good morning, everybody, and welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen. andrew is off today. all right. we're watching to see what's happening with u.s. equities. >> how does it happen ? >> that we match? >> yeah. it happens so often. is that orange? >> orangey. close enough. >> great minds. >> we did not plan it. >> i think it's evolution because we've been sitting together for your so long. >> yes. scary. work wife. let's take a look at what's been happening with the equity futures. dow futures up by 25 points, the s&p futures up by 5.

but everybody is waiting to see what happens with nvidia's results. those are going to be out after the bell. the stock is up by more than 160% so far this year. that's about 10% off of its all tooum high. investors are going to be looking for any updates on its blackwell chips, demand for ai overall, there have been such high bars set for the stock and this company and it's jumped over the bar tomb and time again. the question is how much demand is still out there for all of these ai chips that nvidia basically has the entire market share on. we're going to be talking about nvidia with several analyst this morning. i'm going to to tell you, joe, i actually thought because i've been on vacation and because we have been talking about un-nvidia for so long, i thought the report was yesterday. wait a second. it's not till tonight? but i've also seen some people

posit nvidia may be more important what happens today than what jay powell said last week at jackson hole. >> right. $3.2 trillion market cap that five years ago was, i don't know, well under a trillion dollars. it's just been -- >> year to date. >> something -- yep. something to behold. >> look at the five-year chart, up more than 3,000%. >> amazing. >> yep. >> is this you? >> yeah, we're still talking about treasury yields. look at what's been happening, 382, 38 u6, the 2-year yield has come down. crude oil prices which we've been watching pretty closely, this morning, just at 75. that's a decline of 1.4% on the year. >> not much has been happening. but bitcoin always gives us something to watch. i mean, if you calculate it from

where it was midday yesterday, it was at 63 and change. got all the way down to below 59,000 in overnight trading. what do you attribute it to? sparked by a way of leveraged liquidation after ethereum fell, and that cryptocurrency fell as much as 10%. right now you can see down another 2%, but that's way below its best levels. near 4,000. i tomato know what it's correlated to. does this mean the nasdaq is at nose bleed -- or at least ready for some type of similar move because they seem correlated, risk on, risk off, or not. >> go back to nvidia and the number of options that have been placed on either side, missing or beating estimates by a big chunk.

>> who knows wie th-- with eith yum. at this point usually he says good morning, it's going to be a great day, let's get at it. i don't know what any of that means. >> it means he has a positive attitude and i appreciate that. >> if you have bitcoin, you have to have a positive attitude, i think, or some mornings you can be really disappointed some mornings. >> let's talk a little bit about warren buffett selling more stock. unloading $982 million in baunk of america shares according to a filing on august 21, 22, and 23. it's generating 5.4 billion dollars in profit. berkshire still has -- baunk of america is still bank of merge's

largest shareholder. they have 944 million shares. it's the second largest position in the stake. first position, of course, is apple. he sold a lot of that recently too. it has people wondering what this means, this big hoard of cash he's built up. they've had close to a billion dollars in cash. that's had a lot of o people talking about whether he's saving up for a rainy day, whether he thinks something bad is going to happen. there was an interesting article out kind of analyzing it saying, look, it's really not out of the normal range of what's happened. berkshire hathaway has gotten so much better. it was 40% of their assets in cash. it's what you have. the h u of big numbers when you have lots and lots and lots of cash and assets. >> and he's been coming on for so long, and i don't ever

remember a time where he didn't say, look, i don't know where the market's going to be tomorrow or next your or the year after that. i just know eventually the mark's going to hit. so he's always got a positive view on the u.s. economy and how well we'll do. as well as the rest of the world. >> he has a big cash pile. >> there's no doubt in my mind he's trod be optimistic and have the dry powder to do what he wants. it's very cool he's whatever he is. he's still waiting for opportunities at 94. still waiting, you know. whether i'm 95 or 96 i'm going to move in big on something. my favorite, you know, charlie, my favorite quote ever. when he was 99, i'll tell you, man, i'm not nearly as sharp or energetic as i was when i was

96. i thought, please, god, let me say something similar to that. warren had a good -- i forget what he wanted on his teamstone. he had something good. like no one believed this guy could possibly lever that long or something like that. >> the oldest man who ever lived. >> oldest man in history. >> charlie used to say i don't want to know when i die but where i'm going to die so i don't go there. >> that's true. nordstrom, those shares are higher after beating wall street estimates at its most recent quarter. the estimates are starting to help out the bottom line. despite that, it offered weaker than expected guidelines for the full year. the stock's up by about 9%. shares of pvh are lower today. it's a parent of tommy hilfinger

and calvin klein. gave a gloomy outlook for the third quarter. it sees third quarter earnings coming in at $2.50 a share and analysts were looking for more than $3. the company said stronger consumer engagement and better product asourcement is leading to more full price selling and less clearance sales. for your whatever reason, down 8%. a pretty big move. turning to washington, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against former president donald trump with the same charges he initially faced in the election interference case. jack smith launched revised charges to conform to guidance from a recent court decision granting trump presumptive immunity for actions in their office like the original charges in august of 2023. the newest indictment announces

four counts. the former president calling the indictment an effort to resurrect in his words a dead witch hunt and distract the american people from the election. he also called for it to be dismissed immediately. >> do i need -- i've got to look up on poly market to see how much time do we have. is it 70 days? you can always look there. >> what is it? poly market? >> it's a market but also a betting site. it's one of them. one of the big ones, but right at the top. >> it says how many days to the countdown. >> down to the second. if it was us at cnbc, we'd be taking it down to the actual tenth of a second, but i think it's 70 days. is that it? >> i can't see. my contacts are -- i can't read

these things. >> i'm sorry. 6 9 days. time flies. >> when you're having fun. >> 18 hours, 50 minutes, and 14 seconds is what we're looking at. >> we can't get there soon enough. >> it's nothing that jack smith is doing, there's no way it's in the next 69 days. with all the machinations and the supreme court and all that, it definitely looks like it's going to be usualed off. maybe a sentence? i don't know. there could be some things happening. >> the polaris dawn mission scrubbed, this time due to weather. spacex once again delaying the launch of a rocket cares four private astronauts. it was a helium like that forced y yesterday's launch. it's is itdsh /* set --

it's set to see the first civilian spacewalk. it matters for doing it, but i think when you look down. >> no. he said there's way more radiation up there and space debris. >> if you're at 100 feet, you're scared. if you're at a thousand feet, you're more scared. when you're up a thousand miles -- >> those astronauts, how they can maintain it is beyond me. >> we should but be. we're all headed there. >> i'd like to take the slow train. >> like the tombstone, the oldest person. the national football league letting a few more players on the field. at a special league meeting, nfl owners voted in favor of allowing private equity firms to buy up to a 10% stake in the team. the initial approved firms

included airps in addition to the consortium make naumed the avengers which includes several groups. law does is a platform provided by raining back martin. they plan to commit $12 billion of capital to be raised over time. it's a big move. it's a lot of money, and we're going to hear a lot about this deal and what it could mean with the owner robert kraft. he'll be joining us at 8:40 eastern time. >> we talk about the huge complex he was in vofrted with. >> there are a lot of limitations on what the private equity can do. they don't really get a say on any of these issues. >> right.

i want in. i don't need it, but i need it -- i don't think i'm ready to buy a pickleball team. >> i've been shocked at the fans watching this. >> there are pickleball fans, pickleball pros. come on. >> i am amazed. you said it yourself, because of the gambling aspect, people will watch anything. >> have you seen the pillow fight? >> pillow. >> it's mean. look up professional -- >> guys? >> yeah. >> i had this perverted mud wrestling -- >> this is legit and it looks like it hurts. check it out. >> that's what i thought. >> i'm not kidding. >> so did stac.

he's over there laughing. when e come back, it's all about nvidia. the results are out after the became. . it may make some sense. could have an impact othn e markets. we're going to take a look at what the sector means for the tech markets and more. "squawk box" will be right back. 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,

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well, as we mentioned, the markets are eagerly await ig nvidia results due later today. for insights on the importance of these results for the markets and for the tech sector, we want to bring in olive yeo blan chart. he's semiconductor research director at future imgroup. olivier, let's talk about this. you think that results are going to best expectations. why is that? >> hey, good morning. thanks for having me on. by the way, yeah, happy nvidia day. it ee people upon us. we've been waiting for it for a while. today is sort of like the bellwether of bellwether days especially on the tech chip side of it. i think nvidia is going to have a good day. on the one hand we know ai is definitely driving the market and has been for the last few

cycles. you can see the segment definitely picking up momentum. and the situation for nvidia, they're in a very envious position. they have a -- basically the lion's share of the gdp market specifically, which is so important for ai and training. too, there's high demand for their products specifically for their products and their type of products, and supplies constraint. so you have a perfect storm of high revenue, high profitability, and i think think ooher going to have excellent, excellent results that will probably beat expectations. i hear a few go to the magnificent 7. jensen huang has been laying out the argument this is just the beginning. this is kind of the opening push for these things, and there's going to be much, much broader

appeal that comes behind it. do you buy into that market? >> i do. yeah. nvidia got a head start. they were set up for this. they have the right product and roadmap and right people to make it work, to take advantage of it early on. now everybody is playing catch-up. in a way, there's a chip industry that tesla was at the beginning of the ev cycle. >> where is that demand going to be coming from? is it health care companies? sit retail? where should we be watching? >> it's coming from everywhere. so that makes my job a little bit easier in some ways and harder in others. we're starting to see hyperscalers are starting to take the lion's share of the supply, but down the line, the

applications, they're applications for literally everything. health care is going to be a big one, retailers are already getting into. this you're seeing walmart investing in this type of thing. we talk about chips and the chatgpt type of applications that we're familiar with, but we're not necessarily seeing down the line what this looks like as it skies out. every industry you can i think of is massive. so i think we're looking at some very healthy growth in the next many, many cycles, so nvidia and its competitors even are only just getting started with this, yeah. >> if you're long-term bold you have to look a what's happening first. demand dies down or a competitor rises up and is able to take

away some of the market share. which one is more likely to happen? >> well, i don't think demand's going to die down any time soon, so it's not going to be that. as far as the competition, you know, amd is making really good progress, coming up with competitive products, and i think that diversification and silicon diversity in the space is definitely going to be a conversation we have a lot in the next few years. right now, looking at other competitors' roadmaps, inl nvidia has a massive advantage over everybody else. one it has momentum that everyone has to catch up to. we have a software moat in the industry, which is the other piece of this. it's not just hardware. it's also software. it's so much further ahead than everybody else that it's going to take, you know, seven, eight cycles before we start to see real threats from competitive

players. and i guess, finally, if you are so bullish on all of this, stock's been doing very well. it's still about 10% from its all-time high. is that a big buying opportunity in your eyes? >> looking at their roadmap, looking at their success so far, their ability to execute, their momentum, their kbhemg. the scaling back of the black well release, which i don't think matters, yeah, they're on a solid growth trajectory and the profitability angle is also looking remarkably strong. >> thanks, olivier. >> thank you. coming up, is paying a thousand dollars or more a night for a hotel room becoming the norm for wealthy travelers? probably not at red roof, but it can run up there. that's next.

