workers plan to look for a new job as the economy reopens it's thursday, april 8th, 2021 "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm alyn b becky quick along wi kernen and andrew ross sorkin. s&p is up slightly this morning, you are looking at the s&p indicated up another 3 points dow has been up for, what is it? three of the last four sessions. dow has been up three mof the last four. nasdaq has been down two in a row. it is up 117 points right now

probably because of what we heard from the fed yesterday let's check out treasury yields. fed talking about how it will continue the easy policy until it hits the economic outcomes it has been searching for the ten-year yield is down 1.653% they may be thinking twice about that this morning. the ten-year at 1.653% the 30-year is higher. 2.4% andrew >> thanks, becks president biden pushing back at the $2 trillion infrastructure plan is spending beyond roads and bridges big america needs to compete in the coming decades >> to automatically say that the only thing this infrastructure is a highway or a bridge or

whatever, that is not rational it really isn't. i think the vast majority of americans think everything from the sewer pipes to the sewer facilities to the water pipes, i think they're infrastructure >> the president acknowledged that compromise will be necessary. >> we'll be listening. we'll be open to good ideas and good-faith negotiations. here is what we are not open to. we are not open to doing nothing. inaction is simply not an option >> senate republicans have called the plan a trojan horse opening the spigots on spending programs unrelated to infrastructure in the meantime, senator manchin is the man in the middle on all of this. especially as it relates to what are you abyou are about to talk

about, joe taxes. >> man on reconciliation they will do it more than once a lot of the things will have to pass that bird bath test about whether it is tax related. that doesn't allow president biden to do as much as he wants to do. there could be more compromise 25%. it looks like it is a done deal. >> 25% on corporate tax. >> did anybody have any doubt? >> no. that's what i thought. >> a week or two ago we were sure that was the deal. >> this has been scaled back you know me. anything to scale back a little. that's good. that's good news in the meantime, the details on the president's plan to raise corporate taxes shows a softening from the version he campaigned on. the issue is 15% minimum tax that is aimed at companies that

record large profits and low tax payments the minimum tax plan would apply to companies with income exceeding $2 billion $2 billion up from $100 million threshold that he kpcampaigned on. that cuts out most of the companies. i don't know it would apply to 40 or 50 companies at that point. the plan would let companies claim tax credits for research and renewable energy and low-income housing as a result, the administration estimates 180 companies would meet the income threshold and 45 would pay the tax. many companies face higher tax bills in the evirest of the tax plan a lot of moving parts. then you have the very close senate 50/50 plus the vice president

and reconciliation and manchin and in arizona if you listen to some of her rhetoric it is something to watch >> i'm prsurprised. >> it is interesting how all of the sausage is being made. >> a lot of companies between $100 million and $2 billion that will not get touched as a result >> i don't want to touch any of them >> when you dosomething like this, it is hard to argue against it all of the arguments that were there before that you hurt small businesses and businesses just getting up 15% minimum tax. it is hard to argue that those 45 companies would not pay a minimum of 15% >> i would rather tax individuals. tax individuals. do what you have to do tax people that work at the corporations the fat cats at the corporations

shareholders we're competing globally more and more every year against china. >> you are okay with higher taxes on individuals >> oh, yeah. if we have to. as opposed to -- if we have do it i think, my default opinion, ain d an andrew, you know money is treated better in the private sector i would rather have the private sector handling things because people have to watch the store and the government you get the $1,400 toilet seats and nobody is accountable >> that's why they're looking to hire more people at the irs. >> that's right. i don't want that job. >>s t that's a scary call. if you get a call that says a policeman is coming to the door. they don't call. they don't do it.

>> those are scams. >> you can do whatever you want. it is invigorating to just say back at them i know you are not who say you are and you will not scare me. what you are doing to elderly people and other people in the country when you call and hear the police are coming because you have not paid the tax bill it scares the crap out of people >> good for you sdp >> i don't know if i should curse. >> are they going to call the cops on you? >> don't fall for it, andrew i know you pay taxes i know it's not you. >> not me. >> all right let's get an update on the closely watched union election at amazon's alabama warehouses the union says 3,200 ballots cast which is about 55% of

eligible voters. the count went last week over private video conference presented by the nlrb. they cannot contest the ballots based on ineligible seignature for a job classification prompts them a vote. the vote is expected as soon as this morning people watching this closely because after years and years for unionization, people wonder if this means more union involvement and more union membership we will see. >> get ready, becky. >> what? >> as soon as the cruise ships open, trapped with 4,000 people

using the same plumbing system cruises are roaring back after the pent-up demand for travel. carnival with a surge of bookings more to consider for your portfolio. right after the break. and former white house chief of staff mick mulvaney weighs in on the biden infrastructure plan and representative yarmuth will be here. "squawk box" is coming back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com.

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♪ be my guest ♪ ♪ you've got nothing ♪ ♪ to lose ♪ ♪ let me take you ♪ ♪ on a sea cruise ♪ ♪ ♪ carnival has seen a record level of bookings in the first quarter. up 90% from the fourth quarter current bookings for 2022 are higher than before the pandemic hit. carnival will rollout six new ships. it could shift home ports if it is unable to comply with cdc prot protocols. if all guests are prompted to

show compliance with the vaccine, it may not comply. and a look at reopening stocks we have the managing partner at douglas sealane. i think one of your first ideas is interesting, serat. how many people have not been to the doctor or neglected surgeries. one of the backlogs for surgeries. tell us about it >> it is, joe. zimmer if you look at the last 12 months, knees and hip replacements surgeries are not that great zimmer has a great balance sheet. a lot of money in r & d. so as we know, a lot of pent up demand for going out and people to actually pay attention to their own selves

this is one we really like great balance sheet. really coming out of what we just had with the pandemic they reorganized the operating structure. you will get a lot of up side with the cash flow go ahead >> i was going to say, i wonder if you get back -- what percentage of the people with ele elective surgery you get a lot of it plus whatever people need starting in 2021 >> exactly you know, as people talk about the pandemic 10 or 20 pounds, they will need surgery or not as active that's going to be an increased demand for them as well. and population is growing. you look at the middle class with more money. that is going to be a great positive tailwind. >> sarat, on march -- cnbc wrote

a piece about medical tech stocks citing a wells fargo report that says that some of the tax increasing included in the infrastructure plan would weigh on medical technology stocks some specific provisions i don't know if it changes with what we were talking about it's not $100 million anymore. it is up to whatever it is we were saying. any concern that regulatory or t tax issues could hurt that group? >> obviously you have a bit of headwind on that i like the company zimmer. you get the replacements and they have innovative products. surgeons want this type of equipment into their patients. i think there is a much better offset and the positive we have demand for greater products.

it will be some type of headwind there. >> like so many things, your next pick, you think about a lot of people that maybe were at home imbibing a little we forgot. restaurant business and bar business has been nil. these companies that sell into that could have a big rebound like the one you will mention. >> absolutely. you are referring to diaggio when you take away the restaurant business and travel business and cruise business these are all high-margin industries they want to spend the money and spend on single malt scotch and te tequila. a combination of those when you have companies like diageo that

will have up side to their earnings. >> american express. amex as people start traveling again and using their cards? what is the rational >> i have a couple of reasons for amex the stock was badly killed last year if you look at amex growth it is the higher-end consumer and small business spending. travel and entertainment is coming back. all of the things that were shutdown for months. you will see consumers and business come back spending with a revenge. this is the stock that has a great balance sheet. amex is known for operating leverage i think as we go into the next 12-to-18 months, we expect to see up side. we expect to see companies and consumers globally spending more money. they will do it in a cashless way. amex is a huge ben effbeneficia.

>> let's talk about not just these three and the whole trade itself the reopening trade. it is jim paulson saying yesterday. the actual earnings could still be higher than forecasting it could surprise instead of 180 on the s&p, we could have $200 on the s&p if you look at current multiples, we're at 30 who is going to win 30 times who will win will the earnings go up enough to validate and bring multiples down to 20 or 22 or that dynamic. how do you see that playing out? are they all that expensive? >> we have to have the earnings grow into the multiple last year was a multiple expanse story. the companies i mentioned today, we feel the earnings are better

than expectations. the future for them is fast to growth on the earnings although they are multiple which reflected that that is where investors have to make the difference. there will be companies that once they caught up to the multiples, they are not expanding for whatever reason. you want companies with operating leverage you want companies to grow and not limited to capacity in terms of what they can producer how much the demanded for the product is i want companies that keep on growing with operating leverage and good balance sheets and actually grow through the next four-to-six quarters when you look at comps a year from now and investors will look quickly there. that's where you want to put your capital the leverage on the companies on the earnings surprise. >> sarat, wow. douglas c. lane.

that is you. managing partner $7.8 billion how do you sleep, sarat? >> $7.4 billion. >> what happened do you sleep okay? >> it's not just me. i have a managing partner with me, ned. we have 33 people. it is a great team i sleep well we're doing the right thing for our clients. >> good answer. >> it wasn't an easy year, joe >> i know that i'm not sleeping well. i'm worried. >> thank you for that. we stuck with the investment phil philosophy hopefully clients are happy with that >> thank you it's good. it won't be long sdp >> thank you, joe. coming up when we return, the housing market seeing a surge in demand. crowding out first-time buyers, but it is all about location,

location, location diana o lick has the latest afte the break. and look at gainers with the nasdaq 100 this morning. nvidia on the list as well as jd.com and okta. and so many others stay with us we're back in a moment >> announcer: picks are sponsored by wisdomtree. the lending pioneer. this is how you become the best! [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells]

