2022, and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm beck request quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin the morning you're seeing a very slight pullback, down by 28 points below the value s&p futures down by 5, the nasdaq futures off by 16 take a look at the riggs 2,000 yesterday. it's the best day you've seen in several weeks there, and the russell we're paying so much a attention.

it's below the highest levels they've seen yesterday was a good day for the russell 2000 the yields are down ever so slightly two-year, abob 10% chl this morning it's at 2.349%. >> let's talk about russia and ukraine. that was the issue yesterday and continues to be today. president biden warning of a russian invasion of ukraine, he says, is distinctly possible even though moscow claims it's withdrawing troops from the border, president biden wants to still give them a chance it could have an impact at home

with rising energy prices. we brought you remarks live on "squawk box. lots of back-and-forth >> who to believe, who to believe. around for a while, you know, there's one side that said ukraine never really necessarily believed it was going to be imminent, but that seemed like they were whistling past the graveyard for zelensky a lot of people would say putin got what he want in energy prices are up. >> placed on the world stage. >> what about the cyber attacks? >> also accomplishing what he wants. >> they say they're going to pull back.

even nato's secretary general. it you hope it's a a way to vie -- >> let's per sue that. the we thaay we play, you watchh optimism this could be a long process just because it doesn't happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month, who knows that's why i think they want to be there >> look. the good news is the longer this goes, the less of an mood yat then goes they're reline of p russian ever

knurl gas. the warmer it gets trngs wafrm it is to breathe for him. >> how would you like a russian winter on the front lines of ukraine? think about that you're lungy you're here i'm glad i'm not a troop stationed on the belarus border. let's get to our next guest. he was asked if the pandemic may be in the final stages. >> i think that's an original scenario i think there's an 80% chance that as the virus evolves, we're

going to see less and less i think also we're going to see more of a variant. >> we've always hoped that as in previous pandemics we've seen the virulence go down. 20% that it would be more very lent. >> 22% is still high. >> file great that stephane think everywhere a hit it more >> there will be varpts and natural immunity that they may another b-- not be partially effective.

it's become more of bad flu, whatever you want to call it, but you're not on a ventilator typically. i assume we're in the final stage bus of heard immine tin. >> there's still a global portion that's not been vaccinated again, we're very lucky to be where we are. >> >> no one's going to ring a bell when it's over. it was good to hear. >> a new study published by the cdc who get vaccinated probable toe text tirr conversation 6 babying were 61% less likely

and disney announcing that starting this week, it will drop mask requirements for vaccinated visitors at its u.s. theme parks. that change takes events tomorrow the face masks will beissued for kids 2 and older, i guess the question is how do you preev you're vaccinated? even when you get the park, how do you know who's vaccinate and who aren't >> it's probably the relaxing that's going on with that. maybe they use a cart.

>> may they door. a new president of jeff zucker stepped down. there were a couple of violation policies including cnn's new staffers she pill out a statement saying the company's trying to chaemg testify team on it a lot of news stories focused that the arguments were going on what was going on around these internal investigations? what really happened with chris

cuomo? perhaps another woman came forward. >> you peen meme from cuomo's past snoopy were shape it took a story about medial an of us. we feel like we're in the media. i was reading the "new york ti times" i tried not to i'm getting into a huge article about uncomfortable things within everything. they call them the cuomo brothers, which sounds like -- i don't know what. it's an interesting piece. it goes back to before zucker was even at cnn, remember?

e they managed to claim back people knew that for the past two we'ring but how she woman. if you read the piece. she worked for him after she did so well. she organized a clam back. more media news. we love media news everybody at home is dove -- p viacomcbs is revealing it will now go by paramount gloechblt i didn't know what vieacom cbs wa. it added a record 9 opinion h mill krun streaming southbound zabbered it will be at

15 eastern we'll get you to tie if. dow down h 1 points. midnig actress rosario dawson will talk about a new cannabis infused drink. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc what happens when we welcome change? we can make emergency medicine possible at 40,000 feet. instead of burning our past for power, we can harness the energy of the tiny electron. we can create new ways to connect. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive than ever. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions,

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time now for the "squawk" planner on key data coming out this morning, and investors are hoping for more insight with the release of the january meeting and those minutes. senior economics reporting steve liesman set his alarm. he joins us now for a preview. hey, steve i hope you weren't at the dead consent last night all liquored up are you already? >> yachleah, you know, joe, i stopped drinking for my morning hits >> good to know. >> as they say, it's too late to go to bed early. col consumers are in a foul mood. january retail sales looking for

a surge of 2.1%. the christmas time surprise was a 1.9% decline take out autos, and there's still a 0.8% versus 2.3% in december there should be a sharp turnaround with sales with manufacturers having a 20% increase in unit sales the question is with overall retail sales, how much gains are coming from inflation and how much more inflation can consumers shoulder before they start to pull back we're going to look at inflation adjusted retail sales, that tells you it's down. they pay for inflation and still boost their real spending by 9%. least so for there was a 2.5% month-to-month decline in december. consumers may have reached a

limit here all of this is of enormous interest to the fed. how much type of economy can it stand? can the fed just cool the economy or does it have to slow it down to at or near a recession to get ahold of price increases? fed officials seem strength on the strength of the economy and how aggressive you should be with aive rate highs or slow and steady approach that a lot of fed folks have been talking about. that will show up in the 2:00 p.m. minutes released, joe. >> it's andrew here because i've got a question for you here, steve, which is this i feel like viewers seem to get upset when we talk about it this way. do you believe that jay powell thinks about trying to reduce

demand when you talk about it in that context, they get very frustrated >> i don't know what guys think about things could you guys in the back put that chart up? i think he has to think about bringing down demand toward the potential of the economy you look at that look at those two bumps in there. the bump down, that's when the pandemic hit that bump-up is right after that $1.9 trillion fiscal aid people were sent money and they went out and spent the hope is that some of this naturally runs off you have the supply chain issues resolved, the second thing is you have this fiscal aid that really bumped up people's savings and spending that's what i think powell is hoping for i think i'd be very happy if the

man came down -- by the bay, rebans goods to services, that's where i would be happy. >> steve liesman, you've done a brilliant job. thank you, sir. when we come back, a lot more on "squawk box. actress and entrepreneur rosario dawson joining us next on her new investment in a cannabis lifestyle brand and joining the board. >> and later offices are beginning to reopen, but what do you tell your boss if you don't want to go back to the office? we're going to talk ouitabt when we come back right after this >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. is sponsored by baird. visit th plan with tax-smart investing strategies designed to help you keep more of what you earn.

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welcome back to "squawk box. this morning the cannabis industry is continuing to grow this time in the beverage business can announced a $20 million spending round they're making weed legal. joining us right now is an investor in can. rosario dario. it's great to see you this morning. congratulations on this news we think of you, of course, as an actor and an actress. you've become an entrepreneur and you've become involved with the company and are on the board. tell us how you got invested in this. >> thanks for having me on think they're doing something remarkn't in this space.

i think we'll be looking back and seeing a shift into a beverage and edibles that's making such an impact with so many communities folks who are sober-curious or people who want to experiment but don't want to smell or all the sigma attached to it but want the benefits are seeing this company as their way in they're being resourceable and reaching out to those who don't normally get reached out to. this is a company building in on the idea that beer companies are now moving into hard selzer because they're starting to lose sales. they're moving over. that's why coors is helping us.

>> what does sober-curious mean? >> maybe something someone wants to have out in public with their friends but not necessarily wanting alcohol or want an edible but are afraid of what the dosages are. this is at issue for people like my dad who have graves disease and all these different things and they're wanting to get access to this medicine that is so helpful an beneficial you know, this isn't -- this is marijuana came from asia, was developed here and smoked for hundreds of years and utilized by the natives here. it was the were on drugs on black and brown communities that have been absolutely devastating and now it's become this thing that's legalizing across many markets and people are seeing it's a $30 million industry and they're trying to capitalize on

it and i'm joining the boards i'm trying to push back on this idea of really where this industry is going and who's actually getting to benefit from it and get access to it from everything from the medicinal qualities to the actual financial compensation. >> so you've become an entrepreneur investing in a number of businessesful just walk us through sort of your investment thesis, how you find these businesses, what you're looking for, how you joined this board. >> i'm looking for companies that are doing good in the world. you know, it doesn't make sense for us to make money and be successful if the planet is falling apart and people are being hurt, so i joined this board specifically because of that i think we've got some really cool storytelling opportunities that will help with the pushback scenarios out there.

we're looking at meaningful investment, markets opportunities. we're seeing things out there. it's really only 13 municipalities across the country and ten are in california meanwhile this is legal in 37 states there are tens of thousands of jobs being created yearly. it's projected to be a $30 billion industry just this year alone. need a seat at the table, not the stigma of having an edible -- gummy before going to sleep to take the edge off is now being normalized while people are still being incarcerated and disproportion natalie impacted, disenfranchised. >> how do you split your time? we have been encouraging people

to watch dope sic. you also introduced studio 189 that's a seamless underwear and bra company s that right >> yes we make clothing yes, we make clothing. >> but how are you thinking your role as an an act never hollywood and a role as an investor >> it's about storytelling it's the way of communicating with each other and spreading information and learning it's in front of the cam are or behind the camera, i'm always interested in reaching tout communities across the world and letting them know they're seen and put the microphone in their face that's why i joined the board of cann so i can learn more about this space and have more of an impact. >> are you getting pitched like

