse trump up, right? >> i don't know. i don't think the lawsuit -- there's another machine company out there. who knows. i don't know i have no idea i think we've got to go. thanks >> okay. >> andrew? i'll pick it up here when we come back, don't go anywhere we've got a huge lineup coming your way starting withan bk of america's savita supermunya. your daily dashboard from fidelity -- a visual snapshot of your investments,

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stocks once again climbing high on hopes. explosion of new retail investors raising questions about financial literacy and whether retail trading platforms need to do a better job educating their users. we'll hear from operation hope founder john hope bryant on this issue. plus, bitcoin soaring based

on elon musk and tesla's investment second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. take a look at u.s. equity futures 2 1/2 hours before the market opens dow is off about 70 points nasdaq looking to open down as well, off 18 points. s&p 500 looking to open down all of 6 points right now. a couple of big points to tell you about right now. shares of simon property group moving higher. the largest mall operator expecting a better year this year as it rebounds for the retail tenants it's seen rent collections up to 90%. that compares to 85% just three

months ago that stock up 2.5% meantime, here's a little bit of a cop, reddit now worth $6 billion. the platform value has doubled reddit has been in the news because of, well, wall street bets that forum that's been pushing stocks higher by its members on stocks like gamestop and amc entertainment. boeing has been hit by a shareholder lawsuit involving the 737 max jet. the suit alleging that the board did not challenge former ceo dennis muilenburg on the safety of his jet or the campaign countering negative publicity. the company says the suit is without merit and says it is seeking its dismissal. joe? >> yeah, i looked that up, becky. it wasn't just diana, that was the supremes, right? >> that was, yeah.

that's obviously why we were -- >> mary wilson, yeah ♪ stop in the name of love ♪ >> yeah. yeah i know. >> it's sad. >> i heard those -- >> she was back out there. she was on "dancing with the stars" two years ago >> i heard those when they were at the top of the charts you had to go back -- >> i did not >> -- and listen to them. >> my mom was a big fan. she would do the dance for me so i knew all the moves. >> her mom was a big fan, nat. all right. >> sorry it's true. >> that's all right. as lawmakers in washington debate a new round of stimulus checks, other states and cities have already approved similar payments ylan mui takes a look at whether those checks are making an impact her grandparents loved the supremes

ylan, good morning. >> reporter: yeah, joe, it could have been worse. she could have said it was her great grandparents or ancestors. >> could have. >> reporter: she didn't. she cut you some slack this morning. >> yeah, she did that's her version of slack. yeah my mom liked them >> reporter: growing numbers of cities and states are taking matters into their own hands to send out relief to their residents. here is a map of the places that have already approved their own one-time stimulus checks ranging from 200 to $1200. it includes colorado, new mexico, north carolina along with los angeles, portland, houston. other places like st. paul, minnesota, are testing out recurring payments for some of their poorest residents. mayor melvin carter said he knew he had to do something when the number of checks for homeless people in his city went from 30 to more than 300 in just a matter of months >> we see them at the local level. we have to care for them at the local level.

when something terrible happens, we have to show up and figure out how to help them kind of find stability we're doing that work and it's stretching the limits of all of our local governments across the country. >> reporter: now dozens of mayors and progressive groups are calling on congress to make good on the $2,000 federal stimulus payments and then follow them up with recurring checks guys, politically these direct checks and getting cash from the government, we know they're popular. what's happening in cities and states could be a good test of exactly how the economics will work as well joe? >> okay. thanks, ylan becky, do you want to talk to -- >> yeah. i did have a quick question, ylan the checks for families with children, did those have any time frame on them is this for one year, two years? is this indefinite how does that work >> reporter: what democrats are proposing in the new covid relief package would be just for one year, and essentially what they're doing is they're

expanding the child tax credit but they're allowing you to get that tax credit every single month rather than having to get it at the end of the year when you file your return so in total the payments could be between 3,000 and $3600 depending on the age of your child, but it is a benefit you'd be able to receive monthly for one year under in current plan the democrats say they do hope that once that expansion of the tax credit expires, that they hope to make it permanent. >> ylan, thank you good to see you this morning when we come back, wes moore stepping down as the ceo of antipoverty foundation robin hood not that robin hood, the other robin hood he's going to talk about his accomplish 789s. yesterday all through of the averages closing lower s&p off closer to 7, nasdaq down by 19. dow off by 72.

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or visit your local xfinity store today. welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. news from the parent company comcast. they're announcing the rise investment fund is providing $5 million of grants to blacks and people of color businesses eligible businesses in atlanta, chicago, detroit, houston can

apply for a $10,000. 500 grants awarded in may. this is part of a comcast initiative launched last fall aimed at trying to help minority-owned businesses hit hardest by the covid pandemic. andrew >> thanks, becky meantime, robin hood foundation wes moore stepping down from the organization in may. during his four year tenure he raised $650 million, oversaw covid relief efforts and launched new initiatives like the power fund wes moore joins us first on cnbc to discuss this decision, his ideas for addressing equality and bringing back new york city's economy and so much more. good to see you, my friend wes appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> especially given this announcement we should say, by the way, people look and say robin hood it is not the same robin hood. you actually just wrote a piece about this issue and what's happened to you over the last week so before we get into what's

happening with the foundation, just tell us about that experience unto itself >> yeah. i started getting a whole barrage of emails and tweets from people saying, you know, saying unblock my trades i'm like, i wish i could i don't know how to unblock your trades it's because, you know, we're a 32-year-old foundation focusing on poverty we are focusing on adjustment poverty everywhere where it shows itself there is also the private company robinhood, the app, and i think what ended up happening when everything started happening last week people were looking at the ceo of robinhood and finding me it caused quite the stir for a little while, but at the same time it was important for us to just be very forthright and bold about the fact that, you know, for 32 years we have worked to fight the biggest scourge in our society, which is this idea of poverty, childhood poverty that's why we wanted to make clear there's no connection

between the two organizations. >> so, wes, tell us about the decision to step down. you've been there for four years. as we said, you've done remarkable work. you've really transformed the organization in so many ways so many of our viewers know it because they support robinhood we aired that special last year instead of the typical gala dinner a lot of hedge fund managers have been behind this nonprofit for a long time. you've tried to actually really transform it not away from the hedge fund community itself but to broaden what it really means. >> yeah. i mean, when we look at the things we've been able to accomplish over the years, we literally increased our donor total output by six fold robin hood nation is incredibly broad. from fund managers to school teachers and it is management consultants and social workers if you think about just during that time over the past four