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in today's historically competitive housing markets, some cities are better than others for home buyers

diana olick has more >> reporter: andrew, it is less than one-third majority of millennials and many are sidelined by high prices the pandemic has created flexibility where people can live and work which benefits the same first-time buyers where are the best bets? four of the top ten best markets for first-time buyers are in the midwest. bloomington, illinois. iowa city. eau claire, wisconsin. all have homes below $370,000. kalamazoo is the lowest. rea realtor.com looked at prices the share of millennials and

number of homes for sale and job opportunities and distance to work and amenities like bars and restaurants which we are all getting back to, andrew. >> diana, where are the best places to rent if you can't buy? are they different >> you have to move south. out of the midwest states like georgia, alabama, south carolina really you want to get into the smaller-to-mid sized cities. they are seeing a boom areas like nashville, tennessee. really seeing an influx of young people because it is easier for them to work in different places and the more popular they get, the more expensive they will get. for now, if you want to rent, especially high-end luxury apartments, you get the best bang for your buck in the south. >> first-time buyers care about taxes? >> reporter: everybody cares about taxes. you get tax deductions you are looking at very low

mortgage rates if you are looking at certain states like new york, we know about salt taxes for most, taxes are taxes wherever you go. it is really that home buyer tax deduction and in many cases, it is cheaper to own than rent. >> okay. diana, great to see you. maybe i have to move to the south. sounds like i have to rent in the south. what do you think? "squawk" from the south? >> nice for a tour. >> with the new remote idea with the idea you can't tell where anyone is. i know they are not where they say they are i can tell. >> they don't lie. i don't think you are -- you can't say i'm sitting here at the nasdaq right? >> it's a thought.

when we come back this morning -- what, joe >> it is a thought we need to give it thought >> georgia yeah new rumbling of a jolt to the labor market survey data shows more than 25% of u.s. workers may look for new jobs as the economy reopens. that would be a massive shift. it is one that is keeping employers up late. we'll dig into that trend next right now, as we head to break, let's look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers ♪ get a check on friday ♪ ♪ it's already spent ♪ ♪ working for a living ♪ ♪ working for a living ♪ ♪ working for a living ♪ >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business our people and network will help keep you connected let's take care of business. . okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene

and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need. that's a very good question. will there be an ev for me? what about me? an ev for me? what about me? can i get one too? an ev for this princess? what's an ev? and there better be one for me. and what about michelle from michigan? me? what about me? us? will there be an ev for me? me? me? me? ♪♪

good morning welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc checking futures right now showing you where things stand three hours before the markets are set to open. as we flip the board, the dow is

looking like it will open 16 points higher. nasdaq is opening up 130 points higher s&p is opening 13 points higher. becky. thank you, andrew. the reopening may bring with it new opportunities for workers. a new survey that shows a quarter of all workers plan to look for a job at a different company once the pandemic sub sides. that is an incredible turn in the labor market from a year ago. joining us to talk about it is the at-work columnist for the journal. it feels we are at a point where p employees who have been asked to doing more, are fed up what are you hearing >> i think a lot of people want a job for the first time in a year

the report said over 40% of people want to leave their jobs this year. a lot of it has to do with the level of burnout as the job description expanded during the pandemic it is not just frontline workers, teachers and all kinds of white collar workers. one study said the day became 8% longer within a span of a month or two the only way to fix that state of affairs is to jump ship all together >> do employers realize this or understand this? i'm sure a lot of them think, we have done what we could for employees, especially white collar employees whom we let stay home for last year. we took care of them during the pandemic would they be surprised? >> i think employers are getting nervous for the first time it was an employers' market for

the last year. if anyone got a job offer last year, they were lucky to get it and little room to push back now they are getting jittering because of the turn in the workplace. the pandemic shows how important pen benefits are for health insurance and flexibility for taking care of family or remote work i think the parallel trend as people are jumping ship and interviewing other places -- they will be forced to allow more flexibility if they want to keep workers >> when you start talking about numbers like 25% of employees thinking they will leave or 40% of employees like microsoft survey you cited is that realistic? do people follow through with things like that it is difficult to think of 25% or more of the work force

turning over these are people going to other companies. you are talking about every company dealing with something like that. is that realistic to assume? what is a normal turnover rate >> these are coming at a moment in time when things are hitting workers. there is a sense of changing jobs don't think all of the jobs created last march, roughly 1 million jobs they will not all go to people switching jobs it is still a bit of stickiness. young people suffered the most from job losses during the pandemic they will be filling a lot of the vacancy. youth unemployment is higher than average for people aged 20 to 24 is 10% hiring has rebounded a lot they will not all go to job switchers. i think millennials and

gg ggen zers will take it as well. >> thank you for pspeaking with us >> thank you >> take care where's joe? coming up, some customers were double charged the price of the new tesla. we will tell you how long it took to get a refund next. and later, don't miss senator ben cardin for his take on president biden's infrastructure plan and how it will be paid for we may drag that -- where in the world is joe it's available now "squawk box" is coming right back >> announcer: currency check is sponsored by interactive brokers. the professional's gateway to

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♪ welcome back u.s. equity futures at this hour -- i can be anywhere. u.s. equity futures at this hour back at the capitol are indicated up 17 points andrew, you have four or five things you can switch, don't you? remember when you had a chair

behind you for the chair segment? >> absolutely. we can set that up >> i don't think you have the ability to do what i can do here i literally could be on mars ♪ anything you can do ♪ ♪ i can do better ♪ >> the big feature today is the nasdaq as we pointed out flat elsewhere the dow and s&p. s&p slowly and steadily. stayed above 4,000 actually added to those gains. andrew, this is your read. they've got it now >> give you an update on the story we told you about last week cnbc learned that tesla refunded customers who were charged twice for new vehicle purchases. six customers in california and north carolina who spoke and shared records with cnbc found refunds took about a week to come through after they initially complained to tesla.

refunds were reimbursement for overdraft fees resulting from the extra charges and the $200 credit to the company's online store. becky. thanks, andrew another setback for the astrazeneca vaccine. the uk advisory body says the jab should not be given to people underaged 30. over concerns that it causes potentially deadly blood clots in rare instances. the eu health agency said it found possible links with the astrazeneca vaccine and rare blood clots. a number of eu countries, france, germany and italy, resumed astrazeneca vaccines after postponing them last month. canada has urged people under the age of 55 not to get the shot guys, this has been probably the

most damaging series of events that we have seen with the vaccines to date this push to get covid shots out there and dealing with the back drop originally when it was first reported a month ago, people are saying this is politics getting in the way these are the medical advisory boards said yes, the link is something that is potentially real it's pretty scary and damning. >> if you are over 60, it is worth it. >> risk of covid is greater. >> if you are under 30, why? if it is an infantesimile risk the chances of you having a really serious adverse effect with the virus is less than the chance you should take with that -- >> the astrazeneca vaccine has

been besieged by so many problems this is the one, the only one we heard about, with the links to blood clots like this. this is the one the globe was relying on and hoping they would use to rollout in lots of countries because it doesn't have the issues that other vaccines have in terms of cold storage and things along those lines. lots of countries lined up waiting for this it also happens to be the big issue in the eu. not in the uk. they have done a good job of vaccination nots in the uk. france shutting down germany talking about shutting down and getting pushback from that this is the news we heard again with astrazeneca has been concerning this is one more case. stock up 3.4% this morning we should say in the united states, the cdc says that nearly 25% of adults in this country are fully vaccinated at this

point. more than 42% of adults and 76% of seniors received at least one dose of the two-dose regimen 110 million people here who have at least one dose. 64 million have been fully vaccinated a new warning from the cdc's director walensky. h hospitals are seeing younger adults in the 30s and 40s admitted with the severe case of covid. she says this comes as more places in the u.s. are reporting these variants some are more transmittable. dr. walensky urged people to take precautions after they get vaccinated andrew. coming up, in the annual letter, jamie dimon will discuss

that next. >> announcer: subscribe to our podcast. you get interviews and behind the scene ceacss look for it and subscribe to "squawk box" today i really hope that this vaccine can get me one step closer to him. to a huge wedding. to give high fives to our patients. to hug my students. with every vaccine, cvs is working to bring you one step closer to a better tomorrow.

