first it was french fries now reports of a champagne shortage. we'll bring you the full story as "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. it is the last trading day of the week this is it, folks. yesterday was a strong day for the bulls as joe mentioned the futures this morning, there are significant green arrows once again in terms of points, dow indicated up triple digits, s&p up by 11, nasdaq up 25 yesterday the strong moves made it so week-to-date at least both the dow and s&p are in positive territory, each up by better than 1%, dow up by 1.1%, s&p up

by 1.6%. nasdaq down week-to-date down by about 2.3% we'll keep an eye on that. let's look at the treasury market again, the ten year been bumping up against 1.5%. oil prices yesterday were up significantly a gain of 2.3% for wti. that's after we learned that u.s. inventories were down significantly, a decline of more than 4.7 barrels, more than anticipated. this morning you see it up a little bit this morning, up about 6 cents to $72.83 a barrel andrew let's talk corporate news this morning, novavax shares are rising after the company said early data showed the covid boosters showed responses against the omicron variant. you can catch the company's ceo live at 8:10 eastern this morning. we have a lot to talk to stanley

about. but some good news on that front. joe? similar to the other vaccines, this one is a little bit different and we'll talk about that some people i guess that like the idea of introducing the actual spike protein itself, as the antigen instead of having your own body take the messenger rna and make a spike protein that's the way novavax does it but they have the same issues that the vaccine that we're talking about is from the previous variant >> it's the original, yep. >> but they can probably do it pretty quickly, too. it's weird the way they do it, they manufacture copies of the spike protein and then put it in a nano particular and introduce it directly in some people feel that's less -- >> seems more efficient, right >> no. you don't need your -- there's

something about a certain contingent of people that think using your body to translate the messenger rna into the protein where you're using your own cellular machinery to do that, i don't know they conflate it with a gene editing or gene therapy and it's not as far as we know anything is possible, i guess. you know, the -- i don't know what happened. you remember i am legend i don't know what happened there. >> yes, i remember "i am legend" where everyone thought they were getting a cancer vaccine and turned into zombies. it was hollywood it was good. >> it was good, but it was a move. >> everybody is dead, most people, there's a few people alive in new york city but the most heartbreaking part is where the german she pherd gets the virus and dies.

we can't watch it. >> because you like dogs better than people. >> i do. >> is it more efficient because it doesn't wait for your body to do it? or is it a situation -- go ahead. >> it has to do with storage and tran transport. in messenger rna has to be stored at cold temperatures this lasts eight months basically the same thing it doesn't take any time to -- the minute the messenger rna gets in there, it starts getting translated. >> the good news for novavax, they got a big order from germany. i don't know if you saw this, they're also going to be pursuing boosters that are omicron specific so it's interesting to see how things play out and what countries choose to do different things in different places and the sort of grand experiment takes place. >> i was looking up, we all need to practice paxlavid, have you

practiced that >> that's the pfizer drug. >> i was going to call it the pfizer drug. >> i was looking it up, so i can pretend that i know all about it >> yeah. >> i know how to say remdesivir. >> a gilead drug significantly reduced hospitalizations in people recently diagnosed with the virus and at high risk of developing a severe illness. these results were published in the new england journal of medicine and the findings, results released by gilead in the fall remdesivir is currently used to treat patients who are hospi hospitalized it has to be infused, that's one of the problems it's not a pill. but the company is looking for approval to use it on less severe cases in people who are recovering from home and the latest study, the data supports that case >> how do we ramp up that

paxlavid some people want to use the defense act to pump this out. >> i think pfizer has already been ramping up production hoping to get the approval >> unfortunately, though, they have not ramped up production nearly enough. if you look at the kind of numbers you can see in six months from now, it doesn't sound like enough -- it's clearly not enough to take care of the globe and probably not enough to take care of the united states. p you use the defense production act, this goes into transferring to other manufacturing facilities, unlike the vaccine however, this is a very different quote/unquote transfer of ip, the production of these pills from my understanding of it is not nearly as complicated as at least what's been made out around the vaccines. >> i've been -- supposedly it's going to be prescribed within the next couple of days. so there's some around and some people will actually get it.

think of the day -- and i've -- you guys have never taken tamiflu. i love having that on me on the shelf. if you can have this on the shelf. >> think about that. if every family, if there were 200 million doses of this thing and every family had it lying around in their house and it only worked well if you take it quickly and early, which also gets to the testing issues, which is you need to take it within the first three to five days to work properly. you need to get people to get tested and get the test results back so there's production issues on the testing side, there's production issues on this drug and then there's the cost. it is not a cheap drug, this is going to be 6, $700 drug so yes -- >> which means it's not going to be on every american's counter. >> exactly and so between getting the test

and going out and getting the drug, it's going to get hard and there's a lot of people who may not want to take it for all you know think about the people who don't want to get vaccinated. >> that lehelps the supply problem. >> one way to think about it. other covid news the supreme court announced it's going to hear argument on president biden's vaccine mandate. one issue requires larger companies to have workers get covid vaccines or be tested weekly and wear a mask the other is hospitals who receive federal aid to be vaccinated against the environment. the enforcement of the osha will remain in effect until oral arguments are heard. when we come back, details on elon musk's latest stock sale as we head to a break, check out

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(cheers) xfinity brought us together, after all! power your whole home this holiday with wifi speeds faster than a gig. click, call, or visit a store today. sing 2 welcome back to "squawk box. elon musk tweeting that he's almost done selling tesla shares after saying a day earlier he had sold enough to meet his goal

of unloading 10% and according to the latest s.e.c. filings musk has exercised more stock options also sold another 934,000 shares worth nearly $929 million. but who's counting the tesla boss has now sold about 14.8 million shares since november 7th when he first published the poll asking twitter and his followers if he should sell 10% of his stake >> can you believe that? he really did it he went through with it. meantime our next guest highlights financials in real estate investment trusts, a couple of sectors he likes and what else may be working the investment strategy at bny melon investor solutions good morning to you. you like r.e.t.s it's been an unloved world for a long time.

>> yes, we think they're poised to do well we've seen a strong labor market and wages increase so r.i.t.s has a chance to capture that and rising rents we've seen the great resignation and the job market being on fire the real estate market has the ability to capture those higher wages and those rising prices through the increase in rents over time and the income looks well with the steepening yield curve. >> are there specific ones you want to mention by name? >> we look at the macro level, not looking at any particular r.i.t.s, but we like more of the -- i guess the move back and pie brags back to the city so r.e.i.t.s that capture that urban migration back will do well >> give me something else. what else do you love? >> financials, of course they've been diversified throughout the pandemic.

they've done well, even in a low interest rate environment. we've seen steepening yields the past couple of days we like that be cautious against consumer discretionary. it's performed well but as we see inflation potentially start to ease a bit, it's possible that we've seen the highs for the cpi prints obviously we'll have to see what the next few months go to show in that space. but it's potential that as supply chain constraints have somewhat eased that we can see inventory start to build up. that's something to look for in q1 so we caution investors in the retail space we also caution with travel and leisure, seen a lot of volatility with the covid pandemic and it's possible that as variants move in and out as we get on the other side of that, they'll continue to see volatility throughout the coming years. until we see normalization from how we handle the pandemic we

caution investors on the travel and leisure names. >> what do you do about big tech >> big tech, they have a lot of regulation headwinds ahead of them with steepening yields those discounted don't look as well. we're not telling investors to completely remove those positions. you have to keep yourself allocated there, but you might want to consider peairing back little bit it's companies with pricing power and value names that perform well monetary policy, there's a big divergence looking at the u.s. monetary policy compared to the rest of the world. the central banks. and the rate hikes that we can see, you know, potentially in mid to late next year, bode well for income and value based names over growth. so i'd steer towards value over growth in the coming year. >> we will see, aj we wish you a happy holiday and

happy new year and hopefully we'll have the conversation again before we get to the end of next year but it'll be an interesting watch. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me, andrew. happy holidays. first mcdonald's fries, now champagne. before you panic about a shortage of the bubbly food and wine's executive editor jn us with the full story. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

sparkling wine experienced increased demand during the pandemic and now a shortage of

bubbly in the global market could impact holiday celebrations ray isle is food and win executive editor and he's looking into the problem for us. this sounds like rich people problem. that's a shortage? >> there is a shortage of champagne, the worst thing to run out of during the holiday season it's not so short you won't be able to find anything with bubbles. there's bubbly wine out there, some of it is champagne, some is other options. it's crazy you hear the news and think this can't be true, how can they run out of champagne, but the combination -- a lot of it goes back to covid and agriculture at the same time. the demand for champagne was very low at the start of covid and what's odd is that the champagne regulatory body can

control how much the farmers harvest in champagne so they cut yields in the region and demand shot through the roof, which caught them short handed. >> it sounds like the oil problem. >> it's somewhat like the oil problem. >> it's the same thing that happened in the oil problems. >> and you'll see basic prices rise for champagne so, you know, it's a -- >> i hate to say it, the champagne problems out there we really mock things when we call them champagne problems but in this situation, who's being affected the most? where are they getting hit the hardest? >> well, what you're finding, what i'm finding is that where you're seeing shortages are of the big names, the most popular brands, because that's what people auto pilot go for so those are out of stock. i was looking at wine.com, the biggest retailer that i know of the other day and they were out of yellow label and dom

peirgnon i checked some and they have the yellow label so it's hit or miss at the same time but, you know, then there are brands that are not the super well known and they're out there. and they make some wonderful wine so you have to be a little adaptable hunting for champagne this season. >> i find it kind of funny that they're running out of champagne. of all the things we're running out of i couldn't find cream cheese to make cookies this has been a big deal for restaurants that are struggling already. what do they do? move to the backups too? >> they move to the backups, too. they pivot to a brand that's known to some degree but maybe not the one that everybody goes for. the nice thing about restaurants is you have someone coming to the table who can say, by the way, have you ever had this? and give an option and similarly in retail, if you're in a wine store where there's a staff they can tell

you about the alternatives and there are, you know, there are alternatives to champagne, there are great sparkling wines out there, cava is one of them from spain. >> that's what i have in my hand i'm going to show you, this is the news you can use segments. guys are laughing at me because i tried to open it in the break and spilled it everywhere. this is the cava, it's the pretty bottle. >> from spain. and it's historically, cava got its first boom in popularity in world war i when there was no champagne available because the french were at war so there's historical precedence for this i love this. this is viewed as a great brand. a magnum of this wine, which is a double size bottle, which is 60 bucks not bad for anybody having a party this year. >> ray, i confirm that, because -- >> really?