years, we've really centered in community. continuing to be data driven and being heart led. we've embraced our role in advocating for policy for the first time we fought for pay for nonprofits, moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs we activated a relief fund and distributed over $16 million in just piece past months mostly gone towards emergency food and cash assistance. we've launched initiative focusing on supporting leaders of color in the space because the vast disproportionate nature and bias that's in not just the private sector but in philanthropy in supporting leaders of color we've launched incredible partnerships including our first national partnerships called mobility labs which is bringing funding and design to communities in baltimore where i live and also across the country. we're really proud of what we've been able to accomplish over the past four years and the

organization's remarkably strong right now. >> wes, explain this to me i was surprised when you said that you had made this decision. given what you've done, the success with the organization and what i know you want to do in thefuture for this country, why step down now? >> i think the biggest thing, andrew, was it's just right for my family. you know, what many people don't know is that, you know, even though robin hood offices are in new york, i never left baltimore. my wife and as long as you've known my two kids are down here. i've missed a lot of bedtimes. i've missed a lot of time and these are moments i'm not going to get back. so it's the right thing for my 23 family, but more importantly it's the right time for the organization to take the momentum and to find the right successor in the critical time of leave i'm not leaving this second. i'm staying through the spring to ensure that we have a

complete search for my successor and also have a smooth transition, but it really is just the right time. >> wes, invariably people are going to say wes moore one day is going to run for office what do you think about that idea >> i'm not a politician and, you know, i built my career on finding ways to create progress and fight for opportunities for people so, you know, i'm going to do what's right for the moment and, you know, i know right now it's focusing on handing the reins of robin hood over to the right successor. fighting for childhood poverty, human dignity, fighting to reduce the racial wealth gap this is my life's work, so i will always try to find ways of being helpful and productive and to be a fighter and navigate that space. >> wes, speak to this. we often talk on this program about the future of new york city and what is going to happen over time in part because we have businesses andbusiness

leaders leaving the city you know many of them. i imagine there's some even on the board of robin hood that have left new york city and moved to florida or elsewhere. at the same time we're dealing with racial justice issues in this city. we're dealing with the relationship between the police and the public we have a mayoral race coming up what do you think has to happen? is there a way to thread the needle between all of these various issues >> there is a way to thread the needle and there must be a way to thread the needle we have not only -- you look at new york city. new york city doesn't only have a mayor's race, 70% of the city council is going to turn over new york is going to have an new comptroller in the next month. this is the largest leadership shift. this is an opportunity for new york to continue to redefine itself where it is about how do we make sure that we're keeping

new york attractive for people but also making sure and understanding the levels of inequality in new york were there long before covid-19 we actually work with columbia university and showed that half of new york city was living in poverty for at least a year over the past four years before covid-19 not half of the borough, half of the group, half of the city were living in poverty for at least a year over the past four years. as new york thinks about what it needs to do, when it comes to true recovery and an equitable recovery, i think part of it really is about how are we making sure the conversations are touching individuals, groups, communities in ways that they were not being touched before and that a true recovery must mean more >> i have a question for you are you bullish short term, long term on new york city? i'll admit this. i was on the phone with a friend last night they asked me the same question. i said i'm bullish on the city

probably five -- five to ten years out from now but i'm probably less bullish on it in the absolute immediate term and it pains me as a new yorker to say that. >> i'm bullish on new york because i'm bullish on new yorkers and i think that, you know, we had similar conversations, you know, frankly after 9/11 where, you know, new york was at a real crossroads and really thinking about what's going to happen after 9/11 we watched not just a precipitous economic drop, we watched the horror of 9/11 and what it meant to society and the psychology i think new york saw the same thing after the financial crisis where there was not a real rush, real frustration and uncertainty. new york saw it after hurricane sandy where you watched entire segments and sections of the population essentially underwater, right? i think new york and new yorkers are incredibly resilient and

powerful people so i'm bullish on the long term of new york i'm bullish on the idea that we can and we should be creating policies that are going to support the most vulnerable and i'm also bullish on the fact that this is going to be a holistic process where there is not one group nor one lane nor one industry that's going to have to be part of the solution. it's going to be every single one of us who are going to roll up our sleeves and find ways of collaborating and coordinating in order to get to a positive solution. >> wes moore, thank you for joining us you've joined us when you first got the job, and i appreciate you being with us today. and all the good work you've done thanks i'll talk to you soon. joe? >> thanks, andrew. coming up, another round of record highs for all three major indices yesterday. this morning the futures are giving back a little, but we'll see. it's early going to speak with savita subramanian. as we head to break, here's a

check on bitcoin up near 46.5 up near 46.5 we'll be right back. so do businesses. so, today they're a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place. that's why businesses from retail to banking are going with a smarter hybrid cloud using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm.

electronic arts is making a deal to by glu mobile. know accepted the or from electronic arts. glu mobile up by 33 points electronic arts is up 1.13%. take-two drops the shares are under pressure after the video game publisher did not announce any new game releases february is black history month, and we are honoring some of our cnbc contributors here's the cnbc contributor diegus wright with a personal story about investing in himself. >> when i was in eighth grade i was taking algebra and i made a d. i showed my mother my report card and i said to her, i'm one

of black students and i didn't want all the white students to think i'm stupid she said you need to learn this material and we can't help you so the next day i made sure that i asked questions. my next report card i had an a and to this day math is my favorite sjeubct i learned how to invest in myself

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welcome back to "squawk box. two factors pushing stocks higher including covid data and strong earnings pushing stocks higher mike santoli joins us with more on the markets this morning. mike >> andrew, those two things feeding a lot of the up side momentum seems like we're due for a breather in particular take a look at the russell 2,000 index. this is where you got liftoff in the small cap, right around the time of the election, right around the time when there was rotation into value but also into the time when there started to be an acceleration in a lot of the more speculative and themed stocks out there. i'll show you the composition of the russell 2000 we usually take it as a strong economic forecast. this is 40% above the 200 day

moving average that's a record spread between the long-term trend and current price. definitely stretched take a look at the largest holdings within the russell 2000 you have plug power, fuel cell company flying with all of the ev stuff. novovax. penn hasn't been doing much of anything this is about 4% of the index. 2000 stock index i keep emphasizing when we're looking at the russell 2000, we're looking at a subset of the more aggressive speculative long-term speculative growth playing through the market, not necessarily mainstream business. >> question for you, mike. correlation. everybody thinks bitcoin crypto is completely uncorrelated to the market do you believe that right now? >> it's not -- no, it's not uncorrelated i think it's a manifestation of

the same forces that are driving some of the areas of the market where people just believe that kind of price doesn't matter, money costs nothing. it's about the digitization of money just like a lot of the stock market is playing on the digitization of the overall economy. you can look at paypal and sq square it's a manifestation of the sentiment that's driving t. i think it's all related in terms of being a risk asset. >> every big selloff we've had, bitcoin goes down. i don't know anyone who says it's not correlated. it's a risk off trade. the last five selloffs bitcoin goes down. people would like to say it's not, but it is. >> it's an amplified version of it obviously it's gone down usually to a higher low