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more hotels are charges a thousand dollars or more a knights. this is for average. so i think -- average daily rate, and i don't think -- and it's the standard room, the bottom rung. this is dated from the global analytics group. the number of hotel rooms with an average rate of $1,000 the first half of this year was 80. it doesn't seem like that many

versus 22 back in 2019. and in europe, the number tripled to 183. the increases far outpaced the opening of new hotels. costar, which doesn't reveal the hotels in this category say the totals are probably even higher because smaller ho luxury hotels and chains do not share data with companies. when you go to washington, do you know how many other bells and whistles, this kind of tax, that kind of tax. >> it very quickly ratchets up. >> another quickly $100. valet can be as much as 80 dollar. >> do you think part of that is included? >> none of that is included. the gummi bears. >> the mini bar? >> peanut m&m knock-offs. i told you what you should do. >> eat three of them and put it back? don't do that. that's so gross. then you rip open the seal -- >> i would never do that.

>> you're explaining to other people they could. that means anyone can touch it. >> they don't check it that close. you can actually go -- you can -- almost like a buffet. gummi bears. >> two of these, two of those. i am never touching any of those again because i know you don't wash your hands. >> i do wash my hands. i make it look good. i'm neat. i'm neat. my hands aren't dirty and i shower like six times a day. don't we all? >> no. when we come back, the federal trade commission's efforts to block the kroger/albertson merger, themes we're seeing play out on the campaign trail. we've got that story when "squawk box" returns. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business.

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the federal trade commission continues its quest to block the merger of grocery industry players krogers and albertsons.

eamon javers has more on the trial that started this week, something you probably wouldn't have seen as recently as a couple of years ago,ago,ing /-- eamon. it's a shift in regulatory enforcement we've seen under the biden administration. traditional efforts are worried about price consumers will pay. it's also impacting workers inside the company wants to merge and the downstream suppliers for the two companies. the attorneys for the two giants argue that they don't understand. they talk about pricing strategy

and andy grauf took the stand in a case that touches big schemes including food pricing regulation, government regulation, and independence. on the campaign trail kamala harris has blamed price gouging for the high grocery prices and says she'll take action to price things lower. and jd vance says it's the biden/harris campaign that's caused the prices to rise. back over to you. we are going to have a conversation about this later in the show. i also thought this was interesting. just if a -- if you want to read how things work, eamon, it's as simple as that. there's go ankh to be bumper crops. watch the food prices. farmers and -- everybody would love it not to happen.

i don't know how many times we have to learn these things, but we learn it over and over and over again. oil is a perfect example. >> the question is if the government wants to lower prices, what will they do other than jawboning and pushing people around? the answer is do things that stimulate supply. break up supply chain logistics problems, build more infrastructure, make it easier for companies to produce. >> how about the demand side, eamon. it's the things that they need not to do, and that's joyce the demand after a pandemic. i can give you a long list. this is -- one of the individuals we have on today, we're even going to talk about some of these, you know, accomplishments that are -- that are really sort of trumpeted by

the biden administration by giving intel a bunch of money at the same time they're laying off people and trades the 10-years. that's the last company the government should have picked as a winner this giveaway. >> like the chinese government state championship strategy. this company is our state champion and we're going to -- >> the bigger industries, kroger and albertsons are facing so many bigger competitors like walmart, costco, and others. i can understand being concerned about jobs, but you have to be concerned if the kpo companies don't become more competitive. >> that was the european style of antitrust. they would actually -- i'm not going to say anything about whether they innovate in europe and why -- >> you're saying it. >> we're the envy of the world,

but over there if you're going the buy another company and somebody, oh, my god, there may be some operations that are rationalized, which is a nice way of saying some people could lose their jobs, they might not allow you to do a merger because you've got to keep that entire buggy whip plan. you have 2 money 00 people making buggy wlips. i'm sorry. there's cars now, but we're not going let those buggy whip employees get laid off. >> thequestion is whether a trump administration could -- >> they've got tariff problems. that's well known. both sides are way too involved. >> i think they might have a different approach. i think they my might have a different approach than in 2017. >> they're giving the government way too much to do. i'm here from the government and i'm here to help you. thank you. scariest words known to man. t i like seeing eamon earlier

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lowe's is the latest to roll back it dei efforts. i've been on the record since day one. we all want things that -- we all want to get to the same place. it's just how we want to get there. i don't want larry fink forcing behavior by a company or whomever. that's where i have a problem with it. but we all want to get to the same place in terms of inclusion and, you know, representation in the c-suite and everything else. we want to get there, but my question, it says lowe's is one of the companies that has conservative customer base?

is that true -- is anybody at that does home improvement a conservative? i understand john deere, tractor supply. but i didn't think about lowe's immediately. >> i don't know. i think lowe's has a better sense of who their customers are than i do. it started with conservatives and brands that are easy to understood understand. tractor supply, harley-davidson, jack daniel's. lowe's perhaps is a step closer to a neutral company base, but certainly jeans and a flannel crowd there too. i think you'll start to see this move toward more politically neutral companies, which is to say that most of these companies really didn't want to be doing this stuff in the first place, and there's a lot of air cover now. >> why anyone would want. to do it in the first place is beyond me. 've if it's not 50-50 one side versus the other, weighing in on these really divisive social

issues that one side pointing at the other, the other pointing back at the other, arguing back and forth, why get anywhere near that if you're a company that wants to sell sneakers like michael jordan said. if you want to sell sneakers to the republicans, too, why alienate your customer base? >> they're getting out of it like they got into. you have to going ba and remember what the vote was like in 2019 and 2021. it was a pretty unique moment in time where you had these broad cultural movement, me too, black lives matter, collided with the pandemic, which i think was sort of peak touchy-feely for lot of ceos for a lot of legitimate and laudable reasons. there was this big vacuum of leadership, and for a lot of of people it was experienced as a workplace phenomenon. that's where it started for a lot of people. so folks were looking to their

ceos, who i think sort of are often looking for a spotlight to step into and did so. and then we look at the world -- the economic backdrop, which was incredibly benign. they had a lot of time to think big thoughts. >> and not run their company. the only -- that's an unbelievable number from gallop that you point out. only 38% of americans. one kpaern is to speak out on social issues. i guess that seems low, but then, again, if you really think about itting it's kind of high. we don't have a whole lot of time yet. one of things you want to talk about is vice president's harris's policies are revealing to be more and more progressive. like what? >> well, i mean, certainly some of the price controls is a tricky word, but you certainly heard more progressive economic language at the convention and post-convention, price controls, represent kroelg, corporate

consolidation. there's actobviously a big test that going on. your previous guest was talking about that. with the grocery merger and the timing for those companies and ta lawsuit could not be worse politically. you know, it's interesting because i think the republican playbook is to pants the harris campaign incredibly liberal. she's not. she's more centrist. but she's stepped into some cross hairs that have been pointed to the left of her, and that will be interesting to watch. >> i can give you ten hugely progressive things that she suddenly is no longer for, so i don't ever remember her being historically centrist. liz hoffman, thank you. good to have you on. coming up, record air travel is expected this labor day weekend, and then the industry is laying out some real challenges. phil lebeau will lay it out for us next. coming up, you join cnbc and boardrooms game-playing conference. you can join it on september

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millions of americans will be getting out of town this labor day weekend. then the real challenge for the industry begins. phil lebeau joins us right now. he's got more on that. i guess it gets tougher once

everybody goes back to school and back to work. >> you'll definitely seeing fewer people fly historically in september and october and it picks up once you hit the holidays mid-november. the real issue is going to be capacity. that was the issue this summer even though we had then it pick november. the big issue is capacity. we had a record number of people flying. this weekend, this is the big shebang to cap a summer where we have seen numbers that few would have expected even a couple of years ago. thursday we're going to see more than 52,000 flights according to the faa. the passenger level this weekend will be up about 8.5% compared to last year, with friday being expected to be the busiest day at 2.86 million. by the way, the ten busiest days ever in terms of passenger levels in this country, ever, have happened since may. gives you an indication of how many people have been flying this summer as you take a look at the daily passenger levels, how many people have been

screened by the tsa and these are the annual numbers. we were at a record last year at 3.35 million daily. you know where we're at right now, 3.5 million this summer we have been 3.7 million. so -- excuse me, 2.7 million. my mistake there. 2.7 million. what you're looking at is this movement of people who have said we want to travel, we want to go further. why haven't the airlines been able to take advantage of this? well, primarily because they got weak revenue. too many economy seats. they were prepared for how many people wanted to fly, they just weren't prepared for the pricing to fall off the way that it has. in fact, if you look at airfares, they are down close to near, you know, multiyear lows in the 240 to 250 range for an average domestic round trip ticket. this is really weighed on southwest, spirit, frontier, all of them are struggling and are pivoting to adding more premium seats. that's a big part of what's

happening at southwest. spirit and frontier also making that switch as well. and quickly take a look at shares of alaska, we continue to wait for word from the dot in terms of when it will give its blessing to the merger between alaska and hawaiian airlines. the doj already said it is not going to fight this merger in court. so it is just a matter of when the dot says, yep, you guys are good to go. back to you. >> i guess the big question, though, is how quickly these airlines can add these premium seats and what that means, just how long it will take before prices come up is the thinking. three months, six months, a year? >> longer than that, becky. i think you're looking at definitely going into 2025. this is going to be a rough third quarter for the airlines. yes, you'll start to see some premium seats come back, but the bigger issue is bringing off the capacity. it is not going to grow as quickly. i think it is groing to grow 2.% in the third quarter.

by airline industry standards, that's a huge jump in capacity for a one quarter, year over year. i think that's a big part of it. you got to bring down the capacity growth and you have to add fewer or have to add more premium seats and take out a lot of the economy seats that are just -- they're flooding the market right now. >> phil, thank you. >> you bet. when we come back, this morning's stocks to watch. but, first, former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb will tell us why many research facilities may be putting the world at risk for another deadly outbreak. d at he thinks needs to be done right now. "squawk box" will be right back.

