melissa frances. exclusive interview with underwriters caps stock, the feature film based on this hbo hit series hits theaters in june. melissa will talk to him about the series and a lot more at 2:00 p.m. eastern. thanks for joining me on "the opening bell". "varney and company" is next. have a good show. stuart: good morning, everyone. you don't feel good about this economy. new fox poll, two out of three say we are still in recession and half are just scraping by barely paying the bills. the president blames mean businesses. what is with the gas price like? up $0.20 a gallon in two week. is sure going a lot faster than it came down. very few stations selling regular for less than $2 now. a dealer in ukraine, a cease-fire and the i m f chips in $17 billion. the market like that the dow is getting close to the team thousand. kind of strange. the world is on fire, feels like

a recession and the market rallies. we will figure it all out for you. "varney and company" is about to begin. ♪ stuart: check the big board. a very modest rally. we were up 80 points a few moments ago, close to 18,000. however we got a modest rally but we have negative numbers on the economy. retail sales went down. the layoff rate went up. but we have the ukraine peace deal and that is helping the market. not much but we got a little bounce out of it. here's the news on you cream. vladimir putin announced a cease-fire that will go into effect in eastern ukraine midnight on saturday. washington times online opinion editor monica crowley is here. let's deal with russia and ukraine first. there's a lot on the plate this

morning, i say vladimir putin won. >> we have been down this road with vladimir putin and the snake cease-fires. we have seen this routine before. it is a temporary measure for him to regroup, reorganize and 3 assaults ukraine. he is not going to stop. his ambitions are not satisfied by this particular piece of land. he is going further. stuart: does he threatened the baltic states which are members of nato and formerly committed to defending? >> i think that is next. you will see him start to make noises about running the baltic areas. they are part of nato which means there is a provision in the nato charter, an attack on one is an attack on all three. if he moves on them, this is what the assault on georgia was about a crimea and ukraine. he was probing of the western alliance. where we going to respond? were we going to act and retaliate? because we haven't been known as we could move with impunity on

these other countries. stuart: the market won't like that. look at this map. i have a list of countries where we no longer have representation. don't have an embassy. this is the middle east lose somalia yemen, iran, syria, lebanon. we have been run out of town. is a retreat, a big retreat all over the most sensitive area in the world? >> one of the green areas is the left including people like president obama criticized president bush for quote makes growing of the least. no one screwed up the middle east more than barack obama based on the map you show. it is perfectly consistent with a president who comes out of the committed left meaning they always believe america is not a force for good in the world but a force for evil in the world. and global injustice and that meant we have to atone for that the retrenchment and apology which is what we have gone from this president. stuart: hasn't hurt as yet in the wallet but if that comes over here that is when you take

a big hit in the wallet. stay there. look at the oil roller coaster continuing. right around $50 a barrel as we speak, $50.10 a barrel up and down $2 or $3 all the time for oil. gas prices another story, st. up. again of $0.02 overnight $2.23 is your average and that is up a dime from a month ago. in many places there has been a sudden spike, much faster going up than down. we begetting to that later on the program. south carolina and leaving the $1 club. now is just idaho utah montana and wyoming. those are still 20 averages for regular are less than $2. we bring to you every day the cheapest gas in the land costco, idaho, $1.61. you got to pay cash for that. we call this the middle-class squeeze and we talk about it every day. the white house talks about a

recovery, says it is going great but we the people evidently feel very differently. according to the latest fox news poll 65% of the country is still, feels we are still in recession. two out of three. about half, 49% said they are just able to pay most bills, direct quote. how come so many people are scraping by six years after the end of the recession? when the president from and small recovery, we get into that too. the president has called out an individual company over obamacare. was in interview with buzz feed. roll tape. >> i looked at staples stock recently or what the compensation of the ceo is but i suspect they could well afford to treat their workers favorably and give them some basic financial security and if they can't then they should be willing to allow those workers to get the affordable care act

