good morning the senate inching closer to a deal on infrastructure with the vote set for this morning, but hard fought crypto amendment was blocked yesterday. we'll explain what happened. amc shares jumping company reported a smaller than expected loss and said it would begin accepting bitcoin as payment. fallout from the hirise of h delta variant. we will talk about the vaccine and travel across the country. it is tuesday, august 10th, 2021 "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm melissa lee with andrew ross sorkin joe and becky are taking the day off. we are looking at declines in the s&p 500 as well as the dow

jones industrial average down 21 right now. nasdaq is looking to add 23 at the open treasury yields in focus barclays out with a call the first fed announcement for a taper to be in september the first move to be in november which would be early among the wall street banks. 10-year is 1.319%. boston fed president adding his voice to the growing number of central bankers saying the fed should dial back by the fall speaking with the ap, he said the bank should announce to reduce the $120 billion bond purchasing in september, melissa. going along with, if not maybe, fueling some of the bank notes barclays view. >> barclays and they are moving

up their expectation for december the first move in the second quarter of the following year. this is following all as we await jackson hole that is the place where the fed telegraphed moves or changes in direction. on edge for that for sure. senate negotiations reaching agreement on the senate bill the cryptocurrency amendment was blocked. the new language would narrow the definition of the broker addressing the miners and developers would be subject to tax reporting requirements a required unanimous consent which senator shelby would not give without the addition of $50 billion in additional military spending that is a poison pill which was blocked by sanders it will remain in the bill for a vote set for 11:00 a.m. today. if it passes as expected, the

pill will have to be taken up by the house where changes could be made senator lummis had been pushing for the language she will be fighting another day. she joins us at 8:00 for more on that then there are the apes. the apes, melissa. amc entertainment shares are jumping. they jumped last night the company post ed a second quarter loss revenue beating estimates. the ceo adam aron said the company has challenges ahead, but could post a profit as soon as the fourth quarter if the domestic box office reaches $5.2 billion. by the way, for context, $1.7 billion right now. the company also announcing it will be accepting bitcoin as payment for tickets and increase the variety of the content including sports and pre-taped

concerts separately, amc reached a deal with warner bbros last year, amc reached a deal with comcast for a 17-day exclusive window you were the air, melissa, but during the call, adam is talking about bitcoin. referencing spacs. taking questions about whether he will do a joint venture with gamestop whether they should do merchandising with gorillas on them i don't know where to start. i don't know where to start. >> here is the question for you. if you had to grade adam aron with how he handled his majority shareholder base, retail investors, what grade would that

be >> genius. a plus, plus, plus, plus. >> exactly. >> i'm concerned i hop i'm concerned and i know the apes are concerned i'm concerned that adam aron is taking advantage of you, apes. that's what is happening here. i don't see it any other way >> the advantage or incentives are aligned? if both sides want to see the company succeed and survive, the interests are aligned anyhow is that taking advantage of the shareholder base >> hold on one is the other thing mentioned, i think, the idea he may sell shares in the company >> right. >> they may put together programs to set a schedule to sell shares. let's be honest about how aligned everybody ultimately becomes in all of this you know, maybe they're not

taking advantage maybe this is all aligned in a collective delusion? i'm not sure what version of it you want me to describe here there is something that's more than a little off. he said that for them to reach profit profitability, they have to have box office of $5.2 billion they are at $1.7 billion right now. check your calendar. you tell me whether you think the business -- the business basically has to be less than 60% off for the rest of the year >> 80% of shareholders are retail retail investors in it for the goal of profitability by the end of the year? >> is that their goal? i don't know what their goal is. >> if you talk to any of the apes and so-called i don't want to say leaders of the apes, but the ones making the case for the

ape army, the goal is not in anyone's sights. it has nothing to do with the stock. setting forth the profitability target is almost muoot. it is unthinkable. that doesn't make a difference here in the bold case for this reality. >> what makes a difference nothing? what is it then? what is this >> that's the existential question, andrew what it is is a stock where it is and nobody thought it would still be here. off the highs, obviously, but nobody thought it would be here in the 36 to 40 range for this long no one thought that, did they >> i don't disagree with you you. i recognize the stock is where it is and it has value insofar

as you can sell the stock right now and somebody will send you cash for the value of that stock. i'm wondering what the end game is here. that's the part i have yet to fully appreciate. >> waiting for the mother of all short squeezes mother of all short squeezes moass. >> the short increase. it is the short squeeze thesis becomes harder to execute. >> that is a whole other rabbit hole in the belief of synthetic shorts in the market >> i know. >> i know. >> i know you know we know. i'm presenting their point of view s view >> we know >> we know all of this this is what the story is right now. >> that is valid and it is a

model and i respect the numbers and repubspect the assumptions there. this is the stock story. the charts telling the story. >> if you told me the amc shareholders were going to approve the company's ability to continue to sell shares and raise cash, i actually would feel differently i think you could almost through this collective whatever -- you could manifest your own destiny by continuing to raise cash and buy something and pay all of the debt down. you could actually manifest your destiny. you could argue that tesla in its own way uniquely able to manifest its own destiny not enough cash flow to run the business, but able to -- >> they leaned into it and issued shares. >> exactly

which is very different, i would suggest, that amazon i know people look at companies at one point look, 20 years later, amazon did well amazon raised money once once they raised money once they were cash flow positive they were not making huge profits, obviously it was a very different scenario >> the retail shareholder base didn't cast the vote aaron aron scrapped it ahead of the vote that is a question to ask adam aron later today when he is on "squawk on the street." >> he pulled it because he tweeted it would be divisive and backlash within the retail community. what is the calculation when the ceo says we need money, but scrap the offering there has to be a game plan

here, right? i wonder what that is. that's a chess move. >> i got a little bit of hate online i'm sure there will be more this morning. do you know any bitcoin investors looking forward to selling their bitcoin so they can use it to buy film tickets does that make sense to you? >> or a $5 popcorn >> does that make sense >> not really. >> it is a little alice in wonderland over here you know we have a programming note we will talk to jim chanos he has been blasting investors in meme stocks like amc. he may do a better version of it at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. then the man of the moment amc ceo adam aron on "squawk on the street" at 9:00 in the first

on cnbc interview. don't miss either of those conversations. melissa. we will show you how softbank fared one quarter after the biggest quarterly profit for a japanese company as we head to break, the big number $2.3 trillion. the total value of growth m & a arals in the first half of the ye "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program sponsored by truist wealth where meaningful relationships matter most. ♪♪ ♪ there she is, miss america ♪ ♪ there she is, your ideal ♪ ♪ with so many beauties she took the town by storm ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box. softbank earnings falling back to earth net profit was $6.9 billion. that is down from the prior quarter. that was driven by several ipos in the division fund portfolio coupang well off the highs from last march crackdown in asia taking a toll and not reflect in the company softbank's biggest holding is alibaba as it has been accused of anti-competitive practices. after earnings, the ceo said they would bounce back and decrease reliance on alibaba

melissa. earnings movers. we are joipdned by tiffany mcgee andandrew sluman from morgan stanley. good to have you both. tiffany, i don't know if you care about amc certainly this is signaling the fact and it is paid attention to by quote/unquote inn substitutions on wall street does this signal a change of retail investors investing and how they perceive risk in markets? >> that's a great question, melissa. good morning i don't know if it signals a change in how retail investors are analyzing stocks like this. i hope not we talk on cnbc about fundamental analysis and technical analysis i'm old school wall street

when we look at stocks, a lot of analysis goes into the stocks. it is scary to me. you look at the fact that amc year to date is up over 1,400% within the last month, down about 28%. this is like the roller coaster ride taking investors on i have apprehension that retail investors, some of which are new, we know how many got into the market last year i'm super excited that people are interested in the stock market it is concerning because the meme party is all fun and games until it's not some of these investors get in early and able to make money and people get in to make money. that's great i'm happy when average every day people are making money in the stock market then so many people are also losing money it is so important to have a

strategy around stock selection. this worries me a little bit. >> andrew, we heard from two major banks and increasingly growing chorus of economists and investors expecting the fed to move up the taper timeline morgan stanley saying in november and barclays saying in september. i wonder the impact on the bond market and rates specifically. rates can move independently of what the fed does to rates how do you anticipate this action >> good morning, melissa yeah, i think rates are going up we had the market -- rates peaked in late march and now we had a growth scare after the covid scare. that is the reality of what is going on now we are in a juncture where rates are starting to bottom as

it is apparent there is a covid scare, but dr. gottlieb's point was excellent. this is short lived. the bond market will reflect that rates are moving higher. to me, you know, this is a classic example of financial markets have anticipated economic data in advance i think rates are going up and tapering is part of the story. i expect rates to be higher just a year in when people are more in the camp where rates will stay low for a while >> is the corollary to that, andrew, high growth tech move lower? >> yes, exactly. if you are a short-term trader, melissa, by the way, i love your show listen to it every night if you are looking for the best opportunities of the markets, it is that financials really have

under performs reopening stocks are down a lot. yet, i think that was a reversal from last spring i think that's where the opportunity set lies today if you are looking for fresh into the market, reopening stocks is where to look. the last point is bitcoin, cryptocurrency was the first risk asset to roll over last spring and yet it is starting to recover now. that is a risk asset that's a sign that you want to be looking at a little more of the risky reopening stocks that are down a lot this is a chance to reenter those stocks. >> tiffany, quickly. i have to ask. it is august 10th. do you seem to be worried about christmas? i have to ask about that >> yeah, you know. it is really funny

i was reading the other day one theme that keeping popping up in earnings calls supply chain disruption. increased transportation costs. jpmorgan chase did a poll and looked at how many times these phrases were being mentioned on earnings calls it is over 1,200 the most these have been mentioned in the past decade i'm worried, definitely, looking at it. everything from apple to microsoft. listen, it feels like summer everybody is traveling pretty soon it will be christmas. i wonder how that plays out with the supply chain disruption with the increased costs from the companies to do business i am thinking about that and hoping that we just get this together >> yeah. tiffany and andrew, thank you.