welcome back to "squawk. the big banks are facing issues from fintech leaders like square, paypal and visa out performed jpmorgan chase and goldman sachs and city over the last three years. joining us now is the senior market strategist at riverfront investment and business leader at axios

it was a fascinating letter to read and see him call out the fintech and regulatory regime which he believes allows them to thrive in a way he hasn't. what do you think of that, reel reb rebecca? >> thank you

do you think there is real risk embedded that's not being couldn'ted for today, now reliance of consumers and small

businesses on these platforms. i think that that is going to be something that we'll determine over the years to come. >> dan, you look at financial, you look at some of these big businesses, do you think there's ever a possibility that they become so big that they end up buying a bank or is the regulatory regime of the banking system unto itself so unattractive that you would never do that? >> i think it's probably the latter i don't see them wanting -- not that they would be able to afford jpmorgan, i don't think they would want the headache of it most of the fintechs are not completely unregulated, they are still financial services companies, but the thing this shows is we're 10 years plus dodd-frank so many businesses we're talking about didn't exist at all at that time or were just starting out. the current financial regulatory

framework is antiquated. when jamie says that, that's true. >> rebecca, if you're dan shulman running paypal, does a letter like jamie dimon's scare the heck out of you because of regulation in this space. >> as slow as any government body moves, it wouldn't scare him in the near term it would be comforting to know that the status of disruptor is a good one and is growing. i don't know that i would be as concerned about it as pleased with the success. >> dan, the other thing that struck me about the letter was the inclusion of apple and walmart in his kcompetitor set >> he's right. >> he talks about walmart being a competitor set to silicon valley and he's -- >> he's right and he's right he's absolutely right. when you think of walmart, when you think of apple, you can use your iphone to pay for things

not by connecting it to a credit card or to a bank by connecting it via apple's own financial services take a company, not in the u.s., like grab. it's an uber of singapore. its financial services piece is bigger than the ride hail piece. tech companies have figured out how to move quickly into finntech and jamie's kind of acknowledging that. >> let me go to this decentralized banking. what they call defi in the business, do you think that's the future. >> i'm not sold it's the future. i think it is part of the future when it comes tobac banking, decentralization is somebody to yell at. >> rebecca, are you buying some of these coins being used in the

defi world >> no, not yet i think that the transaction costs are still going to be a problem if you go to starbucks and buy a 4 buck cup of coffee and have to pay 15 or $20 for that transaction, that's going to be eye opening and perhaps prohibitive in the near term >> we'll leave it there. hopefully we won't be using -- i don't want to spend an extra 15 bucks on my already expensive starbucks coffee in the morning. nice to see both of you. >> you bet. >> not happening i've gotten used to brewing my own so good luck charging me that. when we come back, roads, bridges, and maybe even the kitchen sink we're going to tackle criticism the president's $2 trillion infrastructure plan with mick mulvaney and john yar -- muth.

if you look at the laggards for the week, you're going to see at least on that end of things energy down by 2 1/4 percent materials are also down but the other losers are also all in llyoabt e rkritory tes u outhmaets this week this is "squawk box" and we will be right back. we want both - we want a hybrid. so do banks. that's why they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach helps them personalize experiences with watson ai while helping keep data secure. ♪ ♪ ♪ from banking to manufacturing, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. ♪ ♪ ♪

taxes, treasuries and tech president biden laying out his plan to raise corporate taxes to pay for his $2 trillion infrastructure plan. we'll debate that proposal and talk about what is best for business. are the bond vigilantes ready to pounce. we'll talk markets with noah black steen. peter teal showing bitcoin may be used as a chinese weapon. "squawk box" begins right now.

good morning, welcome back to "squawk box." u.s. equities at this hour the nasdaq looking up. s&p 500 up as well >> antitrust allegations the maker of fortnite. abundant transactions and arguing apple's in app payment system and the control of which apps can be installed as anticompetitive behavior i hope we get to talk more about this story and the case going forward. meantime, 55% voted in the

amazon union bitcoin may be a chinese financial weapon says peter thiel. thiel's a major investor in cryptocurrencies he's urging the government to have tighter controls over the currency he's still pro crypto but raising some serious questions about the role of china behind crypto in its effort to destabilize the dollar and then we're going to talk to anthony pompiano in the 8:00 hour >> it will be interesting to dig in a little deeper to that when peter thiel is saying something like that, people will tend to listen and hear him out. in the meantime, there are duelling forecasts about the economic impact of president biden's infrastructure plan and the key differences that lead some to predict it will grow the economy and others that it won't. steve liesman is here.

steve, good to see you this morning. >> yeah, becky head spinning on all of this big questions. many debated for hundreds of years are now in play when it comes to gauging the economic impact of the biden infrastructure plan. how would the plan impact growth take a look here moody's sees by 2030 the level of gdp 3.3% higher pen wharton says it will be down 0.9% millions more jobs and higher wages as well as higher productivity the penn wharton model show a decline in growth and fewer models the effect of higher corporate taxes and the impact of government investment on the economy. there's the issue of the return on government investment he sees the government spending hitting an economy with lots of slack in it.

each adds a lot more to gdp. penn wharton thinks we'll be closer to capacity there's a big issue of crowding out. pen charlton sees borrowing and higher corporate taxes what is infrastructure that's another question. penn charlton counts 1/5 of the bill as social transfer. they don't give it any return at all. that leads to even bigger questions about how do you value social goods like reducing carbon goods, avoiding texas style shutdowns. the models may not fully capture those benefits if you value them both sides do agree. government has under invested in the economy. some investments only government can make there are big gaps in estimating the impact of this package of spending and of course importantly, becky, how it's paid for >> i think both camps probably

made some valid points about the impact of spending but also, you know, the -- how you pay for that, the cost that comes along with it. is it fair to say you just mix these two models up and round it out and that's the answer? or are there other ways that people say you should go about doing this >> you could do worse than that, becky. you know, it's funny i got to ask the cvo and treasury official that runs that is there a way to design this that has a positive gdp, he said if you have a value-added tax. that's one way he sees as more neutral to the economy there is a big issue, janet yellen writing an op ed in the wall street journal suggesting there has not been much impact from the tax cuts of 2017. steve forbes the day before wrote there's been a huge impact you can start there by saying what is the impact of figuring out the increase or the change

in corporate taxes, both what happened before and what would happen in the future how you pay for it is a big part of what makes a negative in the penn charlton model but also the value you put together. >> this is what happened and why without all sorts of outside factors that play into any example that you try and look back at. in terms of the vat tax that the penn wharton people said, if it was a vat tax, it would be better that way? >> yeah. right. right. what they see is they see large crowding out effects they see the idea that the government is going to come in there's deficit aspects to this, spending aspects and it would crowd out private investment that has a higher return than government investment. that is sort of a nonsequitur in the following sense. you may crowd out private

investment but some of these investments the private sector can't do the building of roads. some of these big infrastructure plays. so it's not like you're replacing one with the other, you're adding one. there's another argument that tacks on to this which is the government infrastructure creates private additional investment and adds to the private return i went back, becky these have been debated going back you can see debates in england in the 19th century of what it means to increase government spending one more thing, i know we have to go. there's the idea you have to increase the government share of the economy with all of the government's inefficiencies. that's another aspect that would tend to reduce gdp >> right right. lots to think about. steve, thank you i love that you get us thinking and talking about all these ideas. thank you. good to see you this morning. >> thanks.

we have come a long way since remember the early 20th century. i think government was, liesman's still here, 7% or something. hopefully we don't get to above 50, 60, 70, something like that. coming up, president biden says he's open to negotiating on a corporate tax hike and what that rate should be. we'll talk about that number and the economic impact after the break. before we do go to the break here are the futures right now the nasdaq continues strong. dow is bouncing around flat line and the s&p still moving higher wel rhtup3. 'lbeig back. ut the future. but thinking about the future, is human nature. at edward jones, our 19,000 financial advisors create personalized investment strategies to help you get back to your future. edward jones.

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after facing criticism over their $2 trillion infrastructure plan, the biden administration has put out a full-court press to justify the need to raise taxes, corporate taxes and other areas. joining us now to debate the president's proposal is mick mulvaney he served in the trump administration as omb director and white house chief of staff and is the founder of exi gis capital and john yarmutalh.

i can still call mick congressman. you know john and you've worked with him one of your first questions, i'll let you ask him, you said john is a good and reasonable guy and does he agree that everything that's going to be covered should be done with reconciliation what does that mean to the bipartisanship that you two gentlemen enjoyed when you worked together? so you want to ask him that, mick, or -- are you disappointed >> more importantly than working with john, he's also beat me in golf on a regular basis, joe, he's one of the best golfers and a great player yeah, my question to you and is the same to john senator kristen gillibrand said housing is infrastructure, child care is infrastructure, rainbows and unicorns are infrastructure. my question is, is that really true are we talking about roads and bridges?

this that conversation what that means or is everything the democrats want to be infrastructure is infrastructure because that's how you get it passed >> no, it's great to be on with mick when i was offered this opportunity i jumped at it because first of all i haven't talked with mick in a while. i miss you, mick i think what -- the perspective the biden administration has and which i agree is that infrastructure is whatever supports the economy and supports the ability of the american people to sustain a good standard of living and we've seen during the pandemic how important k45child care is caring for parents we have 10,000 americans a day turning 65

we are an aging country. we have to deal with this basic infrastructure for supporting our senior citizens. absolutely. >> my response, joe, using that definition, social security is infrastructure medicare is infrastructure because they are necessary parts of making the economy sort of stable so i'm disappointed that that's the conversation just because i think part of the difficulty we have in washington, d.c., we use different language for different things if one person says infrastructure these days it means one thing. if another says something else it means something different i think that may be one of the reasons we're struggling with the bipartisanship if the democrats are going to use reconciliation again and maybe again and be again, i think that's the best evidence that there's no bipartisan support for this bill because of what john just mentioned, because we don't have a basic understanding of what infrastructure is. >> mick makes a reasonable

point. where i would differ with him is that we have not gotten any input from republicans and if the republican position is the only thing that counts as infrastructure are roads and bridges, then we're not only doing our constituents a disservice, we're doing our future constituents a disservice anybody that doesn't think that schools, that broadband, that electric charging stations are not infrastructure of the future, then i think you're missing the point. what we've seen is republicans, particularly in the senate, and so i excuse you, mick, but republicans in the senate have really never had an idea or been interested in governing in any way. mick sat on 400 bills, many of them bipartisan in the last congress, just because he could and just because he didn't want to give democrats any victories.

