and now the stick. beyond vaccine bonuses now going to the inverse for employees raising health insurance premiums for unv unvaccinated workers is that a move that will will catch on delta, delta i saw the headline no, this is about the airlines it's thursday, august 26th, 2021 happy birthday, mom. love you and "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning and welcome to "squawk box. i'm melissa lee. it is national dog day as reminded me. >> thank you for bringing that up that way i don't have to >> i knew you were going to. might as well nip it at the bud.

taking a check at u.s. futures at this hour we saw the -- closing at the 51st record high in yesterday's session. looks like a slightly down day here at least at this very early hour for the s&p 500 as well as the nasdaq 31 1/2 points. i want to check out the reopening names on how they're doing premarket. starting with the gambling stocks here. we'll go through cruise lines and airlines gambling stocks here as you can see are higher this is i believe for the week the stocks seeing similar chart action and so have the air line stocks we want to check out treasury yields here. that is going to be a key driver we saw a big move in yesterday's session. that's where we stand right now. it seemed to touch the upper band of a trend line that had been in place since april. and so at least one technical

analyst said 1.45 looks like it's in the cards. we'll see how that goes there. >> i saw you tweet that yesterday. and i know him as carter worth when did the braxton become part of it? >> such a good middle name >> but where did that -- that was never like that before >> that is his middle name though >> yeah, but when did he start using it >> you've always known him as j.j. >> he used to be joe >> i don't know. >> you think andrew was ever andrew sorkin? >> yes >> do you it was like a sag thing? >> i mean you should ask him he is your colleague >> that's ight i should i will do that at some point i know carter -- i think he goes to a similar spot down south i see him down there walking around yeah. >> very nice -- we live in the same building, nkt fachlt. >> you do?

>> yeah. >> no kidding. of that's weird. i see him where he vacations and you see him where he lives. >> it's like worlds colliding. >> salesforce is higher. adjusted earnings of $1.48 a share beating estimates of 92 cents. revenue increased 23% year over year on the call, the ceo said he didn't think that the delta variant would be material for the business and if if anything only accelerated he echoed that sentiment last night on "mad money" when talking to jim >> it's an amazing product you look at the, you know, millions of users that are on slack and the trance transformations they made in the workplace. that accelerated in the pandemic as we move, slack is more important. >> salesforce also raised the guidance and the revenue guidance for the full year >> business leaders kmcommitted billions of dollars to bolster

meetings the white house said apple would create a program devoted to making security improvements across the technology supply chains google would invest more than $10 billion over five years to strengthen cybersecurity and pledge to train 100,000 americans and technical fields microsoft committed $20 billion over five years to deliver more advance security protocols the ceo tweeted after the meeting that the company would ib vest $150 million to help government agencies upgrade their security systems and tratr trading partnerships ibm is going to train 150,000 people over three years and partnereded with historically black colleges and universities. and amazon is planning to give account holders authentication devices to secure their data the they will offer security awareness training to companies and to individuals delta airlines becoming the first major company to impose a financial penalty on unvaccinated employees

starting november 1st, those who haven't been inoculated will pay $200 per month more for health insurance premiums the fees cover the -- the fee will cover the higher cost of insuring employees who get covid and the ceo said the average hospital stay costs $50,000 per person he said since the rise the covid variant, all the employees hospitalized with covid-19 were not fully vaccinated it makes sense to me, i don't know what i think about it i mean, first you try to take bonuses. then you go the opposite and try to actually penalize people. the only thing i thought, were there actual calculations actually made? 200 sounds arbitrary you don't get, i'll charge you $200 does that really cover or, look, we know there is hospitalizations with unvaccinated employees the we're going to raise a certain sum of money and apply

it towards that and hope it helps sore $200 the actual number what would it actually cost? >> he says $20,000 on average. >> 50. >> 50. you have to think not every single unvaccinated employee is going to be hospitalized >> right i wonder if they're really insurance that people have looked at that >> that's a good question. that's at same question for smokers. if smokers have to -- >> not $200? it's not $300? not $600 >> companies charge people who smoke and obese extra in terms of premiums or they give the people who don't smoke credits that they prove they don't smoke. so i don't know if there are numbers behind it. >> how much do you think -- how strongly do you have to feel about the vaccine to pony up $200 a month >> yeah. >> i mean, i think a lot of people are like okay, i yale

didn't want to get this but all right. >> $200. >> that's a pretty good inducement. >> or free shots >> yeah. that's a pretty good inducement which also means you probably won't end up on a ventilator >> that's the -- you know for some people, that's not the calculation in their head for whatever personal reasons, choices. >> some people think that there's a micro chip in the vaccine that is going to allow the government to monitor you. >> that i can't get onboard. everybody has their reasons. >> if that's one of the reasons people are getting it, then make up your own reason anything -- i mean i'm sure that means some people think that aliens gave this to the biden administration to somehow harness, you know, i don't know, keep people under control. i'm sure -- anything you can up with, there are people out there that think that's why they do it. >> think about the country that has been able to go to covid-19 the fastest.

china. >> right >> and think of what they had to do to the population to do that. of they exerted firm control >> right. >> so people point to that and say maybe this is the government's way i'm not saying that's the case at all but that is some people's thinking >> like, you see me. you know, if they -- i got moderna, two of them if they told me pfizer has one ready for me and i want one, yeah, booster, you'd go. >> i'm on the way home i'll stop off. i don't care get a shot boom i'm done i have 29 times the antibodies or something the only thing that gives me pause is when i sean penn is so out there saying you must vaccinate. and that's when i'm like, god, i do need to rethink my position because, you know, the guy chavez and, you know, hates on any american president so when the left gets -- when the hollywood left gets to that point, then i start thinking maybe i'm wrong on all this.

i do need to rethink my position >> stick with your beliefs, joe. please of. >> are you sure? so wishy washy throughout the show, we're going to talk to business lead berz their plans to get workers vaccinated including a verizon board member the ceo of j.m. smucker. they make a lot of dog products. >> they do >> dog products. rachael ray stuff which i buy. >> for national dog day. i almost forgot. >> i have a lot of expressions about dogs just to let you know and the only thing that i worry about is i start, like, getting a little emotional and teary >> really? >> i do. >> there's -- look at your baby. >> that's freddy on left and there is the group shot. po in. go is 16 and i will definitely get -- he is cute and he's 16. i don't think he can see anymore. >> really? >> can't hear very well. can't bark got a little bit of sun downer which is dementia.

but the expression is and people get it wrong dogs are the only thing that love you more than you love yourself. not more than they love themselves they love you more than you love -- you're more important to them than you are to yourself. and that is rare and you know all dogs go to heaven do you understand why they say that >> no? >> because no dogs have ever done anything wrong. committed a sin. they're incapable. see, here i go melissa, take it from me no, take it from me! >> coming up, a busy day ahead for earnings data and the fed's jackson hole symposium the squawk planner is next take ape check on futures. quiet. the dow looking up 11 1/2 points nasdaq looking to add 36 later, congressman kevin brady weighs in on the trillions of dollars in spending bills making their way through congress "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back time for the squawk planner. earnings of note we'll hear from dollar general, dollar tree and aberc abercrombie before the bell. after the bell, gap, dell and

hp plus the fed's jackson hole symposium kicks off today. we'll hear from esther george at 7:30 a.m. eastern. and st. louis fed president jim buller will join us live at 8:30 a.m. eastern. market records keep coming with the s&p 500 crossing the 4500 threshold for the first time yesterday closing at its 51st record high for the year. joining us now, tiffany mcgee, ceo and pivotal advisors and cnbc contributor and the chief portfolio strategist at state street global advisors. great to have you both with us i'm going to start with you. a lot of people don't think any more that jackson hole meeting is going to yield us much much but what are you anticipating in terms of the fed's actions you don't expect the first-rate hike until 2023. >> yes given everything that the fed broadcast so far, we're not expecting any big surprises coming out i think that the pace of tapering starting in december,

january time frame, and then somewhere between july and september. i don't think that'schanging i any significant way. so it's not a big event from that standpoint for us number change is expected from the fed. so, yeah, i do expect things will be as they broadcast. so no big change >> tiffany, you think if the fed announces a time line to their taper that there won't be a tantrum as you have seen before. why not? i feel like last week we sort of got a glimpse of what a taper tantrum would look like this time around. >> i owe don't think there is a taper tantrum like we saw in 2013, right? so when the market dropped 6% at the first mention of the fed wanting to taper so this time around it's a bit different. the fed is transparent

they've been kmaunicommunicatinu their targets. tlst is so much conversation about it and really communication from them to us, right? there is going to continue be a communication going forward. so whatever happens this week when the fed talks about whether they're going to move forward or lay out the plan, there is going to be continued communication about that there will be plenty of times, plenty of opportunities for invstors to react. we did see that last week. i think we really saw was just, you know, an immediate reaction. so not kind of like totally baked in to the market but, yeah, you know, when we get this news, you know, investors are reacting so i'm looking at that as really from if a market perspective as an opportunity to buy. st we saw thursday and friday the market go down but then we also saw this week it come right back up. and we've been seeing that all

year all of these things we've had 11 days this year of 1% declines again, no correction we also had 4% pullbacks in every single instance, the market reboupdz and huts new highs. we're seeing it again today. they're putting more money, allocation into europe i understand you're still overweight what value do you see there? >> pretty excited about the next generation fund. i think this is the first we've seen after many years where there is a concerted effort to move europe on the same grounding as chun and u.s. i also think the combination of

italy, i think that combination is pretty good to make sure that we can see not only near term positive impact on the gdp growth but really structural change that's can position europe for a multiyear upgrade cycle the which is why we started building our positions back it's yale been a long time we've been underweight the markets. so excited about everything that is happening and everything that we believe is going to happen specifically with the next generation fund and that combination. i think it will be very positive for europe >> the fundamental case for europe but i'm curious in terms of a relative basis compared to the united states is europe just a better value with u.s. markets at record highs? >> one is, of course, on the valuation base, whether you look at sector at justed. you look at europe relative to the own history versus any of the market, it is definitely

cheap. it is also in the market that are likely to play in the teams that we're seeing, you know, fiscal spend, we expect that potentially china is going to expand on the fiscal and monday taker qui side all those things do tend to benefit the lens of the market which does put europe in a full position to take advantage >> all right thanks to you both >> coming up, vaccines are free and readily available in the united states. has government and corporate vaccine mandates kick in, some people are paying for fake vaccine cards. china and a special report coming up next >> $357 billion that is how much money is saved in fees over the past 25 years as a result of passive investing. according aton estimate by s&p