>> yeah. my wife wanted to give someone a gift that's a go-to brand you know it goes back to, you remember the germans wore gray, you wore blue, we'll always have paris. that was the champagne that bogi opened during the casablanca my wife thought it was a place where she was, she was like do you believe that i couldn't get any >> i told her by something -- isn't it comparable. if you get a moet? >> it's comparable and owned by the same company >> is it available is it around >> it's tricky to find right now, too. >> is it really? >> yeah. you can find some of the smaller brands like alfred, which we have here, this is a bottle of alfred -- >> how about the dom versus crystal controversy?

what's the difference? i can't tell i have some here, too. and in the morning, mixed with orange juice you only need one sip to feel it this is not mixed with orange juice. >> yeah. >> but what's the difference is dom or crystal better i don i don't understand >> that's a debate going on for decades. there's the top chap smpagnes a crystal is more dominant crystal leans towards chardonnay, dom is less so crystal is a little leaner, dom is a little richer but they're both spectacular champagnes if you can find them right now. and they actually benefit from aging, too people don't realize champagne can be aged in cellar.

>> people used to make fun of me because i drank chardonnay, now i like red more. have you had a foust >> i have. >> it's amazing. >> ray has had everything. >> what's that >> he's had everything. >> joe, to have a rose there >> i do. >> a rose for manly men i think is a good thing. this is the -- this is the -- >> i think so, too. >> men with hair >> with your bri and croissant, it's great >> great breakfast >> and then -- yeah, the other thing is also it, rose is great. people love rose rose champagnes have a little more body and power to them. they can be great as a dinner time wine. people think of champagne as a toast, celebration wine. but they can be great with a main course.

alfred gratien hasn't sold out -- >> i have one more i'm going to impress you with the last one i only had it twice but i think it might be -- have you had verita have you tried that? >> i have had it >> do you see what i'm saying? >> i don't often buy it myself because it's, i think, 400 bucks a bottle. >> someone had to pour a glass for me yeah, 400 a bottle. >> it is a brilliant wine. if you can find a bottle of bollinger rd, which is with the dom and crystal zone, it's a spectacular bottle of wine it's out there that's like the splurge vote for me this holiday if i can find it it's also james bond's favorite champagne. >> it is. >> absolutely. >> who knew. this has been the best segment the most participated in segment we've had in a while. >> it's about booze. >> ever. >> i like that

i like to get people -- >> i'm covering it i'm sitting in champagne because i can't open these things. >> i saw you do that. >> joe watched me. >> joe are you not sipping this at all i mean -- >> you know what, if you drink too early in the day, it just ruins the entire -- you elale see. you'll see andrew. when you're over 40 -- >> joe, do you not remember about ten years ago we had a beer segment, and it was like 6:30 in the morning. i had not eaten anything i think i chugged the full beer -- >> i remember. >> -- maybe even two of them. >> i remember. >> the teleprompter was tough. >> the read was perfect after that that was what was weird. >> it got better >> that was what was weird. >> anyway, we all have a glass of champagne in our hands we have to do a cheers and toast. >> absolutely. >> here's coming up to the holidays happy holidays, everybody.

ray, thank you very much come back soon. >> 2022. >> drink to that or it's not going to come true. >> cheers. >> cheers. thanks, everybody. when we return we pivot from this to this, the housing market has been red hot but can it continue into the next year? we'll see if it's a champagne story. but first as we head to a break a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers hey businesses! you all deserve something epic! so we're giving every business, our best deals on every iphone - including the iphone 13 pro with 5g. that's the one with the amazing camera? yep! every business deserves it... like ones that re-opened! hi, we have an appointment. and every new business that just opened!

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z. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning 2021 was a banner year for the housing market with soaring sales and house prices, but can it last? that is the question for 2022. and diana olick joins us now with maybe an answer what do you think? >> reporter: i'll try. look, i haven't had my champagne yet this morning but i'll give it a shot. front and center for 2022 will be rising mortgage rates

the fed has made it clear it'll pull back on buying mortgage backed bonds that means higher rates. the average on the 30 year is already higher than it was a year ago the realtors are saying that will result in fewer sales next year but prices go up because the market is so lean. the price of lumber is rising again, off its high of last spring but now twice the price it was mid november and well above prepandemic levels steel, wall board and other materials are still higher that keeps prices for newly built homes up from a year ago and home buyers can face stiffer competition from investors as the single family home numbers soar -- >> the rental market is stronger than the for sale market right

now. rent increases are something i've never seen before in my life we are definitely pulling guard pulling forward a lot of household formation. >> reporter: rents are up 11% from a year ago as buyers priced out of the regular housing market just continue to rent, andrew >> so i -- the thing that i can't figure out is if there's -- couldn't there be too much buying of these properties to rent and is that sort of pushed up the price too high at this point or you think there's a lot more room to go? >> reporter: well, the issue is that investors are usually buying on the lower end of the market and buying in all cash. regular home buyers can't compete with that, they need a mortgage so yes, it's making prices a lot higher the question is, will investors stay in this trade or will they find better yield somewhere else if interest rates start going up

that's an interesting question as they start selling the homes off, great for inventory, not so great for prices. >> we'll see thank you, merry christmas see you on the other side. >> you bet, you too. as a new covid variant spreads the nation's employers re-re-rethinking return to the office plans the big issues on the table are next later, don't miss our interview with the ceo of novavax who joins us first on cnbc to talk about the company's positive vaccine data a reminder you can watch or e bcen to us live any time on thcn app stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

welcome back, everybody. let's look at the u.s. equity futures on the last trading day of this week you'll see things are higher, dow futures up by 100 points, nasdaq up by about 23 right now. and this comes after a positive day yesterday. among today's stocks to watch you have shares of chinese ecommerce giant jd.com plunging in hong kong today after tencent announced it would distribute most of the stake in jd.com to shareholders

jd.com ended lower and tencent closed up by about 4%. companies like google, meta and apple are delaying the return to the office after the surge in covid -related cases t, in this case, omicron. it's been nearly two years since many people first went home, working entirely remotely. many are wondering at this point what the return to work will look like in 2022. joining us is tom ghimable la salle network ceo and founder. and saddam neely, the author of remote work, revolution succeeding from anywhere we have you on, and we've suggested you take it on the road because you seem to not agree on everything. and i think, tom in the past you were -- you got to get back, you got to get back more than sadahl was. now i don't know

sadahl may have been right all along. i don't want to throw down to you, but it's good that you kept the ability to stay home, i think, now because we're back to the future >> if there's one thing, joe, that we've learned over the past almost two years is that no one is always right. we're in a new reality the great thing about the economy is it's evened the playing field for all ceos the ceo of google doesn't know more how to handle this than the ceo of a small mom and pop company. we're all dealing with it on the go what employees want is to be led. now we're coming through the situation where we have the holidays with a spike. a year ago, two years ago, everybody was talking about trying to avoid it now everybody talks about how they know everybody is going to get it and people are much more comfortable because of the lack of hospitalizations in this variant versus delta variant and

the original that's layman's speak. i'm not talking about scientists or economists. i'm saying what our friends are saying when we talk to them. now as we go to the holidays people take a few weeks away from work, show them we can work remotely and january people come back >> made that point that it would be good -- if it's going to be endemic and a milder version, it would be good to get past that covid stigma but i don't know if we can definitely say at this point that that's definitely the case, tom, because so many people that do seem to fair pretty well with this variant are triple vaxxed >> i would say, when you talk to somebody do people tend to be more scared of somebody who's had covid or somebody who's unvaccinated in the summer of 2020 there was a scarlet letter if you had

covid people didn't know how to respond. today it's are you unvaccinated? people don't want to be around those people if you had covid and tested negative people seem to be okay with it. it's a huge mind shift over the course of the past 6 to 9 months >> do you want to say anything >> i do. i do. >> do you want to rest on your laurels and go -- >> i do. first of all happy holidays. love the champagne segment listen, the reality is, remote work is a tool today that companies are using. companies that have been hesitant like apple are saying we're going to delay indefinitely until we figure out how to move forward and now they can do that because we know how to operate remotely. and not perfectly but we know how to do it and business can continue as usual. and no one wants covid at all. the transmission of this omicron variant as it's been reported is

extraordinary. if we can avoid it, that's the best path forward and companies have the responsibility to keep people safe and remote work is enabling that. >> in a perfect world, i don't know how many more times infectious it is but you know, the fantasy -- or the -- it would burn through, not hurt anyone that badly and everybody ends up having had some version of covid and has natural immunity plus the vaccination. and that's -- it displaces the more virulent delta or other variants i don't know if that's possible or if that's going to happen but that would be a pretty good scenario >> it's a lovely fantasy but organizations have the responsibility to keep people safe and for people to avoid it all together so, the idea that this will all get it and it eel blow through is not how people are operating.