if your frame of reference in the congress, mick would agree with me this has been true on both sides for a long time, if your only frame of reference is electoral and not governing, that's where we've been. >> congressman yarmuth, this hadn't occurred to me but i watch the dynamic and the power that joe manchin has right now from west virginia, and someone made an interesting point. are the other 49 democrats in the senate just sheep that just no matter what you pull the forward -- why does he have so much power that he's not -- you know, he's the one that might differ on one slight thing how do you ever expect to get one republican to move if you are so solidly going to go with whatever speaker pelosi, chuck schumer and the president want how can you expect republicans to want be to come and negotiate

when you only have one guy that would raise the possibility of not going along with the whole thing? >> yeah, well, the senate is a strange body it's basically -- it was a minority veto situation before joe manchin became the pivotal vote he's not kyrstin sinema has some problems with some of the proposal. there is no bill yet all we've seen is information from the biden administration. when i was briefed by the white house they said we're looking for your ideas i asked them, for instance, if any of this plan was intended to leverage private capital in any way and they said, oh, yeah. we think that should be a part of it. that's not in any of the material that's come out so there's a real opportunity here it's everybody's choice to do a ton of bipartisan basis. there's every opportunity for republicans to have input into this legislation and take it out

of the hands of joe manchin which i wish republicans would. >> mick, it's going to reconciliation do you see any hope? do you believe -- has president biden given any evidence that he's interested in working with republicans, mick? >> in fairness, i don't think so if left to his own devices joe biden would be the type of person that would be doing that. his party with all due respect is probably not allowing him to do that. a good friends of john and mine's -- both parties have these internal divisions you just hear about it more in my party than in john's but what do we know about senator manchin? what do we know about senator smith -- excuse me, the ore gentleman from arizona they rely on republican voters to keep their jobs

kyrstin gillibrand does not. that's why you're seeing that. it's not just joe manchin. listen, i think -- john and i have said this several times, leave it to the two of us, we could come up with a bipartisan infrastructure plan, when you throw this into the mix that is washington, d.c., it just becomes more and more kift we could agree that electric power po j power stations are infrastructure and maybe some sort of education. when you move into social welfare programs, that could be some democrats have offered $650 billion, what we'll call traditional infrastructure, that could be the basis for a bipartisan bill. when you have $600 million for elderly care, $400 million for affordable housing, that's where you start to see the two parties div diverge. it takes the president to bring them back together

i don't think joe biden has the political capitol in his party to do that. >> i know the president wants to go big, but there has been some -- we want to pay for everything so there has been some concern that trying to raise taxes at a time when we're coming out of the pandemic, maybe we're coming out, maybe things are going to be great, but we are fragile right now if you could limit everything that you're doing to just what everyone agrees on, just this key infrastructure, maybe not do everything, not the whole new green deal, not try to pay with taxes in an economy that might not be able to withstand it right now, why not slim it down and do what's necessary and not just break the bank and raise taxes on business and everything else >> well, you want me to negotiate for the administration on your program which i'm not going to do. again, the president said he's

going to invite republicans to the white house to talk about this he said he's willing to compromise he said compromise is ine inevitable i think you will end up with something different. that's fine. but to basically limit your ambitions at the beginning and start playing on their 20 yard line is not where everybody should be in this dynamic. >> okay. >> so i'm all for talking about ideas, what can get done again, as it was with the american rescue plan, we certainly have our first choice as bipartisanship but when in that particular case we felt $2 trillion was the right level and republicans offered 600 billion, then there are negotiations. after we passed majority was going to reveal and replace obamacare.

going across state lines so there's really nothing to negotiate. i hope they come up with an idea maybe $600 million conventional infrastructure. let's talk about it. let's see what we should do. that would be a perfectly reasonable discussion. >> mick, what is it? his short game i mean, the short game goes, congressman yarmuth? do your small nerves still work as much as they did 30 years ago? you don't get yippy? you get yippy around green at all? >> a little bit on the chip shots. >> i'm clawing chips i'm trying right-handed. i've almost given up i think i need a psychiatrist,

not a lesson, probably. >> there are folks that would agree with you on that, joe. >> what's that, mick someone was talking to me. what was that? >> there are folks that would agree with you on that. >> on the psychiatrist thanks gentlemen, thank you it wasn't a total love fest but maybe you could get together and do something call some people call some people tell them to -- >> we'll do that. >> -- play nice. beck take care. >> thanks, joe a few stocks in the news this morning. twitter held talks in recent months to buy audio based clubhouse for $4 billion according to a bloomberg report. those talks stalled for an unknown reason twitter shares up by 1.2% this morning but interesting, there's been so much buzz around clubhouse. apple is delaying some production of macbooks and ipads. according to japan's nikkei news

service. that shortage has not impacted product availability for consumers. apple stock, as you know, down 4% year to date. still this morning, up by a dollar that's a gain of .8 of a percent. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question. in what year did google launch its gaming platform stadia the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues cted bill from her back surgery. aflac! let's see that one more time. ♪ ♪ (bleep) (wincing) oooh, right in the wallet! ouch! aflac! aflac would have paid jill cash directly to help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. hold on, i think she's trying to give us a side-eye... because she can't turn her head! (laugh) get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. get to know us at aflac.com

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now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. in what year did google launch its gaming platform stadia the answer, 2019 welcome back to "squawk. news out from gamestop shares rising after the company announced a slate of board candidates for the 2021 stockholder meeting. notably the board intends to elect ryan cohen as the founder of chewy he's going to oversee transformation why the stock is up on this news i don't know because if this wasn't obvious to people, i don't know what would be

this -- i think this was what everybody expected was going to happen in fact, some people probably thought he was going to become the ceo of the company, which he is not we're going to talk a lot more about this and so much more when we come back. still to come on "squawk box," interest rates are rising to pre-pandemic levels so are more pawn vigilantes returning to the market? that is the question we'll talk with dynamic funds noah blackstein's ceo. learning how to be successful personally and professionally and leveraging the financial education available is part of what makes it so strong the financial industry has done its part to provide a lot of educational opportunities. we are excited to see people get

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welcome back to "squawk box. i'm dominic chu with your market minute one of the big themes over the course of the last several months is the under performance of megacap technology stocks in the recent at least couple of weeks you've seen an uptick for some of the big megacap names. check out the first trust dow jones internet ticker. it has a lot of big type names we are seeing a tick up higher in the last few days watch those. a lot of big cap tech names were up in nasdaq trading despite the nasdaq closing down yesterday. also watch the transportation stocks it's been a big theme for the reopening trade post covid-19. airlines and a lot of those transportation type companies will be helping to lead the way. now the ishares dow jones transports is off. look at the trend over the year to date period the dow jones transportation index is now on pace for its tenth straight week of gains that's the longest weekly winning streak since 1989.

also watch another key part of the market we've talked about the chip shortage out there semiconductor stocks are all decently higher in the pre-market trade so far and by the way, becky, the etf that attracts these, smh is now 2% away from the record highs a nice move higher and change in sentiment for the computer chip stocks we'll watch those in the premarket. i'll send things back to you. >> dom, i want to go back to the transports so many are trading well above where they were even before the pandemic hit is that the case with the transports too if you look back longer term? >> yes, longer term. you are seeing that. this is the ishares going back 5 years. 88%. i would credit our producers with being crick on this one here >> wow. >> just to put a point on this,

becky, the single best performing stock on a year-to-date basis for this particular etf that's in it is, believe it or not, not an airline. five of the top six are. the single best stock -- >> fed ex. >> no, it's avis budget rent-a-car >> oh, my goodness. >> if people are going to travel again and they go to places like avis budget and rent a car, that's one of the big trades to watch geagain. >> show me that one too because that worries me when you say that's the best performing stock. >> yes, it is off a low base. >> well outperform -- you start wondering from a low base and are people thinking it's a much better company than they did before the pandemic hit. yeah, look at that. >> three years, up 56% >> that's a big jump i get the idea you think it's coming back, it's there, but i don't understand when you start saying these stocks are twice as valuable as they were before the

pandemic that's when you start wondering what's going on, how people are valuing these things and are we in bubble territory? >> there are investors wondering whether or not the reopening trade -- the travel, leisure, energy has gone up too far too fast and it's the reason why perhaps there is a bit of a pause in the market right now. we've been speaking about the broadening of the market, reopening trade is helping bring up smaller companies in the s&p up to performance as well. it might just be a situation where if it goes back to the way it was, maybe it does become those megacap technology stocks that drives up the against again and maybe not the avis budget groups some are seeing tremendous groups almost parabolic over the last several months. >> i knew you could run with any question there thank you. great to see you >> like wise. when we come back, noah blackstein of dynamic funds.