10,000 deals a day are you having to go out and find these deals i think -- i'm very curious how this works for you. >> yeah, no. i found a lot of the companies that i have engaged with through friends and community and the things that i'm really interested in. so a friend of mine who is actually a brain cancer survivor and medical marijuana was tremendously impactful in his healing introduced me to cann, and when i saw what they were doing like working with mary pryor of cann inclusive, there's be better they're a queer-led company. they think it's absolutely insane these two white guys can raise $2 million like this and women of color who have been in this for a long time can't even get a license due to a prior conviction they don't want to be part of the problem. they want to be helping.

when i see companies leading and doing that way, i want to be supportive they're being more meaningful and intentional and diverse with their entire approach as a company. it's helped their companies skyrocket. they're the real deal. a lot of people are making the posts. when companies like this doing you're going to see people like me who want to invest and be a part of it. >> ro sayre yeo da rosario daws. good luck. >> thank you. when we come back, delays after a republican boycott we will take you live to washington. later, akamai tom leighton will join us and talk about the cloud computing acquisition. right now as we take a break, let's take a look at yesterday's

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good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc the futures down, 131. not a whole lot to talk about after that very positive session yesterday, down two on the nasdaq s&p down about three oil down above 90. the ten-year continues to be above 2%, and we're going to hear about the fed stuff later today. and then there's this florida side story, beck. >> there is. a senate committee vote has actually been delayed. a republican boycott of the nomination vote deprived them of the votes needed

ylan mui joins us with it. this is a sticky situation. >> yeah, becky the federal reserve is in limbo because the republicans refused to show up for the key vote yesterday. republicans on the senate banking committee arguing she had not adequately answered the questions on the fintech company, therefore they couldn't provide it. >> when a nominee refuses to provide answers, that's a problem. >> but democrats calling this a smear campaign they're accusing of republicans of walking out on their job. >> now republicans have fled the room, hiding rather than voting when an experienced nominee raskin has been confirmed twice by the senate unanimously. nothing about her or her

approach to this job has changed. >> they're equally divided, 12 democrats, 12 republicans. in order to get them to the floor, the committee needs at least 13 member ts none of the other four fed nominees can move forward including chairman powell. it seems unlikely a new fed board would be in pace before that meeting >> correct me if i'm wrong, i think chairman powell is kind of in an acting point didn't his term expire this month? i wonder how long republicans are going to do say they're not going to act on this. >> fed numbers can continue to serve in that capacity until

they step down we know chairman pow sl not going to do that. so there's not a prc tick cal difference for him but certainly to have his conversation in limbo is, you know, a political uncertainty that is not pleasant to have the same thing for brainard as well that also means the other members, lisa cook, philip jefferson, raskin would not be sitting there in march how long could this go on? really unclear tchl options for the democrats are few. it does not look like they could change the rules in the kmies team this is really tied up at this point unless they were able to cut a deal they want them to split it up and vote on the others later and democrats have been unwilling to do that. >> i wonder if you buy the story that -- there's a couple of

things with sara bloom raskin, the deactivist banking and fossil fuel argument there's the story with that fintech company that a lot of the republicans say we just want answers. i'm wondering do you think republicans could be satisfied to the extenlts on the fintech side of things is it possible to satisfy them so she gets a thumbs-up? because, remember, judy shelton didn't make it there was the opposition solidified can that happen? >> you know, i hesitate to underestimate sort of the arcane parliamentarian or procedural maneuvers that lawmakers can pull out of their pockets here, so i always feel like there's got to be some way, some

loophole to move a nominee forward. she would get confirmed if she were to go to the floor. i don't know if anything would be enough for the republicans at this point i asked senator toomey if he wanted to hear her testify again, if he wanted more answers in writing she's already provided all that information and more democrats are saying if you don't like this nominee, just vote no. a no vote is perfectly fine, but they need to show up and cast a ballot because otherwise no one is going to be able to move forward. >> ylan, that was a nice way to pull it. pa la mentry processes that they pull out of their pocket. >> thank you. >> thank you we're going to be speaking to senator pat toomey at the top of the hour and we'll get it straight from him too. >> pull something out of your hat. >> your hat? >> pull something out of your hat. >> right. >> pull something out of your hat. i don't know what you're

thinking, beck ychl your mind a lot of times goes right to the -- >> hat >> no. people think it's us little do they know after all these years. i know. coming up, offices are reopening. what do they do about employers when they come back? plus, viacomcbs reporting mixed results. paramount global we'll talk with ceo bob bakish in the 8:00 hour remember you can watch us any time on the cnbc app if you so choose you alright? [loud exhale] [ding] never settle with power e*trade. it has powerful, easy-to-use tools find opportunities, 24/7 support when you need answers, plus some of the lowest options in futures contract prices around.

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as omicron cases decline, more workplaces like microsoft and others are welcoming workers back for more on this, let's bring in harvard business school profers and author of "remote work revolution" and tom gimbal, founder of staff recruiting network. thank you both for joining us. for a while tsedal has been saying make it an option and you're saying let's get people back in here are you still going to have the

debate tsedal? do people have to come back? >> no, i'm not with tom. the thing is people are going out to dinner, sporting events, entertainment, doing all sorts of things, but they do not want to return to the workplace of 2019 they want their eautonomy, they want their fleckability, they want to have dinner with their families and they want dinner with their family. they've proven for two years they can be productive workers without having their butts in seats. >> tom >> i'd like to be like tsedal's cleaning lady or painter i could come on saturdays at 5:00 in the morning or sunday at midnight sometimes when someone's paying for a service, you have do it on their terms. i'm not anti-employee. i think there's a hybrid work force and we're not escaping

that but when there's very low unprecedented unemployment like we have nowthat you have the inmates running the asylum, so to speak you're going to start to see companies requiring, right, not requesting, requiring people to be in the office a certain amount of time think about this, joe. a year ago, two years ago, microsoft and all the tech firms and google, don't worry, you're never going to have to come back it was purely marketing to not lose people. >> they've never said that is correct tom, they've never said that. >> we're going bring people back -- >> they never said, you don't have to come back. >> what did twitter say? jack dorsey was moving to africa, and twitter was never coming back into the office. >> you're talking about 2019 so much has changed since then one thing we need to stop doing

is confounding knowledge workers with others who are not at this point digitally trained to participate in the knowledge economy. it's so important for us to understand that remote work is digital work and digital work is remote work and we are moving very fast into a digital economy, so we really need to understand this workplace renaissance. >> i totally agree with you. there are jobs that be done from anywhere and that is awesome, however, you're going to have a situation one day when we're in a battle for jobs, not for people, right, a battle for jobs not for people, you're going to have the blue collar worker who says i'm only going to work for a company that has everybody in the office four day as week and you're going to have a blue collar revolution that's going to make white collar people come into the office. >> the trend is very different actually we're moving into a skill-based

work where google and others are going to train 100,000 people in python and coding and other things it's agy cal economy and blue collar workers who do not need college degrees are going to to be joining the tech people that's the trend. >> it's very funny, tsedal i whack through the warehouses and the transportation companies. they're doing those jobs truck drivers are in high demand retail workers are becoming the high demand. they're not going to become technology people. >> joe knows i'm in the predicting job. >> you work at the best actiongy institution in the worlt i work with people who go for jobs every day $15, $20, $40, 50 dollars, $80

an hour. i see these people all the time. i talk to the cliejts. the majority of people want a connection to their office it's always going to be the fringe, the loud squeak request wheel gets a mentality. >> tom, i've missed you, my friend, but your data does not support the argument, it just doesn't. >> if data were always right, the economists would be able to predict every month, and they're wrong. sometimes you have to go to main street and see what people are saying, and there was a huge disconnect the blue collar worker is disenfranchised, and the company is going to have to make a decision on how they're going to treat everybody fairly, and we have this problem right now is that it's not one-work society we've got to be able to figure out how to make them work together and letting everybody work from where they want is not

the answer before i get all the hate messages, i'm not antiemployee and antiwork we're just in a situation low employment rates are driving the decision and it won't be forever. >> the last comment, is blue collar workers have always existed. white collar workers have always existed. it's not new all of this is just an acceleration of what's been happening for a long time. joe knows, right, joe? >> when i started this, i said, i guess you're both in agreement now, and little did i know your positions got -- you're both definitely more entrenched. >> listen. >> i've seen both sides. >> tesla is a nonunion shop. they're not invited to the whouchls union companies are invioleted to the white house. what doesions represent? white collar workers

they're going to say why either all of these thej, or it's not clear. and the 24-year-old is working on miami beach doing a social media campaign campaign for the same companygn campaign for the >> that's the thing and i see both sides, but there's a lot of things that are never going to be digital we're seeing a quick move, and obviously we're transitioning to all kinds of things that can be done remotely, but so many of the people that tom are talking about had to physically get up, get out of bed, put on clothes, get in a car and go do their job to keep this entire country working, and they don't have that option. >> oh, completely, completely. but they've never had that option they've always had to get up and go to work and many knowledge workers have experienced some kind of remote

work pre-pandemic as well. others started experimenting since 1993 so just because all of us had to migrate to this context doesn't mean it's new. it just means now there's been a workplace renaissance, and the reality is there's no turning back so to bring the argument around knowledge workers versus blue collar workers to say that return to the office must happen is just the wrong set of factors being conflated. >> when covid goes away -- when covid goes away and all the harvard professors are teaching from miami beach and the students are showing up, i'll admit i was wrong. but when the students go to class and the harvardprofessor have to be there -- >> i look forward to that, tom i will look forward to that. >> technology tried to replace joe 40 years ago it didn't work there's got to be some fairness

across the board >> thank you, tom. it wasn't 40 years ago, tom. >> it was. >> but i wasn't on but they weren't trying to replace me they were trying to replace wa walter cronkite or somebody. thank you both >> whatever they had for breakfast, i want some >> they knew you were coming, joe. >> it was such an inocilous lead >> they're trying to get ahead of things. when we come back akami technology shares are lower this morning, down by about 5.6% after the company announced a cloud computing acsquisition. the ceo will join us next with