good to see you. >> thank you. coming up, when we return, a new spac deal in the travel sector we talk to the ceo about the motivation for the travel deal as the industry struggles to recover from the pandemic. then our coverage of the meme stocks continues with short seller jim chanos. that happens at 8:30 a.m and adam aron on at 9:00 a.m a big morning head ♪♪ the ey entrepreneurs access network has a tremendous impact on my business because it's given me networks, access to capital, and access to opportunities. the level of coaching that i get

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box. booking hotel planner will go public in a spac deal. joining us on cnbc to discuss the deal is tim henchel. congratulations on the transaction. i want to talk about the travel industry especially as questions persist of the delta variant and what it means to the reopening of the economy not just in the united states, but more broadly what are you seeing? >> well, good morning, andrew. thank you for having me. we're seeing, you know, positive signs compared to where we came from 2020 was pretty tough. you know, delta might be with issue you. we are not seeing a rise in cancellations. we are seeing a pull back of 2% to 3%. that could be due to the fact that summer travel season is coming to an end >> how much of your business and newly combined business is consumer oriented versus

business enterprise? >> about 70% is consumer oriented 30% is business enterprise you know, we power for nine plus hotel bookings most of the travel agencies as well online as well as large sites as the knot and wedding wire we are going out direct to the consumer with hotelplanner.com and meetings.com >> how are you seeing this 70% of business is consumer. that is the part of the business excelling. you tell me. are you having a sound issue you there about the business side of it the 30% that is business enterprise >> the 30% you know, that's been strong with the recovery from 2020 throughout the sector. business enterprise is strong

for us and affiliate partners recovering like we are. >> what about the meetings part of the business? we had lots of conversations on this program about conventions and people getting back together and things like that what are you seeing? >> so, it is coming back together we are doing an event until south beach in a few months that will be live several events moved forward and several have canceled. it is mixed results there. in the leisure group segment, weddings are rebounding. youth sports and festivals people want to get out there again. that segment of the group business is strong that is the segment that hotelplanner.com lives in. stronger in the leisure group travel >> tim, the combined companies projecting compound annual growth rate of 42% from 2020 to

2023 what assn assumptions lie behind that >> our call center got called away because they could not go in the office. we developed the first of its kind gig economy call center we hired and trained over 2,000 local travel agents around the world that answer calls for us given all of the confusion, people are picking up the phone to complete a reservation. our customer service, because we have local help with the gig economy travel agents is helping answer questions we actually had less of an impact last year over covid. we were down 23% a lot of companies in our sector were down 50%. the main reason for that is the

gig economy travel agents. that's going to continue to grow one of the use of proceeds from the transaction is take that from 2,000 gig economy travel agents to 10,000 gig economy travel agents and people get the best customer service. >> these aren't considered full-time employees? >> no, no. they are gig >> states like california, are you worried that you will have to pay them just like full-time employees with benefits because of recent legislation? so in that case the cost savings come down. >> the interesting thing is somebody in arizona can take the call not as uber or lyft to give that person a ride. they could be anywhere as legislation changes, we will addapt to that and turn certain people on or off or give

different volumes to different agents >> tim, we have to leave the conversation there congratulations on the milestone. we look forward to following your progress. >> thank you, andrew a great interview. you guys are the best. love it. >> thanks. great to see you coming up, new data from deloitte about the return to offices with the delta variant as we head to break, a look at the s&p 500 winners and losers

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good morning welcome back to "squawk box. take a look at u.s. equity futures this morning down on the dow 23 points. s&p looking to open off. nasdaq looking to power higher 20 points higher, melissa. the pentagon plans to mandate the covid vaccine to members by september lloyd austin said it did not win fda approval by then, they will

request a waiver the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said getting vaccinated is a readiness issue. some of the largest companies in the u.s. announced vaccine mandates for some or all of the workers deloitte surveyed workers about new work trends. we havhave deloitte's ceo with . joe, great to have you with us what are some of the most surprising things you found from the global survey, joe >> i don't know i would say there is a surprise, but i think there is a reinforcement that talent has shot up in terms of being among a handful of the most important strategic objectives we are fundamentally dealing with the economy which is seeing ample demand, but with supply constraints and a reordering of

prioritization of all things digital skills and companies are going to great lengths to attract the work force to take advantage of the robust economic outlook. >> what surprised me is the number associated with the power the talent now has with the employer 40% of the global work force is considering leaving their employer this year in a narrow area where labor is short. that must be sobering for a lot of employers how is that dynamic playing out when it comes to mandating the workers coming to the office and mandating that workers get vaccines i imagine employers don't have that much power if they are afraid of losing talent? >> it is a complex balancing act. we have to remember this has been thrust on companies in the last three or four weeks it is quickly developing

no doubt, in this environment, companies are placing a huge emphasis on listening and understanding what's important to employees and trying to provide flexibility that many have come to enjoy and appreciate over the last 18 months when it comes to things like vaccine mandates, it is a mixed bag. you have some who are concerned about the impact on certain proportions on the employee population on the other hand, you have many employees saying in order for me to come back and co-locate with my colleagues and my cleents, i want to feel safe and i want to feel secure. there is a realization with the delta variant surging that covid will be with us for some time. it will not go away cleanly on some specific date as a result, how do you create the environment in which the vast majority of your people feel confident getting back together and co-locating

>> aside from vaccine mandates, joe, a lot of employees want to stay home. they have tasted what it is like to get back the time from the commute and put that time back to what they enjoy doing so, i wonder if there are certain industries that are more susceptible to labor -- i don't want to say upending plans, but providing a stumble for employers who want goet back on track back to the pre-pandemic way of life. >> there is a tension with the desire of leaders to bring back a preponderance of work to maintain a level of flexibility. this is not all or nothing what we have been talking about with the hybrid model is bringing to life the best of both work models there are times when it is

really important to be co-located with colleagues and out with customers in a profession like ours, the m mentorship and learning the craft and honing your profession those things are critical. at the same time, we have learned people can be quite productive on a remote basis and ample opportunity to retain a had healthy dose of the flexibility and mix the best going forward. you will see agility we are in the early innings. this is a fundamental reshaping of the way society goes about work and reintegrates it into life. >> does deloitte have a vaccine mandate, joe what are you telling workers with regard to returning to the o office >> we took the first step a week and a half ago we have an 800-room corporate facility

we are going to reopen that in september at full capacity we told people in order to go, you have to be fully vaccinated. again, that is part of giving people confidence that they will be in an environment where they feel safe and secure co-locating with others. when it comes to the instructions around back to work, we, like others have targeted labor day we never suggested it is an on/off switch with the abrupt change in the way we work. it is a gradual process. people have to acclimate at the pace they are comfortable with we have not chosen some grand date because i fear a new date leads to the perception this resolves cleanly we will get people ample flexibility. we will ask the people to look for ways to co-locate if they are comfortable doing it and a large portion of our people are

yearning for that. they want to be the colleagues and clients. it will be slow. in the next two weeks, we have to be agile. >> the usissue facing all of corporate america. joe, thank you. coming up, a bidding war brewing in the rail yard the latest in the talks for kansas city southern. and compass ceo is talking about the delta variant and how that is making an impact "squawk box" returns right after this the personal loan from sofi helped me consolidate my credit card debt into one simple monthly payment. debt free! thanks to sofi. ♪♪

welcome back to squawk." time for the bidding war for kansas city southern canadian pacific looking to top the bid from back in may it would cover $300 per share. no guarantee the bid would be submitted. the clock is ticking the shareholder vote on the canadian national deal is the 15th mark your calendar, melissa. the shares of planet fitness fell estimates the company announcing expansion plans including 75 to 100 gyms

and bigger footprint in mexico the chain offered free workouts with web site and mobile yapp. stock down 3%. big show ahead when we come back a hard fought crypto agreement blocked in the senate. we will talk about that as par of the infrastructure bill we will talk about what it means for the industry next. a programming note "the profit" returns tonight premiere more money more problems. airing at 10:00 p.m. eastern time we will have a sneak peek in the next hour. "squawk box" returns after this. >> announcer: executive edge i sponsored by at&t business our people and network will help keep you connected let's take care of business. som. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this...

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welcome back to "squawk box. crypto policy is the key sticking point in the infrastructure bill in the senate yesterday, amendment created to narrowly define crypto was blocked. joining us for what this means r the industry coin share's chief strategy officer, good morning to you what do you make of the decision -- >> good morning. >> good morning. what do you make of this decision because i think we thought there was going to be something more than what ultimately took place? >> yeah. absolutely and, look, the process has been confusing, to say the least. i think one great outcome of all of this, as many have learned how the lawmaking process in america works, which is not very

straightforward. so the regulatory process here, the structure bill, $1.5 trillion of new spending, they needed taxation to insert into that bill. crypto was one area where apparently there's $30 billion of taxes from the crypto space that will mesh materialize not clear where that number came from one of the key provisions under debate is, what defines service provider in the crypto space three different amendments that were proposed over a 72-hour period and last night voting came to a rapid halt there was a new amendment proposed that was supposed to have unilateral support. that also did not get support. now where do we go to the house where the lawmaking will continue so, again, i don't think this is monumental for the crypto industry it certainly is far from over. these changes don't get implemented, i don't believe,

until 2023 we have time a fascinating process to watch and the crypto community came out in full force. >> i was going to ask. if it's not a big deal, though, why is the crypto community been so vocal we've heard from, you know, mark andreeson sending letters. elon musk tweeting about it. jack dorsey is out there you don't typically see these big names all get behind one issue, if this is not monumental >> think what we've reached is sort of a tipping point when it comes to crypto occurrences. there are over 46 million americans. over 15% of our population in the country holds cryptocurrency of some type, yet still when it comes to our policymaking, there's very little education or awareness of cryptocurrencies and the issues surrounding them, and also a continued misperception that crypto is an unregulated shadowing corner of finance, which it's not.