you want to keep people safe you want to thin the density of folks and for the companies that are delaying the returns, they're making sure that they don't have thousands of people under their care who are getting covid because they insisted that they come back to the office prematurely. >> joe, the -- >> tsedal -- >> go ahead, becky. >> just a quick question if a company decided to bring people back, a lot of places have to, they have essential workers there and they don't have a mandatory vaccination policy and they're not testing everybody weekly, what is their responsibility >> that's tough. i think from all the companies that i've talked to, and employees, there is a divide going on those who are vaccinated, double vaxxed, boosted, trying to do the right thing and trying to keep themselves and their community safe and those who have not so the responsibility of the

companies is to actually require vaccinations not a very popular sentiment here, but how else do you do that if i look at institutions like harvard, they required it from the very beginning which is why we've been able to come back in a hybrid format very, very early if you don't have these policies, people overall feel insecure about coming to work. and this is where you'll see more resignations, more loss of talent so requiring vaccinations, i've said this all along, is incredibly important as well as building a testing apparatus to make sure that you're detecting any issues that you may have in your workforce. >> tom, do you think that people should -- in my case, there was dust gathering on my at-home studio i never thought i would need it again and i let it go. now i've had that totally retro fitted, updated just in case

is that what everybody is going to -- i never -- i like being out and about. i don't want to go back there. i don't want to go back to the basement, but i'm ready if needed. >> yeah, i think there's a happy medium here. i think what tsedal was saying about the company's job is to take care of their employees i agree with that. as a ceo and owner i take care of my employees, we have policies in place. however there's one aspect missing here that wasn't addressed. how about individual accountability how about the individual united states citizen that still goes to restaurants, still goes to bars, there isn't checking of things they get on airplanes, going on vacations, hanging out with their friends. so the government has chosen to say companies of a certain size have to require x, y, and z, but the government isn't going to mandate that of people who get subsidies, they aren't going to

m mandate it in the rank and file. i do believe that there's a social contract between companies and their employees to do everything they can to help keep them safe however, you also need individuals to have some accountability for their own behavior and what they do, and that's what's missing through this whole covid enterprise over the past two years >> tom you're right. there's a lot of people out there who feel they have to get back out there, it's been too long, it's been two years. but if a company is requiring you to come in or sulggesting yu come in, they don't have vaccine mandates, testing mandates or mask requirements for employees, are they leading -- like you said, people want to be led, are they leading properly? >> who are they leading? there's certain employees that don't want to work in an environment that has all those precautions. >> but there are certain employees who want to come to work but want to come to a safe

work place >> absolutely. the real situation that exists is employers have to make choices and employees have to make choices the positive environment here, becky, is unemployment is at record lows. there are jobs for everybody who want one might not be the job you love, but there are jobs for everyone and there are different type of corporate settings that have come in, work from home, there's different opportunities that exist for people the question is, are employees who want to be safe practicing that of their own individual accountability outside of work and that has been the tried and true test that's gone on for the past two years that leaders face is i can make my office as safe as possible. if you're not practicing that outside, you're going to bring it in no matter what whether we're vaccinated or not. >> but employers can only control what they can control. this is around the vaccine

mandates and now we're talking about boosting and flu shots to ensure that people's immunities are where they need to be. employers need to care about well being and burnout and other things employers cannot control what people do outside of work. so they must control what they do inside of work. >> they do inside of work. >> utopian world, i agree with you. let's see how people feel when the truck drivers who are delivering the products for us, the blue collar, white color divide it's easy to sigh to the white collar driver, stay home the truck driver, driving alone that doesn't want to get vaccinated i don't agree with getting vaccinated people want products delivered fit were for me, i'm okay from this is why we have you two on at the same time >> i agree with you, i agree >> thank you both.

thank you. >> happy holiday. >> happy new year and holidays to you >> coming up on the other side of the break, the big story likely the to drive the train ahead. we will check in on some of the biggest nasdaq premark et winnes and losers ts going on here you are watching cnbc. ies, gift, & more fast and easy. so last minute guests are the only thing you'll be waiting on. ♪ joy. fully. ♪ joy. fully. today, your customers want it all. you have to deal with higher expectations

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well, it is the last trading session of the week and the next-to-the last week of the trading year let's talk markets and some themes that worked and didn't

work in 2021 the investment team and cnbc contributor, what was the biggest theme that maybe didn't happen >> you know, it's funny, becky, i was reading commentary on the value trade cyclical to outperform last year wait a minute, wasn't that supposed to outdo 2021 we walked into the year with a vaccine rush, fiscal stimulus, value stock, small companies were outperforming their counterparts by the biggest margin 2021. the russell 2,000 outperformed over the past six months what we've seen is a version for tech leading the way since april and as the journal recently reported, the five biggest

stocks have basically led the s&p 500 gauge since april. >> that's concerning, right, when you have farrowed breath and a handful of stocks are reading the way higher, if any of those five big stocks you mentioned peters out, we may have some problems on our hands. >> that's right. for so long investors have kind of piled into these crowded tech trade. that's exactly the worry what happens when those trade pull back? it's not about what happens to apple and facebook what happens to the broader market we've seen that at time in recent sessions. last week tech led the way lower. the s&p 500 was down .8%, 1% eight out of 11 sectors of the s&p 500 were green it was those big tech stocks dragging the market lower. that was the concern moving forward. >> i love talking about what's

happening for next year, we're out of time right now, maybe we can get you back next week to talk about that. >> sure. that sound great, thanks, becky. >> thank you merry christmas. see you next week. when we come back, the billionaire investor michael n novogratz will tell us where he is putting his money for 2022. stay tuned this is "squawk box" and this is cnbc

. futures are higher on the holiday-shortened week we will take a look at what's driving the markets. new studies suggest omicron has lower risk and may be the most milder of the variants. the latest covid strike, we will hear ahead from killington resort to get an outlook as the ski industry kicks off the second hour of "squawk box" begins now >> >> good morning, welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc.

let's show you u.s. equity futures on this thursday morning. it's like the eve to christmas eve. the last day of trading. the dow up 111 points. nasdaq up 31 points s&p 500 up 14 points. a couple headlines, the supreme court will be taking up president biden's vaccine mandate for large private employers. a special hearing has been set to determine if the mandate can be enforced. the pan date requires workers are vaccinated or tested weekly. two drug makers out with hopeful news, astra sudden ka saying a booster shot is effective against omicron variant. novovax saying it generated strong immune responses and spiderman "no way home" posed to sell a billion dollars in global

ticket sales all eight did it but none in 2020 as so many movie theaters closed >> there is definitely an appeal to do that between buildings and stuff or from the top of the roof >> don't you think being able to fly unto itself is cooler -- >> something cooler about shooting it. >> the campaign has kicked in, i see. >> i was going to say, it is the eve of christmas eve. >> i like. >> the eve of christmas eve, right, that's where we are >> that normally christmas is during the week or many times, five out of seven times and we get christmas off but not new year's eve off, so this is like a christmas eve. >> a plus. >> yeah. same with new years.

but we don't get new year's eve o off. >> i hope. >> all right let's get to paul. big tech stocks are making a recovery ahead of the holiday weekend. micron leading the way after hitting the top and bottom lines, earned an upgrade from bank of america after giving a positive outlook for the second quarter. i don't want to bury your thunder, paul mooeks but that's my all time favorite for today, wealth management, i never would have thought, it shows you how different micron is as a company than it was ten years ago. when it was just the marketplace would we'll be right back havoc on that stock like every couple of years, the sick liccyclicali. you like tech. you are specific what part of tech you like.

it all has something in common most of it, except one or two names. i will let you go through your thesis >> i am full on tech i am enamored with the semi conductor complex and i'm talking about various semi conductor names including semi conductor stories software companies like a synopsis that helps you design chips. because what happens whether you believe in ai or br or ar or the metaverse, whatever, they're all going to demand hor aatous power and speed. it plays into an area that used to be super cyclical we both have been doing this a long time. company like micron at the low parts of the cycle in previous generations went into deep losses last year they had their low part of the cycle, they earned $3 per share so i think these companies are less cyclical, more important,

better growth outlook. tech has done so well over the years that nothing's cheap, but these are relatively cheap and my favorite as you said is probably micron mu >> mu. included in your list inindividualia, amd, qualcomm, marvel the only one that isn't specifically semi is google i guess, googi >> i am always asked about the fangs, a lot of people associate me with those companies. i take a deep dive at the majors my definition like everybody else major tech companies goes beyond fangs these days out of all those stocks, alphabet google is the play because as the economy comes back, we have a strong market for digital advertising. the reason i like google more than i like facebook is google

comes without some of the controversy and some of the impending regulatory stuff that facebook does. >> so what does the world look like to you, are you crowding crowd, ai, vr or metaverse do you have a chart? have you bought any property >> not yet and i think the metaverse is something that's a lot of smoke and mirrors right now. but wherever we go with it, that's why i think we got our bases covered. we're not necessarily depending on the rapid extension of the metaverse, it's been confirmed in recent quarterly reports, including micron, iterations of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, augmented reality, the autonomous vehicle. all these things are probably true, at least as some extent.

you know, sometimes they're a little bit hyped but, yeah, the underpinnings, semi conductors that allow you know the power to rain and there is certain companies, particularly nvidia and amd, which aren't particularly expensive right now. they had been more expensive, but they're going to be leaders. >> how can we, if it's so important, what do we got to do in terms of supply so that we don't get into a situation that we have been dealing with the past year? we need to bring it home >> yeah, that's the most worrying thing, because we are starting to build some fabs in the states right. those have been well documented. the problem, though, joe, is when you start a fab, like taiwan semi conductors just started building a fab in arizona, even though that they're building aggressively, we won't get chips out of that facility for at least you know until 2023 or 2024

so we are going to have a continued supply, you know, problem not just in the state by, of course, world wide probably for a few more years than people really think i think a lot of folks are saying i think it's a mistake, that we're going to get through this supply chain crunch pretty quickly. i don't see that i think this is going to be a problem deep into next year probably to the year beyond. >> the current situation, is it easing at all? i mean it's not all chips are affected necessarily, but we heard from the president yesterday that the supply chain is in pretty good shape are improving. is that the case with chips for the automobile sector, for example? >> yeah. not so much. maybe some improvement on the fringes. yeah, this is going to be an issue particularly for some of the, what we call trailing edge components this is interesting.

everybody focuses on the latest and greatest, but there are great demand for the trailing edge, older manufacturing, of course, as the fabs, the outsource, all this stuff is done in south korea and tie wasn't have moved to the leading or bleeding edge they've left behind some of those products that are in hard demand, particularly for automobiles. so, yeah, i think maybe a bit of a clearer path for unclogging of the supply chain, joe. i see this as a problem that lasts clearly through 2022 and maybe beyond and so that's a good and a bad thing the good thing is it allows companies to have pricing. the bad thing is just continued lack of availability >> macro-issues, rates headed up next year maybe. does that children in terms of just the multiples and whether those hold up and with inflation, i guess i could even ask you about margin

if you had margin compression and lower multiples, i don't know how good if the fundamentals are just great for the business it still might not be great for the stock. >> yeah, that's an excellent point. you know the issue is, these, of course, are the longest duration assets, right? when you value their cash flows, you go further out in the future, they become more sensitive to any change in the denominator, which is a lift in interest rate. so, yeah, that's happening the fact that it's well telegraphed and not surprising, i think lessens the blow a little bit so you need to have companies that can cower through on the top line and still have reasonable valuation they're never going to be cheap. i think the semi conductor companies fit that dual bill >> all right paul moeeks, good insight if al these things. >> yes, sir.