over time. outperformed equities. >> the rationale is it's not a financial asset. it's an anti-financial asset it still has to prove itself. >> it goes to the issue of whether if it's digital gold, it's supposed to be uncorrelated to some degree, right? >> exactly >> like you said, when it goes down, we forget so quickly, but on this show we've had bitcoin crash a couple of times as our chyron in the last couple of months, bitcoin crash, goes down 30%, 20%, here we are at 46 -- here we are, it is, you know, not north feint at heart thank you, mike. 46 let's get to savita subramanian. b of a savita, i try to remember

everything i should write everything down did you have an s&p that's kind of flat for the year weren't you down last time you were on didn't you say 38 something what is it for you 38.50? >> yeah, our year end target is 3800 it's a little bit down from where we are right now i think that, you know, depending on the day we look bearish, bullish, neutral, but our call is essentially neutral on u.s. large cap stocks but more bullish on the more economically sensitive areas of the market so, you know, within the s&p we like financials and energy and industrials which are unfortunately too small to really drive the market significantly higher even if they do well because we think that in tandem with that we could see some under performance from the leadership that we've had, you know, for a decade of tech and faang and kind of the

more secular growth areas of the market that's our outlook overall for the next 12 months. >> right because i was looking at your -- at sort of the three of your themes and they involve -- they involve buying they do involve -- >> yes. >> -- long positions, and i'm just wondering whether -- i guess you need those even if you have sort of a neutral viewpoint on the market over the next 12 months, you do look for opportunities i understand how that works. >> absolutely. >> but just in general, would you say just be more don't rush to do anything necessarily right now and maybe harvest some of the gains after a couple of great years? >> i think harvest your gains in large cap growth, definitely, but i think it's time to do something, which is add exposure to cyclicals this is where i think, you know, what's surprising to me is that positioning hasn't really changed amongst the buy side from before the election to

after the election despite the fact that this represents a totally different lineup, a very different set of policies around stimulating the economy, equalizing incomes so i think what's interesting to me is that there is generally a reluctance for investors to actually take profits in some of these large cap leaders and move into some of the more beaten down cyclical names that could really drive the market from here so, you know, i think now is a time to do two things, to go neutral and maybe close your overweight position in large cap growth, tech, even s&p 500 and extend your overweight positions in small caps, cyclicals, other areas of the world if you look around bank of america research, i am the most tepid strategist over different capital markets. our em is more bullish small cap is very bullish.

she still sees more to go. i think that's the name of the game move from old leadership to what's likely to become new leadership. >> i can think of three main things, number one is you've got the fed is probably because of the pandemic, the fed is not going anywhere any time soon so that's good. you've got the vaccine so -- >> yes. >> -- hopefully there will be reopening. i think in washington, savita, some of these things aren't great. i've been here 25 years. >> which parts aren't great? >> i mean, the -- excuse me? i mean, some of the -- i don't know if you agree, but some of the tax -- potential tax hikes. >> sure. >> regulations. >> absolutely. >> the minimum wage. all of those things i think could end up being a negative. >> for s&p i absolutely agree. >> for the u.s. economy, and for earnings and for multiples. >> i don't think for the economy overall but for the overall s&p

500 if you see a reversal of the tax cut, that could be a big negative for the s&p potentially for tech, communication services, those are the areas that get hit hardest. i think what's interesting right now is you have an administration in washington that is not looking at the stock market as their barometer of success or failure, they're looking at the economy i think what we're facing right now is bullish for the economy but not necessarily bullish for asset influence. >> they would have said that during the obama administration too, savita, and it wasn't bullish for the economy. >> well, here's what's different. we've had a complete paralysis in the economy last year and now, you know, no matter what, as long as we get kind of a pickup in economic activity, super easy comps to see an economic recovery. wouldn't you agree we're coming off a complete paralysis within the global economy. i think that's different. >> yeah.

i'm ready to go mmt all the way, i'm ready to go, but i don't know if i should feel good about that it just seems like if we just say stimulus, stimulus, stimulus infrastructure, checks, all of this is going to increase growth, it just seems like let's double everything then and make twice as much growth or even triple >> you know what -- okay, you know what, joe you know what else is different today is inflationary pressures because a couple of years ago we talked to our analysts that cover stocks and they didn't see a lot of inflationary pressures. today our analysts are citing inflationary pressures in almost every industry where we -- that we talk about. i think that's another huge difference between what we've seen over the last ten years, which is a constant disappointment in inflationary pressures to where we are today where there is definitely tight capacity and a lot of little pockets of the market. so i think that's another factor

to watch as we go forward. but, you know, again, i think it's hard to say we're not going to see leadership change when we're moving from an environment when we had -- four years ago we had a republican -- republican sweep. today we have a democratic sweep. four years ago we had low rates, persistently low rates, no inflationary pressures today we have tremendous inflationary pressures we're coming from an environment with a complete paralysis of the global economy to a year where we're going to see a big pickup. how can you argue we're not going to see a change in leadership in that type of year, do you know what i mean? >> is your point on -- for a while we wanted inflation. we should be happy eventually it becomes bad, right? >> yes the big risk to the s&p 500 is that it's done well in an environment of benign inflation. inflation -- we've been in a goldilocks environment and the

risk to that thesis, i think, is elevated today that's another reason we're neutral and not bullish on the s&p 500 is that, you know, we could potentially see a move in inflation that is actually negative for risk assets that's not our central scenario but i think that is one of the bigger looming risks, that and interest rates you know, today i think, you know, 60% of the s&p 500 companies are trading at a dividend yield that's higher than the ten year, but if the ten year moves another 50, 75 basis points, that whole value proposition for income investors also changes so i think, you know, there's a lot of really great, you know, kind of goldilocks factors that have driven the market higher that are all looking a little bit more risky today as we move forward. joe, i agree corporate taxes is a key concern of ours as we move towards 2022. >> okay, savita. thank you. >> thank you. >> 200

got to remember that 2800 right? writing it down. thanks mentally. >> mentally. >> when we come back, the explosion of new retail investors in the market is raising questions about risk we're going to speak to operation hope founder john hope bryant about the financial literacy and whether brokerages need to do more to educate investors. later in the program, "squawk box" exclusive with equity group investment's chairman, sam zell. re-entering data that employees could enter themselves? that's why i get up in the morning! i have a secret method for remembering all my hr passwords. my boss doesn't remember approving my time off.

let's just... find that email. the old way of doing business slows everyone down. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com for a free demo.