regulated by annal if alphabett of agencies over the past years. and what's happening in washington, d.c. and k street. >> so one issue which is what congress and the senate are going to do with this speck amendment as we just discussed. >> yes. >> the other i was going to mention. we had a conversation last week with gary gensler on this program the way he's thinking about regulating cryptocurrencies, and clearly it sounds like he's, for example, not ready to approve a bit.etf or something like that, and still believes there's lots of work thatneeds to get done on the regulatory side, even around the wallets and custody and all sorts of other issues before -- before it could reach -- if you will -- escape velocity. it may have already reached that escape velocity.

we could debate that where do you think the regulatory scheme sand how many years are we away from that type of moment? >> i think the fundamental issue here is we're talking about a regulatory structure where the way we've historically regulated finance and financial services is on the basics of jurisdictions. physical perimeter and physical location of your business. if you sit in a certain state you're subject to the laws of that state plus federal laws the challenge with cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency trading venue, these are global permissionless fully ditch itch the markets rate 24/7 without intermediaries, obviously a number of companies act as intermediaries but they can function without them. this is new. something many people don't really conceptionally grasp quite yet and at a fundamental level it's incompatible with how

rolemaking has historically worked you can't pick up a phone and call the ceo of bitcoin but you can pick up the phone and call a ceo of a coinbase, a kraken or a gemini part is this is just a function of time and really understanding, are their existing regulatory boxes that these things fit into? if not, do we need to create new boxes and i think that was part of gary gensler's commentary we don't quite know what box we're in. >> right before i let you go. i don't know if you saw. amc, talking about a meme stock. not crypto, except for the fact the ceo made a big to doo-do thr going to accept bitcoin. i sent out a snarky tweet, not planning to use it to buy their movie tickets for $12 and find out later if $12 worked out it would have spent thousands

dollar those tickets actually bitcoin specifically, what -- >> i don't spend my bitcoin and many others don't at this point in the year, 2021. accepting cryptocurrencies is so easy a couple simple api integrations on the back end. a number of companies that provide the service. so at this point i think it's table steak. i don't think it's groundbreaking, unless you're holding bitcoin on your balance sheet, obviously a very different approach most investors and retailers aren't a lot of to-do about nothing great to see crypto integrated on the side of our infrastructure at this point, table steaks in my view. >> fair enough great to see you hope you're having a happy summer and look forward to seeing you soon. >> sounds good have a good one. >> you, too. melissa? coming up, get you ready for the trading day ahead. nasdaq continuing its mownmentum

of five of the past six segments tesla, china, talking about markets and much more. an exclusive interview coming up 8:30 a.m. eastern time "squawk box" will be right back.

the senate inching closer to a deal on infrastructure with a vote set for this to morning, but a hard-fought crypto amendment blocked yesterday. we'll explain. and shares jumping, reporting a smaller loss than expected and would begin accepting bitcoin as payment. plus fallout from the rise of the delta variant we'll talk vaccine mandates, travel, and return to offices across the country "squawk box" starts right now. good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with melissa and becky joe is off today a huge show ahead, though. look at u.s. equity futures at this hour, because we are looking down on the dow and s&p.

nasdaq looking up. dow off about 24 points right about now. nasdaq about 20 points higher. s&p 500, call it, i'd like to call it on even though there's a little red on the screen meantime, what's making headlines at this hour shares of movie theater operator amc are rallying in the pre-market this morning. amc saw a sharper than expected rebound in ticket sales and smaller than expected loss for the second quarter still a huge loss, nonetheless, as cove ed restrictions were lifted and more theaters reopened the ceo will be on "squawk on the street" immediately following our program. stay tuned for that interview. so many questions for him. we willchanos, the short seller and tee up questions ourselves, maybe and re-igniting. "wall street journal report"ing the board of pacific railway offering a new bid about 300 per share. canadian pacific recently struck a deal worth $275 per share.

the railroad operator later agreed to a higher offer from canadian national railway. if it's getting confusing, keep your eyes on the calendar, because shareholders are due to vote on that deal august 19th. and a cdc panel is set to meet today to talk about covid-19 vaccine booster shots this coming as the u.s. sees more cases from the delta variant. the panel plans to review a study showing data also discussing the necessity for additional doses for immunocompromised individuals. meantime, talk about what's happening in washington, because the senate expected to hold its final vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package today all of the attention in washington will turn to the democrats' budget resolution what could today's vote mean for business in your investments for the answer, joining us this morning, good morning to you >> good morning, andrew. the senate is almost at the finish line. instead of passing that

bipartisan infrastructure bill wee hours of the morning, reconvene at 9:30 and the final vote at 11:00 a.m. it is not clarifying which parts would face the irs reporting requirements in the bill the industry reached a last-minute compromise with republicans, democrats and treasury but blocked on the senate floor for procedural reasons sparking frustration and outrage on capitol hill and in silicon valley >> it's hard to predict what some kind of completely impossible mandate results in, but it's not good, and it's going to bring us back here having to try to clean up a mess, which we could have prevented. >> but the industry's fight isn't over yet the infrastructure bill still needs to pass the house and already the bipartisan blockchain caucus is promising to pick up the baton, and clearly twitter ceo jack dorsey is not giving up he tweeted this after the compromise died in the senate,

"bitcoin will unite. a deeply divided country, and eventually the world." guys what the industry needs now, votes in washington, whether it comes in this in infrastructure bill or the new $3.5 trillion budget resolution democrats are hoping to pass next back over to you. >> okay. we will see what happens, and i imagine you're going to be on high alert all day so i -- i think we'll be coming back to you, many, many times. thank you, ylan. meantime, all watching boston fed president rosenstein grow a growing number of voices in and outside the federal bank saying the fed should reduce bond buying program by fall. seems more fed voices are coming out saying that, and more banks on wall street are also baking that into the forecast >> that's right, melissa inside and outside the fed boston fed president joins a growing chorus on the fed

supporting faster action to reduce the stimulus for the recovering u.s. economy. fractures in a committee largely has spoken with one voice during the pandemic here's what rosengrant told the associated press "continuing strong jobs report, by september meeting we would, in my view, meet further progress criteria implying tapering sometime this fall." that contrasted with the general consensus, at least before the big jobs report, the taper wouldn't be announced until fall and begin around january 2023. melissa's right. strong job gains, rising inflation, three other officials support add faster taper including the fed governor, dallas fed and st. louis head and hawkish. important to recognize, they have not typically necessarily been hawks supported, for example, the fed's extraordinary actions during most of the pandemic.

atlanta fed president yesterday also expressed some support for an earlier taper raising questions about, hey, how widespread is this view on the fomc maybe we get a clue from the fed's june forecast. seven voting members pencilled in rate hikes for 2022 11 said no change. those numbers, by the way, could already be different we don't know and won't know until september. up to now, fed chair powell has kept the committee remarkably cohesive when he said not time to think about raising rates, then repeated the same phrase, powell now face as choice of moving towards the hawks or finding a way to steer them back towards the more gradual course that he's appeared to favor, melissa. >> you know, steve, my first question when i first heard, waller, for instance, on cnbc turning sort of more hawkish or sounding hawkish, is jerome powell sending these people out to telegraph this? is that their way of sort of laying the groundworks so the

markets won't be surprised as you pointed out, the fed remarkably cohesive in its message to the markets prior >> you know -- it's a good question, melissa. i don't suspect it's all that orchestrated the way you maybe sense, or the way you suggest there. i think there may be a point where powell could say, you know what, uys? go speak your mind here, rather than go say this or go say that. rather than telling the committee, hey, it's really important that we remain focused in our message on this particular time. for example, the thinking about, thinking, remember all saying, policy is in a good place? they all said that now everybody's kind of giving their own point of view, and i think that this is what you come up with. four guys who at least weren't always hawks waller, we don't know about necessarily, because he's new it the committee. rosengram, the guy that way up with buying corporate assets

can't say a hawk by nature bullard, gone either way depending what's happening out there and rosengram and -- and -- bullard and waller, all of those guys, they've been all over the map they're not died in the wool hawks, mix a couple metaphors there. >> announcement of taper and start of taper on wall street, when it all comes out saying start of taper to happen next year, or whenever it is, is that, is it presumed that will be in the form of rates or would it be in the form of, you know i don't know -- bond purchases or corporate bond activity i mean -- what do you think that is >> well, the taper -- taper means reducing the fed's asset purchases and the fed right now is buying treasuries and mortgage-backed securities the two things that it's purchasing what will happen -- by the way, another debate there the time period over which it happens. not just when announced or what

time period. one of the fed officials talked about a faster taper krishna wrote a piece saying may happen over eight months bullard said get her done by march. that could be one other aspect, and melissa, you're touching on a really important point here. the market may be okay with this if the right call is to reduce the fed's asset purchases, for the economy and for where the market is, then there shouldn't be much disruption in the market so you know, maybe -- even if powell didn't send them out to say this, he may be okay with the idea, hey, let's see how this flies, and so far it seems that the bond market, you know, 131 on the ten year. not a disaster stocks have held up. you remember, powell's initial concern was not having a taper tantrum. >> right. >> i think he succeeded in that and now the question is can he push it a little bit forward we'll see.

i think that sets up jackson hole and speaks there, being very significant speech there now. >> thank you, steve liesman. >> pleasure. >> okay. coming up, all related to interest rates talking about real estate and the hot spots and whether the housing market will cool off this fall. ceo of compass talking trends. the rise of zoom cities, and the pandemic, after the break. meantime, a check on the markets before we go to that break dow off about 20 points. s&p 500 actually, well, still call it for now, literally speaking green to red and back to red nasdaq up about 22 points. "squawk" returns, after this. se my finance team, randomly hurl things at me. it's also why we use workday. it gives us insights, so we quickly pivot our strategy, people, planning, you name it. sorry, sir. i will aim straight at your next step. see that you do.

