good morning a nuclear scare overnight in ukraine after russian troops attacked and seized europe's largest nuclear power plant. could it get worse we will tell you what we know so far. it probably could. stocks in europe plunging. u.s. equity futures pointing to a loss at opening here. now we will have are blanket coverage for jobs friday in the midst of everything happening, the data expected to show a strong gain the last monthly data that the fed will be able to consider before this month's policy meeting. it is march 4th, 2022. "squawk box" begins right now.

welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live in times square. i'm rebecca quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. let's take a look at the u.s. equity futures given the news in that joe was talking about. the overnight attack of the largest power plant or nuclear power plant in europe. markets are down this morning. maybe not as much as you anticipated. that is because the news coming from this is better this morning. we will talk more about that in a moment look at the reaction dow futures down 280 points. s&p futures off 35 the nasdaq down by 107 overseas in europe, the damage is more direct right now, the dax in germany off 3.4% cac in france down 3.5%. the ftse is down 3%. italian stocks down 4.5% in spain, 2.5% lower there we have seen steeper gains

earlier, but hearing about the updates and the situation does not look to be the worst we will talk more in a moment. we should look at crude oil prices up 17% for the week. wti up 2.5% to $110.36 the pullback yesterday on the crude oil prices after a deal struck with iran we are waiting on that treasury yields today. yields coming back down on the concern, the flight to safety. the ten-year yield at 1.75%. we will continue to monitor throughout the morning nuclear power scare in ukraine. europe's largest nuclear power plant. ukrainian officials reported that the plant in the eastern part of the country was on fire after coming under heavy attack from russia. the fire was behind the plant in an area used for training. firefighting efforts blocked because of the russian assault the fire has now been

extinguished and russian forces seized the power plant joining us is retired u.s. army colonel and medal of honor winner and cnbc analyst. colonel, we are relatively young. my father fought in the last world war and froze his feet at the battle of bulge in belgium i thought those days were behind us it wasn't that long ago. is what we're seeing now is so shocking and so beyond the pale, but do we need to come to grips with this after the macron conversation yesterday this guy can even come after ukraine? >> i think his plan is to do that ideally in his view, he would like to take back all of those lands that used to be soviet socialist republics. many now part of nato.

those not part of nato, particularly in northeastern europe, are very much concerned about russia's expansion in the region make no mistake about it, he's certainly interested in expanding russia it is something to keep in mind. we remember that he invaded ukraine eight years ago -- eight years ago -- and took over crimea nothing resulted from his doing that then we had -- we had four years of a president saying that relationships and alliances were not important and not particularly interested in europe and all that contributes to what we see today he is not convinced that we have very much interest in defending our interests.

your observation that the perception and kind of ground warfare that we saw in the second world war and vietnam those days are over. thisperception is we think that that europe thinks that. as a result, he has this tool with which he can carry on because he thinks we're terribly concerned it will escalate into something bigger that is why you see what is happening now, joe >> so, nato, that would theoretically bring in a lot -- bring in the united states and allies it would become a shooting war at that point. it would be worst-case scenario. would it be non-nato countries is he going to keep going? what is happening in ukraine is an insult to all and outrage and

a war crime and something we could stop of i'm not convinced we should do something at this point with a convoy what would you do? should we let it happen? doesn't it make it an even bigger thing we have to handle in the future? >> there is no public support for anything except publicly supporting ukraine if you poll the majority of the american public, they would not favor going into -- physically -- support ukraine with troops there. the troops in the region to look like we're willing to defend europe and to assist with the millions of refugees that will be across the border that's basically an administrative and logistical assistance the kinds of things we should have done, we haven't. there is something we can do right now to assist the ukrainians

i'm not convinced -- it is probably too little, too late. the ukrainian army is desperately in need of anti-tan weapons and artillery and so on. if we get that to them, we better hurry up. the russian forces encircled the cities are now going to send the follow-up echelon to link up south to north and north to south to cut the country in two and then it will be impossible to resupply. we are better start resupplying now. strategically, whatever economic descr restrictions we can put on russia and people and countries supporting russia, whatever -- we better do it now. we discovered if we wait too long, they don't have the effect we want to have. we will have to do it soon

the last time we were together, we talked whether or not there was a negotiated settlement. there is, but it would require ukraine to comply. it would require russia to comply it would require in exchange for russia giving up its claims, removing troops for ukraine to give up the eastern provinces, but i think we are a long way away from that. >> colonel, do you think the generals and the russian people are drinking the kool-aid? they can control the news flow so well inside russia, people are saying this is a good thing? this seems so, like i said, beyond pale for the world order to have this happening maybe we're all naive about the global economy i think china must be looking at this and saying, i wish we

hadn't made that friendship deal a month ago. as much criticism has china has come under for wanting to rule the world. it seems they may be the adult in the room for us at this point. can we think that? >> the other argument is china takes a look at this and seeing we are infectual and saying we can takeover in taiwan more easily they are keeping an eye on this closely. with respect to the russian people, they have been fed and drunk and consumed and me metabolized the kool-aid russians are in control of the information. think about this the first revolution -- the revolution in the 1800s. the first revolution in russia occurred in 1905

the second one, the more successful one, in 1917. that was successful, at least partially because of the effect of world war i that is 12 years to get the russian people to fire up. i heard somebody say recently that russia is a 14th century country with 21st century weapons that they haven't changed in a millennia it makes no difference if you have putin or schmootin or ivan the terrible they will have internally docile especially if the flow of information is controlled today. i doubt if the russians are, despite the people in the streets, from time to time, that the russians are in any position to change the leadership, let alone the regime i think putin will carry on doing what he is doing and it

will be difficult if not impossible for us to stop. >> colonel, the weapons you mentioned, that is what stops the western world at this point from being a momore aggressive h this he has nuclear weapons we don't know his stability. we don't know his rationality level at this point. that is an issue we don't want escalating to these levels of the how can we get our hands around that part of the equation >> from is no way we can control how he thinks. one argument says that he has directed his generals to do x and they do it whether they want to or not and they don't tell him, no, you shouldn't do that they do it anyway. partially because a lot of the people at the top of the military food chain benefitted economically after benefitting

from putin his generals are convincing to do this. truth is probably somewhere in the middle whether or not putin is capable of doing something irrational. what he is doing is rational from his standpoint. whether or not he is willing to or can do something completely irreleational from everybody's standpoint is difficult to tell. people who do this for a living and analyze people for a living can't agree on that. there's no way of telling what the results would be. >> colonel, play it out. we were talking to the former secretary of the treasury yesterday of what the exit looks l like it was easier to see what it looked like two weeks ago. will this go on for years? if china steps up, what does

that mean? play the dominos for us? >> i think it is unlikely china will step up they want to stay away from the action taking place in europe. their focus is on the western pacific. that's why they are keeping an eye on us. here is a scenario that is most likely to play out russia ultimately winds up taking control of the entire country. 2 million to 4 million refugees in nato countries in romania and poland and get taken in by other nato countries farther west. then what ensues is an extremely long, tedious and costly guerilla war inside ukraine. then we're going to have to make a decision whether or not we will assist in that. whether or not we will send weapons or fund that at that time, then, the things

you are talking about -- putin's state of mind. how he reacts. he will be in a different situation than now he will be in a situation like in afghanistan if we continue to assist there, then we could question whether or not he would do something irrational >> this comes a years long tortured -- >> he is not going to live for he wants to stay until 2036. it took eight years since the last how long to consolidate ukraine? what good is having all of these countries when your economy is just doing nothing for the people >> the people hate you in places you are taking over. >> i don't understand why bringing mother russia to its previous supposed glory which doesn't include being part of the world order and global

economy. does he think history books are going to write about the great vladimir putin there is no valkyry type it was a movie -- not a movie. a movie about something that happened in world war ii where some generals knew hitler was not good for the world or germany. nothing like that can happen >> it can happen i don't see it happening any time soon. it is entirely possible a rogue general could try to do exactly what happened back then. i have to tell you -- >> so far away from everyone >> his perception of what's going to happen afterwards is different than what our perception is. he thinks the west will eventually get tired and our focus on economics is such that we will say, okay, you won we tried our best. you got it okay let's reestablish our economic

relationships. not just us. he thinks we are going to be kowed by the western european allies who cannot wait to get the next fuel oil delivery they will be so economically dependent on relationships with russia that they will convince us over time to say just quit. we're in big trouble and unless you let russia off the hook, you have problems with us. i truly believe p he believes that and i'm telling you there are people in the west who believe it, too. >> colonel jacobs, thank you it has only been two weeks we are so impatient these days we thought we were in one world and maybe the world is not so different from what our parents and grandparents dealt with. >> to jack's last point. idea that sanctions are coming down on the iranians and crude

is back. we are willing to have morals, but only too much it becomes too much when we come back, it is payroll friday we will get reaction from the fed. charlie evans will join us after that data in the interview at 8:30 a.m. eastern time you are watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by truist securities experience expertise. execution.

your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire ♪♪ energy is everywhere... even in a little seedling. which, when turned into fuel, can help power a plane.

at chevron's el segundo refinery, we're looking to turn plant-based oil into renewable gasoline, jet and diesel fuels. our planet offers countless sources of energy. but it's only human to find the ones that could power a better future. xfinity mobile runs on america's most reliable 5g network, but for up to half the price of verizon, but it's only human so you have more money for more stuff. this phone? fewer groceries. this phone? more groceries!

this phone? fewer concert tickets. this phone? more concert tickets. and not just for my shows. switch to xfinity mobile for half the price of verizon. new and existing customers get amazing value with our everyday pricing. switch today. it is jobs friday.