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we're building it... now. ge building a world that works. as more american businesses demand proof of vaccination, more chinese counterfeiters are making vaccine cards good morning >> hey, joe. despite them to clamp down on counter fits, they're easy to find like at this marketplace which is famous for selling fakes. and now you can add another one to the list, fake vaccination cards for covid-19

vaccination cards are on sale in china online marketed with plastic sleeves or holders custom made for the cards. one vendor tells us their certificates will be shipped from major business area in the province or from a warehouse in the industrial town. this batch of 100 is from the manufacturing hub. the forgeries are made to look as if they're issued by the department of health and human services and the cdc but typos in both english and spanish give the bogus version away even the word vaccine is misspelled the fake and the holder sell here for 8 cents on the black market, cybersecurity firms found the fake cards priced anywhere from several dollars to hundreds. this vendor said she shipped 10,000 to the u.s. this month alone. and the vendor also told me that demand is picking up and a vast

majority of the orders are heading to the united states joe? >> we have this discussion on the set a lot about when new york is going to mandate something. and there are ways to do more than just -- i don't know how -- how do you expect anything different given how easy it is to have one of these things that look authentic you need to do a bar code. it needs to be in the computer system from the health care provider where you got it so it can be checked so this won't be -- they're not going to be making money for a long time on this, i don't think. when authorities get their act together >> yeah. i mean, i think that the people, the vendors here definitely are in to make a lot more money. but as you said, the authorities are clamping down over in in the u.s. customs officials are seized thousands of these fake cards in places like tennessee and alaska but the vendors also told us

that they've been advising their middle agents, the middlemen if they want to -- if they end up facing potential trouble in the u.s., this he could just send these in small batches makes it a lot more difficult to trace on the other end >> you look on anything and made in china but these? i mean there is no one in the united states figured this out >> i was thinking if you had a laser printer and some card stock why you wouldn't be able to just do it yourself i'm not trying to say anybody should do this >> exactly >> it's easy enough. >> okay. thanks for. that appreciate it see you. coming up, bmw looking to jump-start the electric vehicle competition. the chairman will join us next a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers

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good morning a quick check of the futures this week they're kind of m meandering around. they tend to end higher. the s&p 500 down a couple points the nasdaq, as you can see, down 30 or so >> bmw under pressure to jump-start the ev program. they scramble to catch up to tesla and gm phil lebeau joins us with an exclusive interview. hi, phil >> melissa, let me bring in if the chairman of the board of management of bmw. first time in more than two years. you're back here in the united states you're here at the biggest plant that you have in the world right here in spartanburg, south carolina i know you've got news right off the bat that you want to talk about. a new model that will be built here let's talk about that and how important it is that you're finally back here. >> first of all, thank you very much for that opportunity to talk to you this morning

the united states is very close to our hearts. for me personally, i spent some of my years here and second of all, this is the largest manufacturing operation after bmw group. and we're exporting 70% what we produce here and we're the largest net exporter in value in the automotive industry from the united states to the world so it's great to see our friends here again and i can already say at the end of the year we'll make an announcement to build another high end car from this manufacturing site for thebran new. it is not -- it's not a successor model. it is a high end model for the american market and the world market >> which brings up the question, you had record first half sales. what do you see in terms of the demand in the market, not just for bmw but for the luxury market does it stay as strong as it has been for the first half of this year >> speaking for bmw, we've seen very, very strong demand for our

products and we're just starting a new product offensive. we have the i-4 and the ix which announced -- >> all electric. >> we'll bring that to the world market so production of the ix has already started. and we'll bring it to the market at the end of the next quarter here to the united states. and i can tell you the first feedback we get are phenomenal you know we bet more than 70,000 questions they want to know more about the product. and we think it will be a great hit specifically in the united states. >> but you know what the critics say about bmw. they believe you're asleep at the wheel when it comes to electric vehicles. the you're number ten in the world in terms of total electric vehicle sales. you're behind tesla, general motors and voekz wagon. you have waited to loaning >> we started more than ten years ago to electrify our

products the i-3, we have great product coming up now. and we're right at the right time when the market propelled and now we get new products on the line we'll have more than 12 fully cars in the next two years in the market so we think the timing is perfect for us and we have planned for that strategy for the past five years. i think we've come right at the right time of the market >> do you get worried when you look at something like the new california new car dealers association puts out its report every quarter on sales if you look at the segment where the three series is, the model 3 from tesla blows it away there is clearly a demand in california, the largest market in the united states people look at that and they say you're letting them eat your lunch out in california, the most important market. you need to step on the gas or step on the accelerator faster >> from a global perspective, we're growing faster than tesla.

we always have a global perspective. and there will be specific markets like california where you see different acceleration the but we're prepared, of course, to conquer that. and we're very confident that we will have the right answers in thenext months, in the next years for that specific challenge. >> the biden administration set this target. 40% to 50% e.v. sales in the united states. the they want almost half the market, basically half the market all evs by 2030 many in the industry say soubdz good >> we fully support the biden administration in following the targets. what we see here isa similar development than we see in europe we already -- we also have to have 50% co 2 emissions in the next anyone years. and what we see in europe, you will see here as well. so we're prepared for that and our long term planning, we

underline that we will achieve these minus 55%. >> does the market get there overall or is that a target that it sounds good right now in 2021, the reality is we probably won't get there? >> with today's infrastructure, we will not get there. but, of course, we have ten years time to build up together an infrastructure for charging needs and so on. i think with infrastructure goals which the biden administration says i think there is a good opportunity to at least come very close to that market and we'll in our product strategy, at least in europe, we'll have more than 50% sales but only in ten years time that's our target. >> one last question what do you think about the chip prices right now does this linger well into '22 for the industry >> what we currently see and bms effective in europe, no the here in spartanburg, we have not had

a plant. we didn't lose one unit due to the chip crisis. we have one plant in europe. but not here so it's a really big challenge but what we see, we go through the next investment cycle and the chip industry. and the automotive industry has very peculiar declines on chips these are not standard chips i don't see that the challenge we have will completely go away. we'll see some relief during the year 2020. >> oliver, chairman of the board of management g to have you here in the united states and he brings news, guys, that they'll be building an all new vehicle. they haven't said what it s we'll try to pry it out of him later on today but they're going to be building it here at the bmw plant in spartanburg. back to you. >> phil, thanks. >> probably a car. >> of some sort. something with wheels. >> he said it -- probably a car. that is my guess. >> good guess.

coming up, delta airlines will hike premiums by $200 a month for unvaccinated employees we'll see whether more companies will follow suit plus, do not miss our interview with kansas city fed chairman esther george in the next hour retirement income is complicated.

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china is cracking down on the liquor industry. shaurz of major distillers have fallen on reports that regulators are trying to raun in the soaring cost of high end spirits. attendees of a meeting between producers and regulators said the focus is on cooling off an overheated market. prices of bottles from high uen distiller fell $46 in one day. chinese liquor stocks are among the most invested stocks by foreign institutional investors. high end liquors are often a gift also, joe, and a lot of these stocks of companies that make things that would be high end gifts have fallen since president xi made the speech about income inequality and making things more level in society. >> that i did not know

so communist country, there is high end not everyone -- yeah it's not for the masses. >> high end lick yoer. >> part of the income inequality which is a fascinating subject to me to talk about i don't think of income inequality >> because the inequality seems to great. >> because it's a communist country and it's not and then you wonder for someone it's like do what i say, not what i do for the leaders in in china becaus they're all help wealthy >> and public reveers people like jack ma. >> right but if you're going to really not ever change your, you know, your stripes just in terms of personal freedom, if you really are going to have this weird hybrid between free market and capitalism but human rights and personal freedom is so restrictive, if if you're going to keep it, you can't just

control, you know, you control companies you own them. you also have to control the populous you don't want a lot of people p.o.'d that there are a couple mullo million that have all this money. even though i still think it is the best way to do things. it rewards hard work >> that's why we are arrogant. >> how do they keep it going over there you know, everything they do -- >> it's like dangling just enough you can get here you can have this without too much that's part of the reason for the chinese tech crackdown that we've seen >> right >> they don't want too much power in the hand of the tech companies that have all the data on your income because people are using ali pay instead of state run payment systems. >> sometimes you have to hand it to them in terms of intelligence and ruthlessness that yir able to keep control. we have 300 plus here so they

have -- five, six times. so whenever they're trying to do anything, they have to do it five or six times as well as we do it for the number of people >> yeah. >> hard work they need to decide here u.s. -- you fall back. i don't know why i fall back into dove every time they need a strategic -- >> regulators are victiming deutsche bank's asset management arm. "the wall street journal" reports that probe comes after the firm's former head of sustainability says the division overstated how much it used sustainable investing criteria overstated we saw this piece in the journal last week about promise of esg and they talk a good game. >> $2 trillion globally. >> but stake holders, nobody -- yeah, but stake holders, nobody is doing -- i was glad i'm a milton friedman guy.

stake holders are fine i think they're satisfied by the original goal of what you do i think that filters down into everything you don't do bad things, pr wise, you don't do things bad in the environment. >> you put chemicals into the river, your stock is going to be punished >> mind your ps and qs in terms of satisfying employees and customers and everything else follows. all the rest is virtue signalling i told the business roundtable that >> like esg? >> not only esg, about the the whole stake holder virtue signalling coming up, delta taking the stick approach at a vaccine for its employees. we're digging into what it means and if it's going to work. right now as you head to break, congig wre mi rht back. down from last quarter but we are hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... doug? sorry about that. umm... what...its...um... you alright? [sigh]