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all right, welcome back, everybody. with past viral outbreaks like sars and covid-19, lab safety is under scrutiny. our next guest says many research facilities aren't doing enough to address the risks leaving the world vulnerable to another deadly outbreak. joining us right now is dr. scott gottlieb, former fda x commissioner, a cnbc contributor and serves on the boards of pfizer and illumina. good to see you. it has been a while since we have gotten to talk. lab safety, we know that this is a huge issue. you would think that what happened in covid would bring much more scrutiny to this. but here we are in 2024, where do those lab safety standards exist at this point? >> right. four years later we're really in no different of a position when it comes to the kinds of regulations that are imposed on high risk research and what is required to be done in higher

complexity labs, labs with more precautions. regardless of where you stand on the issue of whether or not covid came out of a lab or didn't, i think there is certainly enough evidence at this point that points in that direction. and should make us more than suspicious. and we should have taken actions to try to tighten high risk research. we really haven't done that. the w.h.o. had two bites of this apple. they promulgated new regulations under the international health regulations that governs how countries report epidemics and pandemic strains. and that didn't include anything to really get better oversight over high risk research. and then they separately crafted a pandemic treaty between nations and that dealt mostly with equity. equitable distribution of vaccines and other resources between nations. there is another opportunity to try to build in greater measures, greater agreements around what countries would do to get better control over high risk research. and it wasn't incorporated. we took some measures here unilaterally in the united states, going to be some regulations that go into effect in may of 2025 that governs

so-called gain of function research, though it is defined differently. and it requires federally funded research that could give new features to deadly pathogens to undergo greater scrutiny. if it is done at all. but that's not -- that hasn't been adopted internationally and we need to do that. >> there are -- there is such a long laundry list of items that we're upset with china over at this point. whether that be the way they treat american companies, stealing their intellectual property, worries about taiwan, questions about support of russia in their ukrainian policies and their attacks on ukraine. where does this fall on the laundry list? granted a world, you know, virus of some explosion taking off would be huge, but, i guess when you look at risks of it happening versus not, where does this land and where should it land? >> well, i think it certainly

should land higher and we should be doing more to put pressure on the w.h.o. to try to impose international agreements that require china to be doing more here. we really haven't done that. w.h.o. is a paper tiger more or less. they weren't willing to stand up to china. we haven't done much to really confront them on that. what i propose in "the washington post" yesterday, in an op-ed is we just act unilaterally, act with like minded nations, maybe with the g-7 and implement some kind of international accord, probably like we're doing in the united states to get better governance over high risk research, so-called gain of function research. maybe we internationalize that with other nations. and we start there. and then try to get more nations to join that path. i think one thing we could do is to stipulate that institutions that aren't part of those agreements and perhaps researchers who don't work for institutions that are a part of those agreements can get federal funding, can't get funding from the nations who join those agreements, certainly the united

states, and maybe we start to prevent them from being able to display research, present research at international conferences and publish in international western journals. i think we need to put in place some unilateral actions here that start to require rogue nations, nations that don't want to be compliant, but maybe with a nudge would be to get in accord with some kind of international harmonization around best practices. >> scott, ever since, you know, watson and crick and we see the genome, this has been front and center for a lot of bioethicists, and it is just -- it is really well known that this is a very, very dangerous element that we're facing and it could be a rogue lab. it doesn't have to be state sponsored. it could be in china and it could be state sponsored. it could be accidental that they get -- that a pathogen gets released. you could be working on weaponizing some type of

pathogen, which i wouldn't put it past -- but it seems like murphy's law to me. it is such a powerful technology. and it is so scary and dangerous, it is almost like it is inevitable. i can almost -- i can almost just say that if you're a pessimist, it is just a matter of time before -- and it did happen already with covid, and it could happen again with something much worse. >> well, look, i think that there is going to be a step for national security agencies to get better surveillance for people doing nefarious things intentionally. at the very least what we could be doing is getting in place better controls to make sure that people who are well intentioned, labs that are well intentioned, nations that are well intentioned and want to do the right thing aren't the source of the next pandemic strain. and, you know that would go a long way toward protecting us to the extent there are nefarious individuals, labs, regimes, that are experimenting with these things and there certainly are, we know that's in the public domain. that's going to be harder to get control over. and to your point, the tools for doing this have gotten a lot

simpler. >> scott, can we talk about a couple of other concerning kind of scary things in the news. one would be monkeypox and its return. the other would be west nile virus. how high are your concerns on those two issues? >> well, look, i think with respect to mosquito borne illnesses, generally we have seen the prevalence of these increase, probably related to climate changes. west nile is -- this is the time of year to get it. glad to hear that dr. fauci has recovered from the case. it is unusual to get as sick as he did from that virus. most people will recover spontaneously, about 20% will develop more systemic symptoms and become more seriously ill. what we're seeing in massachusetts is a different virus. this eastern equine encephalitis, this is very dangerous. about 30% to 50% of people, this was a virus that was looked at

by countries including the united states as a potential bioterrorism agent. so we have long known this is a very feared virus. it is spread through horses, largely. that's why it is named what it is. and the best approach to dealing with it is so vaccinate the horses so they can't become vectors. the mosquitos bite the horses, get it, and go on to bite humans. there is a way to control this locally and they need to step up those measures in parts of the country where this is spreading, massachusetts has some cases right now. >> dr. gottlieb, thank you. always appreciate talking to you. >> thanks a lot. it is 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm joe kernen with becky quick. andrew is off today. among some of the top stories, wall street looks like it is going to open slightly higher. if things stay where they are. investors await one of the biggest events of the week. that is the quarterly results from nvidia. this afternoon, we're going to have a preview of the numbers in just a bit.

spacex once again delaying the launch of a rocket carrying four private astronauts. a polaris dawn mission being scrubbed this time due to weather after a helium leak forced the cancellation of tuesday's launch attempt. and lyft is testing a new rider verification program, similar to what uber did earlier this year. it confirms to drivers the person getting into their vehicle is who they say they are. and that feature will initially launch in nine cities. lyft will confirm a rider's legal name using a third party database or you can also use a government i.d. >> does it i.d. the driver too that you're getting into the right driver? >> we need to hurry up on is that iris scanning orb from sam altman and a.i. so we're all on the database. >> i'm not into that. that's crazy. i did watch something this morning about a guy who was a fake uber driver driving around, people just jump in the car without confirming that it is the right guy, he was doing this

just to kind of promote awareness of things and, yeah, i would be concerned for the drivers and for the people getting in. pay attention. make sure you're in the right car. let's check on the futures this morning. right now, dow futures up by 11 points. s&p futures up just nominally and same story with the nasdaq. a little bit of hesitation here. actual lily the nasdaq just tur flat. we're waiting to see what happens with nvidia. the whole market is. over to contessa brew we are a l brewer with a look at the morning market movers. >> foot locker out with earnings that beat wall street expectations on both top and bottom lines. a loss of five cents per share. the street was expecting a loss of seven cents. that was better. revenue higher. shares down over 5% for the first time in a year, shares are down now 9% now in that early morning trade. but for the first time in a year and a half, foot locker has posted comparable sales growth

and expanding gross margins, the sneaker company worked to make its operations more efficient and improve customer experiences in the stores and online and reduced some overseas operations. so, we'll keep our eye on foot locker shares throughout the day. nordstrom shares are soaring in the premarket, up 4%. we have seen them as high as 8% this morning. in spite of cautious guidance about the rest of the year, the company's second quarter earnings beat expectations on revenue in line with expectations. cost cutting paying off. on the call, the ceo called attention to those efficiencies and says momentum is going to continue in improving profitability in the gross margins as well and the company posted notablestrength in its off price stores. nordstrom rack saw sales up 8.8% last year in that off price chain. pvh also beat expectations for earnings and gross margin expansion.

it credited more full price selling and less end of season clearance sales. it says it has new offerings. but its shares are moving in the opposite direction this morning, down 8%, in part because it saw disappointing results in china and in australia. it says it is facing a challenging consumer environment in the asia pacific region. >> contessa, thank you. we'll see you in a little bit. coming up, we're going to talk markets, the fed and more with ironside's barry knapp. and then from the israel-hamas war to what is going on in china, we're going to talk geopolitics with richard haass. we're coming right back.