the forecast that the economy added 440,000 jobs in february that is would be down from 467,000 jobs added in january. wages are expected to rise by .50%. the unemployment rate is expected to fall by .10% this is the final monthly employment data for the fed to consider before it meets on march 15th jay powell said it would be a quarter point rate hike. we will bring reaction from the data from chicago fed president khar chakhar charlie evans joining us now to talk strategy is stephanie link she is a strategist with hightower. stev stephanie, the markets are weaker today maybe calm when you consider what happened over the last couple weeks

a lot of volatility, but not a huge decline over that time. what do you think about the reaction this morning and the jobs report? a lot to add up. >> we seem to be getting whip sawed every day. one day we're up one day we're down i don't think we're out of the woods for the next foreseeable future it is remarkable earnings have held up and going higher 2% to 4%, but you see multiples come down with russia and inflation and the fed behind the curve it is really hard. you have to pick your spots. i'm trying to do that. large cap companies and quality balance sheets number one or number two in their industries that have great free cash flow if there is one thing we earned last earnings report is free cash flow generation which is incr incredible companies are not only buying

back stock and dividdividends, t putting it in cap x. it is hard to navigate the short-term you have to put blinders on and focus on the fundamentals. >> we had jeremy siegel with us yesterday. he said for the long-term investor, this is a great buying opportunity because of the multiples you mentioned. in terms of overall, are you a net buyer or seller? >> i am shifting my portfolio actually for the last year or year and a half, we talked about a lot. i have been more cyclical and value oriented now i'm trying to get balance because of the uncertainty i want the barbell approach with cyclical and vau lue companies. i want to find growth on the

technology side and in health care as well technology, you know i have been under weight for a long time technology and comm services on the margin, on the weakness, i added to apple and facebook. i've been adding to broadcom, mr. where they beat and raised to buy back stock. health care. i love it. i'm careful. it is down 20% animal health is a $50 billion a year market. i'm trying to balance out the portfolio more and looking for opportunities. >> stephanie, we talked about how cash is a terrible position to be in when you are facing inflationary pressures like this when you have something like what is happening in ukraine, you have a knee jerk reaction to have more cash on hand which of those two forces drives you more

>> if you are a long-term investor, i understand the emotional part of it if you are a long-term investor, take the approach of a little bit of pain in the short-term. longer term, there are wonderful companies that are on sale we really have to ignore the short term because of the gyrations. companies are doing the right thing in terms of streamlining businesses structured over the last two and a half years they had to. they had no choice they are lean, they are mean and trying to gain market share. as i mentioned, free cash flow is impressive. you have to think on the longer-term side to feel comfortable about putting that cash to work i think over the long term, you will be glad annuad you'll be

rewarded. >> earlier, i would have said this number we would get today is significant jay powell cleared that up when he was speaking to congress wednesday morning. how important is it? what numbers will you watch closely? >> i think it will be a strong number we got a good adp number which was good and the revisions on the adp were impressive. the key number for me in the adp number was services payroll up substantially. that is the reopen theme that's why i like reopen the number today will be strong. the most important number is the wage number. that is what we're worried about with inflation 5.8% year over year as you mentioned. that is the number we are watching you know what? we know we have inflation. unit labor costs 7.5%. core pce last week 5.2% year over year. we have inflation. the fed is behind the curve.

if they do 25 in two weeks itime that is fine they will have to do four times, becky, and then reassess and look at the data the bond market is increasing six sometimes. we can handle six times from the base of zero. >> stephanie link. thank you. coming up, rivian is apologizing for hiking prices for orders already placed. as we head to a break. look at cryptocurrency this morning. bitcoin trading at $41,671 >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com. kindness, honesty and hard work.

over time, i've come to add a fourth: be curious. be curious about the world around us, and then go. go with an open heart, and you will find inspiration anew. viking. exploring the world in comfort. i think you're going to like it here. umm, why is everyone... throwing things at me? look, as cfo it's my job to be ready for whatever's next. that's why i have my finance team, randomly hurl things at me. it's also why we use workday. it gives us insights, so we quickly pivot our strategy, people, planning, you name it. sorry, sir. i will aim straight at your next step. see that you do. would you like some coffee? workday. the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪

welcome back to "squawk. rivian is walking back the price for the electric trucks and suvs that it put in effect this week. they did it on orders already placed can you imagine? ordering something and getting a call actually, i know you wanted it and we agreed to this price, but you will have to pay more. it said it would honor the prices for previously ordered vehicles the stock plunged as customers vented over emails over vehicles costing $10,000 to $20,000 more

sdplcmore >> the old days with the sleazy auto industry. you go in and you pick it up you have to get the true coat. that's from fargo. you have to get the true coat. bill macy. >> moral question. you are in the store this is on the customer side in a store and the item is mispriced. you know the item is mispriced >> i've told them. you are charging me too little >> anonymously after she left. >> no, no. >> i don't -- i have a long line of things i do honestly because my dad i mentioned earlier i don't lie. i feel i have to tell the truth about things i think karma and everything else >> jim carrey? >> right. >> right >> my favorite line.

>> you are >> my favorite line. when the cop says do you know why i pulled you over? it depends on how long you've been following me. he says is that all. he said the tickets in the glove box. hundreds of them we got a laugh we laugh or cry with this. >> a morning like this morning. russia nukes what is happening today? nothing. a possible china siyndrome. russia seizing ukraine's largest power plant overnight. and as we head to break, here is a look at the s&p 500s winners and losers

>> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business keeping your business connected. ! so we're giving every business, our best deals on every iphone - including the iphone 13 pro with 5g. that's the one with the amazing camera? yep! every business deserves it... like one's that re-opened! hi, we have an appointment. and every new business that just opened! like aromatherapy rugs! i'll take one in blue please! it's not complicated. at&t is giving new and existing business customers our best deals on every iphone. ♪ ♪

dad, we got this. 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

good morning w welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc if you look at the futures on this friday morning, dow futures down 283 points. s&p futures off 35 nasdaq off 37. andrew. news breaking overnight. we have been talking all morning. russia seizing the largest nuclear power plant in europe in ukraine. we have helima croft with us i hope you were listening to our conversation earlier of what is playing out as horrific. i don't know what the right word is let's talk about the implications for the oil markets. wti, obviously, continuing to move up this morning how do you see it? do you see an off-ramp what does it look like >> it doesn't look like an easy

o off-ramp at all. 1 million refugees fleeing ukraine and we are in week two you mentioned shelling the largest nuclear facility in europe russia seized control. the issue of shutting off power. this is an unpleasant argument that they put the weapons on alert. we don't know how this will evolve it is incredibly concerning. i think the other issue is if they do attack a nato country, a baltic country, this becomes international quickly. >> you've talked about russia being not just a gas station, but a commodity super store. i love that comment. it makes you think about what will be the inflationary pressures. we will get the jobs number later and comments from jay powell this week how will this change his outlook for everything >> again, this is not going to

be a short conflict. you have people in europe a month ago saying he woesn't go wasn't goes to invade. then energy and commodities not disr disrupted. what we see is self sanctioning. as companies say i'm not going to touch russia and the energy institute was out with the very alarming report that said self sanctioning alone is likely to take off or potentially take off 3 million or 4 million barrels of russian exports we are looking at a very serious hole in the oil market that cannot be easily filled by countries in opec or the u.s you look to the food market. look at what is happening with wheat prices highest levels since 2008. there are concerns the ports in ukraine will be inoperable this is a serious, serious inflation story. >> you know, we were talking yesterday and steve liesman said

oil prices f it ends up at $70 or $80, that is normal maybe we were living in alice in wonderland scenario over the last decade. what do you think of that perspective? >> again, i think we're dealing with a very historic situation in terms of, a, the scale of the conflict and where it is taking place and the dependency of europe on the russian supply we are talking about banning russian imports in the united states we take less than 4% of oil imports from russia. you talk about germany 34% of oil imports come from russia if you have a situation where russian energy supplies are disrupted, that will cause serious problems in europe in terms of industrial issues this is a really very, very dire situation as it unfolds. >> how high do you think wti can go >> it will depend really on the

scale and duration of this crisis again, we have yet to see formal energy sanctions we're talking about losing millions of barrels of russian exports by companies walking away what happens when governments say it is immoral to continue the routes for germany you layer on formal energy sanctions and we are losing the lion's share of russian exports. the question is who can fill the gap? you are talking about opec having 2 million to 2.5 million to bring on in 30 to 60 days. there is not a lot out there to fill a hole this size. >> right now, obviously, if you are trading wti, you know, most people seem to think it will continue to go higher. is there any chance this snaps

the opposite direction and what would that look like to you? >> i think we are looking at some indication that vladimir putin wakes up and decides to basically take his troops and put them back in the barracks. barring the decision to leave ukraine, these sanctions will continue they will have companies say they don't want to touch russia. the off-ramp for oil and vladimir putin is turning his troops around. >> iran can't help uses? i mean, i can't say that i can't believe i said that sentence aloud. >> the market has gotten excited about iran coming back and providing relief we are talking about if iran comes back, they have to be compliant with anything they sign then we are talking about how much can they bring on 500,000 in six months?

we are talking about self sanctioning of companies taking off 3 million to 4 million barrels of russian oil >> thank you, helima croft sad morning on friday morning. >> can't our friends in iran or china help >> when i said how can they help us >> iran or china. >> this is what jack jacobs say the idea that russia may not think we will stand up with these sanctions and allow it to continue he has been wrong and miscalculated on everything at this point the european union unifying. the u.s. standing with them. >> enemy of my enemy on display. >> yeah. >> you are right if china is the adult in the room, that would be very strong. >> that would not be because -- i don't think they have our best interests at heart it is for their self interests and everything else.

yeah do you think this was better than the vonn stoffenberg push are we trying to communicate >> his military leader >> tried to hill hitler. >> a bomb in the suitcase and under the table. >> trying to communicate and use simple language. okay what about that, colonel he might have gone coming up, this morning's bi biggest moefrs stock down 33% this year like i know. despite a big jump today it's jobs friday we will bring you the numbers when they crosses at 8:30. you can watch us anytime on the

cnbc app we're coming right back. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

(vo) this is a place for ambition. matching your job description. a forge of progress. a unicorn in training. a corner to build a legacy. a vision for tomorrow. a fresh start. a blank canvas. a second act. a renewed company culture. a temple for ideas. and a place to make your mark.