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more places require shots, we go unside the chun he's black market for vaccine cards plus, the race free throw tekt

diplomats from havana syndrome

companies like kroger, walmart, tyson foods are paying front line workers cash bonuses to get the vaccine delta airlines taking it a step further raising health premiums, raising health premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month. that is a decision that could have a ripple effect around the business world as companies weigh the high cost of treating workers with severe covid-19 joining us now is shelly archanbo, board member of verizon and nordstrom and former ceo of metric stream before we get into the meat of things, we had a discussion earlier, do you think that number is pulled out of thin air? do you have any idea actually what they need to cover as a company for health care because of covid-19 for their employees?

do you think it's exactly $200 a month for unvaccinated employees? >> honestly, i can't tell what you delta airlines knows or doesn't know i know all companies are looking at what the overall expenses are. and what things cost but i have no idea what went into the decision around overall expenses are and what things cost but no idea what went into the decision around $200 >> i've got, you know, as you can imagine in the social media world, a lot of people saying if you do the math on hospitalizations and become serious, the 0.0 this and there's no way that's a real number does it matter whether that's the actual number or not can they just pull one out of thin air and say hey, we're the company. you're either paying this or not going to work here >> companies can decide what they're going to charge and how they're going to charge for different health care. if you look company to can, the premiums employees pay differ

each company decides what works for them and what doesn't. can't comment on what they charge yes, doesn't matter. comes down to what behavior they're trying to drive. so it's the concept of what they're doing more so than the dollar amount. >> why do you think they're hesitant to say if you're coming in physically to the office, you can't come in unless you have the vaccine? is there future liabilities, some type of lawsuits? what's the problem with just, you know, going full on with what they tell employees to do why half measures? >> we are in unprecedented times, every single company is trying to figure out how do they thread a very fine needle. they're trying to create a market that's safe for their work's and their suppliers as well as their customers. they need a workplace that will be efficient and productive and want to make sure they're following different rules and

laws and regulatory environments which are changing states are coming up every day with new requirements what you can and can't do every company's situation is different. some companies have situations and some don't, you can be re remote what my rules are and what my policies are will be different this is unique to every single company. >> we've always had the discussion, you know, not on all cable channels i guess but on some, there was a balance saving lives and live lie hoods, if they can transmit covid to vaccinated or unvaccinated people, we say this again and again and bring it home to hair children and get it, at this point, don't with we need to have double vaxed, double masks, social distancing, we're back to square one if we try to get covid cases to

zero instead of the other 200 human trance missible infections, whatever you want to call it, diseases that we have now, there are people that say this is going to be added to that there will be 2 o1, because covid is going to be around. it's never going to go to zero if there are vaccine breakthroughs, do we need to go back to masks indoors, outdoors, masking children in school, requiring double vaxes, work at home see what i'm saying? when is it enough? what do we do? >> the issue here with vaccinate/unvaccinate is if you're vaccinated and the cdc has said health care professionals have said if you're vaccinated, can you get covid-19 or get the delta variant? you can, but the level at which you will be ill is significantly different. the public policy issue here is overwhelming our hospitals, so we want to make sure everybody's

vaccinated then yes, i might get it but the odds show that i won't be hospitalized. odds show that i will indeed recover. >> right but so do we need to require masks in the workplace even with vaccinated people, again >> as long as we have a significant percentage of the population that is not vaccinated, that's why we're having to wear masks, because we need to protect the broad set of the population >> shellye, for a board member of companies that are so diverse, some reliant on being "in office" like a nordstrom versus other businesses that can operate pretty well remotely, how does liability factor into this, liability a company may face should they not mandate or mandate? i'm curious what the discussions in the board room are like >> decisions are made every day by companies and boards looking at the risks that are entailed

by the different policies that they put in place. we are all trying to create an environment in which people are safe to work and companies are starting with first educating, we need to educate our employees, yes, incent employees and if nothing else works, we need to mandate the environment in which we need so that we can continue to operate our businesses we need people to work we need people to service our clients, and as you look across the board, that's really what all businesses are trying to do, they're trying to keep business and the economy going. >> if it is seasonal and it becomes similar to the flu and it comes back every year, and we never reach 100% vaccinated, do we need to wear a mask from here on out if you're in the workplace, to keep cases at zero then >> i am not the health care expert, but everything that i

read says that if we can get ourselves to the point where the vast majority of people are vaccinated, then it significantly reduces, just like anything else that we fought in this country, talking about polio, or measles, et cetera, once you get to the critical mass, it does not have the kind of impact that we're seeing today so no, i don't expect we'd all have to wear masks every day as we operate. >> i got my first jab? january, second in february. i'm not i think everybody should get it but i look at if you take it to the nth degree and never want another covid case ever to happen, you can see what the slippery slope that some people that don't have my opinion, you can see where they get some of the ideas, because this could go on forever if you, if vaccinated people are still contagious, i just i don't know what the future looks like, but thank you and that's what our corporate

managers are dealing with. >> that's right. it's a very tough environment. >> unbelievable. i live for a long time and never thought about any of this and it's all we think about now. >> all companies want to is operate, serve their clients, treat their employees well, create a safe environment. >> it's a little cya'ing in there, shellye, don't kid yourself >> thank you very much coming up, we'll talk vaccine policies with the see yos of jm and smucker and kansas city fed president's cher george and jim bullard. we'll be right back. get decision tech from fidelity. [ cellphone vibrates ] you'll get proactive alerts for market events before they happen... and insights on every buy and sell decision.

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the feds virtual symposium kicking off today. we'll hear from two fed officials this morning esther george and james bullard talk inflation and the time line and companies putting their foot down when it comes to covid, a look at what vaccine mandate means for corporations, getting folks back to the office and salesforce and williams-sonoma

move this morning. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ >> good morning. and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with melissa lee. wall street is a little bit higher, everything close to an all-time high. we will talk about the people of the hour, men and women of the hour, i'm talking about jackson hole, because a lot of this obviously is somewhat fed dependent. here is what's making headlines other than that at this hour $20 billion tech merger in the works, disk maker western digital is in advanced talks to merge with japanese chipmaker

k kioxia people familiar with the matter say talks have been up salesforce, dow component -- >> [ laughs ] you're still in disbelief. like the third time we've heard this >> salesforce is the dow component? that should be breaking news for some of us, higher in premarket trading better than expected profit -- next you'll tell me nike is one -- in its latest quarter and raised forecast for the year salesforce continues to benefit from cloud-based accusations nike is in, are stock averages -- >> i'm not going to -- you want me to reveal the conversation we had during the wreak >> no. >> i can easily do that but it was a u.s. company, an american company. >> is it okay? the recent run of upbeat retail

reports conditions williams-sonoma shares surging, beating forecast on the top and bottom lines, increased outlook and raised dividend by 20% >> yes >> we need a therapeutic like tami-flu where you say oh, i'm coming down with -- >> nothing >> -- covid. i'm going to take this pill and then it cures it and it's possible to do that. like tami-flu. >> it would be great >> otherwise you saw the quandaries we're never going to be out of the mask if vaccinated people can transmit it, if you want to stay at zero, so you know what we bash the pharmaceutical companies unless we want them to do something like this it's like pfizer, please >> you're charging too much money. oh, but go spend money on a new vaccine. >> please make a therapeutic that i can take oral form that works. >> dr. gottlieb, who has been on

this program, said it's possible to see one on the market >> it will with current technology and that may be until then that we're just going through this exercise of it never ending, you know, boosters >> right.iants and if i'm vaccinated, now i have to wear a mask inside because of the schmoes that won't get vaccinated i did what i need to do and the kids in grade school don't want to go to school, everybody's got to do it because of the people that aren't. of course kids can't get vaccinated yet but that will happen we solve a lot of the world's problems here. >> between 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. eastern time >> i don't know if we get near enough credit. >> much more, we still have two hours. coming up, google, microsoft and others plan to spend billions in cyber security after meeting with president biden yesterday. we have the details after the break. still to come the ceo of jm

smucker talks earnings and much more and kansas city fed president esther george on the taper time line. congressman kevin brady, the ceo of rocket companies. fed president james bullard and reaction from blackrock's rick rieder the s&p 500 hit another record high looking tlo 3o se at the open "squawk box" will be right back.

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some of the biggest names in tech plan to spend billions on cyber security following a high-profile visit at the white house. eamon javers joins us with more. good morning, eamon. >> good morning, his is a. president biden yesterday telling ceos of the nation's largest companies they have the responsibility to do more when it comes to cyber security and convening this session at the white house in the east room to really work on the public/private partnership between government and the private sector in terms of this wave of ransomware and other cyber security attacks that we've seen over the past year or two. you see tim cook and other top ceos in the country at the meeting yesterday. in the wake of the meeting we saw a wave of announcements from the companies what they're going to do, new commitments on cyber security i about, m will train 150,000 people in cyber skills, introduce a new product to help recover from attacks within

hours. google said they're going to spend $10 billion over five years on cyber security and going to expand a number of initiatives like zero trust programs in which the program something set up so that there's no trust assumed anywhere in any link of the chain inside the software also, we saw microsoft saying it's going to spend $20 billion over five years and $150 million in technology services for federal, state and local governments to help them with their cyber security setup so a fascinating meeting in the east room at the white house and i can tell you guys, based on my reporting that during that meeting yesterday, one of the participants brought up to the president the idea of cryptocurrency and really called for a government crackdown on cryptocurrency, making the argument to president biden that the fact that cryptocurrency is out there is one of the things that's fueling the fire of cyber crime, because you can get paid very quickly as a cyber criminal and make off with that money into a jurisdiction that the united states can't get at so the idea of cryptocurrency

which i'm told came up three different times in this session yesterday being a focal point for the ceos is a fascinating one and we'll see if the white house or any of the government agencies that were involved yesterday has some response to that guys, back over to you >> i understand that's part of the problem, eamon i was surprised there wasn't a representative of the crypto industry within this meeting that was invited but at the same time, i mean, the root of the problem is that their defenses are not up to snuff so to allow a hacker to get in, fine, to enable them to have a payment system that is a problem, but that is not the root cause do they at least acknowledge that >> you know, i think broadly, the companies do acknowledge that i don't know every word that was spoken in the session, once the media was kicked out i know some of it but not all of it i can't tell you for sure whether they acknowledged that broadly the industries do acknowledge that they need to do more and they need to tighten up

security and that's what these announcements are all about. the argument made to the president yesterday i can tell you was that but for cryptocurrency, would you not have this wave of ransomware attacks because the crooks couldn't get paid as easily. if they had to get paid in dufflebags full of cash, dropped out of hospitals, how they paid the somali hijackers year ago when that was scourge if that happened it would be more friction in the system and much more difficult to get paid and much more easy to get caught and you would have a lot less of this that's the argument that they're making i know that's going to bother a lot of cryptocurrency advocates out there, i see them on twitter. when i tweet about this subject, that is the reality, and that's the argument made to the president yesterday. >> thank you, eamon. coming up, peanut butter and jelly time mark smucker will talk earnings inflation and the push for vaccines, it's amazing that

company found a guy, it's great to have a guy with the same last name >> what a coincidence. >> at 7:30 we'll hear from kansas city fed president esther george ahead of the fed's virtual jackson hole symposium awbo icongigs mi rht back