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covid-19 prompted a hot year for u.s. real estate seen buying and selling sprees from coast to coast. zoom towns new workers flooded new cities the market could cool as usually does but may continue to buck real estate trends what he's expected from the market, co-founder of online real estate broke catch firm compass, just reported quarterly results. first time as a public company since its ipo and the stock i should mention is down about 19%. robert good to see you this morning.

help us understand what you're seeing in the markets right now. typically the fall does cool off a bit. hard to know, though, with the re-emergence of delta whether you think it's actually going to ignite more sales. on the other side, hearing from steve liesman, could be pressure on rates how do you see it? >> well, the mortgage rates, 30-year fix, 2.87% on average for july that's lower than the second quarter average. lower than the first half year average. lower than last year's average so by all measures, the interest rates are very low right now expect it to continue for at least you know, rest of this year and next. in terms of buyer demand, we had five buyers on average for every home that had an accepted offer last quarter four more buyers in the market not including the incredible pent-up demand from the international buyer. in markets like california, florida, new york, where international buyers have not been able to come to the u.s.

for over a year. there's incredible pent-up demand from places like canada, asia, europe, latin america, and we have had over the last few weeks more companies come out and say that hybrid work will be here in the fall and beyond, and that is forcing everyone to re-evaluate they're primary and second home needs to make sure that they meet their hybrid work lifestyle. for all of those reasons we're positive about the rest of this year, and beyond actually even seeing an uptick in in contract listings relative to some of the weekly lows in june and july where you had graduations and family vacations slowing things down a bit. >> robert, you would say pent-up demand from some of these international buyers may -- may emerge, or is there, but if the they can't come here yet, how is that working itself out? >> yeah. the demand will have to wait until things do open up, but

they will eventually, and when that happens, you know, our agents are -- you know nknow, ty have clients in that market and they're real and significant. >> robert, what's going on in new york city real estate? a vested interest, disclose that curious. if you had, say, $2 million to spend would it put it into new york city real estate or put it into outlying areas that saw a boom places where there are bidding wars for houses, westchester, connecticut, for instance? >> we're seeing many buyers who bought from florida or in connecticut or in the westchester, moving back to new york people remembering what they loved about new york, that energy of central park the energy of the restaurants. and so we are definitely seeing bidding wars come back, and this time last year, there were not bidding wars in new york city. and so i would feel confident about buying in new york at this time particularly seeing a lot of

activity in the super high end so take penthouses, townhouses, more space we're seeing records there, and compass just sold the most expensive home in downtown new york listed. so we're seeing a lot of activity and expect to continue to. >> robert, you know, we talk about zoom cities, and the prospect that the landscape of america could fundamentally change as we rethink work, if you believe that that's what the future looks like. which cities do you believe are going to be the big winners as a function of this >> yeah. we're seeing, you know, tampa, st. petersburg, raleigh, charlotte, boulder, denver, nashville. this past quarter, 2q, launched 15 markets compared to our 2-market average launch per quarter. the driver of that, we're seeing our agents sending their clients to these markets because of the demand and we want to be able to

support our agents in that effort now we serve many more, you know, mid-sized markets, like those. we now, because of that, and our out performance on a transaction basis, are, as a company, we grew 140% on a transaction base compared to the average agent growing 32% for the market we were able toll see our market share grow from 3.3% to nearly double to 6.2% year over year. >> robert, you know, i still have some kind of ptsd from 2008, and i wonder how concerned you are just about how much leverage is building up in the system in the context of real estate during this period? >> yeah. we saw an increase year over year of all cash buyers in the mid-20s versus the mid-teens so this isn't like, you know, the 2000 era, highly leveraged there's a lot of money out

there, a lot of cash, and they're using that to buy these homes. >> the reason i ask is that debt is so cheap right now, and as you mentioned, some of the interest rates that you can get even on a 30-year fix, it almost feels like free money. >> yeah. if you look over the course of the last 20 years across different geographies, the trend line has been that rates have gone down. and so, yes, they're low relative to 30 years ago, and 20 years ago, but it's -- it's not clear that their low relative to the next ten years this may be the new normal >> and then finally, how do you think about what some people call the big move? the big move to miami? the big move to austin to some of these cities that have emerged during this period, in part as a function of the local tax scheme relative to some of the states and cities that have much higher taxes?

>> yeah. so we have seen people move to better tax markets, whether it's seattle. whether it's texas whether it's florida and, you know, we actually -- you know, our revenue grew to nearly $2 billion. we were adjusted ebitda of $71 million for the quarter. so, you know, ebitda profitability and actually for next year largely because of our dominance in some of these markets, but we are seeing a number of these people move back to the california, to the new york, because they miss what made it special, and their friends are there, and the restaurants they know are there, and so this is just leaning towards more activity where everyone is re-evaluating what is the right home and the right space for them in this new hybrid world >> well, robert, i'm glad you're not writing off new york so, thank you. appreciate it. >> absolutely not. good to see you, andrew. >> thanks. we've got confirmation of

the bidding war in the rail industry canadian pacific confirming this morning the increases cash and stock offer for kansas city southern values the company at about $300 a share so it is on, andrew. so we will find out what happens in this saga they've got time here. still to come this morning, short seller jim chanos joining us in the next hour. up next, michael rubin, fanatics on the company's move yobend ecommerce and sports merchandise. "squawk box" will be right back. because we were created for officers. but as we've evolved with the military, we've grown to serve all who've honorably served. no matter their rank, or when they were in. a marine just out of basic, or a petty officer from '73. and even his kids. and their kids. usaa is made for all who've honorably served and their families. are we still exclusive? absolutely. and that's exactly why you should join.

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a biggest challenge today visiting a family business in utah drowning in debt. with his help the family needs to become a hive of activity to turn their fortunes around. >> let me smoke 'em. calm down. >> look at the honeycomb on that. >> uh-huh. they're really driving, filling

that out. >> i'm sorry to ask this question, and probably the only person in america that doesn't know the answer's where does the honey come from? >> nectar. >> so they go to a flower and take out -- >> the pollen. they get nectar as well. >> swallow it? >> yes. >> and then what do they do? >> regurgitate it. >> so basically honey is thrown up pollen? >> literally. >> and you guys thought this was a good business? >> hmm honey. the new season of "the profit" kicks off tonight 10:00 p.m. eastern time andrew. still to come, fanatic executive chairman michael rubin joining us to talk about how that company is expanding its business to more than just sports we're going to talk about all of it in just a minute. you've got to hear this. later, jim chanos gives his take on meme stocks, crypto and so much more stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

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welcome back to "squawk box. get to dom chu looking at this morning's movers dom? >> on our off the rails depending how you look tat it. the proposal is official if you look at kansas city southern shares in pre-market getting more active. up about 6.5%. reason, canadian pacific came out with their proposal. take it over for $31 billion roughly $300 mix of cash and stock together trying to trump canadian national rail company's proposal now canadian national, up. canadian pacific on the revised deal to buy, because bidding continues for them check out what's happening with the vaccine makers massive share in moderna and

best in the s&p by a wide margin up another 1.5%. biontech up and novavax up 2.25% as well. a lot of vcovid vaccine developers given more attention driven the booster for covid may advance the shares follow-up to come. and victor yapp secret not public a stand-alone company that long. a week or so up about 20% in yesterday's session driven in large part by an analyst coverage initiation by folks over at jpmorgan. more analyst calls come the ow with equivalent of buy ratings helping drive the share this morning. victoria's secret, women's lingerie, casual stuff, looking good from a stand-alone company. up 3.25% in the pre-market over to you. >> and moderna, number one ticker on cnbc.com

surprising, but not given the stock's amazing run this year. >> yesterday's session maybe not a surprise so much activity price action tends to draw attention in search traffic in those, but when moderna shares were up like yesterday, tends to draw a lot more people to see, what's going on? why is it doing this we know moderna has been -- by the way, mentioned it casually yesterday. at current levels we have, melissa, talking north of $190 billion valuation for moderna making it just about as large at merck. >> wow. >> in the span of a few short years and certainly covid driven, moderna, decent size not as well known a biow tech company the size of one of the most giant in the history. gives you an idea how covid put a lot of companies front and center for investor attention these days. >> dom, thank you. dom chu. senate negotiators reached

an agreement to amend the cryptocurrency language of the infrastructure bill yesterday addressing concerns in the crypto industry but the amendment was blocked. addressing concerns crypto minors would be subject to a new tax and required unanimous consent senator shelby would not give without additional military spending a poison pill for democrats blocked by senator britney spears t -- bernie sanders. if it passes the bill still has to be taken up by the house will changes could be made. senator will join us at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. and moving beyond commerce announcing expansion into digital sports verticals

including gaming and sports betting, news worthy, security and more funding and valuation up over $5.5 billion in five months fanatics has a private valuation of $18 billion joining us now with more on the news michael rubin formerly executive chairman and as of today ceo of the broader fanatics company michael, great to see you. congratulations. >> thank you what's happening, andrew good to see you. >> it's great to see you explain what's happening here? we thought of you as a merchandizing company and i know you started to get into some of the digital words. t world? >> everyone's thought of us as a merchandizing company over the past nine years. dawn great job started less than a decade ago building what we call the ecommerce merchandise business and into today a meaningful business, and built a tremendous leadership position in that business, but realized that we have this incredible opportunity

not only to have that be an incredible business for us but to really transition from being a leading ecommerce company to building the leading digital sports platform. as a sports fan go to fanatics and get any digital sports product that's important to you i think over time we're going to give the sports fan. i mention thingsed lie media, online trading, continuing to have a great merchandise offering we think there's an incredible offering particularly interesting is we've created really the best database in all of sports. we have more than 83 million sports fans that come to fanatics, love fanatics, and we want to give them really the best of anything they want. >> when you talk, for example, about getting to the sports media business does that mean that you plan to acquire other -- other sports media businesses and bring them in does that mean you are going to try to grow the business

organically, create this from scratch? how are you thinking about that, for example. i think it's going to be both look, it's really all about the team that we're building as you know, doug max, ceo of our ecommerce business, the entire company until today will continue to be ceo of the ecommerce business three incredible executives in the past couple of months run the business glen shipman, cfo by iac did an incredible job the past six years grew the stock price six times, and a cheief growth officer and matt king, ceo of fan duel, great entrepreneurs working with building different digital businesses but a combination of acquire and building really the histories of the company. we bought nine companies in the past ten years and within the ecommerce business i expect that to grow over the years, a ecommerce business and