loopnet. the most popular place to find a space. gap is higher. the company swung to a loss in the fourth quarter

sales were down 3% gap cited planned store closures and supply chain disruption. expects shipping issues to improve and offered an up beat forecast for 2022. now to the mystery chart we showed before the break. shares the sweet sgreen soaring after going public in november the salad chain reporting losses, but strong sales growth and sales js outlook for 2022 they are worried about raising prices too much and scaring way customers. despite the gains, the stock is down 33% since its ipo the ceo will be on closing bell this afternoon. we have sad news to report ken duberstein has died after compli complications.

he was a friend to "squawk box." he was a political insider and won both sides of the aisle. he later served on the boards of boeing and conocophillips. he served on the american stock exchange ken was 77years old. he is survived by his wife and four children. he was a warm person >> i haven't seen him in a long time. >> he used to spend time with us in the mornings. when we come back, brookings institute's michael o'hanlon will talk about what happens next with russia capturing the ukraine nuclear power plant. dow futures are down 200 points the nasdaq off 102 here is the reaction in europe bigger sell off there. you have the dax off 1.3%.

similar in france. ftse is down 1.3%. down in italy and spain. "squawk box" will be right back. ♪♪ ♪♪

competition beat us again. how? they have a better finance system than we do. i feel like they might have a better finance system than we do. workday. how do they make better decisions faster? workday. it's got to be something workday. i think i got something. work... hey, rob, you're on mute. hello! hey, rob, there he is. workday. the finance, hr and planning system for a changing world.

a nuclear power scare in ukraine at europe's largest nuclear power plant. last night ukrainian officials reported the plant was under fire after coming under heavy attack from russia the plant was on fire on behind an area used for training. and the russian forces have seized the power plant

joining us right now is michael ohanlen, a brooking institutions senior fellow. we're still trying to sort out the details, figure out what's happened there and how we move forward. this changes the entire specter. this idea with a potential problem with the nuclear power plant shakes things up what are you hearing from people on the ground here >> we all know it can get worse in multiple ways we know the chernobyl explosion in 1986 in northern ukraine of course rendered hundreds of square kilometers i think thousands of square kilometers of land unusable for generations to come because of radio activity that's the benign thing that can happen if one of these things explodes we already have refugees we could see hundreds of

thousands more or even millions from this type of incident >> to me the surprising situation is, okay, we think right now there's not been any radiation that's leaked. that's great news. but playing with a situation like this, tempting fate in such a way maybe tells you more about putin's mind-set here and what he might be willing to do. how do we counter that >> well, you know, i don't know how to counter it, unfortunately. i still think there's a small chance of a negotiated settlement and i think woogs be trying harder than we are, but i would acknowledge that's a hail mary i wrote a piece yesterday called a hail mary for ukraine in which the russians would agree to a cease-fire and withdraw their troops eventually, and ukraine would agree to forego the option of nato as long as its security

can be provided in some way. it obviously doesn't have the option now with russian troops sitting on its doorstep. the idea putin would accept that kind of deal seems pretty low at this point but it's still worth a try. >> i'm not sure putin is going to be listening to any leaders from the west at this point. macron basically told him yesterday forget it, we're going to continue, we're going to keep it up and it's going to get much, much worse from here is there any hope in the idea maybe china could step in and exert a little more pressure would they be willing to do that is it in their interest in. >> interesting question, becky i would hope maybe china or the u.n. secretary-general could do this i think we also need to be

thinking harder how we do develop the outlines of a plans. the idea we would keep buying hydrocarbons from putin as he slices up europe doesn't compute. the real issue is can we target russia's gas going into europe, and the germans have taken big steps in that regard in recent days, but i don't see a comprehensive eu effort yet. that's the other piece that can be attempted as you say along with china might see an incentive here china's got to worry its all access with moskow is being rendered not only ineffective but corrupt and criminal in the eyes of the world. and so i would hope that china would see the incentive that you mention, but putin doesn't listen to anybody very much and probably not even xi jinping on

this >> we had helean macroft with us earlier this hour and she was saying the imposed sanctions, forget it, we don't want to do business with russia, that that may have a pretty chilling impact, too, because it means russia can't get $109 a barrel for their oil prices like you get on the general market. it means they're going to have other issues they have to deal with there's that but colonel jack jacobs joining us to say, hey, they're going to be doing this and they don't think the west will have the resolve. >> right >> will we >> yeah. i think we have the resolve to apply the punishment but the question is in putin's mind is will we keep that punishment ongoing? let's say in a month russian forces have finally worn down ukrainian resistance, they essentially control all the big cities, zelenskyy may still not be on the run and the fighting

basically starts to wind down into pockets of resistance putin probably hopes in that scenario say in april we start relenting on all the economic punishment and the western firms start restoring business as usual. so i think maybe now is the time for us to develop a more integrated western plan that says to the extent and for the duration of the russian occupation of independent ukraine, which we will always consider a sovereign country, there will be no business than usual, and then we can start to write those kind of economic consequences into law and start to make them conditional on what russia does next all the punishment is great if it's linked to a strategy for getting putin to relent. if it's punishment for its own sake putin will accept we're going to relent.

things can still get a lot worse. we've got to try to get the best deal possible. >> the problem with all these economic sanctions they're put in place by politicians who don't have the resolve they look at the polls, see where things stand they worry if gas prices are too high what that means for their constituents general, people in the military have the longer term view and maybe this goes back to what you were saying secretary austin saying we need to tie these national security more closely with economic ideas. how can we do that >> yeah, thank you i mean secretary austin has this outstanding concept of integrated deterrence and he really is thinking about places like ukraine and taiwan where a u.s. military response is not, you know, obligatory by treaty it may not be smart militarily

when you ask about the china connection relative to this crisis if beijing is watching, they've realized it would be hard to decouple our economy from theirs we will do this same sort of thing at least if they take taiwan. it will take time and it will be gradual and imperfect, but we will decouple ourselves as much as possible because we have to have that kind of deterrent if we're going to prevent scenarios that are so militarily easier compared to our own ability to project power. easier for the aggressor, easier for russia or china. i think this concept of integrating economic and military instruments into national security strategies is crucial for these kind of scenarios. >> michael ohanlen, thank you for your time, sir >> good to see you, becky. >> you, too. it is just after 7:00 on the

east coast and you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. we're counting down to the february jobs report that comes out 8:30 a.m. eastern time we'll bring you instant reaction right along with chicago fred president charlie evans. let's get straight to steve liesman with a preview of the job data i don't know which way you go with it. steve? >> nevada, data, that's what i think. let's look at the jobs data from nevada i hope the jobs report can serve as a reminder whatever happens next the job market was at least in good shape going in, and yet the immediate question, the 8:31 a.m. eastern time question will be what the real economic impact and growing fears will mean for theflation and growth in the u.s. and europe.

and healthy number, 440,000 and strong wage growth that'll be watched closely those are strong numbers also looking at labor force participation, 1.4 million people came into the work force in january that was the fourth straight monthly gain totaling 2.2 million. those are good numbers here are some of the sign said going in along with other data and you compare with 475,000, challenger jobs cuts down 20% ukg workforce up 6.6% for the biggest gain of the pandemic and then our friends at home base tell us nearly every top 50 metropolitan area saw month over month increase in hours worked

one question, the u.s. now needs to ramp up oil production. the big unknown is whether the oil business can find workers to pump more oil. >> steve, a russia question for you if i could we were just speaking to michael o' hanlen weather we can lean on china more is there any sign china is helping russia >> there is not. most people i speak to suggest at least china at the moment is standing on the side lines financially. and there's two ways to look at this the first thing you can look at the u.s. dollar ruble exchange rate, and that has continued to be very weak, and it does not appear the chinese central bank has stepped into the ruble market to help it might have done so but certainly not in any size. one thing i've been watching carefully is the ruble yuan

exchange rate. there's some really important questions people are trying to figure out which is are these second derivative sanctions? north dakota, if a chinese business does business with a russian company does that mean an american company cannot do business with that chinese company? it's an initial read of some people i've spoken to try to figure it all out, but that would mean another that would keep china on the side line from helping russia at that point >> interesting that read is -- who has that read and what's the other side of that read >> well, the other side is, "a," no one would enforce it, and "b," i'm just trying to figure out exactly what those sanctions say and where it goes. is it at the company level, also at the financial level

some other folks i talk to say it's unclear, so i'm trying to figure out if these are second derivative sanctions -- by the way, andrew, what has powered chinese development. they know it's the adoption of u.s. technology that's helped them if they suddenly don't get access to it because we're afraid of them passing it onto russia, china has a lot to lose economically look, i think they said we are friends but not allies was a statement i saw from a foreign chinese ministry official. and to their comment they put out together, i guess it was xi and putin that there are no limits, i think there are limits to their friendship. and as i said i think on this show a couple weeks ago every time you think russia and china are getting together and are going to form some acts against the united states that is not

the case >> friends but not allies. steve liesman, we'll see you with the big number at 8:30 this morning. i'm sure we'll be talking to you a lot about that in a little bit. coming up josh gottheimer, the new jersey congressman for the mid-terms, president biden's economic plan and more and then goldman's jeff currie on the situation in ukraine and rising oil prices. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

i am here because they revolutionized immunotherapy.