be sure to check out cnbc's new tech focus program it's called tech check the premiere is monday, 8 a.m. eastern time "squawk box" will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪

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the fear of inflation has investors worried about bond vigilantes noah blackstein is here. let's back this up a little bit. we care about these bond rates because when we did see the yields -- not the rates, but when we did see the yields start to pick up recently and get outside of that trading range we've been watching, it puts extreme pressure on the growth stocks on the technology names they were selling off. we've gotten away from that. people have been listening to the fed. they think the federal reserve is not going to move any time soon we're looking at the 10-year at 1.64%. that has marked calmed at this point. you worry that this might not be all in the fed's control, right? >> well, to a certain extent i

think we're talking about bond vigilantes rates have now moved back to where they were prepandemic. i think in 2018 the 10-year was around 3.2, 3.4. before this pandemic we're right around where rates should be now. i think the u.s. bond market is probably the most free market in terms of determining the -- what bond vigilantes think as opposed to, for example, greek yields trading 100 basis points on the 10-year below u.s. yields which makes very little sense on a credit basis anyway, i think what the market is telling you right now is they're looking and bleefk the fed's message that near term perhaps there's an inflation risk longer term there isn't really you've seen that a little bit in terms of the flattening of the curve, 5s versus 10s bond vigilantes are out there every day. bond investors are out there every day.

i think that they're starting to -- rates have settled in here now we have to see what the impact of a stimulus is, what infrastructure means, what higher taxes means we've come past peak policy in terms of fiscal stimulus is probably from here on outgoing to be a drag if the fed starts tightening into the with drdrawal of fiscal stimulus, it could become a bigger problem i rarely agree with federal reserve, but i do think their cautious approach is the right approach as we're moving through 2021 and into 2022 i think the market's probably over estimating the first rate hikes. >> noah, the bond vigilantes may be out there every day, but we don't talk about them and we haven't talked about them for years because they haven't mattered the fed has been the 800 pound gorilla. it's not just talk coming from

them, it's also action until the fed starts to taper, i have a hard time thinking any bond buyer, any investor is going to be able to sway things until the fed allows them to do it >> well, but there ear not doing yield control in the you united st states the fed's buying is fairly targeted in terms of what they're doing overall. i do think the curve, it's note perfect, the u.s. curve is fairly reflective of expectations i think it's a good indicator. >> in terms of what that means though, play that out. if you have concerns about this longer term, first of all, what is longer term second of all, what does that mean for equities? >> well, you know, listen, i'm an equity person overall unfortunately in the last number of years so many plaque crow investors have worked from trading the bond and we use the slower yield curve as a time to

rotate we've seen that from august. we had a 90% move upward in 10-year yields in the first quarter and that became even more pronounced. if you're an equity investor today, if you believe in a stronger economy and you believe in the reopening trade and the economy getting better, which i certainly do, it's very hard to look at a whole bunch of these reopening beneficiaries who are now at or beyond the 2019 peaks and make an argument that these are good investments from here some of the stock prices might not be back to where they were in '19 but the enterprise values or the market caps given the amount of shares issued certainly are. you were talking about this earlier with dominic technology positioning is down the biggest withdrawal of exposures in 15 years in the first quarter. i think from here for you to justify owning some of these more, you talked about avis earlier, we don't have a position in.

some of the other names, a lot of those stocks are well beyond where they were 2019 while there might be pent-up demand, earnings weren't expected to recover from 2022, 2023 i would much rather own secular growth companies rather than betting on pent-up demand or interesting thesis about the roaring '20s coming back those are reflected in a lot of those stocks' valuations. >> what names do you like? what sectors specifically what stocks >> look, i think the secular growth areas are continuing. the digital growth has not already occurred there's digital transformation of enterprise whether that's a movement to cloud, all processes from a bit to have the digital

transformation i think the way we do a whole lot of things, the ecommerce sales occurred, a lot of the secular trends where the stocks have gone sideways for 7 or 8 or 9 months as people have gotten all excited about cruise ships, car rentals, other things like that, i think they now represent relative to their growth a very interesting opportunity. i think a lot of the other stocks which are well above where it was in '19 with no hope of returning to '19 earnings for another 2 or 3 years from my perspective is a little bit more tricky from here, that's for sure >> yeah, that makes sense. noah, we talked a lot about the infrastructure bill and what it's going to mean as an investor, do you weigh it and think there's a lot of money that floods into certain sectors or companies, or do you think, uh-oh, businesses are going to get hit with higher taxes? >> i worry about taxes

that's obviously a negative. i look at global tax rates regardless of what the treasury sector is reporting. it's very difficult for me to see that happening i'm not sure why a whole bunch of countries would sign up for that so i think higher taxes in this infrastructure bill, i get to see a major infrastructure bill be a great stimulant providing incentives to individuals or to corporations to invest is a much more powerful method of stimulating the economy. we certainly saw that with stimulus checks. we can certainly see that with corporations plus, who knows what comes out of all of this in terms of congress and reconciliation. betting on that is probably not an appropriate thing to do

it may be there, it may not be there. probably not a big catalyst for the year >> always great to check in with you. thanks for your time though. >> thanks, becky >> andrew? coming up when we return, tech investor palantir is here as we look at the winners and losers we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing.

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welcome back to "squawk box. a live look at the capitol abc founding partner and palantir co-founder, joe lonsdale i want to start with corporate taxes. let's leave time for so many headlines because i want your perspective on all of them but on this corporate tax issue, i know you moved to austin, potentially for taxes. at least as an issue how much do you think the startup vc community cares per se about taxes when startups, i think for the most part are just trying to

make it work >> good morning, andrew. kwa, you know, if you want to make fun of us in the tech world, you could say there's not too many of us that are profitable in paying corporate taxes for 99% of what we do. that said, it's obviously a really important economic issue for the country and it is an issue where they succeed if you want to keep them long term. it's pretty clear it's not the most efficient tax i wouldn't want to see it raised too much >> so you think it's going to change where they base themselves >> it's not going to -- it's not going to change them from a startup perspective necessarily right away but it is going to change when they get big the decisions they make. when these companies are really hiring a lot of people, that's when they're really big, that's when it matters to the middle class, that's when it matters to the working class. in general, i'd much rather have the companies reinvesting in

deciding how to reinvest there's a good incentive with amazon to spend every dollar you make to grow in general you don't want the companies to have incentive to leave the country. >> related, what do you make of a minimum tax over $2 billion? it spares most countries. >> that scares me. it's powerful. the incentive is to reinvest in hiring as many as you can. the best entrepreneurs in our countries are the entrepreneurs like jeff bezos who built great things and are giving us cash flow and forced to do something, to create aws for our country, to create everything else he created on top of it the minimum tax hurts that says, no, you're no longer incentivized to reinvest everything and i think it's a mistake.

>> you've lived in the fintech world. i'm curious what you think of jamie dimon's call saying the fintech guys have succeeded in part because they're not regulated and maybe they should be >> you know, he's right that there's a lot of things the big banks should be doing, they haven't been doing and it's harder for them do because, a, they're regulated differently. b, because a lot of times they're bigger and less nimble there's a huge number of fintech companies we've started. we started something with my friend that's giving tons of credit to contractors and builders much more efficiently and it helps them give credit to their consumers. it's much easier being an unregulated entity there's a whole set of fintech that starts with the banks and we empower them. they're giant cities with things going in and out and coming out.

on the other hand, we can do things they can't do as well i can see how that would be frustrating for them. >> while we're on the issue of fintech and money, your pal peter thiel had interesting comments, i don't know if you caught them, about bitcoin he's been a crypto bull. he's making the argument of china trying to stand it up to destabilize the dollar and the government should be thinking about this perhaps in a different way. >> it is very interesting to see that china is the first mover in the crypto world in terms of their government working with it they definitely could use that in ways that are antagonistic. i'm very like peter, p pro bitcoin. it's a force for freedom it probably would be smart for the u.s. to have its own entry into this. if you look at the next 100, 200 years, in the far future you're going to want your currency to work on the blockchain

i think the companies that are with it first are going to have -- >> do you have to kill bitcoin to make that happen? >> no, i don't think you have to kill bitcoin to make it happen it makes sense for the u.s. to think how it could have its own digital currency to make sure that it's something that the economy does want to use in 10 years, in 20 years if you don't think about it at all, a bunch of old people who don't understand these things, that's the way for the dollar to become irrelevant in 20 or 30 years. there are actions we should be taking to learn it and get involved in it. >> got another one for you because you've been spending time in the health care space. illumina, the fcc challenging this grail transaction claiming it creates a monopoly for this type of testing. what do you think? >> i'm nervous about this, andrew i lost my mom to cancer 12 years ago and i'm not an investor in grail at all this is not about my personal

financial interests in the short term at all but there's a lot of stuff we're doing that's going to cure a lot of diseases. the way the technology works you need to invest in risky new companies that focus on one thing. grail is one of the top things looking at your blood. if my mother had had that available 15 years ago, we would have found it early and she would have met my daughters. this is a big thing. by not letting -- this new theory of stopping vertical mergers, the courts struck it down in 2017 it's bad economics it will hurt other companies in the meantime it's going to kill tens of thousands of americans because illumina is big enough and can distribute this to millions of people it would save a lot of lives they're using economic theory. they want to go after big tech with this theory which is fine i agree big tech needs to be held accountable

let's not kill people in the meantime trying to test the economic theories. >> two other biggies what do you think of twitter making a bid and it didn't go anywhere for clubhouse at $4 billion. are you long-term bull or bear on this clubhouse phenomenon >> there is a lot of haters. it's amazing to see how fast it's growing i don't love the experience of voice chatting back and forth in these little chat rooms. for me it's not exciting when you have something new working that well, rather than attack it, i think we should be amazed at what they've accomplished. >> final one, apple epic epic battle going on i don't know if you saw the lawsuit or response that apple put out overnight. >> this will be a great place for the ftc to get involved. rather than killing people by stopping cancer prevention, let's hold apple accountable, let's hold google accountable. 100% that's what the ftc should be doing rather than killing people and cancer research.