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. barry knapp is managing partner and director of research at ironsides macro economics. what are you thinking about the markets right now? what do you think about the economy? what do you think about tech spending? >> well, i'm pretty negative at least for that next couple of months for the market. fairly negative for the economy. and reasonably positive for tech spending. so, i think that's probably the only decent part of the economy -- or, yeah, really the only decent part of the economy right now as far as, you know, the whole market setup to me, the fundamental backdrop, the earnings story looks fairly weak right now. we did have a strong earnings quarter in the second quarter, but we were comping against the low point for the three-quarter earnings recession we had, which

was the fourth quarter '22 and first half of '23. earnings are only expected to be up 5% or so in the third quarter. ex-tech and communication services only about 2. and when i look at revisions for each of the sectors, net revisions, the number of analysts increasing estimates less those decreasing estimates, they're going down fairly sharply including for tech and in particular for consumer discretionary, which tells you, you're talking with contessa about foot locker earlier and target, walmart all had what looked like decent results. but the estimates aren't going up. they're actually going down for the most part. so that fundamental backdrop really concerns me. but the thing that concerns me the most is the labor market. i was kind of surprised how many people just brushed off that big downward revision to, you know, the initial benchmark revision to the year ending march.

i was expecting that. we were thinking it would be negative a million. they guesstimate every month, the last three times that happened in '90, 2001 and 2007, we were either in recession or on the verge of recession. when you -- the -- my basic premise here all along has been the way the fed conducted the tightening passive qt and aggressive rate hikes meant they had to rate hikes further than they would have had to do otherwise if they had been more aggressive selling off their bond purchases. that caused the steep yield curve inversion that put all the burden of weaker demand on small businesses. they finance at frerottie float money from small banks and the small business sector is struggling. you see it in the adp numbers

where small business is growing .1%, where as large business employment is growing much more rapidly, like 3%. so i think that underpinnings of the u.s. economy are very weak. it wouldn't shock me if we were in recession by election day. they have to get started with -- >> that's what i was going to say, aren't they riding to the rescue now? or you just don't think what they're going to do is going to be enough? >> well, it is going to take time. if we're talking about the small business sector, they really need to cut rates aggressively. i recall having a conversation with a woman that runs a ski wear company up the street from me, purely anecdotal, she asked me at the beginning of the year how much would the fit cut r rates. i said probably a percent and her response was big whoop, that's not going to help me that much, to carry her inventory and all. she need to get that policy rate down to 4 very quickly, disinvert the curve, help the small banking sector, help the

small business sector. and, you know, it is not clear they're prepared to do that. now, yesterday's conference board consumer confidence, the labor component of that implies that the unemployment rate is going up again this month. probably to 4.3. that will probably be enough to get them to kick off with a 50. so that's a good start and maybe we can narrowly avoid a recession, but, you know, to me, that labor part of the economy just looks really weak here. and i'm kind of surprised. the fed has woken up to it, but not all fed members. >> barry, let me just run real quickly. we're out of time. but yesterday we were speaking with roger ferguson, former vice chair of the fed, he thinks the market may be over anticipating what the fed might do. he's looking more at 25 basis point cuts. and kind of taking a look around to see how those work, before the fed does anything. if that's the policy, then what?

>> then i think the economy has greater probability of going into a recession. i think what they should do would be to go 50 and use the summary of economic projections, the forecast to say we're probably only going to 4. that way they can temper what roger's concerned about is the market getting ahead of them and thinking they're going to have to cut all the way to 2.5 or something. but they really do need to start aggressively to head off the problems in the small business sector. >> barry, thanks a lot. >> all right. up next, we're going to talk china and geopolitical concerns with richard haass, council of foreign relations, president emeritus. later nvidia set to report after the bell. we're going to discuss the a.i. boom and some of the key numbers to watch and the metrics. as we head to break, here is today's aflac trivia question. in the game monopoly, which optyasheigst rent

revenue? boardwalk. >> boardwalk, of course. >> the answer when "squawk box" returns. i had aflac. (aflac duck) hmmm the cash i got from aflac helped pay for medical expenses, groceries, rent. it really helped close that gap. (whisper) go, go, go! (group) yay! go aflac! go duck! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. find an agent. get a quote at aflac.com. wish we had aflac on our team. you can! (♪♪)

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aflac trivia question. in the game of monopoly, which property has the highest rent revenue? the answer, of course, it's boardwalk. and, by the way, if you didn't know the answer, it is because you're watching the show without having the volume turned down. if you listened to us, we'll give you all kinds of clues, good things, interesting things you need to know. >> won't buy utilities or railroads? >> no way. that's a waste of time. you don't get enough money. you can't crush people with utility or railroad. unless, you know, you wear them all the way down. my strategy is by all the cheapest properties, as many as you can in a row and put hotels, whatever you can put on them very quickly. even if you buy mediterranean and baltbaltic, you get propert on those, you can crush people when they come around the corner. and if you get a few more cheap properties, you can very quickly put hotels on them and it jacks the rent way up. >> you know you're playing with

monopoly money. >> doesn't matter. >> that's where you're at. when you're in the hot sauna, you say it's like a sauna in here. jake sullivan is in beijing for policy talks on fentanyl, taiwan and other u.s.-china geopolitical flashpoints. this is the fifth meeting with senior chinese officials in less than 18 months. for a closer look, let's bring in richard haass, council on foreign relations president emeritus and senior counselor with center view partners. yesterday -- i like the look, i like the look. you gained like 40 iq points. >> i'm desperate, joe. >> exactly. low bar. richard, yesterday we had -- just as an aside, we had someone on who said that because of a declining birth rate, some day china could go the way of japan in the '80s and what happened

and for me, that was, like, wow, that would take a huge weight off a lot of our collective minds and shoulders if we didn't think we were some day just heading toward some type of collision course with china. is that possible? is that a reason for hope? >> it is possible. but it is not -- it may not be a reason for hope. the demographic projections basically is right, joe, china is 1.3, 1.4 billion, projections are by the end of the century it could be 800 million. so massive decline overall in numbers. also china is getting older. the ratio of people who are working age to those who are too young or too old is going in the wrong direction for china. this is the result of everything from the one china policy to the chinese people just not trusting the government and the economy and wanting to have big families, not having enough good housing. you name it. but there is a big but here.

if chinese leadership ever comes to conclude that time is running out, it is not on their side, i worry about the midterm. what might they do in five, ten, 20 years particularly with something with about taiwan, where they feel they got a window that is closing and they got -- general decline doesn't necessarily mean a more restrained country. >> right. and i don't -- neither one of us, we may not be around in 40 or 50 years, richard, so we probably don't -- so let's talk -- let's talk two or three. anything -- would it surprise you if things came to a head in two years? >> that would surprise me. i do worry a little bit about the 75-day period year between the election and inauguration day, if we have massive instability under various scenarios, i wonder or worry who in the world might try to take advantage of it.

but i don't think china is quite ready to bring the taiwan issue to a head. couple of reasons, joe. they see that they're seriously outnumbered in the nuclear realm and want to be able to offset us. china right now has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world, bar none. but they probably need something on the order of another decade to get in the same nuclear zip code as the united states and russia. they're still building up a lot of their forces. they had a lot of senior level changes in their military. they saw what happened to russia, how it performed militarily quite poorly in ukraine, they saw the sanctions. so my guess is that chinese are very -- look, their appetite for taiwan, their dreams about taiwan are still there. but i don't see them on the brink. in five years, i might give you a very different answer. >> so many flash points. not sure what to think of the middle east at this point. sometimes you worry that when you see restraint from hezbollah

or iran, it is self-serving. so they got something bigger planned long-term, right. they don't want netanyahu taking out their nuclear facilities. can we talk about ukraine, did you see rfk jr. talking about ukraine? if almost a -- if someone didn't poke the bear on nato expansion, that this would have never happened. is that notion getting wider play in some circles? mainly republican? >> it is getting some wider circulation. i don't find it compelling to say the least. listen to what putin has said and written about eight months before he went into ukraine this time around in 2022. he published this long quote, unquote column or op-ed where he talked about ukraine being an integral part of russia. my hunch is he had the ambitions and also calculated it wouldn't

be that hard. the united states got out of afghanistan, he thought we didn't have the stomach, he thought europe was basically weak, ukraine he saw as weak and i think he had an expanded view of the capabilities of his own military. putin calculated wrong. it wasn't a nonsensical calculation. there was nothing new at all on the agenda whatsoever about nato with ukraine. i don't buy that at all. >> also interesting that he said that lloyd austin, defense secretary, actually his -- he's put into words that part of the strategy is to grade the russian army through -- and that wasn't sold to the american public and it is not something that we should be doing. it is some weird undercurrents, cross currents. i don't know what happens if trump becomes president again. what do you think could happen?

could he immediately say, all right, this is the deal i want, you're going to keep this, this, and zelenskyy you got to do this, this and this. is that a possibility? >> it is. secretary austin's comments were unscripted and unfortunate. let's put that down. in terms of trump, look, he's a hard guy to make predictions about, as you know. he can basically go to ukraine and say, unless you accept this outcome, no more arms from the united states. the question is whether trump puts any pressure on russia. and that, to me, is an interesting possibility. what demands would he make of vladimir putin? if he wants to get -- you're not going to get peace. that's into thnot in the cards. could you get an interim peace or cease-fire? that's not out of the question. ukraine has to feel they don't have a blank check, possibly. >> we got to end it. did the emeritus people come and say, hey, look, you're emeritus now? is that part of it?

>> it is part of -- it was part of the contract, joe. i think i'm supposed to look distinguished, even if i can't quite sound distinguished. >> were you, like, oh, my god, it's great. or did you know? >> i knew from last year. it is not even -- it's wisen. that's the adjective i would use. thank you. >> the read on the mortgage market and where rates are headed and why anthony pompliano is saying gold hitting new highs and should be celebrated by the bitcoin community. "squawk box" will be right back. and establishes a charitable trust to keep the craft alive for generations to come. from preserving a cultural tradition to leaving a legacy, a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your passions, and the way you enrich your community.