i am here because they saw how cancer adapts to different oxygen levels and starved it. i am here because they switched off egfr gene mutation and stopped the growth of tumor cells. there's a place that's making one advanced cancer discovery after another for 75 years. i am here... i am here.... because of dana-farber. what we do here changes lives everywhere. i am here. maybe it's another refill at your favorite diner... or waiting for the 7:12 bus... or sunday afternoon in the produce aisle. these moments may not seem remarkable. but at pfizer, protecting the regular routine, and everyday drives us to reach for exceptional. working to impact hundreds of millions of lives... young and old. it's what we call, the pursuit of normal. ♪ ♪

the white house is urging congress to immediately approve over $32 billion in emergency funding to support ukraine and fight covid-19 joining us now to share his thoughts congressman josh gottheimer seem reasonable to you at this point? is the covid-19 money, we need flew funding for that, josh? we spent everything we already allocated for that >> well, we should definitely support ukraine and obviously get that aid moving. i want to see more specifics on the covid money in terms of what's been spent, what exactly

they need the resources for. obviously we've allocated significant resources over the last couple of years for covid as we should i want to make sure the new resources and requests match exactly what we need >> i think we can still use that analogy and enigma wrapped in a riddle, but that was about russia, wasn't it? now we know how true that was. put you to me are an enigma wrapped in a riddle. i thinkit's your -- we were talking about it earlier i know you're in becky's district we've got i don't know average -- you've got different people at aoc in your district let's just say that. so you may have a different constituency, so you may have different ideas. what would you like to see president biden and his administration trying to do overall right now, and i'm referencing some recent joe manchin controversy where he is now open to a certain amount of build back better and raising taxes. do you want to raise taxes right

now? do you think inflation at this point is being hurt by too much spending out of washington >> well, you know right now what i think we need to do if we're going to change the tax code in any way for jersey, for northern jersey we need to figure out a way to get taxes down to make life affordable for many folks i didn't see anything specific to new plans, but first and foremost, you know, you asked about the president and his agenda especially coming out of the "state of the union," and i think there were a lot of issues there we can all agree on. not only did he have a unity agenda talking about issues like mental health and standing by our veterans but he took on issues like costs of prescription drugs which are huge issues we need to address and obviously addressing grocery costs and other things people are feeling. he talked about covid and getting back to normal i think it was a great night

i'm excited our kids are going to be back in school and stay in school, back to work i think people are eager for that and he talked about crime and the importance of funding law enforcement and not defunding, which you know is critically important. >> should we take a different tack on russian oil, josh? what can we do there's many people that say if i'm putting gasoline into my car my dollars should not be going to support the war, putin's war in ukraine >> i agree with that in fact, brian fitzpatrick and i in the house are introducing legislation that senator manchin, senator murkowski introduced yesterday in the

senate to hit him where it hurts, stop importing russian oil. i think that's an imperative, and my colleagues and i will be pushing the administration to do that >> are you running for governor, josh, at any time in the future? >> i'm running for congress. >> why do people bring that up >> i don't know. first and foremost i'm focused on one thing >> they never say they're running until they're not. >> you weren't at lunch with chris christie and governor cuomo yesterday? >> i was not at lunch. i was in washington working on stopping importing russian oil >> working on becky's

constituent -- >> becky's got potholes we've got to fill, and by the way we got infrastructure done and we talked about that at the "state of the union" and now we've got to get that implemented and get these roads fixed. >> josh, i was going to ask you it seems like the fractures in your party have gotten worse they haven't solidified. you know, you're seeing more things like the address that congresswoman tlaib gave after the "state of the union. i know that was something you were unhappy about where do things stand? why still all these stretches, and how do you make it a more cohesive party >> i didn't think it was helpful for us to be attacking one another. we should be focused especially now how we come together we're standing up and have a great example of what we're fighting for, democracy and the

devastation there. it reinforces how lucky we are to live here and our responsibilities attacking one another is not helpful. it's how we do it and hoping we can come together. that's what i'm focused on and we've got a lot of work to do it's a tough time for the country, and we've got to move forward here >> what about salt, josh never happened, still thinking about ways of getting to the end result that you talk about every time you're on what's the path? >> listen, you mentioned before that senator manchin if there's a scenario where there's any change tuesday the tax code that's where installing salt and getting tax cuts to our family would come in. i fought for it in the house, we got it pass said out of the house. now we've got to keep working on

it that is not something we should pause and i've already brought it up to senator manchin >> congressman, i think what's the current number 32 retirements in the house for democrats. they're obviously people such a great job with no term limits no one retires unless they're going to lose. those aren't feeling real confident about where they are how bad do you think it'll be in november >> i think in politics that's a long way off, and we should just focus on doing our jobs. and if we do our jobs that's what people will decide on if you're trying to push me out, i hope not >> wow that'd be such a big move right it's something i can get behind, i think. and i don't know how far new

jersey is willing to go. purple my patoony. >> you just talked about former governor chris christie. >> they're cohead of the blue. it's the bluest purple i've ever -- i lived there. i know where i am. in a little enclave where we've got a few people like me all right, congressman josh gottheimer, thank you. >> thank you >> we've got churchill, colonel von staufenberg, a little bit of everything today >> the turtle back zoo >> that's right. i love the turtle back zoo >> it's gorgeous >> i want you to move over there. you think about it >> it's a beautiful area no complaints with it. i'm just kind of entrenched

where i am at the moment schools, friends, activities for the kids when we come back we're going to talk more about the conflict between russia and ukraine. it's likely to have broad implications both good and bad for the chip space we have details on that aspect after this break let's get a check on the markets. dow futures indicated off about 242 points this morning. s&p futures downby 42, the s nasdaq down by 25. "squawk box" will be right back.

this is elodia. she's a recording artist. 1 of 10 million people that comcast has connected to affordable internet in the last 10 years. and this is emmanuel, a future recording artist, and one of the millions of students we're connecting throughout the next 10. through projectup, comcast is committing $1 billion so millions more students, past... and present, can continue to get the tools they need to build a future of unlimited possibilities.

welcome back to "squawk box. the implications are broad the exposure to russia may not mean a lot to the semiconductor industry >> we know russia accounts for less than 0.1% of global semiconductor sales. that's a drop in the bucket when compare today the current $550 billion semiconductor market russia relies on imports like taiwan semiconductor manufacturing which has actually begun halting deliveries to

russia of course supply constraints are very worrisome for many chip makers because russia is a major supplier of palladium. that's used to make electronic chips and roughly 33% of global production comes from russian mines. and prices just hit a seven month high yesterday and another element, too you've got 90% grade neon critical for lasers used in chips and that comes from ukraine. the stock has been getting hit over the past six months we'll bring that up on your screen in just a moment. however, neon is considered to be a tiny frication of the cost structure. and now for the potential positive long-term up side that andrew spoke about for semiconductor equipment makers recent turmoil reinforces the commitment of the united states to regionalize supply chains

amid growing geopolitical uncertainty. we know the president spoke about that recently in a "state of the union" address where that's a gainer, a momentum likely to continue guys >> kristina, how much should we be focused on this and the colonel was talking about what this really means for taiwan later. >> excellent question. i don't think we're addressing how bad it could be, and this is exemplified by taiwan semiconductor stock in just a little while you had investors that reacted and thought, okay, this could exactly happen, this replica scenario with china and taiwan it's why they started selling off, and it's a huge provider of semiconductor parts as well as kwimts so you saw the reaction over there. i don't think it's something we're talking enough about and i think is this priced in? not just based off what we're seeing with the reaction from a lot of major companies over the

course of the past month, but taiwan semiconductors is an example of a major sell-off once february 24th happened and an invasion started >> thank you great to see you this morning. coming up, oil moving higher as the war in ukraine escalates. what can oil producers in the u.s. do about this situation we're going to ask jeff currie of goldman sachs about that and also talk about where prices are headed and after heavy shelling by russia, a fire at a nuclear power plant in the south eastern part of ukraine has been extinguished one reactor was damaged, and ukrainian and russian officials say the plant has been seized by russian military forces. we'll bring you updates all morning long stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc time now for today's aflac trivia question. according to forbes what is

bruce wayne's estimated net worth as of 2020 the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues aflac! paul is about to suffer a shelf-inflicted injury. luckily, aflac will help cover his unexpected medical bills. aflac! maybe you could use the money to buy a step stool. i have a step stool. so why are you climbing a shelf? the stool's on top of the shelf, isn't it paul... [shelf crashing] yeah... ♪ aflac! official partner of march madness.

new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. according to forbes what is belarus wayne's estimated net worth as of 2020 the answer $9.2 billion. >> no way? that's inflation adjusted, right? >> it is you've got to keep up with the times. >> $9 billion. how would it cost for that cave, seriously, you seen it >> it's not just that. anyway, everyone, welcome back to "squawk box. it's friday morning and the futures are under pressure take a look at things right now. you'll see the dow futures are down almost 400 points this comes after russian troops attacked europe's largest -- europe's largest nuclear power

plant. it's something we've been watching overnight at this point it does not look like there was any release of radiation. that's been the latest we've been hearing, but obviously it did raise concerns not only here but also in europe if you look at the losses in europe this morning you're going to see things are even weaker there. in italy stocks down about 5%. oil prices are higher back to about the levels we were seeing yesterday at this time a gain of 2.6% from wti. brent crude at $112.72, and treasury yields coming under more pressure. the ten-year note is yielding 1.799% we do have a jobs report coming up in an hours time and that could impact the markets as well also still to come this morning

ben mezrich is going to join us. he's written a book where he's dealt with many of these russian oligarchs, so he knows the story well and he's been following it. also later don't miss our exclusive interview with chicago fed president are chlievans. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc - [announcer] bito, the first u.s. bitcoin-linked etf. every big idea every game changer every "how'd they do that?" starts here the blank page artists and writers know the tyranny of it well but so do developers, data scientists, ctos the new creators to them, we say let's create something that changes everything ♪ ♪ ♪ ibm

let's create ♪♪ giorgio, look! the peanut butter box is here. ralph, that's the chewy pharmacy box with our flea and tick meds. it's not peanut butter. ♪ the peanut butter box is here ♪ i'm out. pet prescriptions delivered to your door. chewy.