[music plays.] ♪♪ ♪♪

smucker's out with earnings this morning and joined by the ceo, mark smucker, not everyone knows, a lot of pet products, too, on national dog day but let's start with the results because there's some interesting things happening, the stock's down a little bit today, mark, and there is a tough environment in terms of raw material and logistics costs you're raising sales guidance but lowering earnings per share guidance slightly that sounds like a margin issue. have i got that right? j first of all joe, i appreciate you having me. fundamentally our business is strong we've grown all of our retail segments, increased our portion

of our portfolio about two-thirds of it is growing share. the fundamentals are strong, demand is strong and the change in guidance is significant to inflation we've experienced and some of the supply chain disruption we continue to manage those things we have moved our pricing a bit working with our retail customers and so we will work with customers to raise prices over the next several months and confident we'll be able to recover those costs although the timing might be a little bit later than when we realized the cost >> this is pandemic related, the supply chain volatility, not just chips and things like that, it's logistics and everything else around the world so it's pandemic related >> it is largely pandemic related, significant cost inflation across ingredients,

packages, transportation and labor are playing a role and certain weather events impacted costs and commodities and so forth. we do view these this inflation is somewhat transitory but it likely will persist through the remainder of our fiscal year, through the late spring. >> mark, i think i saw your base somewhere in ohio, i didn't recognize the town but i'm sure smucker's a great name to have in that town but in ohio, not secure of the delta variant but you have employees everywhere. what is your current approach to getting employees vaccinated to be safe? you saw what delta did, they're doing $200 a month for additional health insurance coverage >> sure. >> what is smucker he's approach right now? >> since the beginning of the pandemic, our focus has been on

keeping our employees safe and delivering the business so that is what we have done i could not be prouder of our people in the way that they have continued to execute and deliver the business we recently did bring back our mask mandate here in the office. we are in northeast ohio and continued to encourage and educate our employees to get the vaccine but we have not issued a mandate. we are monitoring it daily, extremely closely but at this point, we have not made a decision to mandate. >> do you think if did you, do vaccinated employees need to wear masks now, too, mark? >> at this point, because of the delta variant and the way that it is contracted or passed aening lo, all of us are required to wear masks here in the office >> all options on the table, mark, is a mandatory double vaccination or some type of we

saw people giving bonuses, and now seeing premiums if you don't get it is everything on the table for you? >> as i said, we're still monitoring it and we are considering all options, and just making sure that we are very thoughtful about how we engage with our employees and continue to encourage them to vaccinate, but again, at this point, no decision >> obviously we are long time fans of smucker and i think it was the old "squawk box" there was a time when you bought if you're a jelly company and bought peanut butter, i get. this a lot of synergies that escape me and the investment bankers suggest a merger and they demerger. this is never being demergered that was a good one. so i want to talk to but some of your new products, because you've gone not just the iconic brands, you got some coffee

millenials probably like, some other things going on with you got milk bones but also rachael ray, which i use for treats. you've gone into the niche branding as well as the iconic brands >> thank you, joe. that's a great segue our strategy is really around making sure that we participate in all segments of the category, and coffee is a great example, where we have folger's, dunkin' and boostello. we grew shares across all three quarters and the strategy is contingent on the combination of iconic brands and fast growing brands, dunkin' and bustello and k cup portfolio. >> i'd be remiss if i didn't ask you about uncrustables, one of your people, i know there's a

big controversy, are they sandwiches or are they ravaioli >> how does ravioli fit into this >> there was a dispute for a patent you know, whether it's ravioli or -- >> what is the verdict, mark >> it's a sandwich >> people refer to them as sandwiches and that is the number one growth engine of the company right now, it's grown 29 consecutive quarters, and double-digit in thelast several, so it's on fire we love the brand and we continue to push that. >> i mean, you don't miss -- it's like a pb&j and they're frozen but when i see them as golf tournaments and a big vat of them and you take one, when were they unfrozen that day? they taste fresh and good and it's pretty amazing.

>> thawed in 45 minutes. >> you're expanding a lot of other fillings, it's a big growth engine for smucker, joking around but it's a big growth engine, uncrustables. >> absolutely. absolutely we continue to add capacity, we have now two plants and adding new lines to ensurewe can meet demand but we're just really working to keep up and you're right, we do have alternate fillings like chocolate hazelnut, peanut butter and honey and so forth >> melissa didn't know this. >> news you can use. >> and rachel ray, if prices go up, you may price me out of the market i get the treats and they're expensive. >> inflation is transitory shouldn't price increases with transitory >> it doesn't matter what you charge >> my dogs neat tutrish as well. >> mg could up, esther george and kevin brady talks president

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now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. today is national dog day. can you name joe kernen's three companions the answer, pongo, gunther, freddie. they are truly joe's best friends. >> i can't believe the producer got, our guy who does all the voiceovers, to do that >> the way he said it, too, is so full of meaning they are his best friends. >> and every day, i read more and more about people have have

depression, they do so much, comfort dogs, there's pongo and national blankity blank day inflation but national dog day is one that we really should celebrate and maybe national animal day because they're so pure >> national pet day. all pets could you have a comfort lizard. >> they do so much for us and never ask for thanks just great treats. >> coming up, kansas city fed president esther george on the fed's paper time line and rocket companies making a push into auto lending wel lk aut'ltabo the move in the next hour. "squawk box" will be right back. this is us talking tax-smart investing, managing risk, and all the ways schwab can help me invest. this is andy reminding me how i can keep my investing costs low and that there's no fee to work with him. here's me learning about schwab's satisfaction guarantee. accountability, i like it. so, yeah. andy and i made a good plan.

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the jackson hole virtual economic symposium kicks off tomorrow but we'll start our coverage today steve liesman interviewed the host of the summit, which is always interesting, it's the kansas city summit that's based in jackson hole, because they're not stupid fed president esther george and -- right that makes me think they may be the smartest of all the regional banks, steve

>> yes, i wonder in the negotiations when they made the districts, did they kind of say no, we need that piece right there as part of our district because it is kind of far away but we can talk about that in just a second, joe i do want to get to this very newsy interview with esther george she made the tough choice to take the jackson hole conference virtual amid the rising concern about the delta variant and she was clear in our interview when it comes to the choices on monetary policy, she does not think the new outbreak should deter the fed from starting to taper. >> i think keeping the delta variant as one of those risk factors to the outlook is important, but rankly, the guidance that the committees offered has pointed to watching for progress in how the economy is unfolding, progress toward our objectives for employment and inflation, and i think my own view on that is that we have made substantial further

progress, and that we can begin to talk about backing off of some of that accommodation so that i think is appropriate, given the progress we've seen. it doesn't mean that we will move all the way to neutral or tighter policy but i think as a first step, signs in the economy right now are showing that we're reaching that point. >> are you ready to support an announcement of a taper as soon as september >> so we'll be meeting in a couple of weeks and i think the progress i've seen so far is encouraging, and what month in particular we do that, i think is sgs the committee will certainly come to consensus on when you look at the job gains that we saw last month, the month before, you look at the level of inflation right now, i think it would suggest that the level of accommodation we're

prying right now is probably not needed in this scenario. i would be ready to talk about taper sooner rather than later >> are you concerned the inflation levels we have now will bleed over into next year >> so depending how supply constraints unfold and how strong demand stays, i think we're seeing those are more persistent constraints and can keep upward pressure on inflation. i certainly think it's a reasonable baseline to say that firms adjust, households adjust and we could see some evening out in the pressure on inflation, but it's something you have to watch, because again, the more persistent that is, the more the process that people build into their thinking about inflation can be affected. >> vice chair claire talked about the end of 2022, beginning of 2023 as the time for rate

liftoff. is that something in agreement with your outlook? >> i think that's in the win do window of a reasonable outlook and completely dependent how the economy unfolds. looking out until the end of 2022-'23 will mean judging a lot of job reports between now and then, and looking at how growth in the economy unfolds, and again, looking at our mandate for inflation. so watching all of those carefully obviously will signal when it's time for a rate adjustment >> speaking of growth in the economy, the title of the conference discussed is the idea of an uneven recovery, and sort of inside of that is a presumption there has been unevenness can you talk about where you've seen this unevenness and where it matters most to the federal reserve and what it can do about it >> the theme of the conference is looking at an uneven economy, and in particular, starting with what this pandemic shock has

meant. we've seen that unfold in job sectors, we've seen it unfold in geographies around the globe, in different ways, and that unevenness as it's come through in the recovery we've seen, for example, between service sector, between the goods sector layering that on top of an economy some might argue already had features of unevenness, whether you think about market concentration, you think about other aspects of any quality in the economy, really raise the prospect for this year's conference to say what insights could we bring in terms of how macro economic policy interacts with that unevenness >> the interview with george is one of the clearer statements yet from a fed official, since this latest outbreak, the tapering should go ahead quickly despite the challenge and the risk of the delta variant. we're going to see in an hour if

president jim bullard agrees and how widespread that view is and we have a bunch of other interviews coming up >> it's almost as if they have two mandates, steve. maybe they'll get back to that someday. >> you mean like inflation and unemployment you mean? >> yeah, like price stability and i mean it's fine we lost a lot of jobs and some of them i don't know what structurally how they come back and it's definitely something the fed needs to be aware of, but if you have to, you need to think about to or don't have to, and it just seems like they've been single-mindedly focused on the unemployment picture and i don't know, we've had people in the past, steve, back to the financial crisis talk about staying at the party too long and there's going to be terrible consequences and i was asking yesterday, how will we see those? what will they look like are you sure that they're coming because people get worried long before it's time to get worried.

we'll see whether this time the boy who cried wolf would be right if it's not transitory >> you made a bunch of really good points. i think for sure the fed had a bias in favor of its employment mandate. a lot of people were unemployed. several decades of deflationary forces in the economy that may yet reassert themselves once we get past this. but the other part of this is that you know, they've taken this risk with inflation and nobody's come forward, joe, and i'm interested in talking to people about this and explaining what good is $120 billion a month of asset purchases really doing for the economy and several fed officials have said you know what? maybe it's doing more harm than good now >> steve, look forward to that the next one, kansas city a great place. but jackson hole -- >> nothing wrong with kansas city city is good but jackson's better >> yes

well depends on the individual st. louis fed president james bullard will join us and reaction to all this morning's fed talk, from blackrock's rick rieder, what are their policies on vaccine mandates. here are the futures right now as you can see, they're up 47. we're coming right back. observing investors choose assets to balance risk and reward. with one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. agile and liquid. a proven protector. an ever-evolving enabler of bold decisions. an asset more relevant than ever before. gold. your strategic advantage. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria.