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weekly mortgage applications are just out. diana olick has been checking them out. she joins us now with more. hi, diana. >> hey, becky. mortgage rates fell last week for the fourth straight week, but neither current homeowners or home buyers seem particularly impressed. total mortgage application volume rose .5% last week

compared with the previous week, that according to the mortgage bankers association seasonally adjusted index. the average rate on the 30 year fixed for conforming loans fell to 6.44% from 6.5% for loans with 20% down. that's the lowest rate since april 2023. rates have come down more than 80 basis points from a year ago and despite the drop, demand to refinance essentially flat, down .1% from the previous week. it was, however, 85% higher than the same a week ago. the trouble is the vast majority of borrowers have mortgages with rates well below 6%. doing a refi is really only worth the expense if you can shave off at least 75 basis points from your current rate. now, applications for a mortgage to buy a home rose 1% for the week and were 9% lower than the same week a year ago. home prices still red hot, we saw that new record on the case-shiller price index yesterday. more supply is available, but it is mostly old supply that has been sitting, new listings are

much lower than they are usually this time of year. now mortgage rates have been flat to start this week. no significant economic data to influence them. the next big move could come with the monthly employment report at the end of next week. back to you. >> diana, thank you. coming up, the crypto markets and gold and then will the harris/walz ticket give clarity on their economic plan tomorrow night in the first -- in their first tv interview since being nominated? that's the first anything, really. we'll speak to a harris campaign adviser. "squawk box" coming right back.

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check out bitcoin prices this morning. they're falling sharply, dipping below the 59,000 level in overnight trading. the sell-off was said to be sparked by a wave of leverage driven liquidation after a drop in ethereum. joining us to discuss the crypto market is anthony pompliano, we could go back in time with

almost identical price movements to identical levels and we had you on in the last three months talking about it. we have seen a break under 59 a couple of times only to go back above 64, 65. what do we make of it? >> i think it is sideways summer. people kind of saw this run-up earlier this year. a lot of capital flew into that, some retail and some consti institutional. and when summer hit, people went away. i think if you look at the historical bull run cycles, end of q3 to q4 is when things start to pick up and you'll start to see the asset price rise from there. >> because some people no matter what hold bitcoin, does it not take a lot of selling to have pretty big moves in the price? is it, like, on thin volume, would you say? >> you have an illiquid asset. a lot of times,ric you look at,

70% of the assets being held by people who are long-term oriented. it is different than other financial assets. also leverage has increased in the use in the market. whenever you see an illiquid asset, you get a good amount of leverage in there, it can move in both directions with more volatility. you compare bitcoin to maybe something like gold, they're both sound money principles, but bin coin is one year volatility is .35. gold is .09. that volatility is part of what draws people, that they want the upside of something like bitcoin but still want the sound money. >> they still want to trade it. what will bitcoin's reaction be if the economy gets hit hard as barry knapp was just saying he thinks will happen. what will bitcoin's reaction be if there is a soft landing? >> so i think that the more people talk about a potential recession, the less likely it is we're going to have a recession. people are eyes wide open, paying attention to that.

the other thing is, a lot of us criticize the fed and rightfully so for many things. one thing they got right, they reloaded the ammunition. we got rates over 5%. sawed off $2 trillion or so off their balance sheet. if we get to a market slowdown or downturn, the fed seemsto be more trigger happy, more sensitive. saw this with the two emergency rate cuts in 2020. i think they have that ammunition to fight that market downturn. >> what does it mean for bitcoin? i can't figure out what the correlations are necessarily. doesn't always do what i expect it to do. >> i think if cheap capital floats into the market, people will go and push out on the risk curve. nice thing about wall street is bitcoin is considered one of the riskier assets in their portfolio. assets will flow there. also i think if you look at the crypto industry, they look at this as an asset they buy and hold. they do not sell this asset. it will repmain illiquid. when interest rates have gone down or cheap capital is floated into the market in the past, bitcoin has done very, very well. >> what happened with ethereum? >> i think that with ethereum

people are trying to figure out what is it and should i have it in my portfolio or not? if you look at the etf launch, had a big first week or so. but you don't hear it talked about as much as you hear people talking about bitcoin. so, some people think it is computers, ultrasound money, name your other narrative. but i think that the lack of a clean story means that interest is waning to some degree. if you go back and look at the financial performance, it has been at $2400 give or take for quite a while now. while bitcoin, solana and others are up, ethereum is essentially flat which pulls away from capital flowing into at sets. >> when the nasdaq sold off and the vix went up, you see people sell things that they have to pay large calls and bitcoin got hit very hard now. the nasdaq hasn't sold off and it is getting hit again. whenever someone needs liquidity for whatever reason, they're going to go to the store, to the

bank of bitcoin that they have. doesn't seem to be correlated to anything. it is correlated to risk and it goes down when there is a derisking. and then it might go down if, i guess it could go down if gold went down or if it looks like, for example, if the fed isn't going to cut, it seems to go down and when it is going to cut -- it can go down for any reason. doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. >> yeah, i think for years the promise of bitcoin has been that it is a noncorrelated asymmetric asset and very attractive to -- >> is that true? >> it is less correlated than stocks or other types of assets. one of the things that has confused people is during moments of crisis, covid or other moments, correlations spike toward one. you see these sell-offs and people say, maybe the noncorrelation days are over. but i think that part of why we're sitting here talking about why is it doing what it is doing, that's part of the

noncorrelation. bitcoin will benefit from interest rate cuts and there are reasons people are buying ithey assets. gold has been lower correlation than other assets. i think bitcoin is doing that as well. the difference is bitcoin is gold with wings and so it will go up a lot. more than gold. when they both move forward. and it will go down a lot more when they drop in price as well. >> okay. thanks. have you ever tweeted in the morning, god i feel like crap, it is a crappy day and i'm not going to get at it at all today? >> never. >> never said that? what do you tweet every morning? you tweet, it is going to be a great day. >> let's get after it relentlessly. >> let's get after it relentlessly. you never say, god, i drank too much last night, i don't feel like getting out of bed right now, couple other things are happening that i'm not happy with. i'm not going to do diddley today. >> the best way to avoid a

hangover is i don't drink. >> what should i do if i see -- if it is going to be really bad if you come out and -- >> if i say something negative in the morning, call me, something's probably wrong. >> i love your relentless optimism. that is great. positive mental attitude. >> we live in the greatest country in the world. we got a lot of opportunity at our feet and if we have an optimistic attitude, people have the courage to go and make the world better for our children. >> i need to call you every morning. >> plenty to worry about. thanks, anthony. coming up, former national economic council deputy director bharat ramamurti will join us. and later, bob kraft joins us to discuss the nfl's new rules on private equity ownership and much more. we're coming right back. tim,. using responsible ai doesn't make you a rock star. it kinda does. you are not rock stars. (clears throat) okay. most of you are not rock stars.

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welcome back, everybody. vice president kamala harris and minnesota governor tim walz will be sitting down for an interview on cnn tomorrow night.

investors are hoping to learn more about their economic plan and joining us right now to talk more about that is bha bharat ramamurti, an informal economic adviser to the harris for president campaign. and, thank you for being here. i'm very glad to have you here today because there is an article on the front page of "the wall street journal" that lays out what they say is harris' tax policy. her plan that she would like to put in place and it is not very often that we get someone who kind of understands the ins and outs, who can talk us through these things. i realize that in order for some of these things to happen, it would have to mean that kamala harris not only won the white house, but you sweep in both houses of congress. but let's talk through the wish list, just so investors can really get their heads around some of these things. under her plans, taxes on high income household will go up. we have known that's the plan.

top marginal rates would reach the highest point since 1986. that's 44.6% on all income versus right now, you got 23.8% on capital gains and just over 39% on wages. why do we talk about why you think that has to happen and what the ramifications might be. >> sure. well, a couple of points from that article that i think are worth emphasizing. number one, for people who make under $400,000 a year, which is the vast majority of americans, their taxes will stay the same or go down. under the harris plan. in fact, for 100 million americans they would get a tax cut under the harris plan. as for very, very high income americans, you're right, there is going to be some tax increases under the plan. they're largely focused on capital income. i think it is common sense policy to make sure that where you address the problem that we have right now, which is that for people who earn most of their income, the rate they pay

on that is lower than someone who goes in and teaches school every day or drives a bus or works on the factory floor. i think that's unfair. i think most of the american people agree with that. as we're looking for revenue to bring in to do this in a fiscally responsible way, it is a source of income, a source of revenue that makes a inherited wealth. an entirely different story. a lot of people, worked their whole lives, put money into the stock market as a savings plan making sure they're saving money over time and allowing that to appreciate, it's money already paid wage taxes on, the thing goes into capital gains. the stock market has done very well because you have capital gains taxes that are lower. an incentive for people to invest. if you take that away, what's the potential in terms of what it means for the market? >> again, look. this new rate would apply to a very small sliver of folks on the capital gains side you're looking at people making over $1 million each year on which this

higher rate would apply. i hear the same argument over and over geagain. when president clinton, president obama, president biden were running, radical ideas they're pursuing. look at the score over that time period, 51 million jobs created 50 million under democratic presidencies. higher than under republican presidencies. i really think this idea that democrats are pursuing radical policies is a myth that's perpetuated -- >> okay. let me address that. >> the fact that republicans will cut their taxes and democrats won't. >> let me address that very point. andrew lotz in this "wall street journal" story says, an associate director at bipartisan policy center says would represent sea changes how we taxed wealthy individuals and families over the last several decades. not an argument for or against but sea changes. not what we've seen under

president clinton or others and a big part is taxing unrealized gains. making at least $1 million taxed at ordinary income. unrealized gains above $5 million per person exclusion taxed at death. that tax would have some excerptses for family businesses, but are you talking about taxing unrealized gains at level never seen in the past and never seen before. >> glad you brought up unrealized gains. there's multiple proposals here. tax on unrealized gains applies to people with assets over $100 million. emphasize how small a group that is. about -- less than one half of americans. 61% of one half of the country. reasonable given the flawed system we have now for capital taxation that people in that very exclusive category be able to be taxed on unrealized gains, and all sorts of exceptions and

deferrals within that proposal making sure if you're a founder of a company you don't have to sell your company to pay those taxes right away. spread it out over an ex- exten period of time and so on. goes back to the fact we have a system folks in that category are paying lower rates over the course of their lifetime than those with ordinary wage income makeing $60,000, $70,000 a year. why we're doing this. step back. over the past 20 years seen erosion of the tax code. back in 2000 before the bush tax cuts, 20 percent of gdp coming in in revenue. thanks to the bush and trump tax cuts, closer to 16%. fundamentally we have a revenue problem. back to the tax code in 2000, the national debt would be going down. those tax cuts have largely gone to the very, very rich. >> first of all, those tax cuts are expiring next year, anyway. >> a spending problem. >> 23% of gdp spent.