>> hold on hold apple accountable for what in this case you think they're offer charging >> apple has this general platform of interest to our so he side to build on. all of us try to build on it they change the rules arbitrarily all the time i've had things where we've spent tens of millions with contact tracer startups. apple abuses its power it's extremely dangerous this is something the ftc could be doing and yet they're focused on beating up on things that are going to kill people rather than holding big tech companies accountable. >> joe, i want you to come on back this is the conversation we need to have. i want to dig in on this on most issues you are antiregulation for some reason on apple and google -- >> when something gets big enough that a whole society is on it, we need to be careful

that power needs to not be abused. >> okay. we're going to have you back i appreciate you joining us this morning. >> thanks, andrew. appreciate it. coming up, senator ben cardin will give us his take on the infrastructure plan and how that will be paid for. coin base set to go public we'll talk about what it means in the future of cryptocurrencies and hear one of the cases against the currency "squawk box" will be right back.

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goods morning. a nice pop for nasdaq futures. the 10 year ticked lower president biden says he's open to negotiations on his call to raise the corporate tax rate to 28%. more business support for his $2 trillion infrastructure plan, peter thiel says maybe it is we're going to dig into the vc's provocative comments as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now.

the dow is positive but the real action is in the nasdaq up 110 points. up in the low to mid teens something to behold. a lot of people thought that would be tough tostay above on the s&p. there we are it's been up pretty consistently almost every day, the s&p. >> past few sessions. >> the treasuries may be one of the reasons. they're moving higher. a lot of people think we'll be at 2% in 2021. still below 1 3/4. let's get you caught up on stories investors are talking

about. check out shares of gamestop they say board member and chewy co-founder ryan cohen will become chairman of the board after gamestop's annual meeting in june. cohen being tapped to be one of the founders of gamestop twitter held talks in recent months to buy clubhouse for $4 billion. that's according to bloomberg. talks ended up stalling for unknown reasons and are no longer ongoing twitter shares this morning up about by 1.1%. here's something we don't see every day. a new u.s. air line. burbank, california, avelo launching with an emphasis on the underserved markets in the united states. avelo is a first new airline in 15 years the launch comes as leisure travel is picking up the company will serve eugene, oregon and grand junction,

colorado it will start flying at the end of this month. joe, probably a good time to be opportunistic as they pulled back from the smaller regional markets to focus on their core bigger markets opportunity. >> i like that idea. sorkin, you're an aspen guy. grand junction how do you get to aspen? you can't get there from here? i think grand junction would make a little -- there's a couple of places out there that you want to be telluride, crested boutte, it would be easier to go to salt lake city. >> you know that's my move. >> that's my move. so much easier. >> and eugene, oregon, i don't -- you know, i only know one -- >> it's great up there i've been up there, too. too many different flights you've got to take for those of us not departing from teeterboro, it's tough.

>> i only knew one thing about eugene really good marijuana up there i think you can get that everywhere now >> try right outside your window >> really? >> no. i've smelled it out there. >> senator cardin is listening to this going, oh, my god. president biden said he would consider a corporate tax level below 28%. the president also underlining his view that the spending package must be paid for joining us to talk about how and if the president's plan gets done is senator ben cardin, chair of the subcommittee on infrastructure it's part. environment and public works committee. senator, always good to see you. just to start off, we had mick mulvaney on. we talked about what is infrastructure do you really accept this paid leave as infrastructure, child

care as infrastructure, care giving is infrastructure is that the way to approach this in terms of trying to get a bipartisan deal? >> first, it's good to be with you. i'm certainly understanding where we have to be open as to how we're going to pay for this package. we have to make investments in america. the bricks and mortar types of investments are needed and the president's plan includes the transportation infrastructure, the water infrastructure, energy infrastructure, broadband. these are the bricks and mortar. what senator gillibrand is talking about investing in our people both are important i agree with the president, we have to pay for this we have to look for revenues that make sense from the point of view of fairness and also politically to get through the congress of the united states. >> right senator, we know that we're a divided nation there's not a lot of

bipartisanship i think -- i know you were caught on a hot mike basically saying it's going to have to be through reconciliation most likely i think most of us assume that, but when a republican looks at a democrat who say it's the tax and spend democrats. when a democrat looks at republicans, it's obstruct and do nothing republicans who don't want to spend any money, ever raise taxes. but if you throw everything into this bill and just raise taxes to pay for it, and call it infrastructure, do it through reconciliation, why isn't that just falling right into the tax and spend trap every long-term democratic wish list gets put into a $2 trillion bill after we just spent a couple of trillion, why isn't that what we should take away from what's happening? >> i don't think that's the democratic strategy. i can tell you as the chair of a subcommittee that has a strong history of working in a bipartisan way to build america's infrastructure, i plan

to work with my republican colleagues i know senator harper and capito, the ranking new republican, we're going to work together to bring out a bipartisan package yes, we're going to talk to the republicans and see if we can come to aen agreement to pay for it we'll start with transportation and water and hopefully get a bipartisan agreement our strategy is not to throw everything into one bill and do it on a partisan basis our strategy is to get a bold insfra truck tur package enacted in this congress so america can be more competitive. i think we have the strong support of the american people to do that >> when you were -- when you said it will most likely have to use reconciliation, is that just -- you're just realistic, cynical? you want to make it bipartisan people have a hard time

believing there's going to be good faith efforts from the president or democrats to go that route >> in every conversation i've had, privately or publicly, i've stressed the point that we want to work together with republicans and get an infrastructure bill done i'm also realistic to recognize we may have to fall back on part of this being done through rick conciliation we recognize that. if we use reconciliation we hope we can get republican support in reconciliation reconciliation has its limitations. you can't do a lot of policy through the reconciliation process so you're required to work together. it's not just the dollars being put into infrastructure, it's how we do it smart infrastructure that provides safety and transportation, adapts to the weather realities that deal with the new forms of transportation including electric vehicles. all of that needs to be part of

an infrastructure package. a lot of that is only be done through bipartisan support >> senator, let's say you're recovering very quickly and doesn't need a whole lot more extra stimulus then there's other people that point out given what we've been through, 2021 may not be the greatest time to raise taxes on anyone so why not do a $600 billion purely classic infrastructure bill in a bipartisan way instead of going for broke with everything democrats have ever wanted to do and put it in and run it up to $2 trillion. green new deal why put it in there? because you can? >> we're in the early part of the discussion how we're going to move forward, size, et cetera, how we're going to pay

for it one thing is clear america has the strongest economee economy in the world it doesn't measure up to economic strength. when we go and visit other countries and see how their transportation infrastructure is modernized, we recognize we have a lot to do. from the state of maryland, we have bridges that need to be replaced we have highways and we have expansions we are in desperate need of a bold plan to modernize transportation around the country. i think americans understand that they want us to be bold in bringing america's transportation and other infrastructure up to competition. >> it's only a small percentage that goes to -- everybody wants to do what you just said that's why it polls so well, but when you throw in all of the other stuff that we just talked about and senator gillibrand talked about yesterday, that's where people go, it looks like

tax and spend. let's go let's do it. let's get everything we've ever wanted and put it in the bill for 2 trillion because we can and do it through reconciliation >> if we take a look at it, you're talking about having water pipes that don't contain led. >> we could do most of those things for probably 600 billion and not triple that with all the other wish list items. >> when i look at the president's package, to me it includes a sensible investment in infrastructure in this country. let's negotiate. let's see where we can get a bipartisan agreement let's move it as far as we possibly can on the bipartisan tract. we can enact not only the modernization of our infrastructure but also can enact good policies that help americans. we're going to try to do everything we can as far as we can with republicans supporting congress we know we have support among

the american people. we are also going to try to translate that into votes in congress. >> senator cardin, thanks. are you ready for washington, d.c., to be sort of part of maryland that's the solution i hear instead of its own state, are you ready for that can you do that? >> i'm strongly in support of d.c. becoming the 51st state. >> you don't want -- >> they should have their own two united states senators i'd be honored to represent the people of the district they should have their own two united states senators. >> i heard that as a solution but it's not going to happen you're not going to write your bill thanks for your time today, senator. we'll see you. andrew >> okay. coming up, a critical vaccine issue. looking at legal and practical questions raised by asking employees to get jabbed before returning to the office. las vegas bets on the return of conventions we'll bring you a report from the strip just ahead