>> happy holiday, merry christmas. when we come back, we have yet another story involving french fries you don't want to miss this. we have that and other corporate stories next later governor chris sununu will join us right now you see the dow futureing up by 120 points the s&p up by 14 the nasdaq up by 34. "squawk box" will be right back. the s&p up by 14 the nasdaq up by 34. "squawk box" wng up by 120 poin. the s&p up by 14 the nasdaq up by 34. "squawk box" wg up by 120 points the s&p up by 14 the nasdaq up by 34. "squawk box" w up by 120 points. the s&p up by 14 the nasdaq up by 34. "squawk box" will be right back.

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a couple of corporate stories for you this morning, apple has closed at least seven more retail stores since tuesday according to a report by bloomberg because of a rise in covid cases among employees. the company usually calls for a shutdown when 10% of the staff is positive. 9:00 to 5:00 masks are offering through noon christmas eve thatcould reduce crowd on last-minute shoppers shares of chinese commerce jd.com plunging in hong kong today. this comes aften cent offers giving money to shareholders they ended the trading session lower. ten cent actually closed up 4%

shake shack wants to ease your.in the airport. they are giving away prizes to travelers whose flights are delayed or canceled. you have to show proof of your delay. if you are flying from another airport, you can get a prize head to shake shack on instagram. >> we were just talking about those fries yesterday. >> with danny meyer. >> the way they're cut >> it's a great strategy to get people to buy other stuff. >> right a surprise >> you get a drink with it you need maybe a burger on the side, like that's how you do it. >> a side with the fries >> the fries are on the side of the burger there is more surface area. >> how many times have you got an free gift certificate for $10, you can't use it unless you really spend 25. you got to be genius of what they're doing here. >> that's right.

it is a promotion. i think that's why >> it's like free shipping if you do $60 of free mitching people will make everything in the store priced under 60 bucks. people hate paying for shipping if you can get it fry free by putting another item in the cart >> this is going to be fun i am looking forward to it coming up, the wall street mentalists will read our mine and make predictions, coming up after the break. futures up 120 points on the dow. >> time now for today's aflac trivia question. what town currently holding the 2021 record for the world's tallest christmas tree the answer when cnbc "squawk

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. now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. what town currently holds the 2021 record for the world's tallest christmas trae

the answer, enid, oklahoma the fir tree, which was originally 140 feet tall, was recently damaged by high winds, but still stands at 113 feet high welcome back to "squawk box" this morning we are going to try to get a little into the holiday spirit on this eve of christmas eve we are joined now by a special guest. he has turned to deal with the "squawk" tradition kneel pearlman is here he's the wall street menialist and joins us with market magic >> all of the above. >> great to see. >> you great to see you. i brought this world leader in business news, keep an eye on his prediction, becky, andrew, joe, i will put it right here. do not take your eyes off that. >> we can't see it put it there you go. >> here. that in the frame. let's do this. who could have predicted that

anc and gamestop would be the top stocks i can't, i'm a mentalist imagine you got a crystal ball and you are making a prediction for 2022 andrew, any random company i want you to be spontaneous, impulsive in the moment, name any company. >> nike. >> nike it is, nike is poping in 2022 i don't know if that a mean stock, i am wearing nikes right now. you can't see below the waste. i told the producers, it's not gambling you got to know your market. did you get a deck of cards? did the producers tell you to get a deck of cards in. >> i got a fancy deck of card. >> spread them out what do you got in. >> those are super fancy from the pharmacy here's what you want to do, look through those card, this is not set up, not staged you can do anything you want right now. there is no safety net i want you to look through and pick out one card, anything you want, don't let us see it yet,

hold it up in front of you >> i got it. >> hold it up. >> you want to see the back of it, the audience to see it >> we will see it all in a second andrew, the key to these mean stocks, if you say nike, right, you need everyone on board with you, everyone's mind aligned, nice and slow, i want you to turn that card overing take some action, what do you got? show it to us? is that the queen of diamonds? >> queen of diamonds >> queen of diamonds. >> yes, sir. >> turn one card over, don't take me out of frame, i want you to see this i turned the over one card in my deck, too no funny stuff out of many, every single card, the only one i turned over in my deck of cards was the queen of diamonds. joe, becky, where are you both eb, make some noise. >> right here. >> i didn't think you could do this on a remote.

>> you didn't think so we're not making money picking card this is for fun. we're not here for entertainment. here here for until news, you and me, andrew, we're going to make billions, baby, in 2022 with nike. that's why i wrote it on the back nike, just do it, andrew >> owe my god! every time every time he does this. i don't get it >> can't stop, becky, let's get you in here. lightning round, are you there, becky? >> okay. i'm here, right here >> i need you to answer quick, unintend, becky, i'm doing quick ones to start it off bit copy or etherium in. >> bitcoin >> bitcoin hear me out. here's my bet. my bet is that i'm going to know what you are thinking before you even think it right now. okay and i'm going to pay you in bitcoin, in cold hard cash, whatever you want.

even joe's point, you name the stakes name the amount of money. >> i'm watching your hand. >> watch everything. give me a number how much money am i putting on the line you don't have to pay me if i lose i pay you. if you win, it's like a ponz scheme you can make an episode of american green >> $35 bucks >> minimum 20 up to a thousand dollars. >> i want to see your hands, 20. >> 20 bucks. >> okay. >> that's all you want to put on this in. >> yes >> because i'm afraid i'm going to lose. hand >> happened. becky, i need to know are you ready? my plan is this i'm going to read your mind before you even think it are you ready? >> readych >> here's the killer part about this becky, take that look inside, how much money did you want to put on this? you wanted to put $20 bucks. i'm going to pay you if i'm wrong. i want you to see exactly how much money i've got. you could have said 20 to 1,000.

i said 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, $20. we're going rich first. >> well done good >> minimum a grand, joe. >> wow >> joe, here we go time is money. >> time is money goods. >> time is money here's what i mean by that literally, warren buffet does this bill gates every year for causes, they auction off a lunch and we'll sit down to lunch with you. this generates millions for great causes joe, i want to put you on spot, you probably met them both already. i want you to close your eye, we're going to take this to the next level hypothetical, you sit down to lunch, hear me out, anybody, it's got to be somebody famous dead or aliveing male or female, the world is your oyster

close your eyes, picture this person's face as if you are sitting down breaking bread with that person at this very moment. have you got somebody? >> yes. >> open your eyes and hit me, it's one thing to guess a company, nike, just do it. it's another thing how many money becky would say. this is next level tell us who are you having lunch with say this person's name, go. >> mark twain. >> in these modems when i do something impossible this isn't set up. he could have said anybody i need word of inspiration, joe, this has been sitting there the whole time the whole time. i want up to sigh what it says word of inspiration, it says it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog joe, i don't know if you know who said those word, i'm going to give you a clue right here, the person who said those words is none other than mr. mark twain, everybody and just for you, becky i'm

going to bitcoin to the moon, everybody. bitcoin to the moon, can we see it >> that is what i said >> bitcoin, here we go >> all right i am, just, you know, it's magic. i don't even, there is just no way. just no way. i'm going to heaven because now i know it's possible. >> i don't know if i am. folks, that's why they call me the wall street mentalist. thank you for having me on i try to be bigger and better. >> can you get into my thoughts? that is, i don't understand. >> into your bank accounts, too, joe. >> i can't even get over it. every time, though >> that's just too weird >> what if it's $1,000 >> you are like oz >> the wizard of oz. >> congratulations >> thank you >> very good every time.

>> we wish you a happy holidays. we hope to do this again with you very soon. happy new year, my friend. >> thank you >> it's possible to have the head, he had his shirt on. >> but how >> i don't know, this is not planned. there is no planning >> it makes me think my apple phone or iphone is not secure. that's what it makes me think, honest to god. >> do you think when he has the card up behind it, that he -- how is that? >> becky was going to catch him with the hand movement >> i was i didn't catch him with that well >> all right >> yes, i would say being the same thing its not your iphone that's not secure >> it's a nike thing how can he write the nike thing? i thought, can he be down here you can't. >> all right >> i don't know. >> chris sununu is coming up, he has a card trick supposedly. he wouldn't dare >> you can imagine if we tried

that they're going to have his response in the state of covid, the large scale testing program. that's next. later, don't miss our interview of the ceo-of-novovax to talk that company positive vaccine tada against omicron, stay tuned you are watching "squawk box." this is cnbc >>

. trouble, having trouble, focusing new studies, not from the alcohol, just from being able to do that. i don't know i have given up. i've given up, really, magic new studies suggest omicron has a lower hospitalization of risk than other variants. meanwhile, the fda cleared pfizer's covid treatment pill. meg tirrell joins us now with more on the consisted of front hi, meg. >> hey, joe. so, of course, it's good news, studies from south africa and scotland showed a much lower hospitalization rate with omicron compared to other variants dr. fauci warned yesterday the sheer number of people getting this variant could ob i haviate that effect.