usually 19% or 20%. long-term average is not 20% of revenues. it's about 18%. >> joe, i disagree. got to point something out. >> disagree on actual numbers? what's the long -- >> no. again -- >> what's the spending average -- harris wants to spend more than what we're spending right now. what's the long-term percentage of spending to gdp? what do you say it is? >> our spending -- everyone knew this back in 2,000. spending up on social security and medicare because of a baby boomer generation. if you look at what's called non-defense discretionary, spending other than social security, medicare and other than defense, that is actually historically low right now. so -- >> overall -- >> because of social security and medicare and so on. those were anticipated increases because people are retiring. look, under -- we're about $35

trillion in doteebt right now. $8 trillion came under the trump presidency. your own website cnbc i saw last night saying the trump plan would significantly -- >> there's a big difference -- a big difference on cnbc.com. big difference. >> the trump plan increases the deficit more than the harris plan. sounds like you're concerned about the deficit a good reason to vote for harris. >> look, deficit spending is an issue. we're coming up with social security problems and the like, we knew spending was going to have to go up and haven't dealt with that. have not had nanybody sit down look at spending and revenue saying it's a problem on both sides and need to get something done. had years and years to do something. nothing has been done. my biggest problem is with unrealized gains. say it's only for people make over $100,000.

not an issue for me. >> it does other guys. >> when the first -- american income tax was put in place in 1861 it was a flat 3% tax on all incomes over $800. we know that's changed over time. unrealized gains, taxing unrealized gains doesn't seem fair in any sense of the word, but in the very best sense, taxing unlerealized gains you'r pulling forward taxes that would be paid when someone sells the stock. >> majority of people watching are already paying a tax on up realized gains called a property tax. >> property tax is a use tax. paying for schools. >> paying higher taxing -- >> value of your home never moves the way stock moves, something else moves. also property tax is a use tax. paying for schools, emergency services. things that make absolute sense.

>> sure. all revenue from these unrealized gains tax and other taxes in the harris plan are going to go what, creating what she calls more opportunity. to make sure -- >> it's not a use tax for the people actually using the services. >> look, you're arguing this is a foreign concept completely unknown -- >> it's probably unconstitutional and never in anyone's intent to -- >> it's not income. it's not an income tax. >> never going to happen, probably. not in -- not going to say my life time i. w. >> i wouldn't say that. >> not in becky's tax plan. >> the harris tax plan goes to affordable housing, every newborn starts with $6,000 in the account, to get off to a healthy and nutritious start to making sure that we can address

child care. things middle-class family, struggling for the past decades. >> no question something needs to be done for middle-class families. the question becomes how you go about doing it. bharat, thank you. appreciate your time and your explanation and thanks for coming on on day when this, the "journal" story came out. appreciate it. >> should be happy. didn't have to defend price controls. didn't get to that. >> please, have me back, i would love to talk about that. >> you don't want to. coming up, nvidia after the close company rakes in money. "squawk box" is coming right back. partneri because this game is for everyone. you'll find them in cities, towns and suburbs all across america. millions of americans who have medicare and medicaid but may be missing benefits they could really

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with fresh food pre-portioned for your dog's needs. it's an idea whose time has come. the east coast. you are watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen. andrew is off today. among our top stories this morning, retail earnings. foot locker shares falling despite the company posting a smaller than expected loss. revenue coming in above estimates. the company says comparable sales grew first time in six quarters but full outlook unchanged. stock off by 7.5%. shares of kohl's rising

after that company reported second quarter profit of 59 cents beating the street's estimates by 14 cents despite net sales falling short of expectations. comp sales actually fell 5.1% during the quarter. that compared with expectations of a 1.8% decline, but the department store is still raising its profit outlook for the full year. enough to give that stock a boost of about 2.3%. and outside of earnings. nfl owners voting to allow private equity firms to invest in their teams. pe ownership capped at 10%. talking much more about this later in the hour with new england patriots owner robert kraft. stock futures, not moving a lot but we are now looking at red arrows. had been looking at modest advances earlier. looks like dow is off ten points. nasdaq down close to 30. treasury yields have been slightly weaker. right now looks like the ten year at 381. two year at 385. for more on the markets get

down to the nyse and our very own mike santoli. mike, good morning. we're all on nvidia watch this morning. what else should we pay attention to? >> absolutely. we very much are on nvidia watch, and it comes at the overall market has been hesitating for a prolonged period below all-time highs. s&p 500 actually closed every day since beginning of last week within half a percent of 5,600. a celebration of jay powell's message a sense the fed would at least not be late in initiating rate cuts but sensitive to the probability we might have to worry a little more softening of the labor market and other things. 6% of s&p is nvidia plus. swing out the direction. maybe s&p is waiting for permission for nvidia to get out of the way to make a broader move. longer term, the 60-40 equity

fixed portfolio a new high. look at the aor. an etf that is a 60-40 portfolio a global tilt towards in the stocks as well as u.s. a three-year chart. just got us back to where it was right before the bear market in 2022. of course, the bond holdings a real weight on this. now that stocks and bonds are rallying together you have back in the green here on an all-time basis. although on a total return basis, if you include the d dividends, high the last month. bit bitcoin, trades like, doesn't trade like. middle of last year really nice and tight for a while. this relationship. you see nvidia obviously not at new high. sort of separated itself here. bitcoin still churning around these levels. whether it's risk-seeking liquidity or something else. nvidia's earnings keep piling up. wasn't going to work forever. go back a couple years

relationship was tight with tesla. co-ownership of these individual stocks, people interested in and put money into crypto. seems like that's where the rhythms seem to settle out. >> when you see something like that can't help but think. put on one of those straddles or spreads? know what i mean? who meets whom? does one -- is nvidia -- >> yeah. >> do they meet again and maybe half way? or does nvidia -- nvidia overpriced? bitcoin -- >> you want to be short nvidia here, you're saying? >> what it's saying. yeah. i'm out i'm not going to do that. sell a bunch of uncovered calls. $2 above -- no. i'm not doing that and i don't recommend that. >> and juiced now. >> good time to do it, except you could get, you know -- you could -- take your house. >> exactly. >> if you do that wrong. i know. >> yeah. >> okay. thanks. >> there you go.

for more on what investors can expect when nvidia reports joined by key bank capital markets senior analyst. what do you think it means, would that be borne out, big call premiums? i don't know if you watched that. at least that shows, to some extent, very bullish sentiment still surrounding not only the stock but what people think the company is going to be able to post as far as earnings? >> yeah. i think certainly, i think there's very good, strong long-term sentiment on the name. i think in the near-term a little angst about what the potential blackwell delay could mean to numbers. our view is, blackwell was never supposed to ramp in the near term. really supposed to be end of the year kind of timing event. near-term numbers should be

fine. we're hearing customers are backfilling blackwell pushout with more additional incremental hopper gpu orders. but i think generally, sentiment long term is still bullish but i would say a little near-term angst about if this blackwell delay could impact trim earnings results. >> john, if you were to take a step back and try to make a case for the inherent value of a share of nvidia right now, is it based on -- the very bullish future for all of a.i.? based on the growth rate that the company can maintain? the next three, four years? what do you think it's based on? and is it worth what it's selling for? >> i would say right now nvidia is probably trading on expect aces for next year's earnings. next year, as you know, nvidia

is wrapping blackwell as well as gb200 nvl platform, a complete server stack platform, and if you think about earnings for next year, we've got them doing over $220 billion in revenues, and 516 in ets. trading roughly 25 times next year's numbers. historically the stock trades at 35, 40 times the broader semiconductor group trades in kind of low 20s. so we think valuation here on this most recent pullback is extremely compelling here. >> and the a.i. infrastructure, never be built out, and you don't need anything else? just going to be continually evolving and they'll be a -- i don't know -- something after blackwell and so that -- you

know, you think maybe the infrastructure's finally done and then move on to the next generation a.i. plays, but i guess that -- is that -- is that more than ten years off? >> you know, obviously, you know, right now we think the a.i. market is secular, but obviously at some point there is going to be a correction, and all semiconductors, no matter what end markets and how strong the demand is, is going to be cyclical. we don't see that happening before, you know, 2026. the reason is, there's going to be a general, generational stem function increase in performance given gp 200 and the vl platform. the performance is 30x faster than you get today. typically when companies release new chips, next generation chips you get x percent improvement, 20 to 40% range.

given what nvidia is releasing next year, easing up on capex spending for next year. potentially after 2025 we'll have to monitor the buildouts of capex and where these companies are in terms of digesting and deploying these gpus, but it's not going to go on indefinitely. there is going to be a cyclical component to it at some point but not before 2026, in our view. >> great. okay, john. thank you. wo we'll be watching i dare say many eyes -- >> all eyes. >> no. many eyes watching. three quarters of the country's never heard of nvidia. so it's not all eyes. never heard of the vice president, three quarters. coming up, on emerging markets, plus a didn't-miss interview with robert kraft owner of the new england patriots. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