coming up, operation hope chairman, founder and ceo john hope bryant joins us to discuss the need for financial education after the gamestop saga. eli lilly cfo is being replaced after an inappropriate relationship between smiley and an employee. an independent cumulommune investigation found communications they have appointed a replacement to assist with the

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welcome back to "squawk box. robinhood is being sued for the wrongful death of a 20-year-old after believing he had racked up very big losses on the stock trading app. alex kearns made three attempts to deal with the massive underwater balance the lawsuit is accusing the

brokerage of negligent infliction of emotional distress and unfair business. he was protecting his family from financial obligation. we have talked to vlad tenev about the fact you still can't call up robinhood and get a customer service person on the phone and i believe it's an issue that still desperately needs to be addressed. becky? >> andrew, thanks. that explosion of new retail investors in the market is raising some questions about risk financial literacy and what the retail trading platforms need to do a better job of educating their brokers. joining us to talk about this is john hope bryant he's the founder and ceo of operation hope john, i know you've spent significant time digging into this and trying too come up with

solutions for the big problem. >> thank you for having me this morning, becky and the team. i think we're seeing a moment of history. when you combined the mortgage crisis of 2009 which percolated which was about the debt of people who didn't understand the agreements they were going into and you provide this moment which is about equities and folks who really, again, don't really know what they're getting into, i really think it makes a case for financial literacy as a civil rights issue as important as the right to vote was in the 1960s, as important as what you all do as a driver's license in the equities market. we should not be, in my opinion, becky, it should not be a private card game in monaco with unique information for unique players. this should not be a public slot

machine in las vegas i keep reminding people las vegas gets bigger every year even though few people win where folks think this is gambling this shouldn't be a kid in his room gaming and calling it investing. this is proper formation of capital. you know, this is the american way and we should treat it as such and we should give people at the bottom the opportunity to come up and not just squeeze in in the middle. i think what happened with gamestop and i think we're piling it too much on one company and suggesting one company is a problem here and really the whole industry i think needs to put on the white hat here and self-police themselves because no one's providing financial literacy education to their customers i think this also proves that technology alone is not enough the point of customer service, talking to somebody, which is what we do at operation hope with financial literacy.

we raise credit scores 50 points and we talk to them and use technology to do it but it's still about the people >> i think that's a key part john, in the steps you've laid out for what you think should be a plan for these brokerages to take, i put them into two categories, either financial literacy on the one hand or transparency on the other hand in terms of that do you want to start with some of the financial literacy things that you think the brokerages should be doing? >> yeah. we sort of call it the operation hope investor bill of rights it's 10-point plan and i think the industry should fund free financial education for all consumer investors in the case of wall street on main street for all banking customers. i think we should don't make it public affairs, don't make it community affairs, don't make it pr put this right in the middle of

your business plan, point number 10, embed this into the customer acquisition process. it doesn't slow anything down, but give somebody an off ramp. let them stop and ask key questions that they understand what they're getting into. you can do this quickly. if they're stopped, curious, if they believe this is a flight to heaven with no stops and there's guaranteed success, stop that's not wall street that's not investing there are risks. let them talk to a coach then they can come back to the transaction. doesn't have to slow anything down give them inspiration and motivation, do some video engagement at the front of the process. walk them through the fact that this is serious and don't bet your rent money, including on bitcoin, okay, by the way? and i think at some point it needs to be an opportunity for somebody to walk away or double down on their desire to invest

i think you'll have a more responsible investor i think you'll have an educated investor if they mess up -- joe will love this if somebody is educated, they lose it all, that's wall street. that's business. make sure it's not people that don't know what they don't know and it's killing them. i'll borrow a couple of comments from andrew on transparency. he wrote a great piece what the industry can do on the transparency side. why go to a private meeting and get private information and not have that disclosed on your website. if you meet with management, disclose it so nobody accuses you of insider information stop manipulating the market my rich friends, my poor friends do better only to stay rich we need the poor to come up because that is the american way. so it's a 10-point plan. you put it on your screen so i won't walk you through the items. essentially it's giving basic financial literacy education,

investor education in client account creation and transaction beginning process. every step of the way there's a chance for people to get off of the ferris wheel if they're uncomfortable. again, we're raising up new american builders. i think that will go a long way to add sustainable gdp to the country. >> john, two points with this. i can think of critics coming at you from two directions. one would be from the traders themselves who say, stop being paternalistic. i know what i'm doing. i know this is a risk, money i might lose stop trying to slow me down or say i'm going to need a license. you're getting away from the democratization of wall street that isn't something we want we want the people there >> bill clinton had a great quote, it's hard to get somebody to agree to the truth if the lie's paying their paycheck. i hear you

just because you're rationalizing doesn't mean it makes sense. "the game" stop thing is a great example of how that logic doesn't work really. you had people with too much information on one hand, hedge funds in this particular case who understand the markets and you had people with their hat on backwards, millennials who were tech savvy who were intended on gaming on the other end, it's a war. my clients are in the middle. they're saying -- all they're seeing is social media posts, they called me saying, this is $1,000 stock i can't go wrong i'm going to put my rent money in it. whatever money i've got, my little savings in it, this is my one shot to get rich it goes up, they buy it at 500, right? a $50 stock, $30 stock they buy it at 500, 700, who gets caught between wherever the high was, 458 was a legitimate high down to 48. i mean, where is it at, 56, 60

bucks? you sell it -- you bought at 400 and you think it's 1,000, you go all the way down there are millions of people wondering who lied to them it's somebody with a yacht, including the people, no disrespect to reddit, but they did raise money on the back of all of this. by the way, god bless them it's not like they hate the markets. let's knock it off let's stop the game. give everybody the same rules. >> john, we're almost out of time only a minute left the other issue is you're looking for the industry to self-regulate themselves as andrew pointed out, you can't even call robinhood and get somebody on the phone. good luck with that. what's going to inspire them to do this especially if it's self regulation. >> rainbows follow storms. no regulator came into vision because people said, let's have one. the sec, fdic, all of these people came into place because of a crisis. i'm saying self-regulate before

there is a regulator who comes in to their credit by the way, robinhood called me last october i believe it was to ask for advice and this is one of the pieces i gave them only thing i criticize them for, they should have embedded financial education. i like the innovation and the new ideas and the way it's fascinated people. there was a rap song out about spacs. let's do it in a responsible and intelligent way. i don't think anybody is malicious at robinhood or charles schwab but you live in your own bubble and the rest of the world is not there let's give them a safe passage into your bubble by giving them somebody to talk to and education that empowers them. >> john, good to see you this morning. we're out of time but i'm sure we'll talk again soon. >> thanks for having me. coming up, senator ben cardin is going to join us to talk small business relief and the latest out of washington on

stimulus negotiations. later, don't miss our conversation with billionaire investor sam zell talking about thmaete rks, real estate much more. "squawk box" coming right back w you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

good morning bitcoin surging to a new high at $48,000. reddit getting a big financial boost. social media company raising hundreds of millions of dollars and seeing its valuation double. going to be talking a lot about reddit and that revolution along with hedge fund and so much mo more. >> i'm joe kernen.

becky quick and andrew ross sorkin the s&p down 8 points. your mother was a big fan. that's nice. still getting -- still dealing with that. your mother's. a big fan.