-- obviate that effect it was cleared for high-risk adults and kids 12 years and older that weigh 88 points this has to be taken within five days of symptoms, patients take three pills twice a day for five days it shows it can reduce hospitalization or debt by 89% the supply will be limited at least initially. the white house saying yesterday 265,000 treatment courses expected to the u.s. by the end of january the full shipment of the order of 10 million courses expected by late summer but because of this, we talked with a pharmacist yesterday from the american society of health system pharmacists who pointed out subscribers will have to make tough decisions because this drug is going to be essentially in shortage about which patients are highest risk and should get it. here's what he told us. >> it's really going to be again up to that subscriber

discretion, to look at their age, body mass index and co-morbidities and say this american e person is high priority, versus this may not. it may take the vaccination status into account. >> of course, that's a major question, especially with omicron being able to evade some of the protections of the vaccines, but we also know they do provide great protection against the disease. we are potentially expecting from merck's pill, if that's cleared, that will be 3 million courses in january that one doesn't work as well, pfizer's would be preferred. supply will be an issue. the astrazeneca, new data confirming it holds up against omicron, there will be 500,000 courses of that in january the only treatment anti-body drug from glaxo smith-kline, some of that medicine cabinet

got wiped out, but they're building it back up. guys >> meg, we were talking earlier about whether you could get the defense production act in place and that could actually create a lot more volume of the pfizer drug, as you just said, 10 million doses by the summer, 10 million doses by the summer may be too late. when we talked to dr. scott gottlieb yesterday he seemed to suggest there was a six-month lack, if they started right now, it would take six months to run properly the question is, if you start now, it may be by the summer you could get to 100 million if you went to it is there a resistance by pfizer to do that in. >> well, certainly companies never like when the defense production act is used to force them to do something sometimes it can be beneficial to them because it puts them in the front of the line for materials and supplies we found that with the vaccines. it was helpful to the company that they were on that end

other drug gets pushed to the side it's something people in the industry hope is used very precisely. in terms of the supply, though, pfizer did increase its full-year forecast for supplies to 1020 million courses up from 80 million the us u.s. only ordered 10 million. can we see them increase that? when more will be delivered is a big question dr. fauci talk told about how it has that time of six-to-eight months for the active ingredient >> finally, an incentive question you just raised which is those that are un unvaccinated i don't want to say have a greater incentive, in some ways, they will probably having a says, it's the anti-incentive to get vaccinated i don't know if you read yesterday rex chapman, he said basically that unvaccinated people should not be taken care

of i don't think anybody agrees with that. how do you change that incentive structure in this case in. >> yes it's a real problem. it's an ethical question something we found with anti-body drugs, we prioritize the highest folks. that's folks that don't have the vaccine. we have to see how that plays out in the guidelines. >> complicated stuff, thank you. becky. when we come back. covid and the labor shortage on the slopes we will speak with killington about ski season and covid protocols. new hampshire governor chris sununu will talk autbo testing they have been doing in his state. "squawk box" will be right back. "squawk box" will be right back. >> ♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here!

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. we spent so much time traumaticing about the fed, though welcome back to "squawk box. let's show you the futures right now on this eve of christmas eve. the dow up 106 points. nasdaq up about 31 points. s&p 500 up about 13 points let's talk about scheme for a moment vermont's ski industry lost an estimated $100 million last winter we'll rise with hopes of a covid comeback or not. joining us is the killington

resort and general manager good morning to you. it looks like you got some snow behind you, mike. >> reporter: hello, andrew, from beautiful killington vermont, it's beautiful out 15 degrees we got snow in the forecast. so it's a nice day for skiing. >> what kind of base do you have there? what are you looking at seasonally this point in terms of snow? then we'll get into the other questions of getting people onto the slopes >> we got about 60 inches of snow so far. early season, typically, we're making a lot of the snow so we got the most powerful snow system in the world. so we're able to expand really quickly when we fet these cold temps. that's really freight for us. >> what is your sense of volume, traffic on the mountains this year you know, last year, a lot of people did go to the mountains in part. it's one of the few social distancing things you can do there were lots of other things you needed to do on the other side in terms of keeping people

spaced out, outdoors, shutting down the lodges indoors and all of that. >> we learned a lot last year on how to operate in a pandemic i think our sports outdoors and people wanted to be out and enjie the outdoors even with all the restrictions last year so you know rolling into this year, we're really optimistic. business levels are strong and skiing has been great so far so it looks like people are ready to get back outdoors. >> are you changing any of the dynamics indoors, meaning with omicron now upon us, are you shifting your thinking in terms of what is needed to be indoors, eating in the restaurants, representing the ski, getting a hot chocolate, doing all that kind of stuff? >> yeah, we keep adjusting based on what's happening in the market with that for us the advantage is 100% of our staff are vaccinated and all our volunteers are vaccinated, so that's a huge advantage for us

and, you knee, we're still recommending people wearing masks indoors and you know it's been really going well so far. >> but no change with omicron? >> we haven't made any specific change because omicron so far, but you know, we're looking at that as we get this year, we'll have to side what the right strategy is. i think the thing we learned from last year is how do we expand and get more people outdoors we have food trucks and outdoor facilities to eat. we're asking people to use their car as their base lodge and spreading people out the goal is how do we keep people outside in the fresh air? i think that's the best strategy for us >> you know the great news thus far is vermont and the large parts of the country have not been hit with omicron yet. one of the worst things we are seeing in new york city, from an employment perspective is restaurants have to shudder, not because they're even worried about the omicron unto itself. but there are so many employees are coming down with it that

there becomes a labor supply issue. how do you think about that? how do you think about sort of trying to get ahead of that and planning for it? >> it's one of the advantage we have in vermont is the state as a whole is 95% vaccinated. so that's really great as i mentioned, our my years are 100% vaccinated. we have our employees in masks as well, trying to protect them, making sure we are not helping the spread it's definitely challenging from an employee standpoint overall like you see across the country, we have some of those same challenges, for us, we have been investing in employee housing and those things to make sure people want to come and work here. one of the advantages is we have free skiing and riding people love to be here we've raised our minimum wage $15 and continue to do things to make sure the team really wants to work here >> what are you seeing in terms of customer demand already obviously, the epic pass, the

icon pass across the country changed the entire industry in so many ways though i know there was a little reticence las year for people to pay up early not knowing the season. >> demand this year is really strong across industry so that's same for us. we're looking for a great year we kocht tocontinue to try to become a year round resort we hold a year round pass. it's a monthly prescription for skiing golf, mountain biking. it also includes an icon pass. so that has done really well in the market so really excited about the year >> real quick, do you find the icon pass, how cool or hurtful long term? you know you talk to a lot of different owners of different mountains, they have very different views about what these passes are going to there is an

immediate hit like a netflix hit early on they got the cash, they thought this was great then at some point they said, maybe this is going to eat into us >> yeah. it's a great question. i think killington is owned by a private company called powder. we have aligned ourselves with the icon pass. we're not limited with that with our year round people get an icon base pass i think overall, it's getting more people skiing i think any time people are skiing, that's good for the industry. >> we wish you well. we hope you have a great season. our viewers know i love to ski and i love to schuykillington. hope to see you up there. >> all right come visit us. >> happy holidays. we will go to new hampshire, talk to the governor there chris sununu will be with us, talking the president's build back better plan and so much more and michael novogratz, galaxy digital we will talk the market's next

move, crypto, and where he will be putting his money in 2022 "squawk" returns with all of it. >>

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sing 2 as omicron spreads rapidly across the united states, states around the country are grappling with how to stem its spread. for a closer look, let's welcome governor chris sununu of new hampshire. last month new hampshire did a large scale at-home testing program. thank you for being with us today. we heard about a similar program

that the president just announced for the country. you picked up on this a month ago. tell me how it who. >> yes we created a partnership with the federal government about a month ago to do a first round, where everybody can go on and click a test site at no cost to the individual colorado did a similar program as well a few weeks ago, the white house said, what are you going to do, send one home to everyone it stems the moveth, whether it's a parent, a student, a co-worker, find out they might be positive that much sooner take the burden off the healthcare system. just this morning, we went live with our second round, new hampshire, you have to be a new hampshire resident, sorry, new york click a button in about a week you'll have tests delivered right to your home it's been so successful. it was great to see the white house kind of did a 180 and said, yeah, this thing works we want to do it nationally.

now 49 other states can have the same opportunity >> certainly it seems crazy. two years in, it's difficult i know it is a problem here in new jersey we got issues ourselves gettin tested in the lost week. glad you guys are doing this at the same time new hampshire has been in the throws of this e epicenter in new england, there are these cases, i know it's partially because of the cold weather and people going back indoors and it's much more transmissible indoors. but i was reading a story this morning from bbr, boston's npr station talking how hospitals in vermont in new hampshire are getting overwhelmed. they have one and done community hospital, where people were showing up it's hard to find beds for them. doctors are getting exhausted. where do things stand? because this is a moving target. >> look, the winter surge, we have been planning for it for

months, whether it was dell that omicron, it doesn't matter we knew the seasonality of the virus would hit new england hard, at the tip of the spear, michigan, upper mid-west states as well. all our hospitals are opened you can get healthcare in any hospital in new hampshire. but they are maxed out there is no doubt about it so we have been trying to find flexibility for staffing we've fast tracked licensure to make sure they are fast tracked into the system. we've moved long-care patients hospitals all across america are filled with individuals waiting to go into long-term care. newspaper covid patients that can be moved out and freed up that bed one of the most incredible things about covid, if are you in an icu bed, on average, four, five, six weeks a. triple bypass is four, five, six days. every bed for covid is the equivalent ofseven taking up seven non-covid beds if you will so the problem gets exponentially compound

so creating flexibility in the hospital system, making sure people aren't going to the hospital or you have walk-in sites for boosters hospitals really are only emergency services right now we've kind of hit this peak. i think it will go up a little after christmas and the new years. we are planning for another surge if you will. but you got to put this stuff in for the long term. a lot of folks are saying when is omicron over? guys, when is it over? we are trying to have long-term solutions. >> getting back to covid, while i have a changes to ask you. there are a lot of people really wanted you to challenge senator maggie hassan in new hampshire you were the best chance you said, you're not going to do that and you can get as much done or more as governor number one, i don't know whether you really believe that or whether it's true, but immediately it raised the

speculation that you were going to run for president and you keep side stepping that. i know are you on cnn and you side stepped it. dana bash actually said for the record you didn't answer sow said you don't know what the future brings. are you going to run if 2024 why aren't you going to run for senator if you could do it and from inthat sheet? >> yeah, so let's be really clear. governor gets 1,000 times more done than anyone in washington that's not debatable in for new hampshire. >> 83, for new hampshire, that's right. new hampshire leads with innovation we have to operationalize and design systems and create accountability, feedback systems. what does washington do? they pas a policy. they vote for funding. that's it. then they're done. they have no responsibility -- >> joe manchin as far as what's going on for the whole country is getting a lot more, has a lot more influence and clout. >> yeah. >> so, obviously, a governor of a single state doesn't have the same cloud as a senator.

why wouldn't you want to run for senator? >> again i get stuff done. i think what joe manchin did is great, i'm thrilled for 330 million americans, i can't thank him enough that's that one issue. right. when it comes to designing systems, managing, integrating with folks and making something tangible happening for your constituents >> so you won't run for president then >> i'm not even thinking about that i tell you what, if people keep talking about 2020 or thinking of 2024, they're going to miss the opportunity of 2022. that's what my biggest message politically to the republican party. you better get focused in the next year, if you can't get the deal done, 2024 doesn't matter we have to focus in the now than the fairy tale stuff of '24. you got to get past the first gate >> governor, i applaud you for what you are doing with the rapid tests.