welcome back to "squawk box. let's get you the big story of the morning. russia seizing europe's largest nuclear power plant from ukraine overnight. oil prices up nearly 2% on that news joining us right now is jeff currie goldman sachs commodity head of global research. we've bip talking about it all morning, jeff. it's a tragedy what's happening over there right now, but we are looking at oil continues to spiral upwards. the question at the moment is does it continue a pace? is there some -- some off-ramp you see here how do you handicap this >> well, clearly, the situation has deteriorated, and as long as there's uncertainty around the conclusion on this outcome, the risk to the up side across all

the commodity markets, not just oil but, you know, coal, wheat, aluminum, copper all very much exposed to what's going on i think the one more worse is wheat. you've got 20% of the world's wheat exports come out of ukraine. the situation was bad coming into this because you had very low inventories, very little spare capacity and not a lot of responsive supply to the higher prices you put that together with this disruption that is potentially the largest disruption we've ever seen in commodities, creates a lot of up sided risk here >> so that's the up side risk. is there any down side risk at all? would you sort of think through the various were mutations of how this situation could unfold? >>, you know, in terms of thinking about obviously the biggest down side risk here

would be a peaceful conclusion which we would all hope for, but as the data drags on that becomes more illusive. and obviously whether it was -- actually i'd like to take what the betting markets are putting the probabilities on they put a 10% probability biden and putin speak and they're putting somewhere around a 25% probability of a regime change you put those two together and that's suggesting there's a 35% probability to a peaceful conclusion here. i don't want to make my own predictions on this beyond my capabilities, but it tells you even looking at these broader markets the probability of this thing dragging on increases. i think, you know, the longer it grows, the higher the probability that oil and commodity exports go to zero because when you think about the idea of a central bank asset freeze in the context of an energy carve out, the two cannot

coexist. they're incongruent. so i can't come up with a sustainable outcome where you have both simull tainian las e, which suggests the risks very much skewed to the down side of exports and commodities which then skews to the up side. >> so if you're jay powell how much do you worry about stagflation? >> when you think about the risks, the risks are confined to europe europe is the one most exposed here you look at the united states it has, you know, obviously more than enough gas. gas prices are relatively low. you look at oil prices even at $110 a barrel, historically we're not even close to being at the highest levels in contrast you look at european prices in euro per barrel we're at all-time highs right now what's different in these prices than ones we've seen in the past

is that it's yoeuro centric that's what really makes this one different is that it's more of a european problem than it is a u.s. problem, and i think that was clear in powell's messagin this past week >> how much does it flow through, the problem in europe flow through to us i think you're seeing it in our markets. it's reflective of the markets should it not be >> well, no, if you think about the u.s. if it is balanced on an energy basis, it's a well transfer between the producers in texas and the consumers in the north. looking at the u.s. as a whole, you know, movements in oil prices are not that significant. the reason we have it in our head our sharp rise in oil prices are bad for the u.s. like during the 1970s is because you think about the u.s. being short

and that was between the united states let's say the middle east this time the well transfer is domestic as opposed to being foreign, which is very different. yeah, i mean, there are issues around the inflationary pressures that are being created here, but let's remember look at natural gas right here -- you're putting up right now it's $4.86 i don't know where it is in europe right now but it's around $50. it's 10x than what you see on the screen here. that tells you the magnitude >> so, jeff, we could -- if we said right now we're not buying another drop of russian oil we could do that from what you're saying would that help? would it work? would it hurt russia how would that -- how does that

look like and do you expect it to happen? >> well, i mean at this point right now you're almost sure to go that direction. and the reason why is let me ask you this do you want to take a ship up into the black sea right now can you get a crew to do it, the insurance to do it >> you might as well do it then. pipelines are much safer >> and we're still below 110 >> that's why there's a lot of up side risk here. >> there is. >> another interesting point you look at open interest, it's been declining in this market as the prices have gone up, which is telling you that investor participation and interest in holding energy positions is not that high despite what's going on, so this is -- this rally has really been driven by commercials and corporates

rather than by investors >> is that a weapon we can use against russia or not? if they are able to which you're saying they can't do it -- the fact it's already happening -- >> it's already happening, that's the point and then the point about you can't get a really sustainable outcome of having a central bank asset freeze and have them exporting oil at the same time because you have to ask yourself what are you gloegoing to do wi the surplus currency whether in euros or whatever it might be. even if you could overcome these physical impediments of going and getting these metric tons or bushels of wheat, you still run into the problem of how do you deal with, you know, the surplus that could be generated from the

exports. i like to point out every time we've done these asset freezes, it just doesn't end very well. we saw it and ran in 1979. ee saw it in venezuela in the 2000s. we saw it in 2006. look where it is today versus where it was 2002. look at iran production today capacity is somewhere around 3.5%, 3.8 billion barrels a day. >> i want to thank you for trying to help us make some sense of it this morning >> thanks for having me. when we return we'll talk about some stocks on the move this morning and by the way, it is jobs friday how will those numbers impact the fed's rate decision later this month we'll ask our expert panel and then a special interview with chicago fed president charlie evans. obviously a lot happening on tsis friday morning.

lo to discuss with thim. keep it right here we'll be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box. couple of corporate headlines for you. rivian autoimative is walking back a hefty price increase for

its electric trucks and suvs put into effect this week on orders already been placed. the company apologized to customers for applying the price increase retroactively and said it would honor prices for customers who previously ordered. the stock plunged as customers vented their frustration over e-mail notifications their ordered vehicles would now cost 10 to $20,000 more that's not like an extra $80 that's -- >> that's a lot. >> meanwhile sony and honda teaming up to develop and sell battery powered electric vehicles the driveman they're going to be called like the walkman. sony is going to do the software, is that right? and honda i think is going to be the vehicle manufacture. sony might know how to do that

i mean half the car now -- >> battery on wheels, a computer >> isn't that tesla's whole advantage is that. yeah >> and crypto currency exchange reiterated they have no plans to preemptively ban all russians from using their platforms some of the world's biggest crypto currency exchanges are staying put in russia, breaking with mainstream finance in a decision experts say weakens the attempts to weaken moskow following invasion of ukraine. both crypto exchanges have said they will comply with government sanctions. coming up the runt for russian hole garks for their yachts and for their mansions and toys, it's intensifying. and look at those on the sanction radar and what it could mean for the russian economy

and they've got it check out the futures ahead of the jobs report. we're coming right back. and thanks to voya, i'm confident about my future. voya provides guidance for the right investments. they make me feel like i've got it all under control. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

president biden announcing new sanctions on eight members of the russian elite and their families this is the latest attempt to try and squeeze vladimir putin as the russian invasion of ukraine intensifies. robert frank joins us now with

more good morning, robert >> good morning, becky well, the white house announcing blocking sanctions on eight wealthy russians and their families and visa restrictions on another 18 russian oligarchs and 47 family members. most prominent person on the new list is alisher. his yacht and private plane, that's an airbus a340, the largest private plane in russia. those will be barred from entering the u.s meanwhile roman has not been sanctioned but he's putting his british soccer team up for sale for about $4 billion he said the sale proceeds will go to a foundation benefitting all victims of the war in ukraine. he's also selling his london properties including the mansion mere kensington palace he bought for over $100 million back in

2009 they seized the 280 foot yacht after learning it was, quote, making arrangements to sale urgently but the company managing the ship denied he was the direct owner. this yacht is registered in the cayman islands owned by a shell company. becky, that's going to be the issue here these guys had been planning for this for years almost everything they own is through a shell company or an anonymous llc, and it's going to be difficult to legally prove that, "a," they are the owners and, "b," it can be seized so there's going to be a lot of legal battles after they seize this real estate and these boats. >> we had mnuchin on yesterday and they said he was advocating for more sanctions in the aftermath of that interview there were a number of critics if you will who said you want more sanctions now but

lived sanctions on people like people like deripaska back in 2018 do you see connections between those two? the more i think about it the more i think sanctioning back them would have more impact i think but maybe i'm wrong on what's happening now >> what happened is the treasury department stunned a lot of people in congress by lifting sanctions on deripaska's companies saying they were satisfied he was no longer connected. it turns out his still connected to those companies so that was clearly a mistake, but the 2014 sanctions which even predated that did not work either, and the reason is because russians simply transferred these assets to their relatives, and the second reason they didn't work was there was the assumption they'd put pressure on putin to change their policies, and it doesn't work that way in russia. they don't expect these guys will put pressure on putin and they're also hoping to include

their families this time of the oligarchs so they can't more easily transfer assets so we'll see if it works better this time. >> okay, robert, thank you our next guest has first-hand experience with the russian oligarchy. let's welcome ben mezrich, who's 2015 book once upon a time in russia is a rare inside look at the lives of billionaires who made their fortunes when the soviet union fell. it's called the midnight ride which is historical thriller ben, i had forgotten you'd written this book. i saw your thread on twitter talking about your time researching this book and writing it and the time you spent with the oligarch. that is a rare, rare thing to get that much time up close with these people >> i try to forget i wrote this book as well i mean it's a crazy story. i spent a year hanging out with oligarchs in bars and clubs and

yachts and owners clubs of soccer teams and what's going on right now is really wild to watch the oligarchs put putin in power but putin flipped it around on them, and i tell the story it's amazing but they found putin he was a low level kgb agent in st. petersburg they knew him because he helped setup a car dealership for one of them. they moved him in moskow, put him in power over the country thinking they could control him and he flipped it around on them and became the biggest oligarch of all we're at this moment trying to get the oligarchs to retake the power they once had, but their relationship with putin is not what people think. >> did the oligarchs realize this pack in 2014, '15 when you were meeting them? did they realize they had lost control? >> yeah. because what happened was they placed putin in power and in the first week of power putin invited all the oligarchs to

stalin's old home. and putin sat these men down at the table and he said you've all made tons of money, you're all billionaires you can keep your money but from here on out you stay out of my way. and any oligarch who stayed out of his way is an oligarch today. anyone oligarch is not was found hanging in their bathroom or fell out a helicopter. any oligarch i met with understood putin was the leader that they used to run the country and now they were running around london with their yachts and beautiful homes so trying to force them to redo what it used to be, to go back to the '90s is a really interesting situation. and we'll see what happens i think. >> do you think they have the power to do something like that? do they undo this unholy alliance >> two weeks ago i would say absolutely not

