>> thanks, brian. we'll see you tomorrow. wall street keeps on soaring. the dow closing over 14,000 for the first time since 2007. but main street is still hurting. unemployment rising. the economy? it's shrinking. gdp contracting last year for the first time in four years and consumer confidence tanking as that payroll tax hike cuts into workers' paychecks. add it all up, is it time to strike calls for more tax hikes?

down. i'm brenda buttner, this is "bulls & bears." we've got gary smith, tobin smith, jonas max ferris, and john layfield and susan fox. the white house and democratic leaders still pushing tax hikes. should they be? >> absolutely not, brenda. what i don't understand is how you can propose tax hikes without looking at what the scholars say, the studies say. look, if there was studies out there says raising taxes, great for the economy, i'd get behind it. but you know what, brenda? every single scholarly study for the past 15 years has said one thing: higher taxes, negatively impact growth. it's funny, forget all that, though. if you just look anecdotally, when the left wants to inhibit behavior, whether it's energy consumption or cigarette smoking or any one of the other things they have, what's the very first

thing they do? they raise taxes! yet they say in this case, raising taxes is not going to affect economy. >> okay. gary, scholar is something we don't hear often on "bulls & bears." straight to susan. >> we need to put some of the recent numbers in context. yes, the percentage ticked up a little bit. but corporate earnings have been strong. the consumer confidence number that was out yesterday from the university of michigan was up. the consumer expectation number from university of michigan for the next six months was also up. so this is not consumers pull back from the economy. it was really more of a blip. when that gets revised, it will get revised upward. >> but toby, gdp did decline. that was really proof that just talking about tax hikes would hurt things. then consumer confidence plummeted, proof that tax hikes do really kill the economy and kill confidence. >> right. if tax hikes don't affect behavior, then why is it that these corporations put all these paychecks out, bonuses, before

taxes went up? tax policy does affect behavior. we know that. i'm going back to jfk. when gary b was a teen-ager. and the bigssue there is that he was the one who started the ball rolling and it said clearly you grow the economy by growing the economy. consumer confidence at this point, i don't buy the payroll tax as much as i say what's the next shoe going to drop? this idea of raising taxes and spending at the same time, people are starting to figure out it doesn't add up. >> jonas, there is a lot of debt out there. how can you take care of that mess without tax hikes and spending cuts? >> stackses are a lot lower than they were through jfk's administration for sure. look, i don't think anyone would argue gary's point that when you rae taxes, you cut spending and it hurts the economy. it's a drag on the economy. you are cutting into spending the people are doing, taking it and paying off our debt. however, a bigger drag on the economy, probably the only bigger drag is when a government

basically goes broke because they can't pay their debt, like what happened in greece and ireland and other countries that didn't have the tax base to support the spending the politicians hand. the taxes are going to have to go up. the question is how and how much and when. this economy still is weak. it doesn't look like it if you look at the stock market. but you can't just continue to raise taxes this year more than they already have gone up this year. we'll have to do it over like five years slowly. they're going to have to do that to close this gap. it's not going to go away through growth unless we cut spending. >> let's get to john. did democrats basically underestimate the impact the tax hikes would have and now they're talking more about tax hikes. is that the wrong message? >> yeah. it's the wrong message. let's go back to when toby was a teen-ager under calvin coolidge. [ laughter ] he took down woodrow wilson's high rate all the way down, created a huge boom. ronald reagan did the same thing. the democrats have railed against the bush tax cuts. they made them permanent.

and now they realize oh, my goodness, we need revenue. here is the problem. this isn't just a blip. we have structural unemployment. we have the lowest labor force participation since the early '80s. that's more than a blip. that's structural unemployment and this country is not designed to handle that. we could double, 100% raise taxes on americans, we would take $1.1 trillion. we can't get there through tax increases alone. we have to deal with spenng cuts cuts and entitlements. >> we do need growth. part of what the president has been talking about and the democrat social security creating a balanced package. there will be some spending cuts but there are places we need to invest. you look at infrastructure and other places with technologycal advances we need to move forward. if we get behind on those too much, we are going to start losing massive growth in the future. we can't mortgage the future. >> to susan's point, gary b, wall street is having a great time. it doesn't seem to be upset about any of these tax hikes.