what i'm wonder secretary whether what you are doing can turn to a model and potentially for the federal government we know what states will do. can you speak to the costs of rapid tests when you are buying en masse in bulk we need to do this for a long period of time and start investing. what do those costs really look like on a national level >> i the kel you in the state of new hampshire, we have a couple different programs with different costs. ballpark 10 million bucks for a test roughly 10 million a test. we've cut deals with the federal government and with shippers and all those sorts of things. so we have been able to get the costs way down i can't tell you how the federal government is going to do it and whether they're going to have a website like we do i'm not sure i hope they do i think we have been a good model of success i think they should let all 50 states design their systems a

bit to get them out. when you buy in bulk him you can get the costs way down anything with covid if you keep out of hospitals and healthcare, that's the most important part it's easy access, quick information. i think one of the downside is you will see a lot less accurate data on testing. if you and i take the bulk of our tests in homes and get a positive or negative we're not letting the government know right. so the accuracy of our data around positivity, positive rates. that will become less accurate which is why we talk about hospitalizations, you got to look at the hospitalization and fatality numbers, that tells you where you are. >> the hospitalizations and fatalities right now, this is really a pandemic for those who are unvaccinated i know have you high vaccination rates in your state, governor. it's unvaccinated people showing up in the hospitals and clogging things up at this point. your state has live free or die. people die by that standard.

where do you come down on mandates i know in the past you said you are okay with businesses mandating that have you looked at any of this and say, we have to get these other people vaccinated, how will you do it >> i'm as pro vaccines as they come if the government mandate, there are so many negatives to that. i understand in washington they're in a bubble, tabletop exercise, mandate it through osha rule we will create the negative side of that is just huge. you are seeing businesses massively confused, federal contractors, people that might have to abide by this new osha rule the federal courts are turning it off, turning it back on hopefully the supreme court will take it. you will sew a massive shift of work force which puts a lot of chaos into the economy. it forces people to leave jobs they might have been at for 20 years and we have a negative health effect as well. you have to limit government on both side. >> how do we get them vaccinated if we don't mandate it

how do you do it >> it's all about messaging, when you talk about health for individual, if an employer wants to mandate that that's always been their ability to do that. a hospital, a flower shop. we have to go back to the rules of the game, pre-covid, making sure we are getting the message out there, encouraging people to talk to the doctors, make a decision for themselves and their communities. that's where it need to be vaccinations and boosters are the way out. >> governor sununu, thank you. >> thanks again. coming up, mike novogratz will talk about what he expects from the crypto market and the economy, stockmarket, everything else plus we will have the head of novavax against e icthomron variant. stay tuned "squawk box" will be right back.

good morning stocks looking to rally into the holiday weekend. billionaire of novavax will tell us what it means for the fight against omicron and the road to solving the nation's supply chain issue. transportation secretary pete buttigieg will be our very special guest right here the final hour of "squawk box" begins on this eve of christmas eve next [ music playing

good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from a series of undisclosed locations. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and you will see green arrows this is the last trading session of the week. right now it looks like the dow has been up triple digits. yeah, 130. nasdaq up by 40. >> we like it that way nobody needs those mob scenes. our market news maker of the hour, galaxy digital ceo mike novogratz, he gets it, too he can't leave his house very easily mike, obviously, it's funny. you say things that are the opposite of what's true and then they're kind of funny. so omicron through the markets for a loop we're seeing rebounds this week,

talking about crypto as well, what if the current status of your thinking given it's a front page article today about the seriousness of omicron relative to previous variants like delta and it seems to be positive. is that where we are at this point in time? maybe thinking that it won't be as bad as the worst case scenario we've heard about >> i think the consensus is becoming that omicron is a much less lethal form of this virus and that in some ways is a bad flu. you maybe have to rethink our public policy of shutting vacations down and shutting schools down and shutting you know, my son goes to yale, they're postponing coming back because of a virus for the week. all the kids are like are you kidding? there were eight cases the positive is as it runs through the system, it actually gets people immunized against the far more potent viruses like delta and the original so i

think that setup probably, you know, bodes well for first quarter of us finally getting 32 you this dam virus >> so -- >> markets are sensing that. >> you think so so markets are actually picking up on that. so then, the fed probably will be able follow through what it has clearly outlined for the next year or so in your view >> yes this certainly maybe gives them a little pause on the first turn because it is slowing things i walked in new york tuesday night at midnight. it's usually bustling. it was dead quiet. so it went from craziness to quiet in three days. so certainly it's having some impact in the short run, people are cancelling vacations i don't think it will have a meaningful impact. at best it slows the fed down a touch. which tells me going forward, we have a lot of macro-volatility. >> right we have a lot of parts of the

investment landscape that seem to have benefitted in an outsized way from the fed and from the money printing. do you expect all those areas not to be as in favor over the next year? and do you put bitcoin and crypto into that same area correlated with these more speculative assets that sort of go with free money >> certainly listen, a part of the crypt story was free money certainly the bitcoin story. so it will certainly weigh on it some you got to pair that with an amazing options cycle. now, visas now signed up 60 crypto mer chants to allow crypt palmetto i payments that are 80 million, you know, merchants have used that so you are seeing the adoption psych until such an act sell rated way, $30 billion of venture money coming in. so i think most these things

will balance each other out. i think most likely the fed goes slow if you trust what the fed is saying, right, it's 2% over two-an-a-half years. that's not pipe monetary policy. right? i think i'd be 2% right now. and so if we go with what they're telling us, it's still very loose conditions and i think assets can still do fine >> mike, can you see that board? are there schchange you would m? my twitter exploded. it always does when we caulk u talk about that. >> it's strange to me that light coin shows up on anyone's you know, it's not something that people are engage in it's not a technology. >> what is beyond there? >> solana, caraluna. those are the cryptos getting the interest from the community that's building. what we look at is who is building on things where is the innovation? where is the development in so i have solana and luna up there.

>> you can read just about any side you want on a lot of these things what i read recently, he's an academic, supposedly really smart says blockchain is here to stay but bitcoin is so energy consuming that there will come a time where something displaces it just because of this or that fact alone is that possible do you believe it? >> this is not true. bitcoin uses .12% of total energy it's less than christmas lights. we have there myth it sucks up electricity, it uses as much as denmark? have you been to denmark there aren't a lot of people there. bitcoin uses electricity more and more is coming from green sources, 80% of the bitcoin is green and it will be probably 100% within a year. and so, i think this is a story that our industry has to combat

because if it came bad news and now it seems to be taking us back it's just not true. >> so the volatility, so it was, i don't know, up 66% from the beginning of the year down 30% from the highs people love the gains. most people that bought early are obviously still doing well, people that bought in the mid-60s are not doing as well, if -- do you expec institutional adoption to lessen the price moods that we see and the volatility if so, did that, the people that buy it because they think it's going to 500,000, does it make them less enamored of it and does it become more useful as a possible currency or is that using it for transactions what's going to happen >> i do think volatility certainly in pit coin is coming down you look at bitcoin versus etherium and the other alt

plays, bitcoin volume is much lower. that's because olot of the guys looking for a gain sales i won't find it like i did in bitcoin. so i'm going to the new coin of the month so that is going to continue i think as institutions come and we're seeing less volatility i think that's a good thing. i don't think bitcoin becomes a transactional currency i think it is hailer made to be stored value there is a thing lightning network that allows transactions at a lower costs i think bitcoin as a digital goal and parts of the world where inflation is really high, it feels essential in places that it's not screamingly high, like the u.s., it is a very nice hedge against the currencies it's working and it continues to work the rest of the crypto world has very different use cases and i think using etherium and seeing there is a technology play is really what's gotten the

world excited this year. people realize stuff been limit on block chains like the nba top shop project or what we're doing with major league baseball >> i just want to go back to the issue about the environment. i agree with you i think long term this will be supported by renewable energy, hopefully, 100% as you say the idea that it's going to be supported by 100% renewable energy in 12 months from now, to me, if i'm being very candid with you >> i didn't say the whole system i said us at galaxy. we're focusing >> maybe, maybe you will do that but i think we are years away from, if not a decade or more away from it being 100% on renewables the other component is from an energy efficiency perspective. irrespective if you compare it to christmas lights around the world or what not. the idea is if you will develop a new currency that requires

electricity in the day and age we are talking efficiency, it is one of the least efficient of the coins on the screen, of the different times of crypto currencies it is demonstrably not an efficient method you know, maybe you will take stuff off chain. will you do other things overtime it will improve i am sort of clearly skeptical about this argument. i'm not skeptical necessarily about bitcoin. i do think this is one of the big things that may ultimately hold it back, if, in fact, it gets held pack >> so one of the interesting things is we don't get to decide what people think is where they should store value you can't go out and say everyone should go buy banks containings because they will hold value value is determined by a social construct. bitcoin went out first and developed an amazing brand people trust it. that's why it's become you know a trillion dollar asset. it's not for technology, we could literally forfeit

technology and call it ross coin, it might not be worth very much right. so it's the social construct i would argue the electricity usage and the complication of how it gets stored that gives people faith that it's really safe f. you store a trademark or 2 trillion or 10 trillion of value, you want something that's safe i'm not arguing the other cryptos aren't safe. bitcoin has that argument as a safe value, it's worth spending some of the universe's electricity budget right now it's .12% of universal electricity buck that's not much. >> mike. we got to run. is that a galaxy digital logo behind you >> i decided i was going to come from the galaxy. >> you had the bambi thing going one other time what is that again? >> this is my christmas reindeer >> oh, it's not bambi. >> looking out to the stars, getting ready for 2022 >> your christmas reindeer i couldn't remember.