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akami technologies is reporting fourth quarter results overnight. revenue coming in stronger than estimates, and the company announcing a deal to acquire anode. the stock is down in the premarket. it's off just about 5.5% right now. we're joined by tom leighton, the akami ceo. trying to figure out the earnings per share, revenue both better than anticipated, but this acquisition of lenode is really taking the company in a

different direction. you guys are an internet bandwidth pioneer and you've moved into security the last couple of years, too what does this mean, this new direction into the cloud >> i think we're now really to face the picture akami was known as the world's best cdn, and now with relenode the very easy compute function in the crowd, you put that together and akami becomes the most distributed cloud platform and from cloud to edge, enabling developers and enterprises to build their apps, run their apps and secure their apps all on the akami platform >> why do you think the street is reacting the way it is? do thaw look at this and think, okay, they're not sure you can pull off a cloud acquisition

what's the knee jerk reaction here >> i think this is a very good value for shareholders, and i think they understand we can execute well our most recent acquisition during extremely well. we were projecting revenues this year of 30, $35 million and now because of the success we've had we're almost doubling that so i think they know we can execute, and it'll take some time for them to really understand just how important this is for shareholders >> when you talk about cloud, though, obviously this has been a space that's been very well camped out you've got amazon who's had years start in this arena, microsoft who was huge with this, gogal who's huge in the mix and even ibm who's been pushing it this week is there room for smaller players? >> sure. this is an enormous market, and we've competed with the giant companies for over ten years now

and competed very successfully at what we're really good at in fact, those large companies are among our largest customers. they use our services to deliver at scale very low latencies and high performance they use our service to secure their applications and i expect they'll use our services now in the context of being the world's most distributed cloud company for applications where you care about scale on demand, global reach, low latency and of course security >> they'll use your cloud offerings as well? i don't understand how is a cloud offer complementary to what a microsoft or google already havh have >> they already have content delivery and yet they use ours because we're good at those things we give the best performance in fact, we help secure those companies against all sorts of

vulnerability. of course the world's leading companies a lot of them were protected by akami and not impacted by that very serious attack i expect them to use us for applications where you really care how it performs and global scalability on demand. >> in the fourth quarter you did see international revenue up by 13%. that outpaced the u.s. for growth where the revenue was up 2% >> i think very strong especially in apj, seeing very strong growth, obviously in many of the world's largest companies there. a lot of internet users and expansion there, so very strong. of course, you know, the dollar increasing in value hurts a little bit with foreign currency head winds despite that still forecasting

strong growth for 22 and beyond. >> all these shortages we hear is this a problem that affects you guys in any way, shape or form >> it's not a problem for us because we really built out our supply chain we experienced the cross wind when the pandemic hit because of the sudden increase in demand for the services we offer really across the board, traffic through security so we built out ahid and that put us in good shape right now there are pockets here and there where we notice it, but by and large we're in very good shape >> what about finding staff and retaining staff you do have. that's been a huge problem especially for technology companies. >> that's a great question, and that's where it really helps we're considered a great place to work. we really care about our community. you were we were ranked highly in the just 100 as the number 2 internet company people care about our purpose,

which is to make life better for billions of people bill ypions times a day. as a result our attrition rates are much lower than the market around us, and we're in a better position in terms of improving >> what about what you expect to spend on staff, just incremental raises how do much doyou expect wages to go up the next year >> i do expect wages to increase and we're factoring that into our plans over the year. >> are you talking 5%, 10% what would be the range? >> we're talking through that as we speak, making the plans, but it does seem wages are rising. again, that's where it makes such a difference to be a great place to work and really flexible for employees many of whom now want to be working remotely so if you can make the environment really great, that means you're not just relying on, you know, big raises to motivate employees

in tech it's not all about the money. >> tom, thank you for your time this morning it's always nice talking to you. folks, it is just after 7:00 a.m. on the east coast and you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc we still have a huge line up to come this morning including republican senator pat toomey, republican senator mark warner and via comceo robert bakish we'll get to talk to him about all those things >> thanks, becky take a look at futures right now. dow off about 14, 15 points. nasdaq up, though, about 10 points the s&p 500 off about a point. moderna's ceo saying it's reasonable to think the pandemic may be in its final stages he spoke to cnbc "squawk box" and said it's likely as the virus evolves it'll become less and less infectious, but he did warn there's a chance of a more

infectious variant, put that about 20%. cdc taking down some warnings about cruise channel by a notch, flipping its recommendations americans avoid those cruises all together, but still says those not to up-to-date on their vaccines avoid cruise ships. and the fda has a new commissioner robert califf was confirmed by the senate on tuesday. some lawmakers had opposed his nomination because of prior ties to the pharmaceutical industry serving as a board member and advisor to various companies let's get you straight over to dom chu who's looking at this morning's premarket movers >> let's get you off with the shares of airbnb, up roughly 3% premarket, around 35,000 shares of volume so far after being up 6% in the regular session yesterday heading into its earnings report. it was a beat for profits and revenues there was some disappointment

when it came to bookings which were down 8% quarter over quarter. but airbnb says it does expect those bookings for nights and experiences in the current quarter to exceed the numbers for lastyear the video game platform company missed they did report numbers are up 33% from last year we're now down roughly 48% from the highs we just saw over the course of the past year, so something to watch in roblox and end on shares of cedar fair. this is the amusement park and

hotel operator around properties like knotsbury farm. sea world did say in a statement the rejection did not see a path going forward to getting a deal done sea world shares right now down roughly 4.5%, but a very thin trade in the premarket it was up nearly 6% in yesterday's trading. but a deal not getting done. >> thanks, dom andrew, in your moderna read right there you said a 20% chance of more infectious. that would be fine, right? it's more virulent is what i think -- i'm looking just to make sure we get this exactly right. >> yes to get the language right. he said there's an 80% chance that it would get better over time, that it would be less

virulent 20% more virulent. >> in the copy it said infectious, so that's not inaccurate not you, but it's just it said that and i heard it and i was like is that what he said? >> and this new variant of omicron is more infectious but less virulent. >> that's fine someone said that's actually good if it's really ort of innocuous, not innocuous, but less virulent hopefully you get it out of the way and you can deal with it >> i will say this, right now we're trying to deal with the worst of it. over time we've had lots of conversations in this country and around the world about the cost of the flu not just on life but the economic cost, the common cold. all of those things. and i think this whole pandemic is going to i imagine raise questions or more attention on can you push that out even

further for everything so we'll see maybe can't end everything, but i think we're going to try >> that's one of the silver linings of all the -- how clean and masked we all are was that the flu season was almost a nonevent coming up senator pat toomey is with us after blocking president biden's fed nominee picks yesterday. he lays out what is next every big idea every game changer every "how'd they do that?" starts here the blank page

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welcome back to "squawk box. the senate banking committee republicans boycotting a vote to confirm president biden's fed pick for regulator sarah look raskin has been at the center of the controversy since the president announced that nomination. joining us right now is one of the leaders of the boycott senator pat toomey is the ranking republican of the senate banking committee. senator, it's great to have you here i want to understand why you're pursuing this boycott and why not just vote no, if in fact that's your view >> yeah, andrew, so let me explain. first of all, the reason that -- the primary reason i oppose sarah look raskin serving as the

vice chair for supervision at the fed is because of her often stated, clearly articulated desire to have the fed allocate capital away from carbon intensive industry i think that's a terrible idea of to take the fed down the path of becoming the arbiter of who gets access to capital and who doesn't. it's really unbelievable that somebody especially someone as knowledgeable as she is would be so forcefully advocating this for so long. >> that's not the reason that republicans denied a quorum yesterday so the vote couldn't proceed. the reason for the latter, the reason not to have a vote is because we can't get answers to important questions. she had, frankly, did a terrible job responding to the written questions that we submitted, and we've got a lot of questions about her role and the fed's role, frankly, in reserve trust, a fin tech company based in colorado, eventually obtaining a fed master account, very, very

coveted. actually, we think it's the only case of a tin feck that has a reserve master account and we want answers. we want to understand what would happen >> do you think there's an answer, though, that would be satisfying or do you think it's disqualifying unto itself? and let me just say straight up i don't like the way it looks, but i don't like a lot of the conflicts and revolving door situations that happen in washington >> yeah, it's not only revolving door, andrew look at the sequence of events and look what happened reserve trust applied for a master account at the fed and it got turned down. raskin on the board then calls the president of the kansas city fed where my understanding is where the decision occurs and subsequently the fed does a 180-degree reversal, grants them the fed account that had been

denied prior later raskin leaves the board, cashes out $1.5 million. okay, fine certainly not anything illegal about that, but how and why did the fed do 180-degree reversal as i said there are maybe hundreds of fin techs out there that can't get a master account. they can't get one they'd like to learn how and why this one could when we ask the questions we get no answers >> but, senator, her advocates would say you should go searching for those answers from the federal reserve. you don't need to -- those answers aren't her answers to give >> okay, so first of all that's not true they're completely interlinked she was on the board she was clearly intervening. we know even though she claimed she has no recollection of it, the president of the kansas city fed told me directly that she did call, so they're completely linked secondly, you know, we've got to