also add new different particles. >> when you talk about verticals, nfts is it the idea people will all come to fanatics as an umbrella brand on top of this how many people are coming to that or the idea you'll push people there, leveraging the credit cards and email addresses that you have? >> yeah. today we already have tens of millions of sports fans that go to fanatics every year actually 700 million visits to our network of sites this year 40 million transactions within the ecommerce business the idea is, this is really -- people want to say, hey, building a holding company we're not. it's one integrated business as a sports fan go to fan niks a fanatics, do what you want buying merchandise, place are sports bets, watching certain media. other products that we'll develop over time. we want to dot that all in one place. a particularly great opportunity

and there's not another company thinking about giving the digital sports fan everything they want in one place about us, we want to be the top player in each business we're in i think we're on the top of the ecommerce business and as we enter other businesses whether a new business or a highly competitive business, we're ambitious and wanted to be number one, number two player in every business we have over time >> okay. so elephant in the room. i think we've asked you this before ipo. i imagine when you're going to build a business of this size and scale, you get to an $18 billion valuation, it's hard to capture that valuation without a public exit. >> yeah. so first i'd say, we feel like we're just getting started i know that sounds crazy, but people say, hey, dilations, grown quite a lot in the last year, but we feel we're just getting started and the opportunity of the sizes of the market is so big look, definitely a public company. that's in the near to medium term, but the reality is, while

our ecommerce business has grown from $250 billion a decade ago to over $4 billion next year, we're just getting started in these other new businesses and want to make sure that we make progress before we actually go public, but i think it is something that will happen in the near to mid-term again, assembled and incredible team as cfo, look what he did at ihc. they did so many things there that we're going to do today that's why i was so excited about getting matt king, such a seasoned entrepreneur to partner with me and build some digital sports business, and why i brought in tucker. and look at the way we're building a team, it's about being ready to build new businesses, be a public company. something we're definitely going to do in the near to midterm. >> it is a very ambitious plan isn't it easier for an incumbent, i use that term loosely, fan duel to flip on a

switch and go to other businesses when they've got the jump on games, igames, areas you want to be in, versus you going into the betting side of things? who are the competitors? >> it's a great question by the way, jason robbins, runs it, great entrepreneur a buddy of mine. i have a lot of respect for him. a huge structure advantage the reason is today we've developed the best data dadatabe 83 million fans. put it in perspective, ten times the size of database fan duel has built. think about including any new digital sports business, customer acquisition having a structural advantage and we have that at fannetics. >> do you know every person in that data base is an actual sports fan or is it -- i've gone into fannetics i'm in the database because i've bought jerseys for myself

husband, for instance. i'm not going to go bet or watch sports by fanaticses >> sure. first of all, thank you for purchasing appreciate it very much. we actually went out surveying customers and we found that -- more than 4568 of our customers have placed bets on sports in the last year. we found 82% of our customers actually would like to bet with fanatics willing to bet with fanatics we asked customers what they think and heard from them. yes, unequivocally they want to do more with us, believe in our brand. think about building any digital sports business, the two things that matter. brand awareness. a company that spent more than $1 billion building our brand over the past five years and will spend millions building our brand in the future. you need to break bread and structure market advantage that's why so many companies reach out to us saying how do we access your customers? we have the best database in sports reality is over the past nine years, 8,000 associates of the

ecommerce business laser focused building that business, put us in great position to not only continue to grow that business also leverage the relationship with sports properties we have, 83 million fans working with today, and our prowess to continue to build these new businesses >> michael, final question got to tell us how you got jay-z to invest? looks like maybe he took some of his winnings from title deal with square and now is, throwing them with you? >> yeah. jay killing it, we all know. a couple new great investors in this round eldridge, gw sports entertainment. jay. one thing i've learned with jay, he loved to bet on great businesses, and i think he's someone that really understands what's happening culturally. he's a business icon he looked at fanatics, thought it was a great opportunity to really invest in something he believes in and also adviser to me and great friend and will be a great investor.

>> see, michael, show up on page six throwing great parties, great white parties, you know, jay-z and all of these guys, they want to be a part of it exc exciting i'm waiting for my invitation. i have a white suit and ready to go next year. >> we're going to look forward to having you. >> great to see you. >> great to see you. >> maybe you should wear your white suit on "squawk" tomorrow, andrew just to show the world that you're ready for the white party? >> as an audition. >> exactly got to prove it. all right, coming up, the cdc warning americans against traveling to seven more countries over outbreak concerns the latest on the vaccine front and the battle of the delta variant. top of the hour, bipartisan infrastructure bill limit proposal to increase federal regulation of cryptocurrencies got blocked. senator cynthia lummis joins us. meme stock and markets and more jim chanos of kynikos will be

our guest. "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box. site decline in futures

indicating a lower open for the dow jones industrial and under pressure, discount gym stocks earnings fell short of estimates. beat on revenue. announcing expansion plans including 75 to 100 new gyms and a bigger footprint in mexico ceo said 13 million people remained committed members during the pandemic. even while most gyms were temporarily closed offering free workouts via the website. and shares down this morning andrew coming up, melissa, cdc panel set to meet today to talk about covid-19 vaccine booster shots coming as the u.s. sees more cases of the delta variant the latest on the covid front is next. reminder, watch us live on the go do it right now on the cnbc app. we're back, after this. ou. we need more ways of connecting with customers, fast. i know some consultants with great ideas. can they help us improve our digital experience?

absolutely. they've invested over $2 billion in tech. that could really help us manage inventory. and save us a ton of dough. then let's take back our market share. checkmate, chess heads. girls, i said “bedtime”!

the delta variant continuing to surge across the country with the u.s. hitting case levels not seen since february. according to johns hopkins university joining us now, dr. patel fellow of the brookings institution and thanks for joining us. i want to talk first and foremost as back-to-school since that's on a lot of parents' minds and key to getting the work force back to work. i wonder in your view, communities with high spread what needs to be done at the school level to make sure that the environment is safe? is it mandatory mask wearing for

all the children what would you do? >> yes thanks so much, melissa. good morning to all of you so we've heard the phrase "layered mitigation. exactly what schools need to do. what does that mean? highest priority really is high-quality masks especially indoored combined with a serious of series of measures if possible distancing masks and ventilation. that means honestly open windows, outdoor lunches where possible, because they need to take their masks off to eat, obviously. much as we can, keep the ventilation in a room, especially in these old schools, they have a challenge. those are probably the highest priorities got to mention something you heard dr. scott gottlieb mention this testing. can't stress it enough schools already open, had positive cases states like texas, can't do contact tracing, parents need to know, is their child potentially

exposed or positive even if not symptomatic? testing should be part of the strategy even not part of the school, parents should consider. >> the recommendations you just laid out do they differ for children above 12 and vaccinated versus under 12 and not vaccinated? >> yeah. great question so the cdc really does recommend k-12 that includes a group of students who would be vaccinated over the age of 12 unfortunately, you are seeing states interpreting or at least putting that recommendation into policy in different ways you are seeing some states that are not recommending masks or not enforcing masks for vaccinated children over the age of 12. i don't know about you most children are kind of in transition in different grades you're going to have schools with grades with mixed children mayoring masks who are not. candidly we all know indoor masking is recommended for vaccinated and not so i do worry that the 12 to 17 age group might be in some sort of a blind spot.

another statistic. keep in mind in parts of the country only 20% of 12 to 17-year-olds are vaccinated. gene generally under vaccinated compared to adults, should we be thinking more about going to pandemic sort of precautions in schools? that might include moving the school year to entirely remote because certain populations are not vaccinated still >> yeah. this has been, i think, one of the toughest questions to wrestle with i do not, looking at data, and here's why we do know from schools that were open day cares and camps open that will follow these measures even in the height of some of the winter surges that we saw last year, before a vaccine was available, we know that it's possible to keep these schools open and safe. it does seem ironic when we've got states with so many cases, florida, texas, louisiana, et cetera that we are talking about schools that have already opened this past week, for example, but i will tell you that at some

point we have to be pretty strict about how much we will do to protect our children. keeping schools open and keeping them safe should be hand in hand to your point, it leads to, i think, bringing our society as much to the cusp of normalcy as possible allowing us to work, to have some sort of schedule that can give our children an environment to thrive and allow adults to have a productive workplace. all that said, we need to vaccinate as many people as possible and i do not believe schools should be remote many schools have already seen it, will have to flip to virtual because of outbreaks and cases watching that closely in these states that are not masking. we have some data sets from garland school district in texas and others that have already shown positives on day one and how they're handling that will likely lead to remote schools for some of these children. >> you mentioned the workplace there is a lot of parents who are working, who want to work,

who want to go to the office want to go to the workplace. the question for them, and many of them are vaccinated, is whether they should be masked? i'm curious for you personally if you were going to meetings, for example, indoor meetings, whether you plan or anticipate or currently are masking in those environments >> yes so personally i am i mean, so -- sadly, many of my meetings are in a health care situation and context. so i frankly, andrew, don't have as much of a choice as probably some people do, because i'm in a clinic or hospital-based setting. even if i were not i would be masking indoors. it is for the reasons you mentioned, but i'll be candid, when we look at the risks that might be transferred from a fully vaccinated in kind of in-person indoors what that misk right confer to unvaccinated household members is incredibly low. key in the workplace environment, to your question,

is do you have a workplace mandate in place where only vaccinated individuals must ent j enter? and some employers are augmenting that with surveillance testing whether weekly or at-home testing. something we're not talking about enough i think that if we had those two pieces in place, vaccine requirements in the workplace, as well as surveillance, you could actually safely attend meetings without masks, and not worry about conferring a risk to yourself or to your loved ones and i will tell you that this also does depend on your community numbers. we know that i expect in the next several weeks numbers of cases of coronavirus should start to decline, if trends do not follow that pattern then we might need to rethink the way we approach the workplace but i am hopeful with these requirements that we can have a safer workplace, and not worry about conferring the risk to our children. >> there's a light at end of the tunnel, so to speak? you think the worse is going to

happen in the next few weeks and maybe by even end of september we will have been through the worst of this resurgence >> yeah. the big kind of question mark. you've heard the phrase, younger, sicker, faster with reference to children. many of us are kind of watching with a bit of an asterisk how schools affect things. i won't pretend i can understand why the uk and other countries saw a precipitous decline. i'd like to say human behavior not sure i can attribute it all to that. scientists saying it's burning through wild a filed w wildfiren goes into a quiet period maybe that's right i am hoping many parts of country will see a decline and we will be able to see workplaces and day care, after-school, close to as normal that summer, it will be shicfted a bit to the fall. >> thets lope. dr. patel, thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. and boy, am i crossing my

fingers she's right about that. big hour coming up speaking to one of the senators behind the crypto commerce amendment in that $1 trillion infrastructure plan. senator cynthia lummis our guest and don't miss an exclusive interview with jim chanos. and adam arons you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc.