you must have had that before. do you have it in different colors or was it yell throw last time was at this time same one, not bambi? >> it was the same one. >> i think bambi has been cancelled for some reason. i can't remember why >> not my bambi. >> no. okay good thanks, mike don't miss cnbc's crypto into it in america next wednesday at 6:00 p.m. eastern >> okay. coming up, when we return, the ceo of novavax and the latest do you that just out. check out companies with casino operations 45 public gaining in macaw ended. macau. the new regulations, industry profits, stay tuned. you are watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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novavax versus the messenger mrna ability to store it more easily and maybe transport it more easily and its shelf life is quite a bit longer. is it more, your technique, which is actually putting the spike protein against it's in a, you can explain it in a nanoparticle you've isolated it, manufactured the spike protein, itself, you put that antigen into a patient to elicit the vaccine immune response are there other advantages to that, in your view >> well, i think you've done a great job of describing our product. yeah, everybody has to have a good efficacy profile. we do. we have as good as anybody else's, maybe better you have to have a good benign safety profile we do. you want to actually have it usable we store it? a liquid in a single vial so all

you have to do is stick one needle into the vial and you got at shot instead of having to mix it at bedside. and the storage and distribution, we can et go it in all parts of the world so it's nice to have that combination. the other common, effectively one we want to make sure we have, we announced yesterday you want to make sure it works against a variety of variants, so it has to have broad neutralizing stimulate broad neutralizing anti-bodies, against the alpha, beta, delta and now the omicron. we demonstrated we have a broad immune response to the vaccine so any time the vaccine tries to escape, we're there. and i think that's what was shown with our data today. >> the way that you make this vaccine and the mechanism of how

it works, do you think the side effect profile or the safety profile differs from these newer messenger rna vaccine or do you think that the safety profile and side effect profile are basically the same >> well, it's hard to compare exactly side-by-side, but we have -- when you look at all of the things that you look at, which is, you know, pain, headaches, fatigue, a variety of this i think so that you look at and you look at our profile versus some of the others, we have a much word i uses is a more benign profile than the others so that has very few side effects compared to the others >> and as far as getting up to scale and where this would perhaps take, i hate to even say take market share away, because we want everyone to get any of these. but what's your competitive

strategy to make novavax let's say the vaccine of choice for people or to make it at least as competitive as the pfizer and moderna offerings or even j&j? >> well, for all the reasons i just mentioned which is the combination of efficacy and safety and distribution ability and long shelf life, all those factors when they come together, you want to have the best class in it. i think we do what kept us later on the market is that when we started this pandemic business, we had zero production capacity. so we've now built over the period in lightning speed plants all over the world so we can now produce at a level in excess of a couple billion dose a year and we've partnered with part iners in india, in the u.s., europe, asia and so we can now make the

product at competitive and commercial levels. >> is it easier to make or the same as the messenger rna? and what about, how would uma you can the next generation -- let's say you wanted to make an omicron-specific booster how would you do that? is it as easy as changing the sequence in an rna vaccine >> it is virtually as easy we actually have a history of this in fact, it's been published in the new england journal a few years ago. this is not our first rodeo in terms of pandemics this is our third coronavirus vaccine. we've made several pandemic influenza vaccines we made one pandemic flu vaccine with a new variant a couple years ago and from the day the sequence was discovered until first shot in the arm was 92 days that's remarkable. we're doing it now we have, we've made the omicron

variant, we don't know if it's going to replace the current variant or not, but we've made it it's now being put into a manufacturing process that allows us to make product to scale in january and being in a human trial in the first quarter. so that delay we had while we were building capacity is now behind us. >> i know there is an add event. i had people in the past saying that might have beneficial effects other than the spike protein and for t-cell immunity or rampening up the immune system in general. is that another advantage you would say to this versus - >> it's a big advantage, as it turns out, we've shown that last year in our flu vaccine where we had a phase 3, which is that third phase of scale of a clinical trial and the flu

vaccine and showed it head-to-head against other flu vaccines we get a much broader immune response, like we are dealing with covid right now the second time is with malaria, we have a partnership with the serum institute, the world's largest vaccine company who has an antigen and is using it with ours and we show we get a much more potent immune response than the recently-licensed gsk vaccine where we get in the high 70s as far as efficacy it's going to be a game changer for malaria, which is a huge problem. and we're going to have the samesque with covid. we show between 90 and 100% efficacy using this very safely. >> excellent the more the better. we'll get more and more data and have a much clearer benedict of exactly how all these, what i think are all wonders, they're

not drug, wonder treatments and a really good idea we have that choice there, hopefully. thank you. we appreciate it. >> thanks for having me on. >> you are very welcome. bye. when we come back, we have a flood of pre-holiday economic data stay tuned this is "squawk box" and this is cnbc >> as i observe investors balance risk and reward, i see one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. your strategic advantage. alright, here we go, miller in motion. wha — wait, wait, is that a... baby on the field?? it looks like it, craig. and the defensive linemen are playing peek-a-boo. i've never seen anything like that before. harris now appears to be burping the baby.

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. this week, we are look, at the rising trend of the metaverse, but not too soon to invest julia boorstin joins us with the third story in her series. >> well, andrew, there are ways and ranges to invest in the building block of the metaverse. perhaps the easiest way to invest will be the chips bernstein hoists the potential for nvidia, the largest graphics and chips maker and qualcomm with its snap dragon xr platform

that connects spaces bernstein has an outperform rating on both those stocks. now for vr to work, the network needs to be fast t-mobile, verizon and at&t investment in spectrum should have paid off in that regard goldman sachs highlights the original players, meta platforms, formerly known as facebook golt goldman says those are the key stocks the metaverse expert tells us to look for those giants to pursue cutting-edge startups. >> what we're going to see next year are going to be really interesting acquisitions i think from some of the tech giants acquiring more gaming platforms. some more nacent definitely see that on the horizon for 2022 >> goldman does forecast meta platforms will invest about 5%

of its market cap over the next three years, that's about $39 billion in metaverse-related technology if you want broad exposure to the metaverse, there are etfed, called meta, not the company previously known as facebook lets you invest in several ticket playters forefront of the metaverse. also expect to hear a lot mort about the metaverse from a range of companies on investor calls there were a record 449 mentions of the metaverse in third quarter earnings calls up from just 100 mentions in the prior quarter. so we'll have to see if that growth trend continues andrew. >> julia, you know, people talk about investing in the metaverse, clearly, mark zuckerberg talks about this being a decade away from sort of the full version of it is your sense that it might be too early to invest or the better opportunities are in the private market which i know may be a lot harder for many people to access than

the public market? >> certainly, andrew, if you believe the metaverse will be a big thing then buying nfts, that would make sense i'm not talking private market options here what my goal is to look at these tech companies we talk about all the time like nvidia and amb that are, in fact, quite exposed to the metaverse if it were to take off, they're likely to be a big part of it. you can go by your virtual real estate that might be a lot riskier than buying the chip companies that have a broader >> fair enough i think the private companies are doing interesting work in this space we will see. julia happy holidays great to see you thanks >> happy holidays, andrew. >> if we have a flood of economic data hitting jobless claims, income, spending, durable goods with the futures, you can see solid up triple digit. rick santelli is at the cme in

chicago. rick the numbers, please. >> yes, a litany of data points. i will catch my breath here. here we go initial jobless claims exactlied a expected 205,000 it's not a post-covid-19 low 188,000 from a few weeks ago is. that was the lowest levels since 1969 continuing claims, though, has made a new post-covid low and that is 1 million 859,000. i take that back -- last week, 1 million 845,000. this week, 1 million 859,000 but here's why i said that because last week just got ramped up to 1 million 867,000 on the revision. so this week does stand as the post-covid low now, let's get into some real important do you that. on the personal income side for november up .4, exactly as expected some may say, of course, that this number needs to go up a bit

and i think it's going to be on the spending side, up .6 as expected last month, it was more than double that and it was 1.3 now at 1.4 we all know what's going on here that many spent early for the holidays a little worried about supply shortages. on the inflation side, some of the fed's favorite inflation numbers here, personal consumption expenditure pce innator month over month up .6 last month was changed to up .7. these are the hottest numbers going out way back to 2008 and if we look at a year over year on that number, well, it is up, it is up 5.7 yeah, 5.7 and 5.7 follows an upwardly revised 5.1 that takes us to 1982 since we've seen a number that large now let's look at core deflators. personal consumption

expenditures month over month. means we strip out food and energy that number is up .5 of 1% up .5 of 1%. that follows another up .5 of 1% these numbers go back to about 2,000, let's see about 2001 about 2001 and finally, with the final inflation numbers year over year up 4.7 that really is hot once again, that takes us back into the 80s let's look at durable good orders up 2.5. this might be one of the biggest surprises thus far outside of inflation. we were expecting a number under 2%. this is preliminary november it could change. it's at powerful number. last month, the minus .4 gets it revised to a final read up .1. take out transportation, the number falls off rather dramatically, only up .8 and if you strip out transportation and look at the orders and shipment

side, we have capital goods orders, exaircraft that's a proxy for business capital investment and spending. that's down .1 that is not good .1 is not good last month, though, was really quite spectacular. a move up .7, up .9. year over year everything starts with a rate of change not a good number. we'll see if it's revised away on the final finally, if we switch from orders to shipments, it's up half of what we expected up .3 if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense, considering the world and the play issues we are contenting with. after all of that we're hovering at 1.46 in 10s, european scales up more aggressively boom yields up for if fourth straight session, meaning they're getting smaller, less negative they're at a one-month high. joe, i'm out of breath i hope we covered that had"ly. back to you. >> yeah.

that's why the ten year is not doing much it has no idea what to do after all that it has to be a super computer. thank you, steve leishman joins us now speaking of super computers, rick did a great job, steve. you've had normore time. >> the longer he goes. >> what caught your attention. >> the more time i get nobody does it better than rick does, especially with a big day to download. >> revisions, everything agreed. >> it's amazing, it's amazing. let me very quickly, what i was focused on when rick was talking were the real numbers. the real numbers are not as impressive when it comes to spending and income. let me find it real quick. what you find is that income when you take out inflation is down 0.2 it's not as bad as the 0.3 the prior month. it's still negative. you get your income, take away

the inflation. down 0.2 also the spending, personal consumption expenditures you take out inflation you end up with zero that's inflation taking a bite out of all of this i don't mind the durable numbers. as rick said, we had strong several prior months here. i'm seeing a little movement on the auto parts side. with eknew boeing had a good month. watching what's happening with auto manufacturing and production to try to see if we can get ahead of what's happening. if you will have a decline or peaking of deflation, you got to get the auto sector back in line that's a big part of this right now what's happening the conversation that i'm reading among economists is not inflation high this is month or next month, it's the talk about the peak, joe. what we are hearing is people are saying, probably february, things will get worse until february and we're looking for some kind of peak in march and whether or not we start to trail off back then as the production

system gets back into place. we'll see if we can start to make some leveling off, we keep looking at record from 30 areas, 40 years ago, we're looking for a peak hopefully early next year >> steve, thank you very much. do you futures up still by 100 points when we return, transportation secretary pete buttigieg will join us on the biden attempts to lvsulyane issues stay tuned you are watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc