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we can see mull tipment sides of an issue wouldn't it be fun and hopefully informative to get two opposing arguments from one person in two minutes and i believe there's nothing like a good debate to

draw out the facts like a mini market of ideas. the competition creates demand for winning information and makes us better informed citizens and smarter investors but the weirdest thing happened, nobody argues anymore. we agree everybody loves vaccine mandates and wearing masks it's understood the market will keep up going up for ten years and i don't think there's anything left to argue about, joe >> i got visions of thelma and louise with rick santelli and steve liesman. i think we're sad to see the segment end. i think some people might have to agree to disagree with you there. >> joe, on the other hand, come on i'm never going to really run out of material for this thing

warby parker a multibillion-dollar valuation but on the other hand it was headed for profitability before the pandemic hit and a great vertical strategy. president biden has a two-track strategy to get his economic agenda through congress but with the level of partisan rancor and his approval rating his chances are debatable. the future of collaboration is remote or not. apple has a new iphone out, completely overhyped or the best thing ever prop 22, facebook ftc, it's been quite a year we've all had to reinvent the way we work and i'm glad the team at "squawk box" is making room for "on the other hand. i hope to continue to join you guys on thursday mornings. >> i think there's a very good chance of that, bud. i get sad a little bit and i'll tell you a quick story, there's a lady been in this country 35 years, emigrated from china. she loves this country and wants us to be the best and wants us to win and she's devastated by

the rancor that we're seeing right now. why can't we all not get along but why can't we do this gracefully and knowing that we're all on the same team, and unfortunately, i told her, i told her i can't do that i can't do that with the rancor that in my viewpoint issen on t other side outrageously out of control. i think it's social media and that's what i blamed it on to her. >> i think every one of us has got to do our part >> uh-oh >> it's the old ben franklin thing. >> i told her no, i'm not throwing down an olive branch. i'm still mad. i look at that and i seeth every day from what i see. >> a republic if we can keep it. >> yep >> every one of us with the platform we have, give the example we can, push it forward. >> i'm going to try -- i'm

working on it. >> turn over a new leaf. >> it's hard it's a national dog day, hard to teach an old dog new tricks. anyway, john, thank you and i think we do need to, i don't know, dial it back i guess it's going to be tough. twitter. coming up, companies are putting their feet down when it comes to covid and mandating vaccines can the move bach kfire? and congress kevin brady will talk taxes, the president's budget bepntluri and much more stay tuned

a survey workers were asked businesses, events, schools and local governments should be allowed to require vaccines for employees and guests 65% yes, 25% no, 14% no opinion. joining us is jeff sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies great to have with us. we had so many correspondent leaders on of late, board members, et cetera, various kinds of companies and industries and this is such a moving target.

how do you go about deciding what a mandate is. you took it upon yourself to grade companies and their response >> thanks. 15 major companies that publicly reported what they're doing and you can classify them by those requiring all mandates which was a handful right now or perhaps asking at the corporate office a group that's saying you can vaccinate or else you have some onerous penalties. delta and pfizer are having multiple tests for employees that are not vaccinated inside pfizer, so these companies are doing different things, impressive and i grade them between an a+, an a and maybe a- in a few cases. it's incredible leadership they're showing. we're seeing employees work at it this survey you just saw from "morning consult" done overnight, 2,200 people, they're

showing that 61% of people saying they want it and 14% say they don't care. so that's 75% say they'd be fine with it. that's remarkable. it's 75% of our population which now has at least one vaccination already. this is a big change from a year ago, and when i was on with you we had only 50% of the country said that if the fda cleared the vaccine, they would be willing to be vaccinated so this is a huge triumph, that people are willing to be vaccinated we're seeing in the university world there are some 700, 800 universities that are now mandating vaccination. >> 25%, though, of a workforce, of any workforce, jeff, is a pretty sizeable population, particularly when you're faced with the dynamics of a very tight labor force and labor shortage so with that number, i get that the majority are okay with it or have no opinion, but 25% can't be ignored if you put that

mandate in you could alienate that 25% at a time when you can't afford to lose any workers. >> a lot of the 25% needs to be educated and also as the most trusted authority in america today, our business leaders, as they set the trail here, the model they set will inspire others to jump onboard and follow that path you can see that this is broken up very much by politics you'll have roughly half the universities in massachusetts require mandates, only 1% in texas. the politicization of science is remarkable most of the country, 75%, 77% of the country was in favor of vaccines last april, a year ago april. it plummeted with the politicization of science over the summer so people will change. and that's really encouraging. these mandatory vaccinations aren't new we've been doing it for 150 years. we started doing it with smallpox back then it has been proven since 1905,

the supreme court has justified it as saying that it is fully legal to be mandated all 50 states have mandatory vaccinations, even though some people, perhaps 20% don't like it, it's still mandated in all 50 states for mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, polio, it's mandated nobody complains some don't like it but still do it that's the issue here is politicization we have millions of jobs right now in these same states that require drug testing some people don't like that. but they take the job, they bite the bullet and go along with it. >> so, jeff, we've been talking all day about i'd say for weeks about now that the vaccines, we get these breakthrough numbers and then you find out that asymptomatic double vaccinated people are contagious and can give it to double vaccinated

people so it just, you know, sets up sort of new problems about how to handle things so you could see if a company wanted zero tolerance, they'd go mandatory double vax, mandatory double masks, mandatory social distancing i don't know, mandatory everything and so now i'm going to put a disclaimer here, devil's advocate, devil's advocate, devil's advocate if a company were to take this to the logical extreme, couldn't you hear, wait a sec, how many eggs did you have this week for your cholesterol how much -- what is your exact weight today and it looks like you've put on a couple of pounds -- i'm not talking to you, jeff. >> no, thank you lost a few. >> it looks like you put on a couple pounds. are you prediabetic, what's that going to cost me as a company. are you -- take your pick. you mentioned drug tests casual drug use, alcohol, go down the list of anything that a

person does that he may full well know that he's doing something that's not perfect for him but if a company is going to just go down this path, and covid is horrific, but we're still talking about something where most people, worst case scenario, doesn't happen, especially if you're vaccinated. how far do you want companies intruding into your life and your personal freedom? when do you say enough is enough and i said -- did they flash devil's advocate did they flash that? because this is not me. >> no, we know you would never hold such an extreme position. >> i got double vaxxed the day i could. i'm going to go get a booster. >> you would stop by on the way home from work i think you said an hour ago. >> i would i would right now if someone comes door to door jab me. >> that says a lot that virtually everybody who has been vaccinated is willing to get a

booster, which is also in the overnight survey data showing that people that are very happy that have been vaccinated. joe, you don't see people when they have been -- we've pretty much eradicated polio and definitely eradicated smallpox it's not mandated as a vaccine because it was so successful so if people do follow these mandates, it isn't you'll have to take this forever, you'll get rid of it. we do tolerate certain intrusions on our freedoms the old cliche about not being able to shout fire in a theater, you have to have a driver's license and certification for certain things is that big an intrusion no, it's not that big. but you are basically five times more likely to contract covid if you haven't been vaccinated. and to melissa's question, that is actually attractive to places like norwegian cruise lines or goldman sachs or union square hospitality, tyson foods you know, they're short on staff at tyson foods too i'm sure and

yet they don't mind putting in this mandate because it makes them a more attractive employer of choice that going to a safe workplace is a good thing. we have ceos and we've debated this at other times on other issues, the voting rights, social justice ceos are asked to do an awful lot of things in society these days in addition to running their businesses this is one happily where there's easy alignment between the interest of their shareholders, the interest of the company, the interest of society and their communities, having a healthy workplace is definitely a win-win option and that's what we're looking at here you know, if kids contract this from their parents, a big problem, they won't be in school anymore. you want to have a safe community. >> always great to speak with you, thank you jeff sonnenfeld. congressman kevin brady joins us next on infrastructure,

budget talks and much more don't miss our interview with jay farner to talk about rkeoct companies move into auto lending. stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back

good morning news makers and news breakers. we heard from kansas city fed president esther george. up next jim bullard will join us from the jackson hole symposium. plus, it's not just about monetary policy, how about fiscal plans congressman kevin brady will be our special guest. investors are following it all, so are we. rick rieder will help put it all in perspective as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. it went pretty fast. it's 8:00. good morning welcome to "squawk box" here

from the nasdaq market site in times square four hours left for this, crocodile tears. i'm joe kern enen along with melissa lee. everything is close to all-time highs although the nasdaq is down 23 or so and the s&p is down about a half point. we'll take a quick look at treasury yields. and carter braxton worth thinks once we got up to 145 -- >> he said it's in the cards. >> it could indicate it's headed higher. >> it's a big move for the 10-year yields, up to 1.38 >> you're going to do the headlines. >> did you mention salesforce is a dow component? when did that happen >> like months ago. making headlines, the fed is likely to be the big story essential bankers convene for the jackson hole symposium

here's what kansas city fed president esther george told steve liesman earlier. >> when you look at the job gains that we saw last month, the month before, you look at the level of inflation right now, i think it would suggest that the level of accommodation we're providing right now is probably not needed in this scenario, so i would be ready to talk about taper sooner rather than later >> st. louis fed president jim bullard will join us next at 8:30 a.m. eastern time also on our agenda, weekly jobless claims and a revision to q2 gdp is due out at 8:00 eastern. coty shares are rising after they expect a return to annual sales growth this year dollar general earnings and revenues topped estimates but the company is forecasting lower than expected earnings shares are down 4% on that news. dollar tree also coming under some pressure.