without cutting wages. shame on them. stuart: as you saw the president went after stables and staples responded with this. we brought you this at the end of the show yesterday, we were first on the air with his, quote, unfortunately the president appears not to have all the facts. the initial story was misleading as our policy regarding hours for part-time employees is more than a decade old. it predates the affordable care act by several years. come on in former ceo of office depot and current ceo of the committee for ecprogra ask you the president do this? why does he go after a company beat up on a company when he knows that it is his policies that raise the cost of employing people for obamacare and goes after them because he says they are mean? why does he do this? >> it is disheartening. the reporter set up a falsehood,

basically said we are talking about the aca and staples is catching this. they had a 24 our policy in place for over a decade. what started this story was they went out and posted in stores they want everybody to follow this policy. the reason has nothing to do with the aca but the state and localities the have local wage and hour laws, they were penalized over $2 million last year for wage and hour violations where employees work more than a certain number of hours and didn't take a break or in lunch that they were supposed to so this is a standard beginning of the year practice that all retailers do when they go out and reinforce you have to follow the rules in the store so we don't get penalized. the big story here is the amount of regulation the number of rules at the federal level, state level and local level. stuart: do you think a company

like staples has an obligation to provide health care an obligation to be generous with employees, that is what the president implies. he is saying you have enough money, your executives make enough money, do the right thing. >> staples is a wonderful company, they take very good care of their employees, this is an american success story they started with one store in 1986, build this into a $24 billion global company. we ought to be heralding companies like staples rather than diminishing them and calling them out. is disheartening when government officials call out any individual or individual company. interesting thing is the aca act actually outlaws the kind of mini net programs provided by restaurants and retailers to their hourly employees.

these need the new minimum set by the aca so it took away health-insurance that was being provided by a lot of retailers. the big story is the amount of cost that the government through its regulations and penalties is imposing on american business. stuart: that big story, that is the story, doesn't sell very well. it is a complex argument to make. if you are a politician in you say it is all these regulations doing it, it is far easier to demagogue that position and say you are just being mean, you got enough money, your executives make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, you are just mean. much easier to take that position. >> how can you love jobs in this country and hate the job creators, that is what i don't understand the you can't keep in tune in american business. we have to provide incentives for american business to create jobs. we have to remove the barriers and celebrate great businesses

and great leadership at companies like staples that are providing these jobs. stuart: hank on a second. do you think president obama changed america so much that you can't get back to this a position of celebrating job creators? >> i hope that is not the case. it is easy for populists ago after corporations but in the latest polls of the american middle-class, they are supportive of american corporations and american businesses because they know the struggles american corporations have had. we talk about mean streak versus wall street. wall street is a different deal. american companies are creating jobs small businesses and large businesses and i think the vast majority of americans truly understands that and i hope that continues to be the case because that is what is driving the economy. stuart: thanks for joining us. we will see you again soon. take a look at as low, down reported disappointing numbers,

down a lot $15 under $200. that did not stop ceo elon musk from saying has law's market value could hit $700 billion by 2025, matching where apple is right now. elon musk is saying we are another apple, give us ten years. apple's stock making another new high. $126 a share, a 14% this year. february 12th, not bad going nice a. perspective for you. apple's market value at that share price is $730 billion. tesla, market value $24 billion. clearly they have a long way to go. i want some headlines. lauren simonetti has got them. give it to us. >> house of cards shows its cards too early. netflix releasing season 3 for half an hour yesterday. some folks were equal to stream the new episodes before they

were taken down and netflix claims a technical glitch but the show has some fun with it on twitter posting this. there's always a leak in washington. of 13 officers, they will launch the twenty-seventh. i can't wait. cheap seats and united avoided the some lucky customers for first-class tickets, first-class to europe on united yesterday for $70 but the carrier canceling those tickets and blaming a vendor error during currency conversion. united also says thousands of these customers tried to take advantage of the mistake. many customers angry today. united stock is recovering but it 0.1%. stuart: before you go on i say united should have let those fares stand, taking people to europe and great pr. liz: i am with you totally.