why does it keep going up if americans are hurting so much? >> i make three points. one is thank god for the federal reserve and the easy money. that's what i think is behind wall street's rise. i think it's totally uncorrelated and disconnected from the economy. second point is when susan mentioned balanced approach, whenever i hear balanced approach, particularly from the left, you know what i hear? higher taxes because we know spending isn't going to be cut. the third point she made is consumer confidence. she makes it seem like the consumer's confidence is so great right number yeah, it's like in the '60s or '70s when which is still lower than the lowest low it was during the entire bush presidency. >> toby, back to the market really quickly, the s & p is like 3% from its all-time high. what's going on here? is wall street not listening to main street? >> yes. gary b has it right that investments have to perform relative to other investments and at this point, the bond rket, i moon, so many people

have bought bonds for so long that people are overweight bonds, they have too much money in bonds and eventually they go up, the bonds will go down in value. so investors want to be on the equity side. the other thing is mutual funds for the first time in the last two months had imemployeessives of equity. why, because the interest on everything else is low. >> are we going to see wall street go up if we keep hearing calls for tax hikes? >> was that john or jonas? >> john. >> big gave the come on -- big guy! >> i'm not used to toby ever stopping. yeah, toby is correct. i love to give toby a hard time, but he's a smart man. there is president no place foro go but the stock market. real estate has not been good. you're starting to see housing stabilize a little bit, but there is no real place to put money. at he was talking about with the fed is creating this stock

market bubble. when you have unfettered government spending, the place to be is the market and it's not tied to the economy. >> jonas? >> the earnings are at an all time high. that's ultimately what -- i know popped are low and people are piling into stocks. but companies are earning money because people are buying their goods. it's not so bad right now. can we handle more tax increases this year? probably not. but right now corporations are earning a lot of money, more than ever. the economy is starting to handle that. we probably will get by fine with the tax increases that we have. but the ones they laid down for permanent do not cover expenditures laid out by government overt next ten, 20, 30 years. >> can we face a tax hike this year? >> i don't think anybody is talk being tax hikes this year action to be honest. i think what jonas said is right. we need to think about how do we save this over a period of time and which taxes do you raise? i don't think anybody is talking about raising moreiddle class

taxes -- >> the democratic leaders are saying if they get a budget, we're going to see more revenue and that means tax hikes. doesn't it, toby? >> it does. it can be in things like high frequency trading, potential financial tax. >> oh, yeah, that's going to raise a trillion dollars. >> the middle class tax levels are going to have to go back to where they were under the clinton administration if we're going to pay off the deficit at some point. there is really no other way to do it without run away economic growth which we're not going to have. >> we're at a point where they have this so both sides are lined up for this battle going into may. if they propose any actual cuts in the senate on spending, i will buy you another one of those girlie drinks you have. >> all right. see, john. toby did get the last word. coming up, they were some of the biggest supporters of the health care law. but are unions starting to show buyers remorse? the cavuto on business gang on their new demand and why everyone may pay at the bottom of the hour. but up here first, nearly two-thirds of middle aged

workers are doing something that someone here says could drive this number higher. whether you're young or old. whether you're young or old. this mid life this is $100,000. whether you're young or old. this mid life we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much. i appreciate it. i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money? if your bank takes more money than a stranger,

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is terrible news whether you're young or old? >> yeah. i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but for the younger person, there is no job -- jobs are not opening up or they're not get to go move up. for the people in the middle, they're not getting to move up and they can't change job 'cause you don't have the dynamic work force, maybe matt would be the exception. but for the older person, the bad news is they're going to be working longer and you add it all up and that is this unemployment will be staying at this number. we thought years ago the boomers would be retiring in such a way that we'd have a definite sit. now we have a surplus. >> gary b, you say you're one of these workers, you're going to keep working all the time. >> near the upper end of that bracket, hard to believe. but i have no intention of retiring. i can't afford to retire. second of all, i think a lot of people are in the position of what else are they going to do with their life? the life expectancy, am i gog retire for the next 35 years or something? it's ridiculous. so the unfortunate thing is it

becomes a supply and demand issue. you have the supply of jobs out there is taken up by old farts like me and my daughter, well, tough luck, unless i'm forced out i suppose. but that's going to be it. there is just not going to be enough job openings. we're not creating more jobs with this vibrant economy. and the young people kind of get the short end of the stick. >> and the problem there, jonas, is that those young people are supposed to be paying into entitlements to keep this going if the older people are taking their jobs away, it's problem. >> it's not win-win for everybody. first of all, people are living longer, they have to work longer. so people thought they could retire at 65 because their house is worth a lot more five years ago. they have to work longer, they can't retire on that. but ex excess labor is not bad. it means wages aren't going to take off, which means no inflation will have 'cause you'll have more people