"squawk box. all right. let's get you caught up on some of the stories that investors are going to be talking about today. first up, bitcoin hitting a new record earlier this morning. came in about $48,000. a little more than 24 hours it was trading at $40,000 a coin. then we learned that tesla had invested $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency and said it would eventually accept it as payment for its cars the 20% jump yesterday was the biggest jump that we've seen for bitcoin. biggest daily gain in more than three years. it was off to the races and up another 3 1/4 percent this morning. other cryptocurrencies up this morning if you want to take a look at some of those. you'll see doge coin has been -- that one is not on the list. you can see ripple is up others pulling back after the gains they saw meantime, reddit raising more than $250 million in a new

funding round seeing the valuation double to $6 billion the social media company has been at the center of the surge in gamestop. in a blog post the company said that its advertising revenue rose 90% in the last quarter it never hurts to raise money when there's an opportunity to do so. check out shares of tilray with deals with grow farma. tilray plans to have a range of products for patients in the u.k. next month. house democrats unveiling a plan they're hoping can be included in president biden's covid relief bill to send up to $3600 to families for each of their children speaking with us earlier, former white house chief of staff mick mulvaney said the payments would amount to a give away unrelated to whether people lost their

jobs because of the coronavirus crisis >> we're starting to create this impression that government is free and you can spend as much money at the government you want to, you can give it away to people as freely as you want to and it doesn't have any negative consequences in the future >> joining us now to talk more about the developing covid relief bill is senator ben car din. he's chair of the committee on small business thank you for joining us this morning. looking at your notes, you're still holding out hope for a bipartisan package even though it seems like we're -- the democrats and president biden are moving full force ahead with what would not be bipartisan but re reconciliation. >> good morning. good to be with you. there are many provisions that are in the biden proposal that have bipartisan support. the question is whether the republicans are willing to go along with the way in which this legislation needs to be enacted.

we have to act quickly the urgency of the issues and distribution of the vaccine and dealing with families that are really hurting, extended unemployment insurance, state and local government, small business, the list goes on and on and on, there's an urgency that we have to move, but i can tell you, so many provisions that are included in this covid relief package enjoy broad support among americans as well as democrats and republicans >> it's a lot of money, obviously, and we want to go big because people need it, but we do want to make sure that it goes to people that are in need and that it's not going to people that really don't -- won't benefit or aren't as -- you know, on a scale certainly don't need it as much as people that really do is there anything wrong with trying to look closely at that given the amount of money that has already been spent

>> i don't agree with this that's why i think we need to target this. the provisions that i'm helping to draft in small business are very much targeted to the small businesses that are in desperate need, those that have had the greatest amount of revenue loss, those in underserved communities, those that depend upon large gatherings for their business we are really targeting the relief of those small businesses and the smaller of small businesses that really need the relief i think all parts of this proposal need to be targeted to those who need the help. >> senator, as the chairman of the small business community, we're also -- i want to get your comments on your feelings for the minimum wage the cbo out with an analysis that it would lift 900,000 people out of poverty but cost 1.4 million jobs so i'm just trying to figure out when presented with those facts, do you dispute those facts or do

you think that somehow it would help small businesses? i don't know how you -- you need to explain to me as a small business guy or someone who's supporting them, how can you possibly think that that's a positive now during a pandemic for small business >> when our economy grows, all businesses grow, including small businesses it's hard to understand how someone can work a 40 hour week and still live in poverty in the wealthiest nation in the world so the minimum wage should really reflect that level the person works 40 hours a week and has a decent wage. so i think it's hard to argue against the need to increase the minimum wage but we need to do it in a way that's sensitive to all businesses, particularly smaller businesses, so the transition to the minimum wage becomes important, how we implement it >> so just back to the -- what the cbo said you think lifting 900,000 people out of poverty offsets losing

1.4 million jobs when people go to a minimum wage of zero? how does that work >> well, look at history every time we have increased the minimum wage in the past, we've seen an economic growth, we've seen increased jobs. >> you don't believe the cbo you dispute -- >> i think you have a transition issue but overall it's good for the economy to increase the minimum wage we've seen a wage gap in america, we've seen the wealthy jest do much better than the middle income families than those with low wages have not done well at all during the economic growth. we have to make these adjustments. it's important for our entire economy so, yes, there may be some transition issues but on any period of time it's going to be good for our economy and good for small business and good for any business. >> transition period you're highlighting how important this relief bill is

for small businesses so a transition period. are you saying this is not the time to go to $15 because of the pandemic or do you think that it would not be counter productive to what you're trying to do with the covid bill >> well, we are in the midst of a covid-related recession. so we have to do this in a way that's mindful where we are currently, but that's some of the discussions that are taking place. some of the discussions, i hope, that become bipartisan discussions taking place you have the challenges that we put this reconciliation bill there are different hurdles that we have to overcome, but my basic point is it's important for our country that we increase the minimum wage so that someone who's working 40 hours a week does not live in poverty we've got to get there the longer we wait for adjusting the minimum wage, the bigger flip we have

so it's important to make these adjustments. we need to make them regularly and it has to reflect the fact that our economy needs more. >> a lot as it's been pointed out. these are entry level jobs that a lot of people get whether they're college kids, the basic premise is that wage price controls will crowd out certain people that would have otherwise been employed because companies don't have enough. if the analysis comes the $1.4 million jobs lost while you're raising people out of poverty, i don't see how you can rectify that, how losing 1.4 million jobs because small businesses can't afford to pay, why is that okay for 900,000 people? >> i always said those numbers but -- >> you don't believe them? >> when you raise the minimum wage you affect all wage earners and if you look at -- >> that's true, too, for

inflation and cost of goods, that's going to ripple through the economy as well obviously higher business -- >> we need to address the issue that over the last several decades you see a widening of the wage gap in america. those at the highest levels have done extremely well. those in middle income haven't done as well those in lower income are living in poverty >> right >> so the united states, you shouldn't have these poverty levels to deal with that minimum wage is one way. you have to combine that it's not in isolation. the connection of other policies in order to make sure our economy performs well will create jobs. we're not going to lose jobs. >> all right, senator. we will -- the debate will go on i can tell you that. and we all want the same things but it seemed like we had it going at the low end in terms of wage gains when you have really