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. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning the omicron variant putting pressure on an already distressed supply chain, earlier this week, president biden met

with fed-ex's fred smith to talk about progress to try to avert a holiday crisis joining us with details of the meeting to share where things stand right now. transportation secretary pete buttigieg. mr. secretary, it's great to see you. happy holidays we're hoping it will be happy holidays things seem to be moving apace clearly, supply chain issues remain i'm curious what the readout of this meeting meant to you and what the lesson was? >> it's a really good conversation with the president yesterday with leaders from the private sector, really two things one is the weekend terror isnary extraordinary achievements to date if you look at the headlines a couple months ago, they were saying every shelf would be empty, christmas was ruined, basically cancelled you look at what's happened, shelves are stocked. you look at walmart, target, they're talking more inventory

than a year ago. port on the west coast, for example, the ones we are so concerned about, move ac record gods about, moving 15% more than their raul-time high the national retail federation predicting the pest year ever for holiday sales. so a lot has gone right thanks to the leadership and the administration and thanks to the leadership in the private sector, that got created, most importantly of all, thanks to a lot of essential workers who never had the option of coming into work via zoom excepting it done, whether it's at the courts or the truck drivers on the road or the warehouses, that's not to say we haven't had issues in terms of pressure on prices and shipping, timing, but if you look at the big pick, it's extraordinary what has been done in order to make sure we've had the holiday season we have right now if you run for some last-minute shopping you will see the shelves are stocked. now, having said that, this was not a mission accomplished moment because we got a lot of work to

do as a matter of fact today my department is announcing port program grants about $240 million going anywhere from long beach, one of the biggest ports in the country, about $50 million headed there to support capacity expansion to places you don't think about a lot. places like the ohio river, indiana, a crane can move traffic off barnls for about $1.5 million and everything in between. normally we wouldn't announce something this close to christmas. but the president had specific port action plans saying by this point in time, we need to get more dollars out the door. so we did that we are already getting next year's grants ready to announce probably in february the next round opening applications i'm just talking about one program, the port program. one of many programs we will have more dollars in thanks to the president's b bipartisan infrastructure law. >> it's will talk about the work that needs to be done,

mr. secretary, because one of the things that we are going to be confronting over the next several monthsings, it appears is omicron and what that's going to do to potential lila bore shortages. i want to ask you specifically about what ed bastian, the ceo of delta recently said, which is he suggested that there be a new, some new thinking around quarantine rules and the length of quarantine rules in part because he is worried about a labor supply shortage. i believe he is thinking about that tpd the transportation sector in terms of airplanes, i imagine it will impact all sorts of businesses including at the ports and the like would you had voke for a rethink of quarantine rules? >> well, we're always going to take our queue from the cdc and start with what the public health leadership thinks is best for keeping the american people safe but you know tern e certainly we need to continually reevaluate what we do in our response to the pandemic the facts on the

ground are changing in terms of there being vaccines, we mostly didn't have a year ago, therapies emerging and also our knowledge of things changing so between, you know, what itself going on in the variants, with treatments, testing, and vaccinations, and what's going on in terms of our understanding of what mitigations are missouri effective, we should continually be re-visiting what we do. that's exactly what happens this administration sits on the covid task force we are always looking at where we are compared to where we were and how to make sure the american people are safe some things are clear, they're not changing, maybe the biggest among them is we need to get as many people vaccinated as possible that includes getting those boosters, so is that people have maximum protection, no matter what - >> i know you may defer to the cdc, would you be advocating to change the definition of fully vaccinated >> again, i'm not getting ahead of the cdc on that we know

boosters create a dramatically higher level of protection, i am encouraging my loved ones to do the same it's a big way in how we lay this pandemic. >> in terms of a quarter billion dollars going out the door to the port, how quickly is that money going to be spent and when we think about the inflationary aspects of some of the supply chain issues we're seeing, you know, what kind of an impact do you think that can have? what kind of time from im? >> so really it varies based on what's going on in an individual port, what i'll tell you, ouch parts can move quickly for example, last week i was in savannah, georgia, the fourth port by many measures most significant for agricultural exports. they got creative and what are best described as popped up inland container yard. this idea there is no more space at the port, itself, with these containers piling up so you get them out to a different site sometimes more than 100 miles inland and sort them out there

move them on to rail and truck chassiss there it's one of those ideas that sounds simple like a child would think of, actually incredibly dynamic and complex to pull off. they were able to do it after a matter of months after the conversations with the supply chain task force and to do that problem solving. they were able to use repurposed federal dollars to do it we are about quick solution where we can find them let's be clear, the point of this bill is to get america for decade and decade and create jobs across the decade and decade ahead we will fought rush things at the expense of dock them right we will look at short term and long term side-by-side every day. >> finally the build back better plan that has been obviously put on pause for now without joe manchin's support, if you were to look into a crystal ball for early '22, what parts do you think actually have a chance of getting across the finish line do you think it does

>> i have been rooting around the office of the secretary ever since i moved into it looking for that crystal ball. maybe it's in a closet some. where i still can't find it. what i know is this, the elements of that package are both needed and popular and i think that's especially true when it comes to having a stronger popular you saw how the rating agencies and a lot of banking reduced their expectations for our economic growth when there was news of this setback the economy is telling us, in its way, is telling us this bill is good for the economy. the add to the fact that with families sees pressure on prices this could lower the cost of insulin, lower the cost of prescription drugs, lower the cost of housing and child care one thing i'm excited about, of course, is the chance to lower the cost of electric vehicles. you looked at the pickup truck the president was driving -- >> mr. secretary, we got to run

in a second. are you surprised the stock market, since that announcement, has not fallen dramatically? to the extent the market is speaking, and the market is distinct from the real economy, but on which times they things do have an impact on the market. the market in an almost per verse way has responded. >> you know, i want to stop short of talking about crystal balls, kind of impugning things to the market but if i were to do it, i would say it's a sign that the economy and the market share my optimism for the new year. >> we wish you happy holidays, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year, crystal ball or not. thanks. >> absolutely. thanks. jim joins us right now how are you feeling today, bud

>> look, i feel great. i'm raring to go i'm also excited about the fact that i'll be back on new year's and will be ready. that's the period -- it's how long you have to wait. no one seems to know we just don't have a clue. i wish they would give some advice about that. >> yeah, it's kind of crazy. things are moving quickly. i have to admit. i've heard about a bench of cases, including one in my family in the last 12 hours or so. >> really? >> i know this is a big deal -- >> you are home? >> i am home, yeah >> the variety -- i mean, a young -- i don't know any vaccinations, i don't know -- >> we're all fully vaccinated, it's okay. everybody will be fun, just like

you guys, too. >> aren't you -- like -- no, you're going to get sick if you're not vaccinated. there's no natural immunity. if you get sick and you're not vacc vaccinated, you won't be able to go back to work very soon. there's nothing the matter saying that. >> right. >> this thing is way too viral right now. >> yeah. that's the thing, the nature of the spread it's going to take us a while to get our arms around it you did hear that jd.com tencent situation. what are your thoughts on that >> i think there's internal tension in china i think xi wants very much to say, look, if you're rich, we're going to crack down, at the same time they've cracked down on a gross domestic product they have to get the gdp you want they have hurt people enough, the economy is slowing

dramatically xi is in a perilous position if they don't get that economy going. everyone think it's dictator for life or an emperor he's not an emperor. so i think it's 2022, the big story will be stimulus in china. >> thank you, jim. we'll see you in a few minutes merry christmas. >> good health. >> you too joining us is jim paulson. jim, looking through to next year, what are some of the themes are thinking people should be paying attention to. i know you've been writing about the dollar recently. >> yeah, i guess the biggest thing for me, becky, when i think about next year, is confidence i com back to, i think confidence has been depressed every since this crisis started, and continues tore deprettied. the university of michigan consumer confidence is lower

today than in march of 2020. i think it's through the financial markets as well. i think we have a shot at maybe finally lifting confidence in this recovery, maybe for the first time next year, and that i think we could declare some semblance of victory over both covid and inflation next year. it might both happen not that we get rid of them entirely, but if we go from a pandemic to an epidemic kind of view of the covid, that will feel like a victory or moving on, if you will, and i think if inflation -- not that it returns to the fed's 2% target, i don't think 2 will, but if it moderates and starts heading that direction, i they we'll also feel better about that issue. those are the two biggest fears. if we dampen those fears and raise some confidence, i think

one of the big things you'll see is a run through the financial markets by people moving away from s&p large-cap growth, which is where you go if you're nervous about the world, large-cap companies that have their even independent growth rate, i think we'll see market participants moving broadly, even international markets, confidence about where we're headed in the world improves so i am kind of watching for signs of that, as we go into next year. >> jim, what brings inflation down is it the idea of covid moving to an endemic situation? >> personally, i think inflation is already peaking if you look at the leading edge of inflation, all those have been flat in and out, since may, when you look at the goldman sachs overall index. whether you lewd at crude oil,

whether you look at the baltic fast freight rates, they're no longer surging, they're flats if you look at break-even rates, the ten-year break-even, so i think the markets are suggesting that the leading edge of inflation is changing. then the biggest thing that gives me confidence, i think, becky, for next year is both monetary and fiscal policy have been we've got to go. thanks, jim. merry christmas. >> i'm sorry. make sure you join us next on "squawk on the street." you want your data to be protected and secured. and your customers want seamless and easy. with ibm, you can do both. your company can monitor threats across your clouds, address all those regulations,

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good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber coming off two days of rallies into the close futures are green as the market hangs on to optimism s&p needs about 16 points for an all-time closing high. vix below 19 today tons of data before the holidays quote, nothing has bee