from what i know about the relationship with putin is that putin is a strong man. he's very popular in this country. he chased the oligarchs out of russia, and at the time they were known for corruption. they'd been handed by all the resources who picked them because they were friends with his party hopping daughter so he hand picked all these oligarchs and gave one of them the aluminum companies and one of them the oil companies. so they were living very large, but as soon as putin came in everything shifted so i would have said, no, putin has had all the power. but in the last couple of weeks we've seen something very different going on i don't believe this is what putin planned on this is not a calculated situation we're in right now so i think we're at a place anything goes at this point. >> you mean he miscalculated on the idea the ukrainians would fight back so strongly >> i think the world support took him by surprise

i think he believed he would move in, there would be some yelling for a couple of days and then it would be business as usual. i don't think he believed he'd ever be in a situation where the entire world is now isolating russia, attempting to go after all the yachts and -- i mean it's an incredible move. we're chasing down yachts in the ocean. i eely don't think this was the plan putin is a man who has a vision that he's had all along of resurrecting the soviet empire from the very beginning he has said the biggest mistake of the last century was the fall of the soviet empire. so it's not that he's this bully lashing out at the world he's a person with a very defined vision and as he gets closer to his end game we have to understand that his goal is this giant empire, and we have to deal with that not deal with an individual

boat >> we've been hearing some of the comments the they say, okay, we're going to sell this and the proceeds are going to go to help the ukrainian people you have others who have said russian companies and russian oligarchs who have said we're not in favor of this, we don't want to see war and aggression in ukraine are they saying this with cover from putin or are they really stepping aside and taking a break from putin? >> that's a great question i think that they are stepping out. i i do think there's some maneuvering going on here. this is not something you would have heard him talk about four weeks ago. they were very much putin's cash register he said something and they did it i think they're getting nervous and it might be showing some cracks in that power dynamic it's hard to tell. but i do think we're seeing something i would have never

expected a couple weeks ago, some speaking out. >> one of the many books you've written is one that focused on crypto currency, too crypto billionaires. so you're deeply embroiled in that in response to a question by senator mark warner the fed chair jay powell had this to say about concerns sanctions could be sidestepped using crypto. listen in. >> we do have laws on the pooks and all that, but i think for digital finance generally we need a legal framework that would really take away as much as possible of the possibility that people could use unbacked crypto currencies as a way to evade the law and hide their ill-gotten gains and things like that >> do you think this is a real issue or a red herring as some

of these crypto leaders have suggested? >> first of all, good luck with that, right? the whole point of crypto is that you can move mumoney around without it going through any middle man, kbhae authority. it's not something easily controllable by anyone else and it's very free you can get up and move to the next country with it >> ben, all of your books kind of colliding in the real world right now. want to thank you for your time today. >> you bet my new one midnight ride is out, and i want to tell people we're doing a fun interactive puzzle with it. if you're at all in nfts buy midnight ride and you can get a free nft that's a puzzle that

sends you back to the book thank you. >> ben mezrich, thank you, sir >> i love that movie just after 8:00 a.m. on the east coast these jobs friday, the futures ahead of those numbers of course many things may change i don't know how much import you would even put on the jobs number given everything else that's happening s&p 500 off about 36 points. we've also got and this is important a news making interview you do not want to miss charlie evans will join us but first i want to go over to

dom chu on what is moving this morning and the tragedy take s place in ukraine >> on normal jobs friday we'd be focused a lot more on certain aspects of the market. today, however, because of the escalation of what's happening between russia and ukraine, there are certain parts of the market that may be a cross over if you will. this is not one of them. thus is front and center defense contractors are still catching a bit in the premarket trade. they've been active with regard to what's happening in russia and ukraine. this is where the intersebz of jobs and ukraine and russia

matter this is in bank stocks but you could argue it's much more tilted toward the risk of what's happening in ukraine and russia. bank of america down 1.5%. citi group down nearly 2% right now. they could have some exposure if sanctions intensify with regard to russia. could it slow down their business even further? that's some of the concern so u.s. banks in focus but take a look at the european big ones like hsbc down 5.5% european banks have been much more of the epicenter of that down side trade so we'll keep an eye on those as we do often hear, guys, a check on the most popular tick search on our website from yesterday's full session i would note the ten-year treasury yield remains number one among the single stock tickers searched snowflake down 2.5%

tesla and apple always kind of top ten stalwarts there. you're wondering why because subscribers to our cnbc pro platform get access to certain stock picks and commentary from our cnbc contributors names like snowflake, simon property and morgan stanley have been mentioned prominently by the way, bitcoin is threatened to drop out of the top 50 it was number 50 on the list i haven't seen a time where not one crypto currency namely bitcoin is not anywhere in the top ticker search on our website. >> there's some other things happening, that's for sure related maybe but indirectly a nuclear power scare in ukraine at ukraine's largest

nuclear power plant. officials reported the plant was on fire after coming under heavy attack from russia the fire has been extinguished russia has gained control of that plant just looking at a headline eamon javers who joins us now from a website and some fictional character from fight club, futures slide with traders shell-shocked from the ukraine news flow. there's some truth to that i feel shell-shocked almost every day with some of these new developments it's almost surreal that we're witnessing this in 2022, eamon >> absolutely. the pictures out of ukraine last night were apocalyptic the video showed what appeared to be tracer fire as round after round impacted buildings on the site of the plant igniting a blaze at the facility and prompting ukrainian officials to

appeal to the west desperately for help and warning of a melt down that could be bigger than the chernobyl disaster now, the attack promped global outrage overnight and fears of a large nuclear incident that could impact much of europe. and the u.s. said the department of energy had activated its response team as a precaution. by daylight the photos a little more reassuring. these photos were posted by the national company of ukraine overnight. officials said no rodiation was released in the incident and in a bizarre twist ukrainian officials said russian troops have taken control of that site but they're allowing ukrainian staffers to operate the plant today. the building that sustained the most damage, though, was a training center and not part of

the nuclear raeactor, officials said >> eamon, thank you. we'll look forward to your updates throughout the morning here when we come back we're under half an hour away from the february jobs report we'll bring you the numbers and instant reaction as soon as it hits plus don't miss our exclusive interview with chicago fed president charles evans. blackrock silver is bringing new life to a historic silver district, the second largest in the

silver state of nevada. with multiple recent high grade discoveries, blackrock is well underway on the largest silver exploration program in america. blackrock silver.

february jobs report hits at the bottom of the hour our next guest looks for a weaker than expected number and has a hunt the market correction could be over. jim, i want to start because we've over the years talked about inflation so much with you. you were an inflation hawk when we really didn't see much, and then i was surprised when we saw quite a bit, you weren't -- you got quite dovish and thought it wasn't going to be long lasting. has your view changed on that given this might be a protracted event, the invasion of ukraine that could keep oil prices high for a long time and maybe, you

know, keep inflation high for a long time. >> it certainly could. if it's a protracted war and gets into nato all bets are off. it would be a lot of problems growth wise and inflation and everything if that occurs. but, you know, it's going to add to inflationary life here the next couple of months. there's no doubt about that. i think also the thing you've got to factor into this is covid is certainly moving from pandemic to endemic, and that's going to help a lot of the inflation problems that we've had. inflation is a combo package of too much stimulus, too much demand created now the russian war driving commodity prices up, but it's also a product of supply chain problems tied to unique pandemic, and i think those are going to start to ease in addition to that, we have had

now about one year where monetary growth has slowed, fiscal stimulus has slowed, yield curve has flattened, the dollar going up. all of that also should help moderate inflation inflation is going to stay heren than the 2% fed target for some time >> like so many things, jim, and we all know talking about what the stock market is going to do when we're seeing what's happening over there is always kind of an issue, it's hard to do, and it's hard to minimize what we're seeing but we went from seeing a troop build up on the ukrainian border and being warned this is likely to happen, but not really being nearly as concerned, and now after, you know, what we heard about the nuclear power plant, we're at a point now where some of the most dire scenarios we've ever thought about are now being

imagined on a daily basis. are we overreacting now to how bad this could actually get? are we underappreciating the global danger before >> normally geopolitical events are buy opportunities. they don't tend to last very long in terms of their impact. the nuclear plant scenario is a great example of that. could that even change nato's mind to get involved in this in some fashion if the russian army basically shows they're going to be, you know, sort of irresponsible? that could happen. i don't know but i think the odds favor our fears are getting ahead of surivals, and we've kind of had

that on many fronts. to me i like the combination we have today of a lot of fear on a lot of frupts. and still if i look at fundamentals where i look at the u.s. economy or earnings they're awful good >> even the pandemic when it started it was much worse any of us thought, and yet stock market basically doubled. it's almost like you have to put black swan events -- you have to compartmentalize them over here and realize the market may not reflect the way we're feeling just as human beings it marches to a different peat or something do you think that's going to happen again here? >> i kind of do. one of the things i recently have written about, joe, this whole market we're in and the last one after the '08 crisis have been what i call fearful

bulls. and just one example of this we're 184 trillion at this point. what was the median vixes level of each of those bulls the last one in this one has been about 23. if i go back prior to 2008 the median vixes was 15.5. we have a market that's been chronically fearful of these things in a way that's unique to these markets. it's more about a huge wall of worry underneath this market

there's not a lot of people to sell and push it down. they've already sole i kind of feel that's the situation we're in now than even earlier in this panic. so many people are waiting on the side lines for it to fall apart, and i think chances are it goes in the or the direction. >> bottom line, most of the selling or most of the pull back, we've already seen it in your view. we'll end on that. >> that's my guess, joe, yeah. >> okay. we'll take it. thanks >> thanks, joe coming up when we return the number of the morning. february jobs they're just a few minutes away and we're going to bring you an exclusive interview you cannot afford to miss. chicago fed president charles evans with his latest thoughts on fed tightening and the worldwide economic impact on the war in ukraine stay tuned

you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc girls... the chess club has gained an edge on our bake sales. we need more ways of connecting with customers, fast. i know some consultants with great ideas. can they help us improve our digital experience? absolutely.