low unemployment, you start to see the wage gains organically and that would obviously be -- i mean, walmart, there's a lot of places already at $15 and to make a federal mandate for west virginia and south dakota and states that have much lower cost of living just -- you know, there's a lot of people that look at that are going to push back on that, senator. that's all i'm saying. >> my point is when you look at that in conjunction to the other parts of the covid relief package in president biden's program to build back better with infrastructure, development, roads, et cetera, you put all of that together, we get a growing economy. >> senator, thanks let's make it bipartisan i don't know call me if you start making some progress there ask for mr. blue because i may be holding my breath but good luck. hope springs eternal see you later. andrew >> thanks, joe. when we come back, live

update on a world health organization investigation on the ground in china looking into the origins of the coronavirus. then we'll be joined exclusively by billionaire investor sam zell on spacs, the reddit crowd and so much more. never one to hold back we'll hear from sam zell other issues shares of simon property group are jumping. seeing a recovery by retail tenants and in prompt in rent ayllection rates st tuned, you're watching "squawk" right here on cnbc. , key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

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they suggested after doing the research for the past two weeks they didn't really change -- it didn't really change the overall picture, though it did help to improve their understanding. so after looking at environmental data as well as the thousands of biological samples, the team decided that most likely the virus jumped to humans through a third animal. that the virus most resembles ones that are found in bats but that there could have been and most likely was a third animal that the virus jumped into before passing on to humans. so another key point was that the virus was circulating outside of the wet market that is linked to the early cases they found several different instances where the virus was in different parts of wuhan finally, and perhaps the most interesting one, is that the lab incident, though they didn't rule it out, the team said it

was extremely unlikely and they were going to stop the investigation that they had into the possibility that the virus came from a lab. another interesting point was that in running through the possibilities of how this could -- virus could have moved to humans, they said it is possible it could have been transmitted to humans through frozen food. that is a theory that we have seen heavily promoted by beijing and i think it really goes to show that the investigation, though it's supposed to come up with some conclusions, really will not put the political controversy over the start of this pandemic to rest. guys. >> honestly, after hearing that, i literally have more questions than i had before. i don't know how you bring a team in a year later, more than a year later and ask them to piece it all back together a little difficult there a bit of a cold case on that, but it doesn't sound like they're really ruling anything

out, saying anything's possible. >> reporter: yeah. and it's hard. they were asked a lot of different questions, particularly about the lab, why hand the investigation to the lab and the w.h.o.'s chief delegate said they were taking a more systemic approach where they thought that if they talked to the people at the lab, they took a look around, they said that they had very deep conversations and open and frank discussions with the lead scientists there and they said that they were very impressed by the protocols as well as the understanding of the different types of coronaviruses and said that there was no bat coronavirus that resembled the one that became covid-19 or sars cov 2. it's hard though because at the end of the day as you had mentioned, this is a cold case, the trail's gone cold. it's been a year since the

pandemic and the fact is that a lot of the data that they're looking at is data that the chinese have provided and that would likely have been vetted through their scientists and even though if you trust the chinese scientists for presenting accurate data or doctors, there's still such an overwhelming amount of pressure from the government to make sure that scientists and that people here generally don't fall out of the beijing narrative around the start of the virus. >> eunice, thank you good to see you. >> really good says it but doesn't say it >> yes. >> enough said anyway, coming up, a conversation you don't want to miss the always outspoken sam zell joins us for a wide range being interview. first, as we head to break, here's a few of this morning's top headlines.

boeing being sued by shareholders saying they failed to challenge dennis muilenburg on the safety of the 737 max jje or his campaign to counter the negative publicity and a spokesman says, it lacks merit. electronic arts is buying game developer glu mobile. glu had received several takeover offers before choosing ea canopy growth a smaller year over year growth they said it expects year over year, expects to achieve profitability during the second half of the second of 2022, the fiscal year. we'll tell you if it's sequential so i don't ha tveo say that you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc good morning!

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welcome back to "squawk box. i'm dominic chu. we want to get into the premarket trade. the selling accomplish our continues. gamestop shares $55.88 in the premarket trade. that's off 7%. on an intraday basis this stock was around $483 at its highs meaning from that level we have now dropped roughly 88% from

those levels there so gamestop shares certainly a focus there. also, amc networks, we've watched that stock rocket to highs. just shot $20.40 interday basis that means from the highs down to where we are, we have now lost roughly 70% of the overall value for amc since the interday highs for amc another one to watch is bed, bath & beyond. a huge move lower as well. off 1% in the pre-market trade at one point pushing up to the 54, $55 mark we've now lost 50% of the overall value of these shares. keep an eye on all of the short squeeze uas.sqwk we'll have more "squawk box" coming up after this break so keep it right here

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welcome back, everybody. let's get to our biggest of the hour joining us to talk markets, real estate, spacs and much more is sam zell chairman of equity group investments. always good to talk to you we've been waiting to hear from you for quite a while. good to see you. >> thank you i'm always happy to be on

"squawk box. i'm always happy to trade barbs with the three of you. >> sam, you have been somebody who knows these markets. you've seen bull markets before. you've seen manias before. i just wonder what you think as we kind of have watched all of this play out with the reddit traders, gamestop, bitcoin what are you thinking these days >> i think first it's very reminiscent of 1999. web van, etoys, all kinds of, you know, monstrous speculation values what's going on is a giant game of i can get out before it falls. there's no connection between the pricing of any of these stocks and the underlying company. yes, there is some protection. it comes from the fact that there's a short position it has

to cover, but when it's all said and done, this is just rank speculation. and if i were guessing and if we could, you know, send a little mo back to find out where all of this stimulus money went, i'll bet you a lot of that stimulus money ended up being speculated in this casino >> what you're describing is basically a big game of musical chairs and you always -- >> yeah. >> -- wonder when they're going to stop playing. >> and everybody knows there's going to be one less chair when the music stops and everybody's betting -- 18-year-old mavens are betting they can get out before somebody else does. it's fine when you can go to the casino and flip the roulette

wheel, you probably have the same amount of certainty as what's going to happen as you have in this kind of stuff, but i think this is -- i think this is very negative for the stock market, very negative for the capital raising markets. it's just creating and perpetuating an incredible sense of disbelief and can you top this gaming retailer, you know, it goes from $4 to $500 i mean, there's nothing -- there's no reality attached to that and so it's just pure speculation. >> sam, if you think part of this though is being fueled by the stimulus package we've already gotten, what happens if we get -- which is very likely -- an even bigger stimulus package now could that keep the music playing for quite some time?