earnings beat the street, revenues fell short. that stock is down about 5%. now to washington. house democrats pushing forward president biden's economic agenda this week joining us with what comes after the narrow vote to approve a $3.5 trillion budget plan is congressman kevin brady of the eighth district of texas he is the ranking member of the house ways and means committee you don't have a chrystal ball, congressman, but what do you think the odds are that both of these, the infrastructure and the reconciliation, are both completed by the end of next month. >> you know, it could be good. i think democrats have a lot of momentum after this week's vote. i don't think anyone dreamed that the speaker would be able to in effect bully every member of her conference into giving a green light to these tax increases, but she did ways and means democrats two weeks from this morning will begin marking up, that is voting

on a package of tax hikes. we assume somewhere around $2 trillion but up to them i think, you know, right now they have got more of a green light for tax hikes than they did a week ago >> the way that it played out with nine or ten guys -- you've been there for a while i just had congressman gottheimer on the day before i was a little surprised were you surprised >> surprised in what way, joe? >> did that seem like those nine moderate democrats accomplished anything by having a september 27th vote? after all the bluster and all the talk and all the i'm going to do this and i'm in this position and i'm not going to change and they better come to the -- you think that there was anything that they actually got from speaker pelosi to go along with that and fold >> yeah, the short answer is no.

really that was almost a sense of the house that they would have a vote. the progressives made it very clear that same day they are not voting on infrastructure bill until the tax hikes and spending is headed to the president so while the speaker may have given assurances, her conference did not. one, i think these are good members of the democrat caucus i think trying to find a more moderate way through but right now it just doesn't look like there are any main street moderates who are going to step forward and stop -- certainly these tax hikes in a major way. i think that's going to resonate in the next election in a big way too. >> i saw a list of all the tax hikes that are there the $3.5 trillion at this point is a number that i guess that's the high end of what the democrats are really hoping for. all of the tax cuts that i

saw -- or tax hikes that i saw outlined probably won't make it into the final bill. what do you expect it to be to get manchin and sinema onboard what do you expect it to look like in total and in terms of what survives? >> yeah, joe, i don't know i would assume they're going after corporations in a pretty aggressive way that costs about a million jobs over the next two months i think energy, taxes in a significant way just because of the obsession with fossil fuels. that's a million and a half jobs lost over time i think you'll see international tax changes, which i think will drive more jobs overseas certainly you'll see tax increases on pass-throughs, either on their loss limitation, on the 20% deduction or expansion of the obamacare taxes on their investment. beyond that, there are some other changes i think that drive

them up to a trillion and a half pretty quickly, but again democrats are driving the car on this one we'll know in two weeks from today what that package is going to look like. >> are you in favor of the infrastructure bill, congressman? >> no. >> you don't like that either. >> yeah. >> what do you suggest to fix the stuff that needs to be fixed? how do we do it? it's been something we've been wanting to do for a long time. >> i think there's about a third of that bill that's true infrastructure i think it might even get unanimous support in both chambers i think way too much of it is wasteful spending. certainly a lot of the green welfare subsidies, a number that we just don't need that right now as we're trying to rebuild this economy >> when you look at the way the democrats, when push comes to shove, they do -- that caucus is

solid. i don't know whether you -- >> you do. >> i don't know whether you admire the speaker and her ability to do that what do you think -- what do you think is wrong with your party in terms of when they say that they're going to do something. how about all of the senators that were involved with this thing that you don't like. what's in it for them? what's in it for them for this infrastructure what do they see you don't see >> so i would differentiate a bit here, joe. one, solid opposition among republicans for much of the biden agenda, including the tax hikes in a significant way i think the difference was in the senate they negotiated a bill that was better than the original biden monstrosity secondly, it was clearly separated from the tax hikes and spending binge in the senate it is -- i don't care what anyone says, it is linked, you know, hand in glove in the

house. that makes a difference between the votes, i think, among republicans. >> they went in and they were going to get a lot out of that initial infrastructure bill that they didn't want then you remember all the fanfare with the big bipartisan agreement they got that both the president and the republicans touted and then they just moved everything that wasn't in that to reconciliation. the republican senators -- that didn't change -- how do you -- i just don't understand whether it's a trojan horse or they want to present something to their constituents and say we're getting things done. is that what it is are they hiypnotized? what did it? >> you may need another republican senator on the show to go through that with you. one thing i will tell you i neglected to mention, i think, in this tax package, if house democrats go with repealing

basis, increasing capital gains, you're also there at, you know, a million jobs ormore over tim again lost in the u.s. we're trying to rebuild. and so again in my lane on fighting these tax hikes, it's all about jobs we are as republicans united to try to stop these. but we alone can't do it we'll have to see some of those main street democrats as they run back home and see if they're able to step up. >> it's jackson hole week. i know you know that we are talking about $5 trillion, and i think it's more than that, congressman and it's going to -- a lot of it is going to get done the stock market is at all-time highs. bond yields are, you know, someone the other day said they're at 4,000-year lows i haven't checked into that. i haven't gone back and looked if this is going to be the end

of american free enterprise and our capitalist system, why aren't we seeing any trepidation in any of the markets for what the left is proposing in your view >> yeah. a couple of thoughts one, the market loves stimulus they love it when washington spends and man, we are doing it at record pace. i'm really surprised the fed has really been egging on congress, just drive more money into the market. it makes no sense right now because another $5 trillion, a, that we can never afford to pay for. secondly, the stimulus is driving demand, but it's driving inflation in a big way and the fed too i think is in denial about how serious this workforce shortage is and how long term it will be, especially if democrats pass this $5 trillion package because it has real incentives for more workers to stay home and not reconnect with their jobs.

so i think they're missing in a bit of a denial about some of the fiscal policies and how they, i think, lower economic growth for the long termbut drive prices up for the long term as well >> and the prospects for 2022, do you think all this is great do you think afghanistan will have any impact on the upcoming midterm? >> it has to it goes straight to th confidence of the biden administration i think it's already leaking into a number of other areas as well i think this tax welfare state spending spree, you know, people are very leery about shoving more money and higher taxes on the economy, both from a prices standpoint but from a job loss standpoint so there's no question while the momentum for tax hikes is with the democrats right now, i think the momentum for republican leadership of the house has taken off as well.

>> great congressman, that's a nice shot. i like that. is that your house >> it is, joe. we have an old-fashioned front porch home here in texas love doing interviews from here. >> i might come visit. no kidding and have some -- i don't know, a little cocktail out on the porch. >> it's a deal >> sunset or sunrise from that porch? >> so sunrise right now is coming up and, yeah, it's great to be home here as you know. come visit >> i may i love texas all my exes live in texas. that's why i hang my hat in tennessee. thank you, congressman >> thanks, joe >> thanks for being with us. you know that song >> yeah, i heard of it >> finally coming up, a day of fed news makers continues on cnbc up next, st. louis fed president jim bullard. first check out the biggest

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we're watching shares of lordstown motors soaring in the premarket trade. the company has named a new ceo

and he will join the board he's a long-time auto industry executive and a lieutenant to billionaire carl icahn he once served as ceo of icahn companies. the company is currently facing investigations from the s.e.c. as well as justice department. the stock is up 14% this morning. rocket company set out to get a mortgage simple and now wants to do it for autos they have tools to make the process of buying a vehicle st stress-free. let's bring in jay farner, ceo of rocket companies. jay, great to have you with us. >> thank you >> who might you be displacing >> well, we talked to our client base we talk to millions of people a month about their finances

one of the things we notice is after they refinance or make a mortgage inquiry, they soon buy a car. in fact they're three times more likely to buy a vehicle after they have inquired about a mortgage with the relationship that we have, with the brand that we have, with the experience that we create in something as complicated as buying a property and mortgaging it, we decided that getting into auto was the right move in fact just last quarter we grew 143% from q2 of 2020. so we're seeing great, great growth from rocket auto, and now we've launched our rocketauto.com website so we can bring that inventory that we've developed to all of our clients. >> are there discounts for consumers in terms of better rates, et cetera, if they have several mortgage products with you, loan products >> great question. think of rocket auto as a marketplace. what we have done is created a website. and importantly, hundreds of sales facilitators that assist

our clients to find the right car at the right time. so as opposed to shopping around from are dealer to dealer, we have over 300 dealers on the network today and growing. so we'll work with the client to find that right car, finds the right financing and facilitate the delivery of that car really our service is making sure that the client doesn't have to go through that complicated process of buying the car. in many cases the car is delivered right to their driveway. >> it sounds like you're competing with the likes of carvana in terms of finding that vehicle and matching it with the consumer do you actually take the inventory on your books or are you the third party that connects the dealer with the inventory to the consumer? >> that's exactly right. a carvana or carmax or penske or broom, those can all be partners of ours along with any dealer in america quite honestly we're simply finding the client. we know everything about that client we know their finances, their credit score how can we assist them to find the right vehicle. we don't hold the inventory so

it's very capital light. we simply participate in the revenue shared when we help sell the vehicle. so it really plays to our strength, which is marketing, sales, providing a great client experience and we rely on our partners to actually have the inventory and deliver the vehicle. >> we hear so many stories about car shortages these days and just not being able to get the right car because of chip shortages, et cetera, and that is really boosting prices in the used car market. i'm wondering what you're seeing in terms of whether or not consumers are able to actually go and buy the car, if they're settling on other vehicles, et cetera >> yeah, we spend a lot of time helping a consumer they might find a car that they like if that one is not available, we help them find something very similar. but that actually really encourages me about the growth of rocket auto think about 143% increase, more than doubling our sales in a time where demand really isn't the problem. so dealers are showing that they want to participate in our marketplace in a period of time where they have plenty of demand as we get to a more normalized

market, i think that speaks to what can happen to rocket auto when demand becomes even more important for our dealer partners but i think that bodes very well for the growth of our business. >> how is the consumer doing, jay, from your standpoint in terms of making payments on time, keeping current? >> yeah, we've seen great consumer strength in our servicing book as i mentioned before, we have nearly 2.5 million clients making mortgage payments today we have clients buying homes right now as you know probably what's holding clients back is the lack of inventory in housing. so consumer strength is incredible credit scores are very good. incomes are up i think that really speaks to what we should expect the next few years, just a strong consumer demand in car, in auto, in solar, and all the markets that we're playing in now. >> in terms of refinancing, are you finding it more and more difficult to find consumers for which it would make it worth it to refinance at this point

has everybody -- has everybody and their brother done that? >> well, we're still around 3% on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage we set guidance to do more closed loan volume in q3 than we did in q2. north of 50% of the mortgages that we do are not rate sensitive. with a shortage of inventory, a lot of people are pulling cash out of their home. it's a great time to consolidate debt they may have accumulated, but also to invest in their property, to renovate a kitchen, do a bathroom, those sorts of things we're seeing people shorten the term of their mortgage so demand for refinance has been incredibly strong even though we've seen rates tick up a little bit. >> last question, jay. what's your company's policy regarding vaccine mandates and mask wearing >> so we've been participating with our city and state here since the beginning of the pandemic to help with not only testing, but vaccination we've volunteered our time and some technology to assist with that a significant portion of our team members are vaccinated.