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welcome back to "squawk. a handful of colleges requiring covid vaccines for students. when it comes to the workplace the issue is, well, merckier meg tirrell joins us with the latest on this story meg? >> reporter: hey, andrew it continues to evolve but we have heard of a lot more colleges and universities saying they're going to require vaccinations for students in the fall than we have heard from employers. only a handful have said they are going to require t. some colleges have said they're going to require it. three employers have said it one a hospital in texas, one in connecticut and a health care firm in california

it requires it for them to come on site but not requiring it if people want to work remotely these are the universities that have decided to do it. there was one university in texas who required it but then after governor abbott issued an order against vaccine passports, they had to retract that governor abbott saying they shouldn't have to show this. don't tread on personal freedoms we checked with that hospital and they said the executive order didn't affect them here's what harvard had to say about it. >> employers i think are a little bit more afraid of backlash in part because of end users who are customers and they're worried about the idea

their customers may have strong opinions about the vaccine mandates >> reporter: guys, it's not so much the legal issues necessarily. two lawyers we spoke with thought it is legal to do even under emergency use authorization. it just doesn't seem popular. >> meg tirrell appreciate it. we'll continue this conversation becky? >> we aare, andrew. joining us to talk about vaccinations and to return to the office is nancy rothbart she's at the university of pennsylvania's wharton school. professor, thank you for being here you're not a health care expert. you're not a legal expert but you are a business expert. you come at this from a different perspective. these are questions employers are dealing with there are even deeper implications what do you think when workplaces ask of their

employees and how far they can dig into this? >> thanks, becky these are great questions. it's a dilemma that employers and employees are facing around whether to ask their employees to get vaccinated, whether to ask them to reveal whether they've been vaccinated. in fact there's a lot of challenges with mandating employees to do anything quite frankly. any boss will tell you it's a lot more about persuasion than telling somebody to do something. trying to really incentive advise people to get vaccinated i think is going to be a much more popular route than mandates in terms of asking employees whether they've been vaccinated, that's also a really tricky question it's one that has to do with people's preferences about what they reveal. people have a lot of varied preferences around it.

some people really like to integrate their work and their family lives to reveal personal information in the workplace, talking to their colleagues around what's happened on the weekend or revealing it on the social media pages other people are much more private about that that general difference among their preferences for revealing personal information in the workplace will play a big role in the comfort with revealing their vaccine status >> professor, this gets to a really tricky issue. there are people who feel very strongly on both sides of the issue, those who think you absolutely have the right to find out if people around you have been vaccinated others say forget it, this is my personal information by choosing this route, aren't people siding with one side of the argument and that's the argument saying, i shouldn't have to tell you anything?

>> so it's a great question. i think there are ways to do this more privately where you may want to take an employee aside and say, look, have you been vaccinated? not doing it in a public way if you haven't, then we need to make alternative arrangements, right? we have the safety of the people around us. so i think if you are going to ask people to reveal what may be very private information, we want to make sure you do it in a way that they feel more comfortable that that information won't be shared broadly. >> one problem with that, this is the problem we've been dealing with through this whole pandemic not knowing what's going on, you can point to schools and workplaces the information you get as somebody whose child is there or somebody sitting in the workplace is vague you may not ever know who may or may not have been exposed. when a workplace says somebody is out, there's covid, you don't

know what you're sending yourself into. if you have people at home at risk, that raises a lot of questions. this is not the same as a seat belt law in this particular case if you haven't gotten a covid vaccine, as somebody sitting next to them, you can be exposed to anybody who brings something into the workplace. >> absolutely. this is a public health issue which is why we're seeing a lot of the legal experts telling us that it may be illegal to go with mandates but i think the issues here around public health and safety can be resolved in different ways vaccines are one solution. other solutions are frequent testing and doing contact tracing and the like and mask wearing. so there are different solutions that can be pursued rather than

necessarily having people mandating a vaccine. >> professor, can i -- i have to say i have a very pointed view about this i 100% disagree. i think it's a disgrace that vaccines are not going to be mandated by businesses businesses have been asking the taxpayer, the u.s. government for trillions of dollars in help over the past year small businesses have been asking for help. individuals have been asking for handouts all sorts of things have been going on there's a huge cost to this health care dilemma that's taking place and the idea that employers shouldn't be requiring after taking money from taxpayers to try to help end this pandemic seems to me to be absolutely ludicrous >> well, i think that is a very -- a very interesting viewpoint and one that i think

others share, however, i think that employers are being very practical and pragmatic regarding this mandate, right? i think most employers are saying they don't want to mandate something because they know mandates don't work as well people have reactions against mandates you have a lot of lack of engagement and people wanting to leave an establishment when they feel people are imposing things on them however. i agree this is a different situation in -- >> but you recognize that the -- hold on, but you recognize that the health care crisis has imposed a huge burden and cost on everybody in this country, right? >> absolutely. >> talk about imposing costs on people >> yes absolutely and i think that i agree that this is a different type of situation in that there is a public safety component to t. the term herd immunity implies

there is a collective cost to this, not just an individual decision that people are making when they are choosing to get vaccinated however, i think employers are reacting when we mandate anything, anything, mandatory training in the workplace, when we do things -- i have a paper called mandatory fun people do not even like having mandated fun imposed on them if they're not feeling that is legitimate in the workplace. they react better to incentives and to encouragement as well as a progressive stance. >> we have mandatory training at our workplace and i will tell you 80% of the people would not do it if it wasn't mandated. you may have better reactions. you may not like it but the only way i'm doing it is if you literally make me do it, literally. >> i agree that is why we have mandated

we have lots of things that are mandated you have a mandatory requirement to prove that you have a w-2 if you are going to get paid. >> right >> there are lots of things that are mandated and -- however -- >> professor, i hate to cut you off. we have data here. this is a great conversation we appreciate your time. we'll have you back again soon thanks for your time, professor. >> get straight over to steve liesman -- to rick santelli standing by at the cme in chicago. rick, the numbers please >> yes once again, we're going a bit in the wrong direction here we're expocketing a number for the second week on initial claims under 700,000 and for the second week we're disappointed 744,000 and this follows 719,000 which may get revised in the next few minutes and i'm continuing claims, a week in

arrears. we are definitely moving a bit higher, but it's still below 4 million which isn't bad. 3,734,000. it's a bit higher than we were expecting. we were looking for a number in the neighborhood of 3.6 million. in the rear-view mirror, lateral slight decrease. at 3.794 million interest rates are hovering in the mid 160s do keep in mind the high yield close for i believe it was the 31st is 174. so we're 10 basis points below that and it seems that those 10 basis points are quite magical because all of a sudden it seems as though the nasdaq doesn't seem very concerned about interest rates i will stick with the same story. the retracements the amount of giveback on long dated treasuries high quality ones has been very minimal. even though we're down 10 basis

points, it's still quite sticky although we're not near the highest levels andrew, back to you. >> thank you we're going to jump over to steve liesman who has some analysis on those numbers. steve? >> reporter: yeah, i wish i had better analysis. i'm frankly confounded by this, andrew this should be going the other way. the high frequency data we've been following has been positive the jones data was pretty good what's happening with the jobless claims is a bit of a puzzle maybe you have people reapplying, those who dropped off or came back it looks like in the prior week, which is the best i can tell you from the data we have, that you have surges in new york and california i don't hear and maybe you guys can add to that that you have renewed shutdowns in those two states we do know we've had surges in the midwest.

we should have reopenings happening here the total number of claims, two weeks now, it did come down. at a time when we reported bigger data showing the job market improving, indeed, this data was improving when you had a reduction down to 1 million people still receiving some benefits this is stubstubborn it has to be watched and understanding what happened here you have better indications of resurgence in the job market it's not showing up in claims and i'm at a bit of a loss. >> are nfts going bust already or just taking a breather? we'll talk about plrices for tokens and coin base gets ready to go public you are watching "squawk box" on

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welcome back to "squawk box. robin hood seeking to boost its bank loans they're holding talks with lenders about adding to its

revolving credit lines the company talking confidentially for an ipo over two weeks ago now. becks? thanks, andrew news out from gamestop in the last hour. the shares are up after the company announced a slate of board candidates for the 2021 stockholder nmeeting. they plan to elect ryan cohen as chair. he's the co-founder of chewy they're overseeing transformation not a huge surprise to see this bigger role for cohen because he's basically been running the company it feels like lately anyway joe? >> he needs -- gamestop needs elon musk on board that's what i would do if i were elon musk i would start passing out my business cards. say available to be on the -- >> loan yourself out to all of these companies. >> to be on the board. we're going to take you live to

las vegas betting on the return of the convention business plus, a pause in the nft boom. peter thiel says bitcoin like a chinese financial weapon against the u.s. dollar. doing a pretty good job defacing the dollar ourselves "squawk box" coming right back ♪ ♪ we know it's going to take many forms of energy to meet the world's needs while creating a cleaner future for all. at chevron, we're lowering the carbon emissions