>> i'm hopeful that the next stimulus package is really directed to the people who need help you know, i'm not sure that, you know, $2,000 check to a college student is necessarily productive, whereas, there are people who are, you know, not getting enough to eat and so, therefore, the idea that we're shooting this stimulus package to everybody, households, 300,000, $200,000 a year of income i think what you're doing is creating a bunch of surplus capital that's floating around and everybody's trying to figure out what to do with it and isn't this a fun way to gamble and since it's the government's

money, you didn't have it before, you didn't need it, why not roll the dice and see what happens? >> if you think that what's happening in the stock market right now is so dislocated from reality, i wonder what you're doing. is there anything you're buying in the market or outside of that because it seems like a lot of this liquidity has made its way into other markets as well >> well, there is an enormou amount of liquidity in highly speculative scenarios. there is a lot less liquidity in what you and i would call stable businesses, and so i think that, you know, we've been making investments and ongoing businesses that -- you know, not predicated on any speculation and those have been, you know, terrific opportunities by the way, unless you're in the

restaurant, transportation, hotel business, et cetera, the economy is in really good shape. one of the things that i'm worried about is that this -- we're going to overstimulate the economy and result in the return of inflation certainly the long bond and everything else from an interest rate perspective in the last few weeks has gone maybe in an excessive direction. >> you mean the yields have gotten too high on the 10-year and beyond >> i'm not suggesting gotten too high, they're still below what -- if you didn't have the government trying to maintain policy of low interest rates, i think interest rates would be a lot higher than they are now so i think that the government -- you know, the low of the fed and

role of the government in keeping interest rates low because, frankly, think about the fact that prior to the great depression, recession, you know, 5.6% is the average interest rate -- risk free interest rate. but, again, 5.6% interest rate costs today, u.s. government couldn't pay the treasury bills so you have to artificially beat the price -- keep the interest rates low enough so that the treasury can afford to meet its debt and if you are then going to issue more and more debt to -- it's one thing if you're issuing debt to deal with a crisis, to deal with restaurants that have been closed, deal with airlines and hospitals that are uniquely subject to the events we're dealing with, that makes a lot of sense that's what governments are for,

to deal with that. but when you're just blatantly throwing money into the system that, by the way, you know, business isn't bad you know, you get outside of those very specific areas, business in this country is good you know, world containers are in shortage because so many of them are, you know, coming our way delivering goods and making sales. so i think that there's a point here where you've really got to be careful that you don't over excite the economy you know, i mentioned this many times before my single greatest nightmare is the loss of the u.s. system reserve currency by virtue of the fact that the u.s. dollar is

reserve currency, our cost capital is much lower than other people and we have a real handle on the -- using the swift system on world flow of money the minute we issue too much debt and we become much closer to any other republic, that presence of the u.s. currency, you are taking the chinese wuan instead of cash. these are decreasing the importance of the reserve currency and the reserve currency without question subsidizes our standard of living >> hey, sam, earlier this morning we had robert frank, one of our reporters on. he was talking about a survey of 300 ceos in new york city now

saying their target time for bringing people back to work in offices in the office buildings that have been basically abandoned for the most part, their target date is december. only 10 to 15% of workers are already back in their buildings. you know office space better than probably anybody on the planet you sold equity office planet at the absolute high in 2007. do you think we're missing it or is there still room to go down >> oh, number one i think these companies are making a mistake by being as quote, unquote, unconcerned about their people not being in the office. i know that, you know, starting in november or october last year the people in my office started coming here on an every other

week so as we didn't, you know, over burden the place with people, but the net effect is we were retaining and perpetuating our culture. had a google yesterday put out a story where she talked about how the google culture was going to be affected by the fact people have been apart from each other for so long. as for the value of office buildings, we're going to go back to using office buildings just like we always did, with one big difference the only difference is that we -- the degree to which office buildings have been over built was obfuscated by the creation of we were in similar kinds of companies that committed to huge amounts of office space without tenants, committed to using it as those companies have been

built in various communities predicated in the shrinkage of space. a lot of that shrinkage was artificial so almost every market in the country office space is over supplied and at least based on my experience, when office buildings are over supplied, the price comes down and i think that's what's happening now. one of the ways they're avoiding facing up is they're not doing transactions you have a number of commercial transactions in the chicago area last year were down 90% or some ridiculously high number that's true across the country because buyers are looking and saying, god, there's a real economic risk to occupancy going forward. sellers are saying last week you agreed to pay me x whatever you made for it last week is unrelated. last week somebody paid $500 for

gamestop does that mean, you know, nobody's going to sell unless they get $500? that's the same principle being applied in the office space market. >> sam, wanted to get your thoughts on the phenomenon known as a spac or blank check company. we're seeing obviously hundreds of these things with some prominent names attached to them and lots of companies rushing into their arms right now. does it make sense to you? >> well, it's like everything else if done well, it's a very effective transaction. it's one of the few times where the quote, unquote, buyer has got enormous power in other words, if you're a buyer of an ipo spac, the who thing is you get the money back in the cost of carry the best thing is they make a

very attractive deal and then you have a decision to make whether you want to play or not. now you can have your case in the speculative environment we're talking about. you had a number of these spacs done with making money, going to the moon and i saw one the other day on electric charging stations you know, one or the other no positive cash flow until 2024 you know, this is rampant. rampant speculation very much like the dotcom boom on the other hand, there are deals made where in effect they've used spac in lieu of going public and been able to take comfort with the fact that they were dealing with someone with the money. >> here's the idea of rampant

speculation. the timing is when in fact the music stops. we all remember when alan greenspan said there was a rational exuberance in the market that was in '96, '97 it then went on for three or four more years. what do you think would be the tipping point? >> you know, if i knew the answer to that, i'd be rich. but i -- you know -- >> you are you are, sam >> oftentimes, you know, it's unknown things being in an international crisis with iran. maybe a much more difficult -- in a relationship with china you know, i mean, in the same manner, you know, we now have house prices that are higher than 2007. that in some degree cracks

interest rates go to 3%, not the 10% but 3% and it changes the bottom line on everything that's going on. so i can't come up with, you know, which action or which event will trigger change, but i know -- unfortunately i'm almost 80 years old and i've watched, you know, repelttive -- repetitive cases of unbridled optimism and unbridled pessimism and back to the center. >> sam, i was going to ask you that same question in a different way. just in terms of you're a value guy and no one can dispute your record over the years, but you've come on here a lot of times and been more negative about the stock market than was necessary at the time. many, many times you've looked at -- >> necessary necessary? i don't know what that word means. >> it means that you were wrong about the stock market being