they've invested over $2 billion in tech. that could really help us manage inventory. and save us a ton of dough. then let's take back our market share. checkmate, chess heads. girls, i said “bedtime”! ♪♪ the chewy box comes today! calm down lenny. we just ordered it yesterday. (gasp) oven baked apple biscuits! hold me leroy! biscuits!! get fast free 1-3 day shipping when they just can't wait. chewy.

welcome pack to "squawk box. watching the futures this morning, there are some green arrows dow futures down by about 315 points s&p futures down by 38, the nasdaq off about 110 let's also show you some of the commodities that have been spiking because of the war in eastern europe right now the situation in ukraine, of

course first up is wheat with russia and ukraine both key exporters. wheat actually jumping by close to a third just this week alone it is on pace for the record. it's now up 6.6% this morning but about 30% exports of the world. take a look at corn. then of course you have energy, yesterday wti crude crossed the $116 barrel per mark it's come back from that level but up from the closing prices yesterday. gas hitting its highest level since 2008 it's up 20% this weekp pressure across the board and that will be something for the fed to consider along with this jobs report we're getting in less than 10 minutes time. the february jobs report we're counting down to that big number you see the final count down one of the ten worst songs of

all-time yeah, you told me that who was it europe or asia? >> europe. >> plus we have some an interview on tap with chicago fed president charles evans. don't go anywhere. "squawk box" coming right back ♪♪ what do we want delivered every month? clumping litter? salmon pate? love that for me. just choose the frequency and ship it! i feel so accomplished. now you can pet me. get fast free shipping for all your pets' needs. chewy. nothing was nothing until it was something. get fast free shipping for all your pets' needs. it all begins with creating a brand voice. how it looks... how it talks. search engine optimization was a challenge...

but we did it. then nothing really took off. nothing. nothing. nichts. meiyou. today i recommend you nothing! (laughs) (phones chimes) (traffic) (crowd applause) (gaming sounds) (keyboard typing) (mouse clicks) (music)

coming up, february jobs, the number wall street is waiting for. it's all next. we've got an all-star panel ready to bring you lots of instant analysis stay tuned you're watching squawk right here on cnbc you're a one-man stitchwork master.

but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire [copy machine printing] ♪ ♪ who would've thought printing... could lead to growing trees. ♪ our mission is to help our members achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions. getting your money right requires a partner that is there for every major financial decision and all the days in between. ♪

welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. we are just a few minutes away from the government's february employment report. and ahead of that number let's bring out our jobs panel austin goolsby, a former council of economic advisers chairman, now a professor at the university school of business. the treasury secretary for economic policy and now an associate professor at georgeten

university tyler, the former acting cea chairman at the trump administration who's a fellow with stanford university's hoover institution the chief investment officer and of course we have our very own steve liesman and rick santelli. now i've taken all this time introducing everybody we're just about out of time. i'll say very quickly let's say what your guess is for the month, for the number and, austin, i'll start with you. >> i think maybe 550 but we're coming to the end of the good months and we're going to start a bunch of bumpy months but i think we've got more good ones >> i'm closer to 400 i think the market will be a little less buoyant than we had before >> tyler, your guess >> a little bit better than expectations at 450,000.

i'm really looking forward to hopefully those 1.8 million americans who reported they didn't look for work in the past month, that number coming down and helping the top line number. >> seth carpenter, your number >> we are above consensus at 730. >> sarah, what are you expecting? >> we're looking at 600,000 with labor force, impact of omicron >> good, i appreciate that steve, quickly, your guess >> i like 600 either now or when it's revised up to that number in three months. >> and rick, we'll ask for your expectation as well. >> 660,000 and a 3.8% unemployment rate. >> steve, i'll ask you in about 20 seconds here, how important is this number given powell already told us it's going to be

25 basis points at the fed meeting? >> not incredibly significant. you'd just like to have a better number going into what is going to be a challenging time for the u.s. economy processing what's going on in europe right now >> if you've been watching the dow it's indicated down about 30pen points as we get ready for that february jobs report. rick santelli has the number and go ahead, take it away >> all right, we're waiting for the services to populate here, and i'll give it to you as i see it i do see the number is out, and it is 678,000. i do think i won that is much better than expected and if we look at the two-month revision, it's a positive 92,000 on the unemployment rate, 3.8% 3.8% average hourly earnings month over month, boy, is this a

mistake? zero i see zero month over month change not sure if that's accurate or not. on the year over year on the earnings 5.1%. that's a huge miss obviously the underemployment rate is 7.2. if you recall our low-water mark there which is the good side is 7.1 on our last look don't see a revision yet i don't see private payrolls for manufacturing yet for average hourly workweek, but considering the 678,000 in the revisions, here we go, 664,000 on private payrolls, that is well above the 400,000 expected and the labor force participation rate at 62.3 is a post-covid high-watermark. and just for context, pre-covid it was 63.3. there are some subtle revisions, but i won't go for that for the panel other than the big important ones and that is year

over year hourly average earnings went from 5.7 to 5.5. the average workweek is the number that's exactly as expected all right, panel, much better on jobs interest rates, hasn't moved much either on preequities. >> frng you were the closest to that number, but let's get right to the rest of our jobs panel for more of that instant reaction these numbers are incredibly positive across the board, strong numbers and that wage inflation not showing up as people had worried. what does this mean? what is this telling you i know it's just one month, but what would you take out of it? >> yeah. i'm not going to get too concerned about that in part because there's a whole mix issue like who's in the work force, who's out what mow might have had is a

huge return to the workforce of lower paid workers, and i'm guessing that's probably what drove it down. what's really interesting here, it's the breadth of the job gains here i'm looking for one particular number here and leisure and hospitality up 179k, so that's a good number. you really had reopening of some of these pandemicly closed businesses if you can call it that i saw construction up 60,000 look, this is the nut of powell's argument about why he can both go slow and not worry about the economy. forget about the war for one second i'll bring that in just 2 seconds. he has a lot to play with here he's got a really strong market. he has job openings at 11 million, strong job growth

g goolsbee is probably right it'll get from here. >> sarah, you were the one that pointed out you'll be looking for those average hourly earnings and that would be key this is as much as a goldylocks number you could possibly get. >> also that labor force participation rate is key. this is not a demand issue it's a tight supply issue. the more people come back into the work force, i think this alleviates the pressure. if you look at the fed the one thing we're all relying on is economic growth, a strong labor market, strong earnings can help us offset some of the issues we're seeing in russia and perhaps alleviation going

forward. all of that is very positive >> you call it right you thought this number would be stronger, but you think this would be the last great number before things get more difficult. what are you seeing? what are you anticipating? >> first of all, this awesome number, and i'll be interested to see when we have the details, the jobs number that we never report is there's an implied jobs number from the household survey, too. and it has been month after month that that household survey number was bigger than the regular survey of companies because i think there's a lot of self-employment, there's been a lot of new businesses started. so it's going to be interesting to see the dynamic that plays out on that side but if you've got labor force participation coming up, it just makes you sad that now we've got consumer confidence at these lows, the price of oil is $120 a barrel or thereabouts. i think the economy is going to be in for a rough patch for a

few months >> because consumer demand might die down because people get conserve their cash. >> yes and you're going to have more supply chain problems and more commodity price inflation that's going to hit on the business side, too >> tyler, bill gross was also talking yesterday about how you're going to see a weaker economy relatively speaking because you've got fiscal drag to the tune of about $3 trillion this year. how do you manage that and put that into any scenario >> i think there's going to be some fiscal drag although as austin noted the consumers are sitting on more than 2 trillion there is in accumulated surplus savings over the past two years. and i'm actually more concerned about the drag from the rising prices, and so real wages have been declining they probably declined again last month some of that would have been due

to compositional issues. it's going to be hard to sustain good given the levels we're seeing at the price pressures. >> i guess the good news here is we do seem to be coming very quickly out of the covid economy that people are going back to work that's a great thing i don't know how much impact what's happening in ukraine and russia would have on our jobs picture. but we are turning right from one problem to the next. what else would you be looking for in the numbers >> look, i agree i think there is a risk with ukraine that with the war that it extends beyond ukraine. i think that -- the drag that could come from that uncertainty could really cause doubt i think the keyword here is uncertainty. uncertainty what's going to cause inflation, how hard the fed is going to go on the path of raising interest rates. so i think we do have a -- as

austin said i think we have a bumpy road ahead as you mentioned just now we have very little room to act on the fiscal side or monetary side in terms of responding to any kind of downturns. so we just have to hold on tight and see how things progress. >> the uncertainty factor we thought we had a little resolve this week when we heard from the chairman himself, jay powell, saying it's going to be 25 basis points not 50. so that tells us where the fed has started. do they have the room over the next three months to be on plan and reassess and see where things stand >> i think they do often when clients ask me what hiking cycle should we compare this one to i say following the last one and one before that looking back to the 1990s where it changed speeds and changed speeds again and paused.

i think it's the subsequent rate hikes and chair powell in testimony did say if inflation doesn't moderate he's willing to kind of lay bigger rate hikes, and i think therein lies the real challenge for markets this is not going to be the simple meeting by meeting very predictable path it's going to be very much game day calls. >> what are you thinking how has the picture changed? >> i think the volatility has changed and florida we can get some clarity on the russia situation i think the markets are going to remain volatile increased power from the west i think could cause the situation to have a less severe effect on

global economic growth could be a positive we're looking more at u.s. as a safe haven, the u.s. dollar, u.s. growth stocks more resilient. that's areas we're looking, and to be more aggressive look at china. they're adding liquidity moving away from their zero covid policy that's a huge underperformer last year. >> you didn't mention europe is that on purpose because of what's playing out there >> i think europe is challenged because of the russia situation, but longer-term as we get back to inflation i am positive on europe in terms of its s sicliicality and reopening >> you're a fed whisperer. what does the fed look at in these numbers? does it change anything they're happening at this point? >> no, i don't think so.