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. our next guest highlights a major comeback in emerging economies but says no many people noticed and a few foreign investors have taken action opinion we welcome rockefeller natal chairman founder and cio of breakout capital. also the author of a new book "what went wrong with capitalism?" his new piece for the "financial times" titled "the world should take notice -- the rest are rising again." in it he rights emerging nations are in a strong are financial position than the united states. as an overstimulated superpower relying on record deficits to power growth, america is on an unsustainable path. welcome. let's talk about -- >> thanks, becky. thanks for having me gr. good to see you. >> talk what you see happening with emerging markets. this is nothing you've seen since early 2000? >> exactly. i think the last years a total

washout investing saved the market like india. returns in most emerging markets in dollar terms close to zero. and the point i'm making here is that happened for good reason. in fact, as i wrote about even a decade ago, the hype around bricks was way too much and returns people expected out of emerging markets were way too high. since then the growth rates in emerging markets slowed down a lot. in fact, over the last five years, the u.s. registered a faster economic growth rate in per capita income terms as well than most other emerging markets. that's quite unprecedented. but what's happening now is a major shift on the way. over the next five years around 88% of all emerging countries in the world are expected to register a faster growth rate than the u.s. in per capita income terms. that's the first time that's likely to happen since the 2000s. and i think that could be a

major driver of capital flows and possibly higher equity returns for emerging markets over the next few years. >> i'd argue some unexpected disasters over the last 15 years have been partially responsible for why emerging markets didn't do so well. the first was the financial crisis. the second was covid and in both instances you had the emerged markets, you know, the developed markets that were the ones ato spend much more to support their economies in either of those situations. how do you discount the idea that something like that won't happen again? >> that's always the case. i think that's in the price. therefore, the emerging markets should be trading at record low valuations against countries such as the united states. so the emerging markets today is a lot. and the moment i say something positive, everyone sort of rolls their eyes and says, haven't we heard this story before?

and why should these emerging markets do well? they are filled with corruption and a lot of changes because these countries didn't have the money. they were forced to carry out fundamental economic reform. didn't have the money to go out, stimulate the economy and suffered in the short term. canada, their fiscal accounts today are in much better shape than five years ago and certainly much better shape than the united states. it's forward-looking. always the developed countries outperform the emerging markets. depends the time period you choose. in the 2000s, for example, they handsomely outperformed the u.s. these are cycles and we are setting ourselves up for a fresh cycle and a weak dollar i think is a very important ingredient in a fresh -- merging markets from here. >> interesting point, too. part of this is relativity, and you do make pretty good points

how the rest of the world views the united states right now. where's the line, you said -- america's growing reputation is the world's most irresponsible deficit spender. explain how you think that's having an impact? >> but i think that there are lots of people concerned about that. we have a presidential campaign going on in the u.s. as well and as you know, there is no focus at all on the deficit because there is a broad feeling in the united states that as a superpower they can run whatever deficits it takes, and the u.s. is running we well know and discussed on your show before, a deficit about 6% of gdp. no other country in the world today, at least in any other major economy i know of, is running a budget deficit of that magnitude and both candidates only have plans to further expand the deficit when they come to power. i just feel there's a lot of apprehension about that. what's kept the u.s. market going as we know is really the

tech sector, and about a.i. and tech. if that fades a bit, i suspect the other countries around the world will get a lot more attention. pres predicated two things happening. dollar weakening and some hype around the u.s. a.i. boom and tech sector coming off. two important things. any forecast has pre-conditions but broadly i'd say the probably is emerging markets the next five years on average deliver much higher returns than the united states. this is a very different view that i had a decade ago. it's not as if i've always seen emerging markets as -- >> give you credit for that. you warned back around 2012 the hype was too much and you did not see that happening. you were calling actually for demise of the rest. so you're not somebody who has ban broken record saying the same thing again and again. >> and you wrote -- we talk

about your book a lot "what went wrong with capitalism." i say it's clickbait the way you put you're saying we screwed it up messing with it in the wrong ways, deficit spending, all the things that you're talking about, but in your wildest dreams, did you think we'd have to revisit whether price controls are good or bad? you wrote this, "what's wrong with capitalism?" talking about previous presidents. we're going to screw up capitalism on steroids if some of these harris proposals were to go in. you haven't mentioned that. >> i totally agree. i think in the book that's what i said. over the last 100 years it's been a stead erosion of the capitalist values unders had in mind. weng whether bailouts, over regulating and it's something we tried in the 1970s. very critical of that and that's

exactly my point. that when will people begin to pay attention to the way policy is moving in the united states? and when -- we're going to be so lost in these small -- not small. enthusiasm about the a.i. -- next year can be very important. we have a new government in power and especially as you said, if you had obviously price controls out there, i think a lot of investors will sit up and see. >> stuff wasn't even on -- it's like beyond the pale. some of it. now we talk about it like it's normal. business networks talk about some of that stuff like it's no normal, and of course the rest -- all right. >> thank you. reading stuff, the white star line. the last meal served for the

"titanic." in first class then third class. first class all kinds of stuff. like -- soused herring. potted shrimp. ballona sausage. ox sttail. third class, three items. gruel, cabin biscuits and cheese . >> can i have gruel? can't have pooting un pudding ut your meat. coming up, names like kohl's, foot locker and biggest takeaways from this earning season. and later this hour, new england patriots owner robert kraft. allowing partner team ownership by private equity groups.

a select group. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

as mentioned earlier department store kohl's reporting earnings this morning. actually topped profit estimates. net sales fell short. however, kohl's is raising its earnings per share outlook for the full year. joining us to talk about the name and other consumer spending we've seen in retail is gordon hassett senior analyst. >> good morning. >> right now looking at kohl's shares up by 4 1/3%. for kohl's to miss expectations but raise profit outlook. the other side of things foot locker beat expect aces but didn't raise its outlook nap stock last i saw down more than 7%. is this, now looks like down 8.25%. a fair representation of what the street's seeing?

telling us about expect aceatio for the future? do you believe management in all of these situations? >> we don't cover foot locker. reaction seems in-line with expectations. kohl's, stock's up 4 to 5%. comps down 5% bottom line and what investors pay attention to. changed assumptions on credit side of the business and raising the top line. the overall, sorry, eps for the quarter here. one thing to point out here so far in earnings season. you asked about the trends we're seeing's wooe'll keep in mind inventory, building across retail. nordstrom up significantly. macy's up heavily. and home improvements slightly higher than we expect. a trend to watch here. >> why do you think kohl's shares are up? you sound a little skeptical. you point to the comps down 5.1%. i was kind of surprised to see the stock up by 4 1/3%, too.

do you think that's appropriate reaction or longer term people will look at the -- >> i think people will probably fade the early action here. we'll see. comps down 5%. important to keep in mind key lines of their business, women's apparel, men's apparel children's, footwear, struggling. sephora a bright spot for them pap key metric we look at, sales per store today relative to 2019. down over 18%. yet sephora is in over 1,000 stores now. tom kingsbury, the ex burlington ceo has a lot going for him. we like him. clean, unlike peers. >> what do you think of a name like nordstrom's? >> mixed last night. the rack business, struggled for i don't know maybe ten years now, is actually doing better. their anniversary sale which is

a key proxy for their upper-income customer up a little more. close to 1%. nordstrom of the three department stores looks like the winner. we think zooming out the off-price base, tjx, ross, exceptional. look at comps last week. up 4, 5%. macy's down 4%, kohl's down 5%. winners continue to win, losers continue to lose. market share gained by walmarts and costcos of the world and smaller player losing share every single quarter. >> that's an unsustainable situation. >> i mean, comps are comps. when you're down 5% for kohl's, to deceleration on a two-year basis, it's not what you want to see, not what they'd want to see. traffic is under duress and that's a proxy for retailers' health right now. >> okay. chuck, thanks for joining us today. >> thank you. appreciate it. when we come back, a debate on the presidential candidate's

economic plans, or at least what we know about those plans so far. then we will speak with new england patriots owner robert kraft about everything that vote to allow private equity firms to buy into nfl teams. his thoughts. what happened. heading to a break look at shares of a board authorizing a buyback program in e.l.f.. stay tuned. you' wchreating "squawk box" and this is cnbc.

welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. it's like jobs friday. everything could -- won't be until after the close but none of this matters because nvidia's reporting after the close. or what we're all waiting on. right? >> yes. >> anything else? nothing else happening in the world? i guess there's -- >> a lot of retailers we just talked about. >> we did. this is not the most valuable company but pretty darn close. i think only apple, maybe -- just apple at this point. >> growth has, outpaced everybody. >> and still not -- just on a

pure forward price to earnings basis, nvidia is really not that expensive, but should be interesting, and has to do with the blackwell -- i just like saying it. no idea how they're better than the last generation. >> reminds me of the jasonson bourne stories, or is that something else? >> and everything was a while ago for me. investors working to divide as many details about the president nominees plans. kamala harris and tim walz sitting down airing tonight on cnn. is it taped? taped? >> must be because they're airing it -- talking how airing it at a certain time. >> wow. it's -- >> i don't know. >> awesome. on cnn, no less. where we could learn more details. joining us, professor of public policy and economics at the university of michigan ford

school. and senior research fellow at the mer mercadis university. i don't think a debate. i like what you said. i think i said something similar. talk about price controls. vp harris had a choice between telling americans that they pay higher prices because of the inflation, her administration helped create. could have said that, or could have blamed corporations. she chose the latter. >> yeah. i mean, i think it boils down to this. and i get it. i mean, politics is pendering, and trying to actually look as good as you can, and the thing is, the notion of price control is one that emotionally is, people respond to it in a way that's favorable.

people do not like high prices, and, in fact, i think president trump is making a big mistake with his campaign, his tariff campaign, because when people get that prices are higher, they're going to be against this. and price control is the same thing. people don't like high prices. so they will respond positively to the promise that prices will be controlled. unfortunately, everyone will have to live with the consequences, and especially you know, people actually who are the less well off. >> justin i don't think you think price controls are great, but your angle, i think, is that price gouging laws already exist. they don't do that much. they don't come into play that often. it wouldn't cause that much harm. so we really shouldn't pay that much attention to it, but my point, to senator elizabeth warren was, justin, if we want to really do things to help people you don't just start, you

know, bashing chains that make 2% profit margin. you actually go and try to fwhin find what caused inflation in the first place. whatever it was, try to fix it not demagogue it for political reasons to put the blame on something else. >> look, fair enough. i'm not the one running for president right now but i did -- >> can you run for president? whe where were you born? >> in australia, mate. >> you're out. >> let me -- let me -- actually wear two hats answering your question. economics 101, teaching that later today. it's not this week's. in a few weeks talk price controls. i will teach generally speaking when markets are functions well price controls of a bad idea even though often a popular yid.