competing for the same job. you don't have to pay them more, which means, again, it's -- if you want toetire early, live a long time, yeah, it stinks. it's not as good as it was when your house is worth more when you can retire earlier. but for the economy, remember when you work longer, you'll spend more, it's good all around. >> well, john out there in bermuda, work hard, you weigh in on this now. >> toby is right, i retired more times than brett favre. i keep coming back. but i've never sexed anybody. we are not built for structural unemployment in this country. and that's what we were facing right now. according to bill gates, we're going to lose 20 million jobs overseas to tech engineers, what toby was talking about format and science degrees, which we're not producing kids out of our school that have this qualification. we have 7.9% unemployment. we've been at 8% for basically quite a very long time. and this demo shift is happening

with the older generation. this is not good tore unemployment going forward. >> susan, shouldn't people be feeling more secure? i mean, wall street -- dow going through 14,000, the housing market is picking up. there is plenty of reasons to feel more secure. >> there are, but retirement savings is a really touchy issue. most people don't start soon enough. they don't save enough. we're just starting to move into policies that help to support retirement, like automatic entry into an ira or pension program with your company, supporting child accounts, getting people started sooner. so those are really important steps. the one thing i would say about this that's maybe not so bad for the broader jobs picture is that a lot of where we lose things in the economy is in skills transfer. and when older people retire, we lose the institutional knowledge that they have and we lose their skills. if we can start to figure out ways to take these more senior workers and get them into training education capacities, that can really help the economy. so we don't wind up with those skills gaps.

one of the places we're struggling in is nursing. we have such a shortage of skilled nurses. if we can use some of these people to help us train, it cannot necessarily be a lose-lose for the economy. >> okay. thanks, guys. coming up, why the new push for green gas may not only cost you more green, it might cost you your car's engine. and want to know who is going to win the big game tomorrow? our guys have never been wrong and they've got money making tips to go with the winner with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf gets great rewards for his small business! pizza! [ garth ] olaf's small busins earns 2% cash back on every purchase, ery day! helium delivery. put it on my spark card! [ pop! ] [ garth ] why settle for less?

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the green push now

backfiring on cars? a new report says the gas blend could actually ruin your vehicle's engine. that's what 15% eth knoll in it. john, time to slam the brakes on greener gas? >> oh, yes. this is beyond stupid. this was never a good idea. once we realized it wasn't, we should have shut it down. the reason we didn't, because the presidential election starts in iowa and they were bought off by the -- the way they subsidize it is ridiculous. >> it hurts your engines? >> this study was sponsored by the petroleum industry. so i think we need to take it with a huge grain of salt. it doesn't prove it's hurting all engines. toby, you're porsche is safe. between hurricane sandy and the drought in the midwest, we are losing $140 billion a year in environmental issues and this is something that's real. >> this doesn't help the

environment. >> this doesn't help. >> sure t does. >> let me go to gary b. >> i was saying, sound like something that came right out of a central planning. let's try this. we'll try it for everyone. who knows how much it costs! look, i'm completely with susan. if we could measure any of this stuff. but the fact is, we can't. so we have this gazillion dollar project and we don't know if it's harmful or helpful. we think it's going to harm the cars, we don't know how much it's going to cost. we don't know the benefit, but i guess that's how the benefit works when they're spending other people's money. it's silly. we need to get off this for a while. >> is there a benefit to this at all? >> it didn't come from the central planning. it came from the ethanol lobby. it's a questionable fuel from corn. it's full of subsidies. however, this isn't a -- they approved the use of it by the

epa because it actually is cheaper with the subsidies, so they want to blend in to make a higher profit. it has some environmental benefits to a small -- because you don't have to use lead. the bottom line is the government should just control the emissions rules and they should have a tax on regular gas. once they start getting into the blends or cap standards, it causes winners and losers and distort the issue. >> there have been many reports. even triple a warned about it las year. so we should take it seriously. >> john agencies f-150 that runs on biodiesel, maybe that's at work because he's buying it from restaurants' oil or something. but the ethanol, if you buy any engine in the united states, the warning expressly says if you use ethanol, you're not covered by the warning. what does that aabout the safety? it says the car companies are scared to death of the epa and by the way, they lent them a few billion dollars, so they folded. >> if you were in the studio, nobody would say you drove a

moped. >> he doesn't drive. he rides in the back of limousines. >> that's really imaginative, john. way to go. >> thanks. and thanks to susan for joining us. okay. get your game day gear on for the "bulls & bears" stock super bowl. the guys name the winning stocks and the winning team and check this out, they've neveer been wrong about picking the champs. not one ♪

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