high over the years. what i'm getting to is maybe it's because of the fed and at the same time you've had an overriding concern, you sent me that model of the fed printing money, it was the coolest thing i've ever seen, because of the debasement of the currency i'm wondering whether you're right about what's going on, i'm not saying you underestimated the power of the fed, but i'm wondering when it all comes home to roost, which is all of your concerns have always been justified based on real estate metrics or cash flow or discounted future value, however you want to look at it, you've always been right theoretically but the market has not done -- the stock market, because we're at new highs, it hasn't done what you thought what does that look like when the fed's prophecy comes home to roost or does it ever happen

sooner or later what comes up comes down what do you think it looks like? >> now i guess the way it looks like is that somebody decides one morning that the emperor has no new clothes you know, somebody wakes up and says, wait a minute, i don't understand this. or wait a minute, if i'm going to lend them junk bond market, junk bond market was created by mike milkin when the average rate was 12% now it's 4%. are you getting paid enough to take the risk? that's the constant question that you ask one day somebody says, no, you're not now without question i've thought that the stock market is ahead of itself and what i see today in limited places is just wild speculation on the other hand, 75% of the market, i think it's reflective

of the fact business is good and is doing well, but you don't have prices that are going up and down 50, 60% every other day. >> we've talked to you so long we've run through. >> it's limited. i'm recording. >> sam, we love having you here.

we'll talk to you soon first take on the adg trinday ahead. stay tuned, everybody. "squawk box" will be right back. ♪ ooh la la by cherie ♪ the moxie showerhead speaker. only from kohler.

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welcome back to "squawk box. going straight over to cnbc headquarters to hang out with our friend jim cramer to he's thinking about before the market opens jim, it appears it's going to open down. is this just a breather and what do you make of what's happening in the market and then it don't -- i'm trying even a day later, trying to make sense of where this is all headed >> i think it's worldwide. we're catching it here there's neat, some more good news, we don't have it we want to know about stimulus the variants, the vaccine variants that we're having trouble with are on people's minds. i happen to think that bitcoin is exciting. there are promoters of it but not a lot of sellers

we'll hear from pay pal in an analyst meeting how it's mainstream, but in the end you need a hedge on it if it goes down you'll say why did i use bitcoin when i could transact in dollars? as far as a way to have things that use cash with, i'm for it i think it's almost irresponsible to not visit every treasurer should say should we put a small portion of our cash in bitcoin? it seems a good way to hedge against the rest of the environment. nice hedge in fiat currency. >> is it a hedge or is it tied to the out unquote market right now. and we've seen when the markets go down, it's gone down as well. >> i believe in gold as a hedge. i believe in selling calls against certain stocks as a way to hedge i'm more atraditional. i just think it's a piece of the

wasl i don't think the company would invest big tesla put a lot of money in it i don't have that level of conviction i own bitcoin and have for some time i used to say own cash and gold. now i say cash, gold, and bitcoin. it's a little inflated for a day, but there's people who say it's going to 100,000. all i know is i think it's an alternative to having a cash position where you make nothing. >> good to see you we'll see you in a few minutes by the way, correction i called sam the cheapskate. he's not, we are when we come back we'll talk about the markets with this head scratcher. there's too much about a market bubble to have a market bubble we'll get them to explain that theory when "squawk box" comes right back

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welcome back sam zel joined us and had choice words for the reddit volatility we've been seeing lately >> i think this is very negative for the stock market it's very negative for the capital racing markets it's just creating and perpetuating an incredible sense that -- just belief and can you

top this this game retailer, you know, it goes from 4:00 to $500 there's no reality attached to that and so it's just pure speculation. >> joining us right now is chief investment strategist at the louhol group is it speculation? >> i certainly see the indicators of sentiment improving whether it's high valuations whether it's things like spaces or ipo pricing or the reddit revolution or sentiment indicators there's no doubt about that. but let's -- i think part of that is because we've been through with the pandemic, we've gone from the biggest bust to boom cycle ever in post war history. and it's been at warp speed on the down speed, warp speed on the up side. i think a lot of our traditional

indicators can't keep up with this and there's good fundamental reasons why people feel better and so i'm not so sure that fundamentals aren't keeping up with sentiment one more thing real quick, i would encourage people to do a google trend search on the word "stock market bubble". it's exploded to the up side in recent weeks that's why i'm saying there's too much coverage and concern about a cycle ending bubble i think to have one. correction absolutely bubble ending? i don't think it's likely. >> you say we're going to continue to -- you think there's a wall of worry, that we're going to climb the wall of worry here what is -- >> i do. >> what is the investment in bitcoin and the price surge we've seen and tesla and everybody else's involvement in it say to you about where we are? >> i don't know if it says a lot. i mean, bitcoin is a new

vehicle. i'm attracted to bitcoin, quite frankly, because of the success of volatility and low correlation to the stock market. i think a lot of these stories we focus on are small stories in the bigger market story. to me, the bigger market story is we're going to have maybe the greatest growth year in the united states and around the globe in decades, perhaps, in terms on the back of massive stimulus and massive savings, massive pent up demands and a palet of relief when everyone gets a shot in the arm later this year. confidence among consumers and small businesses this morning, andrew, and i think investors are still depressed. and it tells me that if you think we're too giddy today and out over our skis, where do you think we'll be on victory over covid day? let's say later this year when the herd is fully vaccinated and there's palatable relief and industries closed are reopening. jobs lost are regained

i think they'll be a lot giddier. >> jim, i want to be as positive as humanly possible, but what do you make of the idea that we don't get to herd immunity and don't get the vaccines out that you look at what's happening in israel right now and there's actually a greater supply than there is a demand. there's efforts now to actually try to push this on people that don't even want to take it >> i think there's high probability that we'll have a substantial portion of our population vaccinated by the end of this year all types of possibilities are always possible. we could have a brand new virus show up tomorrow that we have no vaccine for. this thing would mutate into something that makes our vaccines useless that certainly could happen, but i think it's a low probability i think it's a high probability that by the fall or so we'll have substantial vaccinations. we're already vaccinating a lot of the elderly which means death rates are probably going to be

less and hospitalizations. i think we're already seeing reopenings happening across the country. that means growth is going to be accelerated. >> jim paulson, got to thank you. we have to hand this off to our friends at "squawk on the street." we appreciate it always good to see you make sure everybody joins us tomorrow, "squawk on the street" begins right now good tuesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." stocks are looking to take a breather after six days higher longest streak since august. we're coming off closing highs for all the major arngs including the russell. a road map begins with a pause to the record rally. all three major indices edging lower ahead of the opening after setting fresh highs yesterday. >> plus we're watching the bitcoin surge. fresh highs again. this boosted by tesla's investment and ho