use what tools we have to get this information unfortunately, as it turns out the regional fed banks are not subject to foya. they think they can just go ability their merry way doing whatever they want without responding to congress sometimes. by the way, there's another aspect of this which cnbc broke the story just last night in justifying this, the kansas city fed said, oh, no problem here, the reason we reversed our decision is because the colorado banking commission, they changed their interpretation of what constitutes a depository institution. well, accept that as you reported last night the colorado banking commission vehemently denies they did any such thing they said it's a complete mischaracterization. so all i'm saying is that taxpayers, american citizens, congress has a right to know what actually happened here, and that's what we want to find out. >> but let me just ask do you

want to find out because you want to be able to vote no or yes on this decision, sore do you want to find out because you want to find out >> i want to find out because we need to know and there's like millions of americans have a right to know did the fed operate appropriately? did they follow normal channels or was there something else going on here? it's very peculiar circumstances, and we just found out the explanation the kansas city fed gave is at least in one very important part apparently completely inaccurate. so this isn't going to cause me to be a supporter of sarah raskin because i know she wants to use the fed to allocate capital and that's a terrible idea that doesn't change the fact that we have a right to know >> can i ask you a credibility question because part of what i think you are examining here, and it's a larger issue that the american public is grappling with, which is the credibility of our officials in washington and your own credibility has come into question in this regard a story just published last

night looking at folks in the senate and in congress that have been spending and investing money in crypto currencies at the same time they've been advocating for either regulations or in this case lack of regulations and i want you to speak to it because i think there are folks who watch this show. we see you and talk to you a lot, and how you think the american public should think about that >> yeah, so, i think this is a complete non-issue that people like to bring up i have had a very simple investment strategy my entire adult life since i first accumulated savings and that is to diversify i have neither the time nor the skill set to be a stock picker, so i generally diversify i recently came into the conclusion crypto is here to stay, and it should be part of a broadly diversified portfolio. so i have a modest amount of

money invested in crypto as i do in everything else in the economy. andrew, if you've followed me for 18 years i've been an advocate for free markets, limited government, lower tax and less regulation across the board. don't think there are any exceptions so i'm being completely consistent everything we do has to be disclosed. we file reports regularly on all of the transactions we engage in anybody can see what i buy, what i sell, when i buy it, when i sell it, so i think it's a complete non-issue >> and you think it should impact your positions on issues or no? and do you worry about the public perception of it? >> no. you know, in 18 years of traveling around pennsylvania and representing pennsylvanians, this has never once come up from the people that i represent. comes up in the media sometimes. >> senator pat toomey, it's always good to see you appreciate you joining us especially during this moment to

explain what was taking place last night thank you. >> all right, thanks for having me when we come back, rising demand and a labor shortage hitting restaurants both large and small during the pandemic. we'll get an update from a restauranteur about how he's weathering the supply chain storm and inflation issues we'll see where things stand right now. before we head to a break, though, let's get a check on the markets this morning a little bit of a pull back. yesterday markets were higher, broke three days in a row of losses this morning a little bit of give back, but ever so slight. dow futures down about 30 points s&p futures down by 3. the nasdaq off by 2, and "squawk the nasdaq off by 2, and "squawk box" will be to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most. plus, zero-dollar commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. [ding] get e*trade right back.d start trading tod.

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welcome back to "squawk box. couple headlines for you it's a busy day for economic data beginning with january retail sales and import prices at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. retail sales are expected to post a 2.1% gain through january after falling 1.9% in december while import prices are seen rising .3% after falling by 0.2% a month earlier

and hilton is missing fourth quarter estimates but beating on revenue. the hotel operator reporting an adjusted 72 cents a share, shorter than the 74 cents the street was looking for the company said while some hotels suspended operations in 2021 due to covid reopening significantly outpaced suspension the viacomm cbs announced it would change its name. the power mount ceo will be joining us in the next hour to talk about the change, the streaming landscape, so much more "squawk box" coming right back >> time now for today's aflac trivia question. who holds the guinness for the most game show episodes hosted by the same presenter? by the same presenter? the answer when cnbc's "squawk

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we got this. we got this. we got this. we got this. yay! we got this. we got this! life is for living. we got this! let's partner for all of it. edward jones now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. the answer, alex trebek.

the host of jeopardy presided over the show from 1984 to 202020 >> okay, i thought it was three people it could possibly be bob barker, alex triback and pat zajac >> he's very funny and he actually answered me >> he did? >> yes, he did pat zajac, answered me the other day on twitter here's what he wrote the other day. i'm going to do this really quick. he said he had an interesting weekend at the mall. he was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses and minding his own business and then a loud yell, hey, it's pat zajac, lots of pictures and autographs and he couldn't finish his shopping.

and he was like, hey, i'm almost sorry i yelled get it he yelled pat zajac himself. >> what was that old sop ruthing -- >> he should have worn a mask like kanye did at the super bowl >> he gets out of the shower every morning and his wife dresses him with her eyes. >> that's another good one >> he's funny. and he's iconic, and i want you to come on, pat. are you surprised, andrew? >> i am a wheel of fortune fan >> i'm useless >> i don't know how we're going to transition to this next story but we're going to try we can do a wheel of fortune with this maybe. i don't know, people get -- esg is all the rage in the investing

world, but how do the broader american people, the public actually feel about greater corporate disclosure on esg issues do they care at all? leslie picker has the results of a new survey, and she is going to turn the letters over leslie >> i am going to be the vana white of this conversation, andrew that's right i like we made this more into a game show. but to your point the vast majority of americans do believe companies should be sharing more about their business practices and the impact on society and the environment, this according to a survey by just capital that just came out. the non-profit and its partners pulled more than thousand adults about their view 9 in 10 respondents said this data should be standardized and they would support consumer privacy, employee compensation, client metric and a whole host

of other things. the chief strategy officer of just capital was surprised by the broad support for more transparency >> across demographic groups whether or not you are a specific political ideology, age, other demographics, at the end of the day people are looking for transparency, and that's really in line with recent things that we've been polling people on where the expectation is that ceos and business leaders are societal leaders. >> the scc is evaluating this. chairman gensler just this week a few days ago tweeted he's working out the details of a mandatory climate risk proposal, and this will be something also in focus as the annual meeting season gets under way. andrew >> what do you think he's going to do? he's going to look at it what do you think he's really going to do? >> he tweeted that he thinks it's important to have some sort of standardization for the capital market it seems like he's very serious

on this issue, that he wants to actually have some sort of disclosure look, we're behind the curve compared to other parts of the world on this. europe is much more advanced when it comes to standardization and reporting and disclosure of esg issues so really the u.s. is playing catch up here to have other models they can draw from and create that blueprint. >> okay, leslie picker, thank you. joe? >> still to come, already hard hit restaurants. you know, vana, makes so much money for doing that it's a good job if you can get it >> anyway, restaurants now facing skyrocketing food prices and supply chain issues. we're going to talk to one ceo on how his locations are fairing. that's next. plus viacom cbs reporting mixed results. the last time we'll say that name because there's a name change paramount global in an interview paramount global in an interview you don't want to miss

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welcome back to squawk president biden warning of a russian invasion of ukraine saying it's a distinctly a possibility even as moskow claims withdrawing some troops from the border.

the president saying he still wants to give diplomacy a chance, but he's also telling the american public an escalating conflict could have an impact at home with rising energy prices. we're going to show you maybe wti crude. i don't know if you want to flip that board around and show you where gas stands this morning. i don't know if we're going to do that, but i'm going to send it over to becky >> small businesses especially restaurants have worked tirelessly to try to weather the covid storm over the last two years. unfortunately, some didn't make it through and for those that did they're not getting hit with something else supply chain issues have led to higher prices across the food industry with food prices surging 7% in january. that marks the sharpest rise in food prices since all the way back in 1981 joining us now is cameron mitchell, the founder and ceo of cameron mitchell restaurants and we've been checking in with him since the beginning of the pandemic it's good to so you this morning. how are you doing? >> good morning, becky

how are you? >> good, good. you made it through covid. you managed to bounce back from that, and now you're dealing with this inflation issue in a big way. what has it meant for your operations >> well, it's highest cost of goods i've ever operated in my 42 years in the restaurant business by way of example last year cost of goods were 29.6% of sales this year 33% of sales so far. so that 3.4% increase of the cost is severely impacting our bottom line. and then we have labor right behind that as another huge cost increase we're dealing with on our cost front >> how much is the labor cost increase >> labor is up about 13% overall and cost of goods are up about 11% overall. so it's certainly something we didn't expect nor do we need coming out as we recover from covid over the past two years. >> what does that do to your profitability i mean if you're talking about such big increases

both in labor and the cost of food that you're bringing in those seem like they're probably the two biggest line items you might have >> yeah, there's a couple of positives there. one, the labor cost is good for industry we needed to improve our wages so i think that's a good thing overall. we have -- we can't price our way out of this. we are taking a little more higher pricing strategy as we go through. in years past in the history of the company weraised our price 2% in the spring and fall. last year an additional 2% increase in the summer, and we'll follow that same strategy this year, so at the end of the day, though, prior to omicron hitting we were up 2% in sales in 2019, so we were experiencing robust sales, and i'm hopeful the remainder of '22 we'll see some of that same sales level, and that helps offset some of the impact of the higher prices

in both labor and food and all of our other supplies, by the way, are in the same boat so we can't price our way out of this, but with the increase in sales if we get back to where we were with our price increasing we cannot maintain our profit margin but with higher sales and lower profit margin still a pretty good profit over the course of the year if all goes well >> hey, cameron, are you back at full capacity at all of our locations at this point? and what are sales looking like? >> we are. we've got one more brunch to open up across the system, and the problem with some of those re-openings is the labor, but labor has gotten better. we're about 95% of our normal workforce in the restaurants right now. so we've got a lot of overtime, and our productivity is high it's ever been because there's netime for anybody to stand around so it's not too bad.