we're not requiring vaccinations to return to work. we're requiring either vaccination or testing to return to work and we're masking up here in the office as well we expect that we'll have all of our team members back at least part-time in the month of september, which is great for us it's so important to have people in the office collaborating, communicating, so we'll have to do it safely, but that's the direction that we're headed. >> jay, great to see you, thanks. >> you bet thanks for having me. >> jay farner of rocket. coming up, some breaking news some economic news weekly jobless claims, gdp, and then our news maker of the hour, st. louis fed president jim bullard. first, though, as we head to break, morgan stanley upgrading zoom video saying growth worries are overblown. for more, go to cnbc pro stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc make think v, we listen. like jack. he wanted a streamlined version he could access anywhere, no download necessary.

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among the dow stocks to watch today, salesforce, the company posting better than expected earnings and revenue after the close last night it also issued an upbeat outlook as companies continue to shift applications to the cloud and the shares are rising on the news a bit of trivia for you, salesforce is approaching its one-year anniversary as a dow

component. it was added to the index long, long ago and prior to the start of trading on monday, august 31st what exxon is out of the dow? replacing exxonmobil >> that was breaking news for you. we have breaking news now, though weekly jobless claims, revision to q2 gdp coming out right now let's get to rick santelli at the cme in chicago rick. >> yes, we are expecting of course our second look at second quarter gdp and initial continuing claims. initial claims, 353,000. 353,000. of course we all member last week at 348,000, that was a post-covid low so we moved higher it was a lateral move and was expected on continuing claims, 2,862,000.

2,862,000. of course last month we also had the post-covid low we haven't challenged that that was 2,820,000 there probably is revisions that will be coming in but don't see them yet as far as our second look at second quarter gdp it was diminished by 0.1 of 1%. it increased from 6.5 up to 6.6. expectations were for even higher at 6.7. but 6.6 isn't bad. on a personal consumption side, these numbers are robust, to say the least. 11.9 11.9 that bests our last look the first time around from 11.8. but here's the money ball numbers. we could have all kinds of excuses as to why we should be ignoring the gdp price index, but it's at 6.1. these are the loftiest levels since the early '80s if you look at core personal consumption expenditure quarter

over quarter it's at 6.1 that's the highest since '83, 38 years. so the core pc quarter over quarter is the same at 6.1 the 6.1 on the pricing index is 0.1 hotter than our first look at 6.0. hot, hot, hot on prices. gdp slight improvement on jobless claims, largely as expected we see a 1.35% 10-year the bottom in 2012 the bottom in 2016 pre-covid all-time closing year yields on 10s. we're from 1.3 to 1.69% and i will continue to say that's the level to watch its resistance in terms of yield. should we pop above it and close, close a week above that yield range, look for definitely higher yields. and the more water cooler talk i hear about the reflation and inflation, it seems to coordinate very tightly with what's going on in the market and of course what we may hear

in jackson hole, even with the delta variant i have not heard so many people, joe, so many traders, so many of my sources thinking that the fed is going to be stepping up a little more aggressively than many think and we all realize that south korea was one of the first major asian economies to raise the rates from a half of 1% to three-quarters of 1% back to you, joe. >> all right, rick we'll get more insight into that exact thing that you're talking about now. steve liesman has a very special guest. hey, steve >> good morning. let's bring in jim bullard, st. louis fed president. to something that rick said, i think he's the guy who is not ignoring the price index in the gdp report jim, good morning. give us your take on that price index and overall inflation and how much of a concern it is to you out there in st. louis >> thanks, steve and thanks for having me

this is, you know, i think the words were hot, hot, hot we have a lot of inflation in the u.s., more than we expected. if you look at something like core pc inflation, that's excluding food and energy, you know, measured from a year ago, it's running at about 3.5% that's more than we expected you know, last december we were saying that number for all of 2021 would be 1.8% so we're quite a bit higher than we expected. we do have a new framework we did say that we would allow inflation to run above target for some time, but not this much above target so i think a lot depends on whether inflation is going to moderate in 2022 or not. i'm a little skeptical that it is i think we're going to get at least 2.5% inflation in 2022, maybe higher than that, and

there's some risk to the upside on that. for that reason i think we want to get going on taper, get the taper finished by the ends of the first quarter next year, and then we can evaluate what the situation is and we'll be able to see at that point whether inflation has moderated and in that case we'll be in great shape. if it hasn't moderated, we're going to have to be more aggressive to contain inflation. >> jim, as i do every jackson hole, i go back and look at the jackson hole interview we did last year and a couple of things stood out. one, it was virtual like this one is today second is that we're in the middle of another surge right there. and third, you said that you would abide a half a point more on inflation, 2.5, but clearly we are above that at 3.5 and your forecast or belief that it's going to spill over next year talk to me about the delta variant, whether or not you think that is something this new surge that we're having that should attenuate your desire to

taper? >> it's certainly causing human tragedy in a public health problem in the u.s., but the good news is we do have vaccines vaccine take-up is now picking up some in the u.s some of wall street seems to think that the numbers are rolling over on delta. i don't really know if we can say that yet but it will peak at some point but i think the main message here is that the economy has learned to adapt to the pandemic we've produced more national income today than we did before the pandemic so firms have found ways to produce their goods and services households have found ways to consume. consumption is above the pre-pandemic trend in the u.s. we've got an improving labor market unemployment down at 5.4%. it will be much lower by the time we get done with the taper.

just a lot of -- a lot of reasons here to think about why we should start rolling back our emergency measures that we put in place in march and april of 2020 >> jim, do you think that actual asset purchases are making things worse are they driving up inflation? or are they not part of the solution to the problem? for example, there being some 5 million jobs fewer than we had before the pandemic. >> yeah, i mean jobs will be a lagging indicator. you've got a lot of retirements in there, maybe 2.5 million of retirements, so i wouldn't expect those people to unretire with the equity markets at an all-time high and house prices up 15% from last year. i think that there is some worry that we're doing more damage than helping with the asset purchases because there is an

incipient housing bubble in the u.s. median house price at least the number i saw was approaching $400,000 you're pricing low income people out of this market you know, i'm not sure that's what we want to do we got into a lot of trouble in the mid-2000s by, you know, being too complacent about housing prices, so i think we want to be very careful on that this time around but the main point i want to make is that i think these asset purchases were very appropriate at the beginning of the pandemic, but now that we've got vaccines and we're bringing this under better control, now is the time to taper these off. >> jim, how far does your thinking go in terms of what comes after taper? you're very aggressive in terms of wanting to get it done by the end of the first quarter do you think the fed should begin raising rates immediately thereafter >> well, my point would just be

to have some optionality at that point. once you get to next spring you'll be able to assess the data, see where we are, and see if inflation has moderated or not. if it has moderated, then we're fine we can push the first rate increase off into the future and keep control over that particular parameter but the problem is if you get to next spring and inflation hasn't moderated and you're still tapering, what are you going to do then? then i think you could get into a very disruptive sequence of wanting to get the taper over with sooner, wanting to get the rate increases started sooner, and that would be, you know, a recipe for a lot of disruption in the u.s. economy. so by making some simple moves today, i think we can save ourselves a lot of headache potentially in 2022.

>> jim, how does fiscal policy work into all this they are talking about another $3.5 trillion spending plan. some of it's paid for, some of it may not be. they're also going to do an infrastructure bill. why hasn't fed policy reacted to that influx of money from the fiscal side? >> well, i think the fiscal policy during the pandemic, which was what i've been calling keep people whole and keep households whole, these are disrupted households, knocked out of their jobs in high physical contact areas by the pandemic i think we did a brilliant thing by saying, okay, we're going to insure people here and make sure they can pay their ordinary bills, make sure that they can live their ordinary lifestyle while we're trying to get the pandemic under control that part has been great

but now you've got a booming -- it was so successful that now you've got a booming economy, growth at 6% plus in the first half of this year and an annual rate now scheduled to be 6% or more in the second half of 2021, 4% in 2022 these are really high numbers for the u.s. economy, two or three times the potential growth rate, so we've really got this booming economy that probably doesn't need more stimulus at this point you want to let this play out and make sure that we don't get too much inflation this is going to be a problem for everyone, i would say, and especially at the low end of the income distribution if we get too much inflation that doesn't moderate in 2022 >> jim, pick up on that because, you know, the fed has really made a point of saying what it's doing is to help average americans and that's really in response to the criticism from

the great financial crisis that what you did helped out the banks and the wealthy. but here you are in a situation where it looks to me like at least the past several months inflation has outstripped wage gains since real wages, real earnings are falling are you doing more harm than good to the average american through this policy which seems to abide higher inflation? >> well, i am concerned about this, that you've got real wages falling and this is a concern, especially at the low end of the income distribution. they don't have as much ability to hedge their risk against inflation. wealthy investors can find ways to hedge their bets and make sure that they get a good real return as best they can even with inflation but for the low end of the income distribution, they face these prices every day and if

their real wage is going down, it's very noticeable, so i think it's incumbent upon us with our broad and diverse and inclusive employment goal that we want to do the best we can for the low end of the income distribution >> jim, hang on because i'm virtually going to toss this virtual interview to melissa lee. >> so much virtualness going on. on that point, of course, for average consumers as much as inflation may be transitory for the companies, price increases tend to be permanent and so they're feeling it one way or another, but that's not my question, jim. my question has to do with asset prices right now the s&p 500 is sitting at its 51st record close basically for this year. the nft market is going bananas. i don't know if the fed is looking at that. all this liquidity has unintended consequences. i'm wondering at this point, and we ask you this question and ask various fed members this

question repeatedly. but at this point with this growth with what we're seeing in various asset classes, how does that factor into the fed's thinking about moving the taper up faster, raising rates faster, et cetera? >> yeah, i think we do monitor the state of markets and whether we think that there are asset price bubbles in various markets. we try to do the best we can on this it's an inexact science for sure but i think this is a good reason to say that we probably don't need the asset purchases at this point, and i do think that we'll be able to get to a good consensus on the committee and get to a good winddown process. so it does seem like we're coalescing around a plan we'll see what the chair says here at jackson hole i'm sure he'll give a good assessment of the situation. >> you're deferring. it sounds like you're deferring at this point, which is not what investors want to --