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the nonfungible token market showing signs of cooling off

prices are down significantly since a peak in february robert frank joins us whether we're seeing a new sector or bubble burst i just figured out what an nft was last week. why did i bother this was the fastest boom and bust i've ever seen if it's busting. >> reporter: if it is busting. falling 70% from the recent highs. it may be an nft craze average nft sales price down from $400 to 1400 between february and the end of march. that's according to nonfungible.com. transaction volume falling by about half from an average of 80,000 a week to just over 40,000 the artist mike winkleman, he sold the $69 million nft at

chr christi's saying it could be a bubble and they could finally and ultimately become an enduring asset class there are two big decliners from february and march crypto punks and topshot they were selling for as much as $7 million back in february but they have since crashed. weekly sales volume of topshot, nba highlight video reached 125 million back in february and then falling by almost 90% to just 15 million by the end of march. putting a brave spin on this saying the values and volume have still tripled since the start of the year. like all things crypto, a lot of volatility and the believers saying this is part of the

growth big questions whether this is an asset class or just a fad. >> right that is the question and it's going to take a little bit of time to figure out the answer but we're going to continue this conversation now, robert thank you for it sticking with digital assets, we have somewhat of a warning about bitcoin from investor and paypal co-founder peter thiel here's him earlier this week sharing his opinion with members of the richard nixon foundation. >> even though i'm a pro crypto, pro bit cohn coin, i'm wondering if it should be thought of as a fina financial chinese weapon joining us to talk bitcoin, is

anthony pompliano. pomp, great to see you this morning. what's your thoughts when you heard peter thiel saying bitcoin represents a national security problem and that it is meant to destabilize the u.s. dollar. >> there's a couple of great pieces it's an attempt to weaken the dollar he's pro crypto. this is an open decentralized protocol everyone has an opportunity to

use it he's not taking a contrary stance other countries are going to destabilize. we need to use the technology here there's a global competition let's get the united states in the game >> if i'm a policy maker, there are a couple of ways to go let's recognize a majority of the new bitcoins that are being mined, that's being mined in champion na. let's put that and stipulate that's the case currently. we can do more for bitcoin if we want to transfer effectively

into this competition or try to get ahead of it in that way. we have to figure out a way to do it and maybe we don't want to shut it down but crowd it out using stable coin or digital dollar those are the three options. >> the united states is taking a unique perspective here. we launched a new mining pool in the united states. we're trying to work to build the infrastructure we're going to give tax incentives to bring miners here. we're going to turn it into a bitcoin mining power we're seeing a revolution when it comes to energy and bitcoin

mining in the united states. we're going continue to see that bitcoin buildout happen. we have senators and congressmen very pro bitcoin they're going to continue to push the pace of innovation and to embrace this stuff. yes, there will be digital currencies every currency will be digitized. a digital dollar will be antibitcoin. so i think what we have to understand, it's an open digital decentralized protocol, it will be adopted by countries around the world and we need to take that leadership position we have a lot of politicians and regulators making sure that happens. >> we had a pretty smart guy on earlier talking about whether a digital u.s. dollar, would that

be a negative or positive? i don't know why to do that? i don't know how both exist. would that be additive for bitcoin if there was an alternative? number two, did you know cryptopunk i've been called a cryptopunk? did you know that was an nft i think kevin o'leary called you a crypto punk. >> he called me -- i think he referred to it as garbage if i remember correctly. >> cryptopunk. >> in the archives in 2018 or 2019 i was on your show and i specifically stated the united states should rush and digitize the dollar. other countries are going to digitize their currency.

it's an accessibility. if they can't get access to u.s. dollars, and digitizing the dollar ends up being a way to continue to keep access of the u.s. dollar on a global scale. what that also does is it very, very quickly ushers in digital wallets. if the dollar is digitized, everybody needs a digital wallet it's not so much either/or, we have to be careful of understanding every single currency will be digitized in the future the competition is not on the technology layer they're going to move to the monetary policy layer. the monetary currency is not requesting to be changed so this belief that digital sound money or bitcoin will accrue value is a valid thesis

>> pomp, final question. we started this or walked into this segment talking about nfts and just how much they've gone up and how much they've come down what's your take on what's happening? i will tell you my 10-year-old sorkin boys, they're trying to do digital drawings that they're posting to sell as nfts, literally they want to make $5 for a drawing. they're political entrepreneurs. but when that's happening, what do you think of what's happening here >> first, very smart kids so congratulations on that. but listen, i think you're seeing just natural volatility of the new technology, right so bitcoin has gone through this every other technology has gone through this boom and bust cycles i think the true entrepreneurs, the true innovators, they look out five or ten years, that technology is here to stay and accrue value people need to be very careful that they don't get caught in the cycles and panic selling just keep a long time horizon

and i think everything will work out. >> always good to see you and get your perspective on all of it we appreciate it very, very much we should also mention, we've got a quick programming reminder for you right now, later today, an all-star panel on the global economy. 12:00 p.m. eastern on cnbc.com and facebook, twitter and youtube pages. jim kramer is standing by. getting ready for his show coming up in a few minutes and jim, we've been debating back and forth today and for a long time at this point about whether or not workplaces should actually require the vaccination. you are no talking head in this game you're a small business owner who has thought an awful lot about this where do you come down on this debate >> well, this is a very complex debate, and i'll tell you one of the reasons why, is i was saying that listen, maybe to get more people in my restaurants, it's about to open, we have to vaccinate people, because the

city is not going to let us have as many people, but the backlash is horrible. and already, the restaurant has just gotten horrible reviews we're not even open. it is just a very complex issue. i was hoping to get some clarity from both the city and from the cdc. in the same way that i'm sure if you're frank del rio who runs norwegian cruise, he has said, listen, we're going to vaccinate the crew, we're going to vaccinate all of the passengers, we're not going to let children on, we will operate at 60%, and change the air filtration and can't get a call back from the cdc so i think a lot of this depends on local regulations and cdc and it should be out of our hands. i don't want to make any decisions that would ever upset anybody. i just want to follow the rules and i think a lot of people just want the rules i'm not going to -- you can continue to give me a half star or one star, i don't know what to do, becky we need from the authorities to speak in one voice we need states to agree with the cdc. we can't have a million

different rules on city, county, because we've had, we wrote a piece this morning, the piece this morning that dom did, about the number of small businesses that are closed, and it's horrendous, but one of the reasons why it close, we don't know what to do. >> and jim, let me say that is indicative of this entire pandemic this pandemic has brought out people who have such strong opinions on both side, the politicians have cowered from making any decisions and punted and said you guys figure this out. >> yes. >> and that has been crazy to watch just every step along the way. kind of a lack of guidance >> yes. >> and you figure it out. >> you know, i just want to do what allows the most people to enjoy our restaurant the city has different rules the state has different rules. i don't know i want to follow whatever rules. i don't want the health department to close my place so i have no idea what we're supposed to do none and by the way, bitcoin, 12,000. i always thank him

a very smart guy >> that's great. >> and we thank you, another very smart guy thanks, we'll see you in a few minutes. when we come back, vegas baby is getting big on the returns of conventions we have more in sin city, contessa, the first time you've been there since the fall of 2019 what are you looking at today? >> it is great to be back. and all these sparkling new convention facilities, just waiting to be filled what's the key to getting the crowds back in here? and what role does en lomusk have coming up on "squawk box."

con tessa.

welcome back, las vegas seeing a recovery from the pandemic but as the leisure business booms, the outlook for conventions isn't quite as clear, at least not yet, and vegas needs them back in a big way. contessa brewer joins us live from sin city this morning, great to see you >> reporter: thanks, andrew. it's simple on the weekends but rather saintly without conventions and meetings to fuel the midweek business on the strip and many bars and restaurants here are still closed down. conventions have an $11 billion economic impact on las vegas

caesar's has this expensive brand new conference facility. just sitting empty since last march. mgm waiting to launch new meeting spaces and the las vegas convention center, unveiling a billion dollar expansion add it up all together, 3 million new square feet. >> we've run out of room to welcome people who wanted to be here so that will return, we're excited about that, and it opens up vegas to a whole new group of meeting planners and trade show organizers. >> reporter: part of the new draw, the convention center loop is opening, this is a first look we have an exclusive sneak peek at elon musk's first commercial project for the company. here it is, the first pictures ever seen from the loop. the attendees will get across the mile-long campus at the convention center in less than two minutes. if it is crowded, normally a

45-minute walk and the plans are in the works to connect all of the convention facilities across the strip. the first big city wide show is confirmed for june the world of concrete will come back then and infection rates and vaccination rates and covid restrictions will determine how much of group business that winn, las vegas sands, mgm, caesar's and others will actually do this year. we'll have an exclusiveview with the creaser's ceo today, tom roog, about the return of conventions and what's in store for the industry, guys. >> contessa, great to see you. great to see you out in the field, back in vegas, on the strip. i saw you on twitter, this is the first time you've been out there in about a year, and it's coming back. >> reporter: feels good. it feels great and the sidewalks are filled with tourists and leisure travelers who have come in, but there's not a lot for them to do

in some of these restaurants still closed down. >> contessa, great to see you. we're coming up on a hard break with "squawk on the street" in just a moment. i'm going to kick it back over to joe. >> we don't need people sitting in traffic in vegas. they need to be at the tables. they need to be at the tables. gambling, gambling, gambling final checks of the markets quickly, we do have the real highlights of the nasdaq make sure to join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" is next good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber futures do indicate a fresh high for the s&p at the open. nasdaq's going to get some help from a 10-year yield below 1.65 as jobless claims once again a stubborn 7 handle the second week above expectations. the road map begins with taxes, infrastructure, and the economic recovery the president says he is open to