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good morning the senate looking like it's about to pass that $1 trillion infrastructure bill. we are standing by for a vote that could come before noon today. but those that are bullish on digital currencies aren't happy how the final bill is turning out in an attempt to move industry regulations, failing yesterday. we're going to speak with congressional crypto enthusiast senator cynthia lummis, and sounding off on meme stocks. you don't want to miss our conversation with short seller jim chanos the final hour of "squawk box" begins, right now.

good morning, and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm melissa lee along with andrew ross sorkin joe and becky are off today. a quick check on equity futures. get this out of the way. a big day. s&p 500 looking to add a fraction of a point. nasdaq up by about 19 points treasury yields fairly stable all morning. 1.2% level of the ten year right now. andrew >> thanks, melissa, and shares of movie theater chain and retail investors darling amc jumping in the pre-market. company reporting a smaller than expected loss for the second quarter, and revenue that beat analysts estimates amc helped over the last few months by lifting of covid restrictions and return of moviegoers to theaters as well as release of "fast & furious" and "godzilla versus kong. acknowledging the company's recovery has a way to go but

said u.s. ticket revenue third quarter was on track to reach 45% of what it was back in 2019. now, amc announce add deal with warner brothers for a 45-day exclusive. here many the kicker saying amc is ready to accept bitcoin for tickets by end of 2021 you don't want to miss him in a first on cnbc interview next hour the other kicker, by the way, melissa. you know, he said he's planning to put a -- a plan in place so he can sell his shares in the company. so you have to think about all of these -- >> most executives on wall street -- in corporate america have, in place, a plan to diversify their holdings, because they were rewarded stock how much often and want to diversify. to put that out there. to be fair. >> that is true. there is a lot of companies that do that. i'm just suggesting that there's a -- a time and a place. a time and a place, and when you start to think about whether

your ceo is fully aligned with you, i think it's worth at least mentioning. >> all right we will, of course, talk to chim chanos about amc and so much more later on in the hour meantime, the our top story, expecting an up or down vote from the senate on a $1 trillion infrastructure plan likely to pass by a healthy margin, but yesterday an amendment to the bill sought by cryptocurrency boosters blocked, limited a proposal to increase federal regulation of the crypto industry joining us to talk about the potential fall jout for the investment, behind the amend ant, cynthia lummis, and senator, great to you have with us. >> good morning. thanks for having me >> are you still hopeful that the language in the bill will actually change in the house >> i hope it will become law either in the house or later this year in the senate. it is not going to be part of the bill that we will be voting

on today. >> what happens if the language remains so that it's more far-reaching than you would like to see >> if that happens, we will be watching treasury very carefully to make sure that they narrowly craft the rules and regulations around the definition of broker. that became the issue. they were trying to define broker in a way that would catch people within the cryptocurrency world that don't have information, that's helpful to the irs, and could put them in a very difficult place. i think it expressed a fundamental misunderstanding of how digital assets are built, and are placed on the blockchain so we've got a lot of education to do in washington. >> uh-huh. certainly in wyoming i mean, wyoming has vied for a while to be a crypto capital in

the united states. i believe as of june there are about 48 llcs registered in while omming with the term "bitcoin" in them. you've got kraken and some others partially setting up shop in wyoming i'm curious, senator, how you see -- i mean, if the original language went into, a far-reaching desks of broker, how does that play out actually in the industry? does it impact the crypto industry in wyoming? >> it could hit people all over the country, and, indeed, all over the world doing business in the united states. for example, it could hit minors it could hit validators. it woulcould people who hit sofr and hardware for people with digital wallets. people not in the business of being a broker but rather are part of the decentralized, peer-to-peer transactions that

frequently occur with regard to digital assets so we worked very hard with treasury it was bipartisan. i want to really thank senator ron wyden, senator pat toomey, as well as the sponsors of the bill that we've been working with, that would be senator portman and senator sinema finally, we did reach language that treasury was comfortable with it was a compromise. but it was rejected, because, as you know, any senator can object and we've had a lot of back and forth going on between people who want to run out the clock and extend debate and those who want to shorten debate and because of all of the back and forth, this amendment fell on the cutting room floor yesterday. >> are you -- you know, you've been sort of at the forefront of crypto in your state because of

what it kaunwants to be in the crypto industry. i'm curious if you think that your colleagues either in the senate or in the house, is everybody short of at that point in terms of education to be legislating on crypto in your view there is a perception in the industry amongst industry leaders, at least, that perhaps congress isn't informed enough about the blockchain, for instance, and about issues of crypto to actually be legislating on the issue >> i agree with the leaders in the industry. the senate is not ready. most members are not familiar with digital assets and how they even come to be, but the silver lining behind working on this amendment for the last week or so has been that now members are getting more aware of how significant this industry is, and i want to thank people within the digital asset community for contacting their

senators and beginning to weigh in with them, and their senators heard them loud and clear. what they heard is, thsis a substantial community, and a growing community, all over the country, in every state. and that their senators need to learn about this asset and pay more attention to these people, because they're constituents that are paying attention and need to learn from their constituents, and from each other, about this asset. that's definitely been the advantage of having this debate, even though we wereultimately unsuccessful in getting the amendment attached to the bill. >> senator, curious whether you think that elected officials should disclose their ownership if they do own cryptocurrencies? >> we are required now to disclose, and we do disclose. so this is nothing new to us we've been doing it for years. >> crypto is considered a, an

asset that would require disclosure because it's unclear whether it's showing up on all the forms? >> it is an asset that requires disclosure certainly in the senate. we've been working with the senate ethics committee on various requirements to make sure we're in compliance, and i'm confident that they know, every senator who owns cryptocurrency. >> you know, the senators, senator lummis, who were behind this amendment, do all of you own crypto >> well, i do. senator toomey does. we both disclosed it and i'm not familiar with whether some of those other senators involved in this own it, but you could find out before the end of the day by visiting their financial disclosure forms. >> sure.

>> and so this is not something that's happening without the knowledge of our colleagues, and quite frankly, digital assets are considered commodities, and i like to make the comparison to my life stock operation. a cattleler, i buy and sell cattle every yee and disclose it as part of my ownings of a livestock company. the same is true with regard to crypto assets. i own some individually. i believe senator toomey disclosed that he owns them through an investment asset. so regardless of how you own them, they're disclosed, and it's important that we remember that they're a commodity, just like anything else if you own gold, a commodity, i'm certain that it has to be disclosed. >> thank you very much, senator lummis let's hope your colleagues do

learn from you and others who are more into the crypto industry and know more about blockchain we could use it when we come to legislating on these matters senator lummis, thank you. >> thank you it's an important thing to learn, and this last week has disclosed to others how important it is. >> okay. coming up, when we return, a rare and exclusive interview with famed short seller jim chanos you don't want to miss what he has to say about the people stock and don't miss an all-new season of "the profit. 10:00 p.m. eastern, right here on cnbc. don't go anywhere. "squawk box" returns, right after this. based upon the examples that i had growing up. and that was important for me because you can't be what you can't see. the ey entrepreneurs access network has a tremendous impact on my business and

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welcome back to "squawk box. take a look at futures right now ahead of the market open we are now about a little over an hour away from that open, and dow looks like it would open down 23, 24 points nasdaq moving higher about 17 points higher and s&p 500 off but really marginally.

almost call it an unch update on evolving railroad deal canadian pacific raising cash and stock over for kansas city southern about $300 per share. ka made yab struck a deal for $275 per share but kansas city subsequently agreed to a higher offer from canadian national railway. shares of the three railroads, you can see there, on the screen, moving, kansas city up about 6.5% this morning. seeing canadian national move up canadian pacific on the other hand, gets confusing between the two canadians, moves about 3% down melissa? >> and's eric rosengren adding his voice saying the fed should draw back support for the u.s. economy by the fall. speaking with associated press saying the bank should announce reducing bond purchases in september. when we come back, an update how the current labor is impacting

small business owners nationwide plus a special interview with legendary investors jim chanos, talking people stocks, cryptocurrencies and much more. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm evie's best camper badge. but even i'm not as memorable as eating turkey hill chocolate chip cookie dough creamy premium ice cream and chasing fireflies. don't worry about me. i'm fine. you can't beat turkey hill memories.

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and the delta variants and small businesses beginning to feel the impact joining us with more from a cnbc momentum small confidence index. kate what are you seeing >> hey, andrew good morning our survey finds small business owners are divided on potential for the delta variant to impact their business overall, 41% said it would not change their outlook for 2021. 37% a little 19% said it would cause things to change a lot in respect is a partisan divide as republicans were twice as likely as democrats to say the variant is not changing their outlook 32% of those who work in the arts, entertainment and recreation industry said the variant is causing them to change outlooks a lot. overall confidence held steady, 45 out of 100.

right now 66% of small business owners said they can survive for more than a year under current business conditions. that's unchanged from last quarter. more than one-third say business conditions are good. slightly higher than we saw last quarter. beyond covid headwinds, one thing weighing, ongoing labor crunch 50% saying it's harder to find people and 3 % have had open positions more than three months they just can't fill back over to you >> before you go, the nfib survey is out today. what does that survey say really about small business and labor supply at this point >> yeah. a monthly look again, the labor crunch did take down occuptimism a bit. 49% of small business owners have open positions they just can't fill seeing it there month-to-month as well. >> thanks. reminder, small business playbook coming tomorrow insights from head of the small business administration and kevin o'leary, nfl's aaron

rodgers talks about his game plan to support small businesses as well. register to attend on the website. coming up when we return, talking to amc and the legions of meme stock investors with investors jim chanos live interview minutes away. > n't anywhere. "squawk box" returns, after this. this past year has felt like a long, long norwegian winter. but eventually,

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning look at futures still about an hour before they open. dow would open down 20 points. nasdaq up 20 points. s&p 500 basically unch all morning, up just marginally now. we've seen that swing around a little meantime softbankal quarterly results fell back to earth after last quarter's stellar numbers $6.9 billion down from $46 billion in the prior quarter, driven by major ipos noticeably, a giant well off its highs from its ip owe date back in march chinese taking a toll and hasn't yet been fully reflecting the company's earning. softbankal biggest asset, stake in alibaba fallen sharply since

regulators accused its earlier in the year of anti-competitive practices. speaking after earnings, a share price would bounce back but the company would also try to decrease reliance on alibaba. up next, breaking economic data and instant reaction. an exclusive interview with short seller jim chanos. watch or listen to us on the cnbc app stay tuned it is all ahead when "squawk box" comes right back.