i think they see the job market as strong, and this number backed it up as well as the revisions to prior months. which, by the way if they had the data righter or more right in the past months they might have been a little further along. these numbers are back in november it's like -- remember when we said it was 200,000 i haven't looked at the new number but it's like 640 or 700,000 jobs in november i don't know who said it, i'm sorry, but the idea you have had this influx into the workforce for austin's edification the number for the household survey employment was plus 548,000. remember it was plus 1.1 million in january becky, one other thing you said i thought was really interesting was kind of getting past covid in the jobs market you know, one of the things we're looking at is home health and nursing. and we're seeing the health care

workers return i think that's a very big deal because these people are on the front lines, and it's the biggest deal for them to have left their jobs. and now they're coming back i think that's an important sign of a return to normalcy. >> is there a way to break out how much wages have gone up in that arena because when you had minimum wage going up in all kinds of sectors, retail, customer service, when you're dealing with restaurants and other places, with all those wages going up, are the health care workers finally getting some higher pay, too? >> there is, becky but not live here on television. i don't have access to the wage data i'm going to throw it to seth because he knows how to use paper better than i do you've got to dig into it a little bit >> thanks for putting me on the

spot >> i will say about the labor force participation number, i think that is very much key. it's also part and parcel to the laeber supply side of things that component is going to be much more important, i think at least most of my clients in markets realize because as you saw with flat hourly average earnings there's more to come in terms of the supply. no question it's tight no question we're at or close to full employment, but there's still a huge amount of supply i think that can come back into the market >> where one side says no it's because we had excess monetary and fiscal stimulus and people have too much savings and that's why they refuse to work, and the other side said, no, the virus is boss and if we can get the virus going back down people

will come back in if this is a sign people are coming back in that would be fabulous for the economy. >> remember we had the population control effect, the annual population revisions, and turns out that more of all the increase in labor force participation and more than laof the increase in labor force last january was driven by the fact we were -- the census bureau was substantially underestimating the population between the ages of under 64 and substantially overestimating the population age 65 and older those folks on average have much lower participation rates. when you strip out that population revision, which remember bls don't revise their estimates for the preceding years, so they caution against reading too much into the comparability of this time series from year to year pause

of those january revisions when you take into account that population control effect, the labor force actually shrank in january. the employment participation ratio stayed down. >> we're watching the futures here dow futures now down by about 300 points that's exactly where we were before we got this jobs data that was better than anticipated. 678,000 jobs gained. average hourly wages up zero month over month dow futures went all the way back to about 170, but over the last 17 minutes they've adjusted the news and said never mind want to thank our jobs panel today. bye-bye. >> meantime want to get straight down to the new york stock exchange, get jim cramer's first take on these jobs numbers and then i want to ask you about a tweet you sent out before

squawk began your reaction to the numbers and what you think this means, of course, for mr. powell >> i think they take the pressure off powell. i think people come back to work i think there are a lot of people looking for jobs now because unemployment benefits are over or ending a lot of people want to work now. and i think as we go through omicron and people come back to the work force, that does take the pressure off powell and that's going to be something with us for a long time. >> jim, you sent out a tweet i don't know probably 5:00 this morning where you wrote those of us who traded through chernobyl, do you remember the fear and that was an accident speak to that. >> that was april 26th of 1986, and i had a lot of sophisticated

clients so to speak. and there were people just saying, look, you can't own mcdonald's because of radiation. you won't be able to treat milk until late next year maybe you have to sell the soda companies. you have to try to figure out who makes bread, short doughs. the level of fear that existed was basically about where the wind would blow. and it blew swede's way. it was the only focus so you could have like a number like this and no one would care the question was how bad was chernobyl going to be? obviously dwnt have the kind of satellite figure we do now but the propensity to sell anything europe was so strong, and the propensity to believe it

could come here was a little more than fukushima. so it was a terrible time and didn't last long but it was a terrible time. i looked at that employment number and gave that a solid read >> we've got charlie evans we're going to move on this should be interesting the february jobs report showing 678,000 jobs you'll see interest rates go up by a quarter point to talk about all this steve liesman is back with uswith a special guest. >> thanks, joe happy to bring in charlie evans. a guy who i realize i've been probably interviewing for almost

15 years i don't know if i'd admit to that but, carli, maybe you wouldn't either. thanks for joining us. becky asked me for the last segment there what the fed thinks of a number like this and the pleasure having you on and asking you what does the fed or chicago fed think of a number like this, this strong jobs number? >> it does seem like a very strong jobs number, and i think the string of job numbers has been, you know, quite good for some time, and we saw revisions to last year and i think the labor market is in a very solid position for the u.s. economy going forward. and i think workers are benefitting from strong demand and able to enjoy stronger wages, and i expect that's going to continue. obviously there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty and geopolitical concerns of the russian invasion of ukraine. in terms of the fundamentals for the u.s. economy, i think it's good and the inflation situation

is what's got everybody's attention. and today's labor report, you know, it's good news it doesn't really change everything that chair powell was sort of prepositioning the fed for the other day. >> sure. and i want to get to all those bad things in a second, charlie. i want to dwell on what looks like good news a because we have that so little of it. one more minute, which is when i look at the numbers, i saw, again, they're doing well. some home health care workers coming back. had another increase in the labor force. does it feels like we're getting on the other side of the omicron wave and things are kind of returning to normal in that regard, before this other stuff starts to hit the economy. we'll get to that in a second. >> >> well, i think clearly since the omicron wave seems to giving away, cases are down across the country we're in a fortunate one reason or another the way the omicron

hit, you know, it earned itself out quickly enough very tragic, of course, in many cases. but, you know, that's an improvement. you know, i do think that the national numbers are not misleading but there's a lot more detail out there when you talk to people i've been listening to business contacts quite a lot you know, you look at what small businesses are experiencing or just walking around and listening to people you can overhear people, you know, saying, wow, they just can't find workers here, can they? that's why service is down it is wonderful to hear that the health care industry more people are coming back. i think there's a tremendous amount of fatigue. i think there are a lot of business models, especially for small businesses that are challenged in the future they're going to be asked to pay a higher wages and, you know, inflation is going up and it's

the real twhaj is going to equate demand and supply so, you know, wages are going to go up, if rents are going up gas is going up. food costs are going up. there's a lot of businesses where the margins are thin can they really survive that >> yeah. >> they might true to do that by scheduling workers less and playing around with it i think in the current environment, workers are being more choosey and trying to avoid that type of situation of it might not work so well. >> you said the other day that the fed is wrong footed when it comes to policy versus inflation. i wondered how wrong footed is the fed. if you can set policy right now relativive to the inflation where would you put it >> well, i mean, the effective lower bound. we're at zero and inflation pressures and cpi at 7.5% year over year basis. i mean, obviously we need to be moving toward a more neutral

monetary policy. certainly by the end of the year so we're within striking distance of, you know, taking a position that would deal more forcefully with inflation. if that's necessary. i don't think it's necessary but we have to be positioned for that let me remind you, i have said wrong footed i think it's the right term but it happened very quickly january 2021 year over year inflation it was under 2%. around 2%. all of a sudden by april we were saying, wow, the price increases we think are transitory. used car prices up by 10%. in three months things turned around it's not the 1970s story how inflation got out of hand. remember the story there is slow increases in the '60s, fed losing handle on inflation, creeping up. oil price shock takes it up and comes down it keeps creeping up it leaped up i think there's a lot of supply reasons for that

there's a danger of broadening out in many ways and wages are going up we need to get closer to neutral, you know, before too long by the end of the year we need to be close enough so we can feel adequately with whatever inflation pressures we see. i think we'll see more evidence by the end of the year as to how the supply pressures are improving. plus, we have the russian invasion of ukraine, which is impossible to know how it'll will color things over the course of the year. >> talk me through your thoughts on that. it looks like impulse of inflation. in a broad swath of commodities of oil and wheat perhaps corn, as well. this does this complicate your job? >> sure. i mean, commondity price movements. when they fell off the table in 2015 it set the fed on pause for increasing rates until december

of 2015 and ultimately 2016. it does, obviously it doesn't immediately work its way into year over year inflation but in the current environment, we need for more improvement. so it reinforces the tendencies of prices, which are unhelpful at the moment. i was listening to commentary yesterday and kind of texting my staff going, jeez, that crisis leapt up quickly i don't fully understand all the details of that. and, you know, there's a lot of collateral effects with wheat prices, supply, and the trains there and substituting the corn and corn and soybeans and supply chain moving things around, as well agricultural prices are up higher it's good for farmers but in terms of food prices, you know, that's more. and the energy prices mean that fertilizer will be higher, too food prices won't get much relief there. >> last question, charlie. does it mean you need to go further and faster because of

that >> well, i still think that a lot of these supply shocks there's a not permanent nature to them. semiconductors are coming back the current demand is quite strong we'll have a better fix on where things go. and maybe we're closer to where we'll be i don't think seth carpenter's comments were interesting about the '90s those are two cycles where the fed increased the funds rate adjusted for inflation rate. the inflation rate still i think we have to be careful and have to be well positioned by the end of the year to respond as appropriately as necessary. >> i'm going to get yelled at. you are raising it closer to

neutral by the end of the year where will you be by the end of the year >> well, you know, i think our summary of economic projections by and large has a neutral setting in the funds rate in the area of 2.5% if we were to do 25 basis points at each meeting, which may be more than i think is essential if we did it at each meeting, we'll end the year at 1.74 to 2% that's close enough to neutral so we can take quick action, if necessary. >> okay. >> or stick or, you know, back off if that's what the cas esg is responsible investing. who's responsible for building esg into your investments? that does it for us. "squawk on the street" is coming up next. as active investors, to outdeliver with customized strategies, integrating esg best practices into our investment decisions.

as asset managers and fiduciaries, to outserve, with our commitment to better esg outcomes. join the pursuit of outperformance at pgim. the investment management business of prudential.

good friday morning. welcome to quake on t-- "squawk on the street. i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and jim cramer russian forces occupy the largest nuclear plant in ukraine. >>