and we're certainly well better off than we were last september, october, for example or july or august. so i'm feeling a little better about our labor position at this point. >> you said labor has come back. to what do you attribute that? >> well, more people getting in the work force the u.s. restaurant industry added a million jobs in january, which has helped like i said we are close to our pre-pandemic levels as far as staffing goes. to me it's not a problem we were short staffed and ran tight pre-pandemic every restaurant is short four or five associates, and we're making do over time and a lot of hustle out there so -- >> you always hear the restaurant industry is a very difficult one that margins can be razor thin. my guess is because you have so many restaurants you've found a way to be more productive and had a slightly larger profit margin what are row you talking about

just in terms of profit margins, what you can operate on, what it takes? >> for example, if we were normally around a 10% profit margin for the year if all went well in a good year, we think this year we might be at 7% so still profitable, but that's only due to increase sales i will tell you, you know, if omicron 5 comes along, et cetera and we had depressed sales across the industry we'd have rolling closures across the country, no doubt about it restaurants cannot survive with these increased costs if sales were either normalized or down so fortunatelysales are up right now. if we game the sales we're going to be able to survive. >> i'm guess you and your staff must be pretty exhausted after the last couple of years how are you all fairing? >> oh, my goodness, yes.

like airlines if you're a restaurant manager in today's world we have unruly guests. we never spent a dollar on security in our restaurants prior to covid and now we spend about three quarter of a 34i8ian dollars a year on security to protect our security and staff not all the time it's a small proportion of them, but we still have them and the effect for the safety of our people which is power mount to us >> what do you think is going on >> i think rage in general is the best choice of words there it's difficult for managers. then they're dealing with short staffing certainly when the omicron hit in late december and january, you know, we had hundreds of staff members out, and it was very difficult then we've got the rising costs

and the supply chain issues where people are constantly scrambling to get product and et cetera we need so it's very challenging for our day to day operations out there. >> cameron, i just want to say thank you to you and your staff, your crews who were on the front lines with all of this stuff it has been a lot, but we appreciate everything you all have done, and it's really good checking in with you again and just want to say thanks for keeping at it. >> well, thanks, becky it's clearly the most challenging situation in the industry i've been in, i've operated in the past 42 years. but i'm optimistic hopefully this might not be the end of covid. so i'm optimistic about '22 and the future of our industry, but, yes, it has been very, very challenging in the past couple of years >> from your lips, but

congratulations in keeping up the good fight >> thanks, becky i appreciate your time >> take care check out shares of shopify. they are down this morning the e-commerce platform operator did report better than expected profit for the revenue but it said revenue growth this year can be slower than the 57% that it achieved in 2021 the stock at 800 and change this morning almost 900 coming up a great interview we hope a man who wears many hats. one is a french foreign verseioso. he joins us talking about the protests at the u.s.-canada border and then senator mark warner on the tension between russia and the tension between russia and ukraine, the fed and much more

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. fisker is scheduled to release earnings after the bell. fill lebeau is here. he's got a look what investors need to watch when those numbers hit. good morning >> hi, becky they should not be expecting a profit we know they're in the pre-revenue stage so there will be a loss from fisker. this stock has had a rough three months here, down more than 40%. the focus tonight will be on the product ramp and specifically what's the status with things when it comes to the fisker ocean. this is the first ev coming from the company, going to be built in europe, production expected to start in november, price tag a little under $38,000 what does fisker say about that product ramp is the ocean on schedule this product or this model along with the new project pair, that is the u.s.-built ev they're planning to go into production in 2024, going to be built in lordstown, ohio. that is all part of the coming wave of electric vehicles that is going to be hitting this

country over the next couple of years. we're going to be seeing an estimated 2 million evs sold by 2025 certainly the ocean will be part of that. will the project pair be part of that we'll find out when analysts have a chance to talk after the bell today as the company reports its q4 results by the way, compare fisker versus the cnbc spack post-deal index. fisker has been a little bit better than the index overall, but the last three months have been rough andrew, back to you. >> thanks, phil. coming up the, ongoing trucker protest causing political tension between the u.s. and canada arthur brooks is going to join us to discuss that situation and so much more take a look at the futures this morning. let's show you where things stand. it is about -- still got a little over an hour to go. dow off about 67 points, nasdaq off about 28 points. off about 28 points. we more places.k after this.in

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the canada convoy protests have grown from a group of truckers protesting cross border vaccine mandates to now become an anti-restriction political movement snarling commerce, stoking political tensions in canada as well as here in the u.s. and around the world for a closer look let's welcome arthur brooks, american enterprise institute president aemeritus. he's a harvard professor and a senior fellow. he doesn't want to just speak in

a -- in a echo chamber he goes right into the mist of harvard for his opinions, which takes a lot of bravery and everything else. he's a contributing writer for the atlantic, and host of how to build a happy life podcast his new book is "from strength to strength finding success, happiness and deep purpose in the second half of life. and i do want to talk to you about that as i am facing that in coming years, the second half, arthur >> aren't we all aren't we all, joe >> i'm happy now i think i'm going to continue to be happy, although i get these weird feelings in my middle finger that it's got to be arthritis. cover story for the atlantic as adapted from his new book. so let's talk first, though, about these truckers no less -- no less than "the new york times" op-ed page after taking a couple of the comenseerate shots at trump for politicizing this movement

they do come down on his side saying allowing nonviolent even if disruptive protests is an important tool for maintaining social cohesion in a polarized society. so that's from "the new york times. but trudeau at this point actually for the first time ever invoked these orders to make orders and regulations that are believed to be necessary to the issues at hand and he's getting a lot of flack for this because it wasn't long ago when mr. trudeau was saying we will always stand behind peaceful protests, after a yearlong protest in india that snarled traffic and blocked roads and everything else. he said we would never do that what happened? >> well, the biggest problem is this iron law of leadership, which is news flash you can't insult people into agreement all of this comes from the fact that the canadian prime minister was talking about them, those unvaccinated people, those people who want to go without masks as the other, as terrible

people i mean, he's the worst language about this we've been seeing on tv and guess what people don't like that sometimes they react even bitter and even violent sometimes unproductive ways. number one, this is a failure of leadership when you have a crisis that's when a leader is supposed to bring people together, not to set people against each other and to insult certain parts of your citizenry it's the worst case. look, i teach leadership at the harvard kennedy school, and this is the first thing we talked about, if crur yieing to insult people into agreement, you lose. there's a great study on this that shows when you mandate vaccines with the law, you lower support for the vaccines at 40 percentage points. add on top of that telling people they're stupid and evil for doing it, you're going to get protests >> president biden has spoken similarly about the unvaccinated half of the population vociferously speaks about half

of the population as either deplorables or ignorant or killers. we see it every day. >> it's a huge leadership error. i'm vaccinated i think people should get vaccinated look, the point of the fact is not everybody agrees, and you're not going to persuade them by telling them it's stupid evil. ask hillary clinton to say it would work and same thing happened to justin trudeau it's a lack of discipline and lack of sort of this notion of solidarity in a time of national crisis we need better leadership. >> it's kind of a snug position, too, when the science was changing so much on a daily basis to be so strident, but what are you going to do as i say i am facing the second half of my life. i'm already happy. why do you need to tell me how to be happy? i need to find purpose or something? >> well, joe, you need to go

from success which you have in abundance to real significance because one of the things i found -- >> i don't feel significant. >> who among us? but, you know, the point is you can't leave your happiness up to chance in the back half of your life i always hope i hope i'm happier when i'm 75 as i was when i was 25 this is book that gives us a step by step seven part plan that mimics the habits of the happiest old people. w what can you do at 25 or 65 -- >> i'm happy now 90 i might have some issues. although i think i might be okay >> if you do the right things now you will be happier at 90. that's the thing if you actually do the seven things in this book thinking about things where you can get stronger as opposed to thinking about the good old days when your career was in its heyday so you can reveal the most important things to you, to

start walking your spiritual path again these are the things, and i talk step by step how people do it, how we all can do it we all deserve to be happier when we're older and that's the point of the book. >> i actually think, frankly, i failed in the sort of arguments about vaccines, in some cases masking and the like because of this sort of larger issue in terms of trying to persuade people and trying to do it in the right way, but at the same time as i was listening to you, i was thinking to myself here's a guy always trying to persuade people and across all walks of life on both sides of a political party. and i see you -- i got a little button here and there are times when i reach for it and it's like it doesn't work but then again there are times it's so good