the other, a read policies and listen to what people are saying and read carefully what kamala harris said. she said, let me quote here. my plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules, and support smaller food businesses trying to play by the rules and get ahead. a few things there. not talking about price controls. not once used that word. she's talking only about groceries. a small-ish part of the economy. she's talking about when there are major disasters and the like and looking to get ahead, to punish those companies exploiting prices and breaking rules. frankly i'm against breaking rules as well. economists as a tribe are your upset when they think price controls are happening. look at policy. that's actually not what vice president harris suggested we

do. >> can i add something? >> i'll just say, justin, her first policy rollout. just come through a period of 40-year highs in inflation, where wages are still down from when her administration came into office. so her biggest thing is this small, little niche area you think, oh -- >> gotcha. >> and everybody will agree. no one should price gouge but that's not the issue or the problem. not the first rollout of a major policy, to make it look like that's what caused inflation. right? >> let's talk about that. >> please, let her speak. >> be honest. a change in the way she talked about her policy from the first moment announced on a wednesday night to the moment she made her speech on friday, because there was an extremely strong pushback from economists on the left, on the right, on the center, libertarians, earn was pushing against it. it's not crazy for people like me to actually think that at her

core she believes in these type of policies, because she actually has endorsed the policy by elizabeth warren which is a price gouging, and, again, i understand this, but the thing -- people are upset about high prices. the way this is framed in the context this is going to address high prices. people are upset, because we've had the highest inflation that we've had, and now it's down significantly, but prices are still very high. and this is not going to do anything. so why rather -- call me naive, that we actually talked about what would really help. bring those prices down. that's an increase in supply. free the supply side from all the government barriers. it won't go all the way, but it will help. >> all right.

justin? k. i jump in here? >> yeah. go ahead. >> i think you're absolutely right. look, let me emphasize the agreement. one, price controls are a bad idea. we agree. two, vice president harris has never said she could engage in price controls and a member of an administration a that has not engaged in price controls. you brought us back. cost of living in absolute serious issue and deserves great seriousness. where we should take the debate seriously and put things in a broader -- compared to trump. trump's cost of living policy, said this in his big economic speech, my first day in the oval office i will sign an executive order directing every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool in authority and their disposal to defeat inflation and bring consumer prices rapidly down. so harris has a policy. you might not love it.

trump's is, i'm going to call my guys and ask them to think about it. so let's just be symmetric about our economic debates and think how seriously is trump taking the cost of living crisis? he's real policy's a joke. km actuality, impose 10% across the board tariffs, results, higher prices and maybe a massive boost to cost of listening and inflation if former president trump is elected. >> i have a lot of problems with trump's economic policy. including the one you mentioned. actually to have also a major problem with kamala harris's policies, and, again, i just think that looking back, i mean, she endorsed elizabeth warren's policy. she, like when her campaign talked about what she was going to announce, it really sounded, eastern mentioned the ftc, using the ftc, whether that's

constitutional or not, i don't know. it's not crazy for people to actually think that she had in mind to enforce -- >> no doubt. i think we still have the -- when you lose the "washington post" as a democrat, you've got serious problems. this is the way, the day after the proposal. we don't need gimmicks! we need real, serious ideas. we get gimmicks. so -- i don't know, justin. can't get more friendly than the "washington post." and even they had a problem, but i want to thank you both. justin, and varnique, thank you. and be kftrortra joins us for an interview you don't want to miss. stay tuned. "squawk box" will be right back. daughter: (gasps) what the?! daughter: alright. dad: side to side. when you work with someone who knows a lot and cares even more... you can do this. ...you're unstoppable.

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nfl owners voting to allow select privacy equity firms to take up to a 10% stake in f

franchises. pro football, last in american sports to allow this to happen. joining us, kraft chairman and ceo and owner of new england patriots. ho honestly, robert good to see you. i don't think anything happens in the nfl with you not at least having oversight or some type of say? at least some input on how it works. you can probably tell us exactly how this came about, and why it didn't come about before this? what was the thinking, robert? for not allowing it? >> well, we've had a great committee that's worked on this for over a year, and, you know, i think our league is unique in that we still have 32 individual owners. we have a very special culture, and we wanted to be mindful that we didn't do anything to change

the substance of what makes our league so great. now, in fairness, we have assets that have grown in value, and are illiquid, all the fund coming to us right from the top. a real interest, and we thought you know, it's an opportunity for us to really change how some of the ownership groups, you know, have real problems with the illiquidity, they have bill families and have to solve a lot of problems that are not usual, and so we thought this was a great source of capital, and could be done in a way that was

very functional, and wouldn't affect the operation. what was required for governance and was very minimal, and so sort of like having a pool of capital of faceless investors that allow us to grow and build our asset. >> bob, we did talk about, that great facility that -- you hosted us, as you recall, up in foxborough, at one point. i don't know why we haven't done it since then, but how did you -- >> let's do it again. >> we will take you up -- that would be fun. yes. >> how did you pay for all that? what was -- would it be easier -- if you had had the opportunity to bring in some private equity, would it have been easier or will it be easier from here on out for other cities to do something similar? or owners to do something similar?

>> well, think about what's happened over the last 30 years. and i don't know how many businesses you know that on a compounded basis have grown at 13%, and i know in our case, that's you know, we -- we paid $172 million for the patriots, and one of your competitors just valued it at $7 billion, and i know michael is probably -- is the real guru that you trust when he comes out with it, but when you have a situation like that, and we have the very tight rules that we have in the nfl, having individuals be able to come in and invest is difficult. so, it's a perfect addition, and

limiting the investment to 10% is a way to keep it under control from our point of view. >> what's -- what would be -- what were the concerns? can you paint a picture for me? if things went awry, what does that look like, that held the league back for so long? i'm just -- and then, i guess -- well, because it's only 10%, they really can't force you to do anything. what would you worry about that private equity firms -- >> they have no governance rights. but look, in my opinion, each of us are privileged to own an asset that we're custodians of the local community, and we don't want ownership that's putting making money first. if you do your job, and you present a good product, the community gets behind it, and you know, we're really -- we

share revenue. we really have a platform that, except for your unique stadium and how you run things locally, we do think we share our national revenue. so, everyone's -- really has an opportunity to do very well. but we have very tight rules. we approve any new owner coming in. it has to pass by 24, 32 people, and we try to keep it tight, because we want to keep the quality of our business the way it is now. >> what -- what's it look like this year? i need to know for the patriots. should i start betting on the patriots again this year, bob? how you feeling about it? >> it's the first time in 25

years we have a new team leading it. i'm excited. i think we're laying a great foundation. i don't know what our record will be this year. but i'm very excited to see gerard, mayo and elliot wolf working as a team, really doing something special. we're privileged, first time we ever drafted number three in the draft. we have a great young quarterback in drake maye, and we're excited about the future. >> well, if you didn't -- in the past, if you didn't trade for a high draft pick, how were you ever going to get a high draft pick? and i was going to actually say, in this current environment, you have had too much success. you have exacerbated the wealth gap of teams winning super bowls and teams not winning super bowls. you have had too many. you have had plenty, and we need

to -- i think we need to spread it around a little bit, which brings us to the political environment. what do you -- you want to weigh in on anything? how you like the competing business plans from the two different sides? you always like to weigh in on this stuff, bob. >> well, look, we're privileged, you and i, and everyone listening, to be in the greatest country in the world, and you know, i think it's important that our political leadership understand that. we've started this foundation to combat hate. >> that's starting again. starting again at cornell, bob. it's disgusting. i know. i saw it yesterday. >> it's horrible, and it takes away from the great values of this country, so we need everybody to stand up, arm in

arm, and it goes back to what martin luther king said in his "i have a dream" speech. the greatest enemy the silence. when one individual sees something going on that's inappropriate for other people in this country to stand up. all of our ancestors came here with a great chance to evolve and do their thing and grow, and we have to keep that spirit alive. i know it's -- what this country has done for me, i went to school on scholarship. i had a chance to do everything i needed. we want to keep that vibrant. >> okay. all right, bob. >> let's hope the administration that does it best. >> okay. it reminded me of football. either way, i felt the punt. i felt a punt coming when i asked you that question, and that was about a 60-yarder, but thank you. >> he's talking about what

matters to him. >> that's right. as you do. thanks, robert kraft. >> joe, we love you guys. best program. >> thank you. >> thanks, robert. >> that's nice of you to say. "squawk box" will be right back. thanks, bob. (♪♪) (♪♪) what took you so long? i'm sorry, there was a long line at the thai place.

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welcome back to "squawk box." among our top stock movers this morning, abercrombie and fitch shares falling about 9%. the firm has hiked its full-year outlook, despite what the ceo notes is an increasingly uncertain environment. the retailer beat on both profit and revenue this morning when it said for the quarter it posted a 21% sales gain. let's take a look at bath a& bodyworks, shares off 3.5%. the company described its customers as cautious and searching for value in a choppy macroeconomic environment. and then super micro computer shares still sliding following that report by short seller hindenburg that raised concerns over what it called accounting red flags. those shares down in the early morning trade. >> contessa, thank you. did you change? >> i just threw on a jacket.

it's so cold in here. >> i was going to say. i like it. jacket works well. >> thank you. let's get a final check on the markets right now. i was paying attention. >> don't change, contessa. >> we love you just the way you are. dow futures down slightly. s&p futures basically flat. nasdaq, they're all basically flat. we're waiting to see what happens with nvidia. we'll also see you back here tomorrow. that does it for us today. now it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ good wednesday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm david faber along with jim cramer. we're live from post nine at the new york stock exchange. carl has the morning off. let's give you a look at futures. jim and i like to call this humpday. being a wednesday. it's also nvidia day, of course, if you haven't heard already. half the bell, we're going to get the earnings from that bellwether. our road map does begin with that very name. we are on nvidia watch. we're going to have a countdown clock soon enough. the