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on cnbc. we're minutes away from second quarter productivity data. meantime where markets stand to get the market reaction afterwards s&p 500 looking unchanged at the open here. looking to open up by about 1 point. dow jones industrial looking to lose 1 nasdaq higher by 20 points ten-year yield yield there 1.329% rick santelli, got to ask you, standing by in chicago a couple minutes before the numbers, of course, marketmakers' minds, rick, when the fed will actually talk about taper and actually do taper? >> well, i think we're going to be talking about tapering an awful lot with regard to actually doing it, i think more

words than action. there's been several articles written that would go along that line and i think i would tend to agree. listen, we could all second guess the fed, and i understand being a weekend quarterback, of course, has its pitfalls and i think the central banks of the world specifically in the u.s. did a good job during the worst points of covid, when we were truly in areas of the unknown. but at this point in time, it really seems like overkill to continually leave some of these programs in place, and i think the delta variant, of course, raises a very unique issue that is -- how do we deal with this cropping up? if it's a form of the flu, i think we all acknowledge it's going to be cropping up a bit. i think the answer to that is, we are all going to have to learn to live with it. i think the vaccine worked quite well i think it was politicized and while the poison deemed the trump vaccine, but having said that, i think the world understands. and i sdo think central banks

like us will learn to live with covid and hopefully remove some policies that really are overkill listen, we have over 10 million job openings, and we have significantly less people that need jobs. why they're not getting together, i don't know, but i do know that with roductivity, yo know, in june of 2020 we had the best productivity in almost 50 years. why? we did more with less people a lot of moving parts here speaking of productivity, gang, here it comes -- second quarter preliminary productivity, non-farm, up 2.3 a miss looking for a number about a full percent higher. rearview mirror, 5.4 from the quarter of june of 2020, second quarter, almost the best in almost 50 years, and we really need to ponder that we throw a lot of money at these things and have lots of people that are displaced, but in the end, doing more with less people

did demonstrate something we should all learn from. it isn't necessarily throwing money at the equation. it's really finding productivity in organic-type growth that needs to be filled with the type of labor of course, that we'd like to see put in place in terms of unit labor costs, came in exactly as expected. up 1%. follows up 1.7, that was unrevised, and if you look at the last quarter of last year, unit labor cost at 14. those were huge. that was the most. that was the most going all the way back to 2000 so what we've seen in these extremes should be a learning experience for our central banks that, you don't need to be all and everything whether it's the corporate market or the mortgage market. maybe stick to the main pillars, and in this day and age, i think setting the agenda the way jay powell did really makes the bar very difficult for central banks to kind of go back to the smaller size they used to be whether prior to covid or prior

to the credit crisis they've grown muscles that i think we have to get used to, and i think they're going to continue to use in the future. melissa lee? sorry that was such a long answer, but, back to you. >> perfect got the numbers. not much market reaction, by the way, initially at least. rick santelli, thank you very much andrew thanks, melissa. meantime right to our next gig interview of the hour, talking about amc after reported second quarter results last night. other meme stocks and so much more, jim chanos, president and founder of kynikos associates. great to have you on the program, jim you have been watching this meme stock phenomenon for quite some time now i think somewhat baffled, as i have been, but curious how you see the earnings report that we just saw from amc last night, and the support that amc seems to be getting from its retail shareholder base >> well, first of all, thank you for having me, andrew.

it's good to be back yeah, well, of course, the retail basis is crucial to all of the meme stocks, and particularly amc and the ceo who i think is coming on within the hour on one of your own shows played that up last night on the call as he should the problem, of course, is that everybody is looking at this versus last year, and versus the street's expectations more recently but, of course, any of these reopening stocks, you really have to kind of compare them to 2019, pre-pandemic in that case, amc's revenues were down 70% in the second quarter versus second quarter 2019 ticket sales were down 75%, and to put that in perspective, if you look at it versus another reopening play that we know something about, planet fitness, which is, you know, gyms have

had their own issues, as have movie theaters planet fitness reported yesterday, revenues down 25% versus the second quarter of 2019 that's a little bit more representative of a lot of the reopening-type plays that we're seeing so something else is happening in movie theaters. i think probably as others pointed out to you what has changed is, of course, the difference in streaming by the studios. and the fact that some of the major studios now are releasing blockbuster movies to home view at the exact same time they're putting them in the theaters that's something that's changed. >> so, jim, though, when you think about the fact that adam aron says, look, $2 billion of liquidity. about $815. -- $13 million cash on hand. he says it's possible to reach profitability by end of this year that assumes, though, that the box office total reaches a little over $5 billion

is that a realistic possibility? >> yeah. well, let's put expectations into sort of perspective here. at the beginning of this year, when amc stock was trading at $2, the expectations for revenues for amc were $3.5 billion this year. today those same wall street expectations for this year are $2.4 billion on january 1st, the company was supposed to be ebitda positive for the year to the tune of about $50 million. that estimate is now negative $500 million and then adjusted net income, benefits obviously from increased share count,i should note, was supposed to be almost $800 million in the red on january 1st for the company. it's now supposed to be negative $1.5 billion in the red. so, i mean, the reality is,

things have gotten worse at this company from the debits of the pandemic on january 1st. so, clearly, again, something has changed, i think, and that change is streaming. we'll see. the latest box office numbers have been running down anywhere from 50% to 70% this summer, from 2019's level. the u.s. box office was about $11 billion in 2019. and amc had about a 45% market share. they did about $5 billion in revenues so you can kind of run through the numbers. if they are running down 50% to 60%, they're going to be doing somewhere around $2.5 billion, possibly, in revenues at a run rate basis, and there's no way they can be profitable they have interest expense of almost $100 million a quarter and depreciation and amortization of $100 million if they're peak year 2019 they

did $660 million ebitda, if they got back to that, melissa, they would be losing almost $200 million a year. >> and i respect the analysis -- jim, i do. and i see it clearly, but at the same time, is your call that the stock will go down, or is your call that the stock should go down because they're two different things as you know, stocks can often be completely divorced in terms of their movement from the reality of the company and so what are we looking at here because in a way, you know, i get us trying to wrap our heads around this company that is losing money, burning cash with this stock price, but it is what it is, and it's gotten 80% retail shareholder base, which doesn't care whether it ever hits profitability right now. >> well, interesting you say that, because what it does seem to care about is what i've commented on publicly, and online that is things like short

interest, dark pools failed to delivers all of the sort of market structure stuff that the amc apes jump up and down about. the problem with that is, that they're wrong about that as well the short interest has dropped in the last six weeks, from over 100 million to a little under 80 million. the short position could be covered in less than a day at current volumes. but here's the funniest thing of all -- even if you liked the idea of retail and that movies are coming back, and that the bears are always wrong, why wouldn't you buy cinemark trading at $14 or $15, which has the exact same cash flow ebitda in 2019 and amc did, as a market capitalization including dead excluding leases right now about $4 billion

versus amc's -- valuation of $25 billion, and trades at six times ebitda from 2019 versus amc's almost 30 times? and the best part of all, cinemark has thesame amount of short interest as a percent of the shares outstanding as amc does so explain that one? >> i have no explanation, but are you short amc, jim would you go in that trade or do you -- >> we have a small -- >> it's difficult -- >> we have a small put position, melissa. >> uh-huh. you do >> we do. >> would you perceive what happened gamestop -- i understand that you don't -- you don't get what they see in the short interest, et cetera, but would you have conceded that the gamestop trade was clever? in terms of seeing the short interest and writing that?

>> be short gamestop at $5 or $10 with 140% of the shares i don't ut standing short was never a good trade and we were not involved, and we wouldn't have been involved. that is simply different this is something quite a bit different. this is a stock that is already up 18 fold this year i sort of pointed out, as few people picked up on, the apes who are just outraged that the stock could actually trade down on any given day, and cheer when it turns up that the shorts are on the run, is -- kind of interesting -- given that the short squeeze may have already happened with the stock up 18 fold this year and compared to gamestop up 7 fold this year so, again, i think people are -- are investing or trading in this stock. not only for the wrong reasons

but for misguided reasons. i mean, one more thought experiment, melissa. say this stock dropped 80%, and the short interest dropped commensurately, 80%. would the apes like it more or less at $7? >> jim, let me ask you a separate, it's a good thought experiment i'm thinking about adam aron one of the things he said yesterday on the call was he plans to set up a 10b 15 program effectively allowing him to sell shares in the company up to now, last five years he has not sold shares what's your reaction to that decision >> well, first of all, he has every right to do so, and i actually know adam he's a fellow -- is a fellow -- the -- ceo summit you attended as well. i think he's done the right moves for the company.

in terms of selling equity i think he probably from a corporate point of view could sell more equity and retire more debt, and what he should be. as relates to his personal holdings why different than any of the other amc insiders most of the suite sold large amounts of stock including the chairman the president sold all their share as few months ago. so i -- you know, i guess be can't begrudge him trying to get liquid of some of his holdings as well. >> what does that say about his alignment with the shareholders? >> well, look. he's clearly aligned right now, but you never want to see a ceo selling large amounts of stock the other executives have sold large amounts of their holdings. adam has not. so that's probably a good question for him, know, in the next hour. i think -- answer that question, he's got to answer that question, not me. >> let me ask you, if you had a question for adam and we're

going to have him on "squawk on the street" in literally, within the hour what would you ask him what do you think the shareholders should know >> well, like anything, i'm a fundamentalist so i would love to know what his outlook is for 2022 as we're starting to see other companies come to grips with their business, and, in fact, will the domestic box office ever get back to $11 billion as it reached in 2019? i don't think it will. but -- but obviously i'd like to figure his feelings about that, and then, you know, what are the plans for the capital structure? i know that the shareholders don't want to issue more stock, but, know, he could issue convertibles he could try to issue due diligence for equity what are his thoughts on restrictions on capital structure, since, again, anyone with a sharp pencil will realize, you should be selling equity here and retire debt, and other long-term obligations.