under the fair but say can you do it? me give you $70 for economy instead of first class and everybody wins. stuart: a story about the dreamliner. tell me about it. >> the boeing 787 dreamliner, on may 7th. there are 726 seats. the business capt. speaking of the business class cabin 28 seats. they are arranged in a way so everyone has access. tickets go on sale this saturday and flights the dallas to chicago to start. stuart: excellent headlines. i am glad we gave it to you. grover norquist, you know him, d.c.'s tax crusader. guess what he is doing. he says abolish the irs, jumped on that bandwagon. really? do you know is never going to happen? i am going to have it out with him.

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stuart: modest gain, ceasefire in ukraine, 15 points, 70 points from 18 k $1,223 an ounce up $3 as of right now. big merger, expedia buying orbits $12 a share, that is $1 billion deal. both stocks are winners. orbits hitting a new high that is a consolidation. tears one thing i consider true waste of time it is a call to abolish laws i r s. it is never going to happen yet here we are talking about this

with our most got you guests. drebin norquist's new book is called end the i r s before it ends us. show yourself on camera. you're wasting your energy. you are manhattan tints energy calling for something that will never ever happen and you know it. >> that is the title of the book and it is a history, 300 page book on the seventh of april in time for tax state budget goes to the history of how we went from being a country that -- 1% or 2% of taxes in 1774 before the american revolution to paying over 30% in taxes state, federal and local and it lists a dozen different approaches to bring the irs and income-tax down towards zero. do you get there? it will be an awfully long time but among the strategies are

what we are doing at the state level, called for -- stuart: i don't see you getting there. i could see tax reform, lower tax rate do something like ronald reagan did and said the economy on fire. i can see that. getting all the way to zero where you don't collect tax money on income, i can't see that ever happening. >> without an income tax, they tell you about their state income taxes. there are 7 states with no income taxes, two states with almost no income taxes, three or four move towards zero. stuart: societies -- >> lower taxes is forwards, not backwards. stuart: we collected 1% or 2%, there are x stage we don't have an income tax.

i got that but how are you going to -- you cannot reverse the history of the last hundred years. i don't see that it is reversible. >> look at what is happening right now. north carolina has begun to phase out its corporate and individual tax, corporate tax will be 3% in a couple years. main announce their goal is a constitutional amendment to phase out to zero and in kansas it is a law that the income tax, arkansas cutting the income tax in missouri, they cut the income tax. in nebraska cutting the income tax, arizona looking to phase out its income tax. at the state level we have quite a number that are on the march toward zero and when we do it states next to them are going to have to begin that march as well. the goal is to move towards zero. we won't get their tuesday.

stuart: do you worry you will be sidelined to the fringe because of your position? >> not if you read the book. if you read the book it walks through exactly how you get with lower taxes and how long it will take. how long it took us to get to the present mess we are in. that didn't happen overnight, it took 200 years. stuart: before the ira ends, when is it coming out? >> april 7th available on amazon and all that good stuff. stuart: i am sure you will be back with us and i will give you an argument all over again. always a pleasure. time is money. 30 seconds, former sony pictures chief amy pascal seen in this picture. speaking of the women in the world conference here is the headline. she says hollywood actors are bottomless pits of need.

all right, she actually said talent. i guess i am supposed to be talented. tiger woods seen in this picture. a leave of absence competitive golf. back to his standards. that is one for you. the set of the waldorf-astoria final, sold for chinese insurance company $1.9 billion. elton will use the money to buy five other luxury hotels. power ball winners, and a regressive tax the best way to tax for people if you want to do that. may spend an enormous amount on lottery tickets. i will tell you the stunning total of lotteries in one minute.