>> joe's got a kill switch i don't believe it >> i would take half my salary, i would if i had that kill switch could actually go in. >> i want andrew back. what happened to andrew? >> i'm right here. >> no, but what i was going to say is as you're making these arguments you take a shot at hillary clinton, you take a shot at biden as demagoguing and criticizing people and then obviously there was a president in the middle who was probably worse at that, more complicated i'll put it politely, than any of those folks. and i don't understand why you do that. and i know you're a conservative, but i think i don't understand why you wouldn't say, you know what, this is how it's happened. >> okay, let me continue then. you're absolutely right. this is one of the greatest reasons that president trump was

not re-elected because he was unable to bring the country together again together during this huge crisis, during this coronavirus epidemic by setting people against each other. it was exactly the same mistake. and by the way, let me talk about a politician i really love which is mit romney. in 2012 it's terrific, i wanted him to win but in 2012 when his campaign goes south, there was fund-raising he was talking derisively about huge parts of the american population. you can't do that. look, if you don't love everybody, if you don't believe in the equal dignity of all people, you can't be an effective leader, republican, moderate or democrat, it doesn't matter it's the same for all of us, andrew is that better >> it is, and i think actually it's persuasive. >> thank you and look, again, this is the point, andrew. persuasion -- yes, for sure. persuasion requires love

coercion takes force and in a free society persuasion beats coercion >> i'm back to having big issues, big problems with what i've got to do i'm not sure arthur, at this point i -- i think you're failing miserably in terms of this country, in terms of healing the divide. and it's not your fault, and you're giving good advice, but i don't -- how do you -- in the end how do you see this playing out? are we going to have a blue state-red state split of country which i've actually seen proposed by people >> i've seen that proposed but i spend a lot of my time in spain and spain is facing -- and many countries around the world are doing that i actually don't think that. people are sick of the polarization people are sick of the coercive leaders trying to turn us against each other

93% of americans saying they hate how we've become as a country. this is ordinarily the way it works where you get polarizing politicians. people get tired and people start to unite the late 1970s we're all old enough or most of us are old enough to remember how polarized. ronald reagan, like or hate his policies, my parents said if reagan wins we're going to win a war. one thing i tell you even as a kid i was watching ronald reagan, i said weird i'm from a really progressive family, and he loves me. that was the secret of how reagan was actually able to have not just a lot of popularity but create a lot of strengthen in this country, and a democrat can do that, too, by saying i won't lie to you you may not agree with me but i will never lie to you, and you will never think i don't love i and your family and have the best for you in my heart >> hey, arthur rage is pretty prevalent in this country at this point. we just talked to a

restauranteur who has started having to hire security to protect his staff. he's been in business in 42 years and never had to do that before the heck is happening. >> we're in this cycle where the bitterness is starting to play out in all sorts of of very unproductive ways. part of that is not just political contempt we have a rolling mental health crisis on the back end of the coronavirus epidemic people have been frustrated for a really long time, and it's starting to play out not a big surprise, as a matter of fact. i think we're going to be dealing with pretty unproductive behavior simply because of the mental health issues that have come and the lingering mental health issues we're unable to grapple. >> i get stuff all the time from millennials and whatever they are, that they think they're going to live forever. they don't ask -- they ask for whom the bell tolls. they don't know it tolls from

thee and i think everybody can learn from that. and with some age comes some wisdom, doesn't it >> the most beautiful thing i teach a class at harvard called leadership and happiness, and it's wildly oversubscribed not because of me but people want to be happy when i talk about the fact they can put deposits in the bank, they can look forward to back half of their life, not to live together for no particular reason but have more meaning, more purpose and actually have success in the way they treat other people to have more meaningful relationships >> i want to live forever with absolutely no purpose, so i do want to do that. but arthur, and we may -- i'm still hoping for the singilarity. i want to download myself onto some hardware. >> i can have you in my house, like in my alexa or something. i can say, hey, joe, what are you thinking about today and you'll answer me in the morning. >> arthur, i feel better i don't know, i feel like i've been watching joel olstein or

something. i feel better. i feel closer to god after talking to you thank you. >> i love you all snch. >> i love you, too wait a second, your book, your book, you got a quote from the dali lama, big hitter. >> he's my teacher, my mentor, my friend, and i have so much love for him >> has he ever said -- >> never to me that's all i'll say. i'll leave it at that. >> only said it to one person. thank you. i had to get that in >> nice to see you all >> all right, see you later. >> you're a joel olstein guy, joe? >> no, no. he's got like six ferraris >> he's the richest pastor in the world. >> andrew, i'm not -- i know you

wish i was i'm not going to say anything. i know he makes people feel good as you listen to him >> you should come on-air and we should talk about money with him. it is just after 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, and the futures right now are down dow off about 55 points, nasdaq off about 35 points, the s&p 500 off about 89 points. mortgage applications fell 5.4% last week as mortgage rates continue to rise the drop was led by 9% decline in refinancing applications. mortgage bankers association says the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose to 4.05% last week that's up by 3.83% that was the week earlier, the largest one-week jump in nearly two years. we've got a full slate of economic data on tap this morning at 8:30 eastern time we're going to get retail sales for january. and 9:15 a.m. eerp january

production numbers will be out 10:00 a.m. the latest homebuilder survey from the national survey of home builders and the fed releasing its minutes of the most recent meeting. white house democratic congressional leaders discussing a suspension of federal gasoline taxes. such a move would help try to offset some of the recent sharp rises in prices. senate majority leader chuck schumer saying it's one of the number of measures being considered to reduce gas prices given what we've been seeing becky? president biden is continuing his push for a peaceful resolution between russia and ukraine, but the president also had some strong words for russian president putin if he goes ahead with an invasion the human cost for ukraine will be immense, the strategic cost for russia would also be immense and russia should not choose

needless death and destruction joining us with more on this right now is senator mark warner he's the chairman of the select committee on intelligence. and where do we stand right now? we hear so much back and forth with the russians claiming they're de-escalating, but we haven't seen much sign of it what do you think? >> well, that's my fear that you've got russian disinformation happening again they may be moving some units around, but at the macro level we've not seen any major signs of deescalation. now, on the good news front we're seeing nato united we're seeing western leaders it was just a german chancellor show up in kyiv and moskow on an almost daily basis wave seen images of ukrainians on the weekends training for insurgency if the russians invade and the intelligence community both ours and the brits are laying out information almost as soon as we get it. so a few weeks back they were saying if there's a coup coming

in ukraine it's fomented by russia if a video appears it may be fomented by russia the national security advisor laying out the russians could be acting actually any day. we maybe gained a few days now, but unfortunately, no serious indications the russians are de-escalating. let's not believe what putin says let's see what he actually does. >> the talk was of deescalation. we also heard reports of ukrainian banks being subject to cyber attacks in other areas can we assume the russians did that >> listen, we're still dealing with the actual attribution, but the timing of an attack on some of the ukrainian government entities, ukrainian banks, and this is my real concern. we've never seen an all-out cyber war. some of you may remember back in 2017 when the russians launched an attack on ukrainian infrastructure, a cyber attack that didn't stay within the

borders of ukraine that literally cost billions of dollars to western businesses, american businesses. and what i'm afraid of in the short-term because you probably will see an upsurge of cyber attacks before a kinetic attack would be russians try to launch an attack shutting down ukrainian critical infrastructure, but what happens if that critical infrastructure shuts down in poland as well some of these hypotheticals about what would constitute an article five violation means all countries in nato are attacked we've always left a little gray on what level of cyber attack would constitute that. we may move soon in these kind of instances >> that's what it feels like when you have president biden coming up with some pretty talk tough -- tough talk saying if you cross over, if any tanks cross over, if you cross the border there will be very strict

re repercussions. but nothing has been said. it's almost like putin is trying to use the language saying we didn't send troops across the border, we're going to do this cyber attack why have haven't we heard these same sort of pronouncements when it comes to cyber attacks? >> cyber, there's gradeiations there was a low level russian cyber attacks on a regular basis. we've seen and identified and attributed, you know, russian cyber attacks against our country in a variety of ways we still think back about the silver winds incident a couple years ago. that was probably russian generated. so this is that gray area. i think all american businesses ought to make sure they are checking out their cyber defenses because we all know these networks are intertwined, so you hit a network in ukraine it can end up having reverberations elsewhere around europe and around the world. but we should in no way underestimate -- i mean i heard you earlier arthur brooks was a

great, great guy, but we are entering in one of the dangerous weeks i think almost post-world war ii in terms of the natural boundaries that have been set around europe. >> and your concern is so much a ground war but a cyber war or your concern is -- >> my concern is both. my concern is both as a matter of fact, if there is a ground incursion, it's almost -- it's almost assured that that will be preceded by a cyber attack and probably much greater than what we've seen in the last 24 hours where it seems like the cyber attack was dedicated just to a few government agencies and ukrainian government agencies and crew yanian banks. my concern is one of the most powerful tools against the russians will be the ukrainian people filming russian aggression and my concern is what happens if the russians go in and try to shutdown the internet, try to shutdown the networks. that is something also we'll look to as a sign of more to come now, good news again is we did

get together, not as strong as i'd like in terms of an overall sanctions bill, but we did have bipartisan leadership of the senate put out statements yesterday, which i was proud to be part of which say, hey, we stand with the people of ukraine. you take on nato, you take on america and russia mr. putin, if you do this, you're going to be a pariah and the cost will be huge. >> ukraine, is it going to be eventually be a member of nato or a country we're going to say, okay, we're going to agree to leave this as neutral territory? >> ukraine actually has in their constitution in 2016 that they want to join nato. that is a long process it's not on the table right now, but i don't think you're going to see the nato countries or america take a lay and forbid that right to ukraine at some point down the line. but this is, again, putin came into this crisis putting out demands that he knew that ukraine, nato and the united

states could not meet. it is now -- this crisis was totally manufactured by vladimir putin. it is up to him to take one of those diplomatic off-ramps so far he's not done it. on the other hand we have been able to flood the zone with european president's premieres, chancellors showing up in kyiv and in moskow. we have been able to point out if russians to create a false flag operation whereby they try to fake an attack from ukraine against russia, we're showing it will be russia against ukraine, i think that's kept putin a bit off-guard and a bit off balance, but these next few days are still going to be challenging. >> senator, then you've got china and taiwan and it seems like these things are linked, and chine awatching closely as to what happens here are you losing sleep at night on this unholy alliance that seems to be getting stronger every day between putin and president xi

it has a lot of people worried globally, and it seems like it's all linked what are we looking at over the next two, three, four years? >> i don't think we should be surprised you've got the two greatest authoritarian regimes in the world, russia and china, finding levels of collaboration. what putin is facing now is a nato and europe much more unified than it was a year ago after four years of donald trump undermining nato, but frankly it's much more unified than it was four months ago where some of our nato allies were still not fully up to speed in terms of believing the seriousness of the russian threat at the same time one of the things i might have got a briefing today with a series of local governments across america. we have seen in a bipartisan briefing from the intelligence committee to warn these local governments about the threat that china poses in terms of intellectual property theft,

cyber attacks, the intelligence committee has been doing this in a bipartisan basis, classified briefings to business leaders, academic leaders, local governments because that threat from china is ongoing as well. >> senator warner, thank you for your time today. we hope you come back if you have updates for us on this front. >> i will. thanks so much coming up, the company now known as paramount, old hollywood name, reporting mixed results for its quarter but also a major we just alluded to i'll talk to the ceo bob bakish in an interview you don't want to miss. plus we're expecting retail sales data at 8:30 we have a strong expectation i'm willing to say we'll get those at 8:30. stay tuned

"squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box. big news in media land viyp com cbs announcing a rebrand. for now on it's going to be known as paramount last time the company reported mixed fourth quarter results, but 56 million total streaming subscribers, that's about 3 million more than forecast, joining us right now first on "squawk box" the president and

ceo of paramount bob, it's great to see you this morning. i want to talk about the quarter and also the future of this company. we should mention the stock down on this news about 12%, 13% in the premarket this morning but let's start from the beginning and talk about this move to change the name and really restructure the company focused around paramount >> yeah. well, great to be here this morning. so, look, we're super excited what's going on at the company we now call paramount. really three thinks behind the paramount name change. the recognition of paramount particularly globally, the name is far higher than viacom cbs. second point being viacom cbs continued to say we're two companies. we're one company. paramount allows us to continue to have a unified brand. lastly when you deploy money

against your trade name, you'd really like it it to accrue to your flagship products now we get association to paramount plus, paramount pictures and vice versa. so for those reasons we really thought the time is now to call the company paramount. and i would oint point out it also stands for the best, which is something we obviously aspire to be. >> let's talk about the earnings because this company is trying i think to transform itself to be considered a growth,ianted company than maybe a value play, but you're seeing that a bit in the results here, which is that the good news is you have more subscribers and folks on streaming. the bad news is profits have come down, and there's margin compression given the investment you're making in all of this >> yeah, so, look, we had an investor event last year and introduced the world to maur mount plus, our flagship streaming service, and we said we'd invest in it, asset value

creation opportunity we did exactly what we said. the only difference is it's working far better than even we thought. you look at the current quarter or the fourth quarter, i'm sorry, we just reported, paramount plus and our total pay streaming portfolio added 9.4 million subs, as you pointed out that was a materially higher number than expectations simultaneously pluso tv, our free add supported streaming service added 10 million maus, also a higher number than anyone was looking for. by the way, that is a number one fast service in the united states and by the numbers i've seen we're not only number one, we increased our leadership position over the competition in the fourth quarter so our streaming investments are already paying off, and simultaneously our port foal yeis doing well, and we just had two number one films at the box office we're executing exactly what we

said, and frankly we're delivering >> bob, what do you tell the skeptics, tow, and i do point to the stock this morning because clearly you're going to be making huge investments in this business, and that seems to be what has people nervous, in fact, because i think they're looking at warnermedia they're looking at amazon. they're looking at apple, and those kind of big investments, and they're saying can you compete. >> look, i think you had a look at the facts the facts are we had the fastest growing streaming service in the fourth quarter the fastest growing brand in the united states, not just in streaming but any category the facts are we had the top four shows in television between fbi, cbs and ncis, paramount network's yellow stone and the number one shows across a whole range of categories. and the facts are we just had two number one films at the box office people like to look at metrics,

but this company is delivering in streaming, delivering in traditional media, and that's because the content we make truly resonates. and we have a very broad content offering including on streaming. sports like the nfl doing great, by the way, news, and obviously all kinds of entertainment so i say look at the facts this company is delivering and has a very exciting road ahead of it including all around the world. >> bob, should we look at what you said yesterday as a shift, though, a strategy rich greenfield's long talked about the idea of either being a streamer or an arms dealer to the streamers. there was a point which we had a conversation in which you were trying to be both. are you now really focused more on the streaming side of this? >> there's no question we've pointed our content creation assets at our in-house streaming properties notably paramount plus we're absolutely doing that. we still have a content license

business fulfilling some deals we put in place prior to that, but we're definitely putting our assets against our own streaming assets because we see an extraordinary value creation opportunity, and we see companies that have established successful streaming platforms as getting that value recognition, so that is what we are focused on and again, you look at the fourth quarter we're feeling very good about the progress we've made if you watched the investor event yesterday and see the content coming, including this quarter, including through '22, we have an extraordinary line upcoming, and nobody is debating anymore we're not going to grow very strongly in streaming which is a big change from the past. >> hey, bob, it's not an easy road to get to paramount plus. i know it's 2024 before it's going to be completely exclusive, that once movies go from the big screen and go straight to power mount plus, once they go through that. what will it look like

is it a straight shot up from here to there? or how do you kind of maneuver along the way? >> well, we see -- we obviously had very material subscriber growth in 2021 we see very material growth in 2022 you can do the math. we said 65 to 75 million subs by 2024 when we met last year we raised that number to 100 million, and we did that because we're going to cross the high end of the 75 million in 2022. so we'll have very strong subscriber growth in '22 and we like what we see in '23 and '24. it's also being driven by unlocking our traditional assets whether that's for promotion and fandom creation and franchise spin-off, or distribution partnerships like what we've done around the world with sky and the deal we announced last week so, again, feeling very good

about our momentum and the path to a very significant streaming business >> bob, you are doing a combination as so many are now combining paramount plus with show time. speak to -- speak to the strategy behind doing that and why you haven't merged them fully. i imagine the answer has to do with the cash flows still coming off the legacy traditional subscribers to show time >> look, i believe we have a strategy which optimizes show time's use in the context of streaming today. and it's a bifurcated strategy in the united states where show time has very strong brand recognition and real traction with consumers particularly on the coastal side with edgy programming, and you see the result in full year 2021 and in the fourth quarter where show time had very nice subscriber growth including in streaming,

and then simultaneously outside the u.s. where the brand recognition is not as great, we're integrating the product into power mount plus, and we've seen that be a great driver. >> bob, we've got to run, but to the extent there's always been speculation mow may try to sell yourself and you're trying to grow and grow quickly, what do you tell investors >> we believe that our organic plan particularly focused on streaming is the best road to value creation however, we're stewards of shareholders and we'll always look at other opportunities that they emerge, but, again, we're feeling very good about our organic plan. >> bob bakish, great to see you. i hope we get to do this in person very soon thanks just sitting around doing nothing... that's bad, they shouldn't do that. they're getting crushed by inflation. well, i feel for them. they're taking financial advice from memes.

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ex autos, remember we were looking for autos to be pretty powerful at 3.3%, still triple 1% expected, really is a surprise and if we consider ex autos and gas still holding up, equal to the headline up 3.8% noi the one fly in the pointment, this isn't adjusted for inflation. higher inflation in entire retail sales not necessarily more aggressive purchases or more purchases and if we look at the control group it's a whopping up 4.8%, which gets higher up the food chain kpk data now let's look at import and export prices. month over month up 2% that's almost double the expectations and if you look at january ex petroleum import prices you can see the import prices on the energy side boosted a bit because it dropped down 1.4.

the year over year number 10.8 and like all year over year numbers these are powerful we see in the rearview mirror that there's building pressures, and that 10.8% while it's far from the highest level we were 11.7% at the end of last year. we look at export prices up 2.9% almost exactly double the expectations, and the year over year number there up 15.1% the record high-water mark was in october up 18.3%. so just lack in china, year over year inflation at least represented by these prices has come down, but come down from what was hugely lofty levels pre-covid and supply chain issues once again i want to straesz retail sales was very good but not adjusted for inflation doesn't include the service side except for restaurants, so you have to kind of put that into the equation when you look at better than expected data. joe, back to you