>> well, i already said the asset -- the house price thing i think is a concern we got into tremendous trouble in this country and around the world with the housing price bubble in the mid-2000s. people shrugged it off and the fed shrugged it off. as a staff member, i shrugged it off. it all blew up in our face so i don't think you want to be too complacent on that dimension. and when you're mispricing houses, you're mispricing 40% of the u.s. capital stock that's a big chunk so that's a little different from a meme stock or something else that looks excessive. but housing turned out to be a real problem in the earlier era, and we don't want to get into that again i don't think we're in trouble today. but if we kept going for another year or two here, we might get into bigger trouble on housing

>> jim, finally, let me just ask you this question. everybody talks about tapering and then people talk about raising rates. nobody talks about reducing the size of the balance sheet. you guys got in a lot of trouble last time when you did that. where does that fit into your schematic here in terms of policy response? should the fed begin winding down i have you going from 4.1 to 8.3 trillion, more than doubling the si size of your balance sheet during the pandemic. >> yeah, i would just -- this is kinds of an emergency policy because of the pandemic. so what i would do or what i would prefer to do and you heard it here first, steve, you should allow the runoff as we get to the end of the taper, so just allow these -- you know, both the treasuries and the mbs to run off the balance sheet and that will gradually cause the balance sheet to come down and that will be a good thing. we don't need to be up at 8 trillion 4 trillion was enough.

or even lower than that. so i'm sure this will be a debate going forward, but again, what is it that we think we're accomplishing with a balance sheet of this size >> jim, i think we're both a little sorry that we're not -- we don't have the tetons in the background and we're not wearing fleece instead of wearing ties but thank you for joining us and giving it to us first here on cnbc. >> thanks. thanks for having me >> all right joe, back to you from the virtual summit here. >> excellent, thank you. thanks, steve. thanks for that interview. thank president bullard. let's get down to the new york stock exchange, jim cramer you had a ceo of a dow component on last night, jim. >> i've got to tell you something, joe i know we have all this stuff about jackson hole and different people talk about taper, not taper. you and i both know there's some ceos who really put the wood to people i've got to tell you salesforce

is just remarkable they are taking share, taking names. did an unbelievable quarter. another five straight quarters of 20% growth. it is a juggernaut i've got to tell you it's not being reflected fully enough yet in the stock it was just a monster quarter. some companies are doing so well, joe, and it's because of leadership and teamwork. >> did you -- are you familiar with kiopsia and surprised to see western digital -- >> that's a great thing. western digital will be a strong number two you'd have samsung in there. you have western digital but you would -- but the thing that's important is every time they do consolidation, price goes up. i think that micron, this is a big -- one of the reasons micron was up 4 is they're like only 15% of flash and they're going to be able to raise prices so those who are short micron, a several number of people are going to get smoked if this deal goes through

obviously there's going to be some people don't want it to go through because it raises price, but it will be fantastic. >> so, jim, smucker raised its sales guidance but lowered its adjusted earnings projection because of logistics and raw input costs. how many -- who would that -- who else would be caught up in that >> almost every one of these food companies campbell's soup had that happen. the gross margins declined 370 basis points at smucker. all the technology companies we talk to, the gross margins went up by the way, doug yearly, the ceo of toll brothers, gross margins went up. this is a company that i happen to like very much but gross profit declined. declines in u.s. coffee, that had been a pretty good business. u.s. pet down 36%. i read this and i think one thing, buy chewy. >> buy chewy, yeah. >> is this international dog day? melissa, right

it's international dog day. >> we have been talking about it have you tried rachael ray's little snacks? they're $12 for a bag and they're really good. my dogs love them. they're chewy and moist. >> i thought you were going to say you had one. >> i have not tried them but you know what, if it -- if things got dire enough, i think you can eat that stuff how manystuff. how many dogs you got, jim you got nvidia. >> i got two we got nvidia the second, whost a total knuckle head and then we got bob marley nvidia's a vegetarian, absolutely loves tomatoes, loves peppers. very strong dog. >> i think the vegan dogs are really the future. i got to tell you, this kid has got game he can run he can -- >> wait. plant-based dog food that's the next frontier >> we already thought about that. >> could we just do that we could do a spac, the three of us, we can just kill it. why not? >> plant-based dog food.

>> you got any dog sayings, jim, that describe what a perfect entity a dog is? i got a lot of them. melissa has seen it. i cry too easily it's a wonderful like, all that stuff. >> i have a dog that sits at the dinner table, mr. marley has very good manners. steals my napkin, though, it's a little game he plays i don't know what i would do without dogs their routines are incredible. if i don't put a napkin in my lap, the dog is really unhappy the vegan dog, believe me if i weighed it down with meat, maybe beyond meat. >> we'll see you in a couple of minutes. up next, we're going to check in with blackrock's rick rieder and get his reaction to what we just heard. as we head to break, take

another look at the shares of lordstown motors soaring the ceo will join the board, he's a long-time auto industry execiv ay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

i think we want to get going on taper, get the taper finished by the end of the first quarter next year, and then we can evaluate what the situation is we'll be able to see at that point whether inflation has moderated. >> that was st. louis fed president jim bullard on "squawk box" just a few minutes ago. let's get reaction from rick rieder at block rock, head of the firm's global allocation team great to see you we heard similar, you know, taper time lines from -- i think that's what the market is baking in at this point in terms of rate hikes, what are you expecting there? >> so listen, i think the fed could have started tapering months ago i think the whole discussion is -- to me is moot at this point. just think about what we're talking about, we're talking 10 to 15 million a month of taper

you know, this week alone we got -- today we're going to get 60 billion notes issued. tuesday we got 60 billion two-years. we're getting 30 billion equities a month, 30 billion loans a month. we're talking about 10 to 15 billion a month of treasuries. it's time to go. the liquidity's is too big what does it mean for rates? i think they're going to delink reducing the overstuffed liquidity in this system, but delink it from rates it doesn't mean anything it does give them a bit more optionality around rates you think about one thing i think is critical. you've got an incredibly strong economy. you see some of these numbers that companies are printing. it's durable if you don't start moving, you could start raising rates, the projection is you start raising rates in 2023. that's when we think the economy is not going to have this push to it, explosive hiring, tremendous capex, fiscal -- >> so missing the window so to

speak? >> totally get started, provide some optionality, exactly what jim said it would be a bad thing if you're starting over, you have to or you've laid out a program where you're going to raise rates when the economy needs a little bit more of a monetary push. >> what are the consequences, then, of waiting too long? i mean, from the stock market perspective, isn't that just a good thing if the fed is delayed more and more? >> i don't think so. i really don't think so. there's something that's really powerful the bubble, if you talk about what's overpriced in the market, real rates, risk free rates are overpriced much of the fixed income market is too high. we're pricing things like sub prime auto, aa, aaa. you look at some of the equities, some of these retailers that are throwing off -- i mean, literally, 30, 35% roe and by the way, did really well during last year

because they transitioned their business model to more virtual i don't think the equity market's high at all look at some of these companies, the free cash flow yields are really high. the ones you just talked about in technology, boy, their numbers, what they're able to throw off from an roe perspective to put multiples on some of these companies or earnings yields that are in the 4% range or higher, free cash flow yields in many cases that are 4% or higher i don't think the equity market is high. there are parts of the equity market that are too high the equity market being at a record, when you have companies throwing off 20, 25% return on equity, you think about the book equity you're building i think it's -- it's not to say we can't reprice down a bit if we got something hawkish out of the fed, but the markets will come right back. >> so the notion that a lot of this built the valuation argument that stocks are not expensive because rates are zero i mean, do you believe that, or is that not the case right now

>> so i actually think that the fact that rates are allow -- by the way, this is a direct capital infusion to companies because of their cost of interest, their ability to borrow for m&a is real i don't think it is just because rates are low. if you actually look at some of these multiples and the growth rate and you talk about fiscal spend coming, i actually don't think on an overall basis, there are some stocks that are high. i look through some of these companies, what people don't talk about is they've de-levered they're sitting on a tremendous amount of cash i looked at some of these retailers balance sheets, what they can do around evolving their business and spend is pretty powerful. i think you're going to get some durable nature to this growth. >> always great to speak with you, thanks for your time. >> thanks a lot. let's get a final check on the markets after we had a lot of -- >> hester george, mark smucker. >> it's a little strange seeing

they find religion in the face of the delta variant why wouldn't they think about tapering before we're at risk of another slowdown we'll see you tomorrow >> see you tomorrow. >> the averages are indicated. the ten-year, we'll see whether carter braxton worth is right. "squawk on the street" is up right now. okay ♪ good thursday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber at the new york stock exchange. s&p looks to extend its win streak to six as a new round of companies raise guy dand, salesforce, snowflake, jackson hole kicks off, jobless claims and revised q2 gdp are in line on