>> maybe even a dull pencil at this point jim, wondering if commentary on the overall meme stock craze i know amc is very specific in terms of the mechanics of this particular trade, but do you think that there's danger in this i ask you this, obviously ly yr a fundamental investors. mode of invests, but plenty who don't. use simply momentum and they use algorithms and all sorts of other things fundamentals cannot necessarily explain. couldn't this just be another form of trading? >> well, it's always been another form of trading. the problem is when that goes wrong, stocks tend to trade at or below their fundamental value. the question is how much risk are you taking for those it other forms of trading, in case you're wrong and that's, know -- investing's not easy and if you become a financial

player saying i don't care about fundamentals i know this stock is 10x over values, but the shorts are wrong, or failed to deliver, whatever your ration natuale is and good but is the risk you're taking if you should be wrong? there's no margin of safety. and i think that's -- that's the problem with meme stock trading. it's that if it turns out you're wrong or the crowd pulls out of something else, your down side can be dramatic. one other point about that where i think sort of retail crowd gets it wrong about hedge funds and short sellers and the rest of the evil villains that they point to, in our case, our amc position is less than 1% of our net assets and -- and so a lot of hedge funds, short position may be 1% or 2% of assets. retail traders, the fact amc could be half or a third of

their portfolio, god forbid, 100% of their portfolio. so the risk they're taking is far, far greater, should they be wrong. of course, so is the reward if they're right. but, again, those are risk levels that i think are really kind of highwire acts. if you're not correct, or markets prove you wrong, or begin to trade down for some macro reason, what kind of risks are you taking can you afford to lose that money? that's what worries me about when i see with retail traders today. >> sounds like you really think the apes are in fact dumb money? >> i didn't say that, melissa. what i'm saying is, i think they're not cognizant of all the risks they're taking in these positions, and, again, they'll blame wall street i suspect if they lose money, and that's one of those things i keep trying to point out nap if you keep doing dumb things and keep saying, i'm

a nihilist, i eat crayons, i don't care about this. i don't care about that. if you end up losing money, you only have yourself to blame. >> jim, wanted to talk about that alignment issue adam arons may or may not have with his shareholders a lot of people talking about that online given the conversation we're having. error tyear appears he gifted millions of dollars of shares to his sons those shares now worth tens of millions of dollars. what happens if he gives shares to his family effectively to sell, do they have to disclose the sell >> you're asking the wrong person you should ask him that very good question yourself. >> separately, let me ask you a different question not having to do with amc. which is tesla we've talked about tesla for a very long time you have been a bear on tesla,

yet they have, and the company, and its shareholders, effectively manifested their own destiny in part continuing to raise cash throughout. putting themselves in a position to have success. how much do you believe that can be a model for other companies now that we're into this unique moment where retail traders seem to be willing in certain instances to put up that cash? >> yep so george wrote about this years and years ago in a book that took me about three times to sort of get through. reflexivity in finance, where it by rising stock prices can be self-reinforcing, particularly troubled company, if you could use it to raise capital. amc is a good example. but the other thing i pointed out is that, know, wall street also has a printy press, in addition to the fed. if you get prices high enough

you're going to see lots and lots of equity issuance not only for companies that can put it to good use but for all kindsof sort of questionable business plans and outright scams i think that that's -- that is sort of where we are now we're getting into money being raised for all kinds of things that probably aren't at the end of the day going to be productive but might line the pockets of promoters doing it. i think that there's a difference in -- in taking that money and -- and putting it to work in factories. whether the factories make profitable products or not and doing some other things we're happening, for example, in the crypto space, or in some of the more questionable spacs, and i think that's just going to go on as long as these markets stay pretty ebowlient i think we'll see more and more of that issuance in 2021 and 2022. >> do you see, though, the interest among retail investors as healthy for the market?

i think -- we talked to gary gensler last week about the role of retail investors in the market a lot of people look at this as a positive, to have people more engaged? >> yeah. often it's people selling them stock. i mean, the problem with getting more people, retailers, always seems to happen towards the end of every cycle right? retail wasn't there in '09 at the bottom they weren't there in '02 after the dotcom bubble classed. certainly there in '99 and so the problem in the last few cycles is, as i see it, that we get promoters and insiders and people who have done very well cashing out as retail is buying and you know, that's why i thinky see some of this sentiment. the apes going back to amc's case how the game is rigged against me well, yeah the game would appear to be rigged against you if you keep coming in and buying things ten

time what's they're worth, and then take the loss and say, well, you know, this was wall street doing me in again that's the problem i think for the average investors who invests through the cycles, dollar cost averages, investors in 401(k) keeps think fees down, we should have everybody investing but when we start speculating, you know, in -- in various different cryptos and questionable coins, you know, the spac some guy puts out, the 48th different elech triv veh trivelectric company going public, starts to get dicey, my opinion. we're well into that part of the cycle and the last group of retailers coming in are probably going to learn a hard lesson again. >> i guess i won't ask if you own doge, but more broadly as a short seller, i wonder with the mooshgts close to record highs

how will r are you seeing opportunity to short dry powder ready to go do you think the opportunity is going to be soon >> like a lot of short sellers obviously what happened in january caught our attention we had one of the archgo stocks and couldn't figure out why it was going up every day until it collapsed in march and you know, just -- really crazy. so like a lot of fundamental bears or hedge fund, we've reap deuced size of our short positions and nature of them trying to limit the risk whether by using options or keeping positions lower than we normally would, but the flip side of it is, we have more names. a lot more to do. >> yeah. >> and the other thing is, that i would point out to your audience that the things that were really questionable in the dotcom era, sort of all remember fondly, like pets.com and other sort of oddball kinds of things,

thak ben $1 billion to $2 billion market cap, if you go back and look at them. obviously not the aols and ciscos, more questionable things that came out end of the cycle today those same time stories in our world are $20 billion, $30 billion sometimes even more. a meaningful difference in this cycle than in past cycles. the size of the companies and the ideas and the concepts being floated for unprofitable companies, companies that will, know, hopefully make money in 2030 is, in many cases, 10 to 20 x what it was in 1999. that's -- that's saying something. >> jim chanos, we appreciate you calling in today, and providing us with a perspective, as always, and we look forward to talking to you again very soon. >> love to do it in-person sometime soon, guys. thank you. have a great rest of the summer. >> appreciate it absolutely you, too. down to the new york stock exchange

jim cramer joins us. what's your game plan with adam aron >> i got a lot from your interview with chanos. we do have to ask him the outlook for 2022, when things will return to the way they were, if they ever will return to the way they were how else are you going to adjust the capital structure and how he's going to able to retire debt all of these things are very, very important obviously the whole revolution and the notion of talking about the apes is kind of -- kind of funny, because chanos is a very serious guy, and the apes regard themselves as serious, but i do believe that so far the apes have been pretty well contained by themselves, to gamestop and amc, and various stocks that you see underneath, in the crawl right now, but, otherwise, i think things are better than people -- ooh, people are pretty negative and i still find plenty of things to like i do think that people can still buy infrastructure stocks.

i think people can still by health care. i think there's a lot of semi stocks doing very well tremendous demand. i don't know, melissa. i watched your show and you guys genuinely are pretty constructive, and i think constructive is right. >> jim, thank you. we look forward to that interview. everyone will be watching. >> thank you for your interview with chanos. i snatched a scribble or two. >> only you can read it! see you in a few minutes "squawk box" will be right back. retirement income is complicated. as your broker, i've solved it.

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welcome back to "squawk. a little more than half an hour to opening bell. dom chu joins us with the pre-market movers. >> earnings story on food side of things. crisco corporation, institutional food service company providing food and beverage to restaurants and hotels that sort of thing up 3.5% in this point of the trade. better than expected earnings and have not seen currently an effect on demand from food service because of the delta variant. keep an eye on those shares. also the dining side of things, happening with the parent company of applebee's and ihop upgraded to buy. analysts at deutsche bank. shares up 2% thinking applebee's

and ihop well situated going into the future. a good entry point as we do on "squawk box," the most popular ticker searches in yesterday's full session on cnbc.com amc, tesla, guys that's the look. send things back to you. >> look at -- moderna. just look at the chart on moderna. unbelievable thing to behold dom, great to see you. thank you for that. quick final check on the markets before we hand it over to the folks on "squawk on the street." ahead of that interview with adam aron's of amc an interview you don't want to miss dow looks like it would open down about five points a bit better than before nasdaq up about 15 points. s&p 500 up a little over a point. show you where amc stands as we speak. given the earnings report last night. better than expected the conversation we just had with mr. chanos about that stock. looks like it's going to open up about 10% higher this morning.

finally the ten-year note. show you quick trading at -- as we flip the board around there -- looking at ten-year note 1.3 of 1.9 melissa, thank you, again, for another day of hanging out >> my pleasure. >> three more to do. see you in the morning, and for now we should hand it over to the folks on "squawk on the street" and we will all watch mr. adam aron. "squawk on the street" begins right now. good morning, and welcome to "squawk on the street. i'm david faber. along with jim cramer and we are live from the new york stock exchange carl -- has the morning off. >> and joe is not on the voe. >> show. don't even have john toy do introductions. a lot for you this morning of course. futures, setting up for the open half hour from now by the