>> okay, rick, thanks. steve liesman joins us now with those caveats in mind. hey, steve >> hey, joe, yeah. i mean it's still a good report, and i think rick hit the nail on the head with this idea we're expecting a big change in autos. and autos are going to help retail sales for several months even if the economy is slowing, we're going to have a bounce back in autos, which are running way below they're normal levels. so you take out autos and you do 3.3% worth reporting i believe there was a division to the prior month. now it's down 2.5 wres sorb so that's going to be a little bit down the fourth quarter gdp, and as rick said the control group moving in that that huge number. i think you said it was up 4%. so that's a big number what i'm looking for, joe, in all of those numbers on some of

retail earnings reports that we've had, that we're going to get today from courtney, she'll be talking about those is this word resistance, consumer resistance are these prices reaching the level where people are balking at buying them and we're just not seeing them and one way we can on the fly adjust this data for inflation is total retail food services are up 13% year over year. we know that inflation is up 7%, so we can do the math right here live on national television and tell you we're still up 6% year over year. now, that's come down a little bit that year over year rate which i reported this morning at 16%. but bottom line is consumers to this point still seek the ability to go out, pay the inflation tax that's on there and spend some more. part of the process of bringing down inflation is going to be this consumer resistance we haven't seen it yet you guys, joe, you're talking out to these retail executives

and stuff like that, and you just have to let me know if you're hearing anybody say, hey, we raised prices and people stopped buying but it's not happened yet. >> steve, i had a technical thing and my camera went out i wanted to talk to you earlier about when the fed raised interest rates, just raising interest rates isn't going to tackle inflation unless it has some effect on the underlying economy or even the stock market and some smart guy said the fed hopes perhaps or not only is there not a fed put, but they won't be disappointed if the stock market cools off a little bit, because it will help them do their job with fewer rate hikes. do you think there's anything to that >> there's plenty to that. look, the way the fed thinks about the stock market is broadly under the umbrella of financial conditions and interest rate is a financial condition. so is if equity value, right when stock prices are high

financial conditions loose why? because companies can go out and use that stock at a very low rate to them because the stock prices are high. broadly the federal reserve would probably like to see moderating or lower stock prices because financial conditions would be tighter, and you would have less wealth effect. i don't think that's an aimed target of policy i don't -- i think it targets the interest rate. it targets short-term interest rate, wants long-term interest rates to follow. but if that happens i don't think the fed put is dead, joe, but somebody who's also very smart and runs a lot of money said to me the fed put is way out of the money >> very good thanks, steve. i want to talk to you more about this, but we're out of time. >> probably like inflating markets on the way up wasn't their intent either. just kind of happened. anyway, when we come back we're going to get jim cramer's take on all the action this morning see what he's thinking about

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just about 45 minutes until the opening bell on wall street. cnbc senior markets commentator mike santoli joins us now. >> we're holding yesterday's bounce and preopen actions, s&p 500 index fund you look at it and say it's in between this phase here, a bounce that really didn't prove all that much, didn't get above this sort of

4,600 area however, it's above 5% of that january 24th low in that time the market has priced in a quarter to a alf% more in fed rate hikes crude's up $10 we're looking at russia and ukraine thinking something might break, and we're still managing to get some traction i don't think you want to overlook the fact we are still managing to hold though lows good retail sales number for january this morning take a look how the different components of consumer spending have been behaving it has been a pivot of services towards goods and actually people should wish for that for inflationary reasons here you have the travel and entertainment etf so far year to date well outperforming the retail, which is of course mostly store amazon is 19% of that, but the rest of it is other big box stores and chain retailers rest of the world equity markets outperforming on a year on year basis. obviously this is cutting into

the relative losses foreign stocks have had for a couple of years now. also partly because they don't really have our big growth stocks dominating their indexes, but worth noting right now if we're talking about rotations growth to value perhaps, you know, large caps or small caps over time u.s. to non-u.s. might be something to watch. >> we are awaiting those minutes later today. we've talked so much aboutit i'm not sure what could be in the notes that can kmd as a surprise, but how might the market react >> yeah, it was a market mover last time, but i wonder maybe you're right anymore detail about how the committee has been discussing what to do with the fed's balance sheet, whether they want to sequence the runoff of the assets, you know, sooner versus later where it comes with regard to certain rate hikes, all that stuff might have some information to the treasury

market, but as it is right now we've priced it in a lot with the two-year yield well above 1.5% >> mike, we'll see you in just a little bit coming up jim cramer's take. but first a check out on some of the biggest premarket movers first up roblox nearly doubling the 13 cent fourth quarter loss analysts had anticipated also saw flat daily active user metrics and engaged gaming hours with short estimates and that stock is down on the other side yaesh reporting record revenue for 2021 as well as better than expected fourth quarter numbers. also current quarter bookings are likely to exceed pre-pandemic levels for the first time stay tuned chor"sawbo sait mu me quk x"trgh

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welcome back to "squawk box. i'm going to get straight down to the new york stock exchange where jim cramer joins us now. lots of news to chew on, jim paramount, that stock down this morning. maybe a there's a number of analysts who downgraded the stock. maybe there's a short-term rotation from value players to more of a growth orientation, or is this a piece you just think from a margin compression is

going to be tough? >> margin compression, i think a lot of people felt there might be a takeover, but now it doesn't look like that cost of content going up lot of people in paramount plus is terrific, but like a lot of other pluses you have to fill the pipe you have to fill the pipe. thain you're like netflix five years ago. and they're bringing back some things they sold and maybe they should have never sold to begin with, but, look, i think bob is doing a good job but this whole business, andrew, of entertainment whether it be roblox or paramount you've got to deliver a level of insomnia to be able to catch all these things and that's not in the cards. >> there's been speculation for a very long time about this being ultimately a takeover target, and i wonder whether you try to position yourself for growth for exactly that reason >> well, i don't like to buy stocks on a takeover basis if

their fundamentals seem to be de deteriorating. boy, is this ever time to be a writer it's time to be a producer because everyone wants your stuff and there's kind of bidding war. i think they've sold things they want lose thatcash from what they got from others. now they have to make it i just find it's, to me, there's too many companies doing this. even though paramount -- >> by the way. i should say on the takeover front sheri redstone. >> another -- we're going to be hearing -- >> how was dinner? did you go to danielle >> i have not. >>that's the place that's where they go. >> that's -- >> look, i have to tell you. you did the kiss of death here

because you read jessica -- whatever, and bank of america, i mean, i didn't know she made it as a takeover target my problem is that, look, andrew, we have anti-trust department that doesn't like activists getting together with microsoft. i mean, what happens if paramount wants to get together with anybody i'm concerned you have to take the whole takeover rap of any story off the table now. take it off the table. >> okay. >> the audience is trying to think about 9:30 this morning. i want to know we're going to hear from the fed and see the fed minutes. how do you play it into the 2:00 p.m. disclosure time >> unless they say it's the hottest. everything is too hot, andrew. when we have brian on later, you read about the people crisis in

this country they're just -- he basically said the people resigned and we don't know where they are. there's just not enough people, andrew. >> and i can't -- are you getting very negative? we didn't get to talk since i came out -- >> no. >> since i came back from the super bowl but i'll tell you a lot of ceos at the super bowl over the weekend were very negative i mean, there was a sort of a party atmosphere but thinking the second half of the year is going to get tough quickly. >> i don't know. i with toent the super bowl a couple of years ago and they were so positive we already had a string of covid coming here. don't worry about that they were thinking it was the common cold. maybe we take the side of the ceos were you at the commissioner's tailgate party >> i went. >> yes >> you did >> only briefly. >> did you like the shrimp giant shrimp >> i don't remember the shrimp

i must -- >> oh, boy. >> you know me i'm like a boring sparkling water guy. >> you -- we have to run we'll see you in a couple of minutes. brian moynihan coming up with the game the "wall street journal" reporting muddy waters served with search warrant by an fbi agent in october part of an investigation by federal prosecutors who are investigating whether short sellers conspired to drive down stock prices by sharing damaging research reports ahead of time and engaging in illegal trading tactics. that will add to some of the grist on reddit today. what do you think, joe >> i wonder whether it's the short selling stigma, andrew research firms are allowed to share bullish opinions on things, aren't they? >> right

they are i think the question is combine communication from the short sellers in advance. >> right right. but buy side guys get all their, you know, act together on why they like like to buy something and buy the stock. i don't know i don't know let's get to the next guest. a little more than half hour until the opening bell we'll bring in markets reporter at the "wall street journal" money and investing team as well as cnb contributor and rich branch greg i'll start with you quickly. figure the russia pullback whatever it is just the respite we're seeing could be figuratively for the market itself we had the hot inflation number. you figure it comes back to roost in march and the market resumes a downward move? >> i do, joe as andrew said a couple of minutes ago, i think we should be worried about the back half

this respite aside, right, while russia is talking and behaving nicely we have to focus on the fundamental issues we focussed on in mid january. ppi came in high at 9.7% consumer confidence came in 20% below from february what it was injanuary. the key with rising interest rates it curtails demands. it will be a top line challenge along with omicron and the labor shortage it's going to be bottom line challenges as inflation continues. again wages continue to rise mostly we're going to see corporate earnings growth decelerating into the year. >> yeah. >> some will be immune to it

those are the companies you focus on. >> i don't know if you say it like greg but it's inflation it affects everything. it affects the fed than can affect the economy it's inflation, inflation, inflation. it's running hot. >> that's right. i was booking, you know, travel for the next few weeks a bachelorette party i was blown away by how much i'll be paying for the trip. i think the big take away is so far a lot of americans have been able to witt stand some of these price increases. we've seen it in the latest earnings season. whether it's burritos or school supplies or travel people have been able to save up but how long does it last? >> not to las vegas, right [ laughter ] >> i'm embarrassed but yes. >> oh, my gosh greg, what do you think about that let's leave it we don't have a lot of time.

so, greg, you're saying this makes it more of a stock picker's market. value and growth you might want to look at in the environment. so quick answer? >> yeah. quickly we're not going get multiple expansion in the rising rate focus on the companies where the performance stories is in the earnings growth. multiples will be where they're at that's where you go. >> i'm sorry we have an early out today we had some other things going on probably good that we're not going to be a able to talk anymore about the party. we'll have you back. we can do that whenever we want, i think. thank you both that's it for "squawkbox" today. anewdr and becky joining us tomorrow "squawk on the street" is coming "squawk on the street" is coming up

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good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with david faber. carl cramer is on assignment retail sales crush estimates after last month's drop. best core number in almost a year meantime earnings for shopify are not well received. road map begins with the