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window and a 97% on-time rate xfinity is perfect for people with a busy life. stuart:league, called the amazon for moms stopped taking a beating, moving lower after a disappointing forecast. would you are looking at is the new lower down 26%. sales at kellogg hurt by weak

demand in europe and asia people are eating less cereal than they used to turning to perceived healthier alternatives. there were at least three winners of the power ball and the jackpot was 564 million. night. the jackpot 564 million. the winning ticket sold in north carolina, puerto rico, and texas. each will get a little bit more then $127 before taxes. we collectively america, spent a total of $70 billion on lottery tickets last year and that is more than we have been on sports tickets and books video games and movies and music all combined. $70 billion. monica, that is a waste of money and a terrible way of taxing poor people. very few people actually win the government makes out like a bandit and i say don't do it.

you get that ticket, you will wait with bated breath but still, it's part of the fun of being part of this huge national pool. the chances of winning are slim. stuart: this is "varney & co." and you find that to put a dollar on the table knowing you're going to lose, and then the disappointment of finding that he did actually. >> first of all, i don't know that i'm going to lose. >> you know you have to find it.

>> i wish, maybe in my next life. stuart: i reject the title of captain no fun. [laughter] okay, after the break, the irs chief apologizing to congress but find out why he says he is sorry. and first journalist and longtime 60 minutes bob simon killed last night in a car crash in new york city. he was 73 years old the future of the market is never clear. but at t. rowe price we can help guide your retirement savings. our experience is one reason 100% of our retirement funds beat their 10-year lipper averages. so wherever your long-term goals take you we can help you feel confident.

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stuart: it is a modest rally and the ukraine cease-fire deal stocks modest early on up 45 points upwards about 90 points away from 18 quay. american express says costco is going to stop accepting cards for next april. they couldn't agree on the terms of her renewal agreement. down 6%, that is a drop. higher profits at cisco. twenty-nine dollars per system higher sales at whole foods and

apple paid doing well at whole foods. record number of people renouncing the american citizenship last year let's bring in rich edson in washington. why are so many americans fleeing reign. >> tax specialists say that because it is a colossal pain to be an american and live overseas the 3400 americans who renounced citizenship last year, represent a 13% increase another record-breaking years. one of the few that taxes they are citizens. working for a british company earning a british income, and american must fill report that to the internal revenue service and i'm pouring tax credit may mean that they don't own a tax credit, but the worker has to file with the arra some things to a new accounting law americans must also send the federal government detailed

information about the foreign bank accounts. all of that is prompting americans largely living in europe though increasingly asian financial citizenship centers who renounced citizenship and doing so is expensive processing of $2300, presenting with five years proof of tax compliance and for americans with the least $2 million in assets, an exit fee on the market value of assets that they have just sold them. an ex-american returning to the u.s. may have to secure a visa depending upon which country they adopt. congress especially, republicans are pushing to replace the current tax code with a territorial system where americans would only report their u.s. income but the chances of that are pretty remote. stuart: slim and long. judge napolitano sitting next to me. he was listening to this report. >> astounded at the numbers, but curious at the exit tax. you have the right to leave

anywhere, and the government does not have the right to punish that decision. >> i know it is not an exit tax. what do they call it? a processing fee. [laughter] >> if you went to live in rome for a year and you got income from fox when you're in rome you need to pay tax to italy and you have to pay tax to america. it is exquisitely unfair. >> yes, it is. what about some small business owners testifying about the irs or your money without any charges? no convictions. john koskinen apologizing, saying that the policy has been stopped but the laws on the books. >> i blame congress, you put your finger on it when you say the law is on the books you give power to the irs agents that are going to exercise that power. you take power away from the irs

agents, congress has allowed this and precharge and pre-conviction of assets even though the constitution says when the government once life or liberty or property, and has to go to due process before it gets the life and liberty or property that they want. and with all of this going on with all of the hearings and horror stories that you have been reporting i think you have one of the small business people in the studio. and congress makes no changes -- that adds vitality to the iris features. >> they basically said we are not changing the law. , what good is an apology when the iris has ruined your business when they shut down your bank account for three months. >> i have to back off here.

stuart: john koskinen also told congress that illegal immigrants who do not pay taxes will be able to claim the earned income tax credit and they will get money from the treasury as soon as they get a social security number. i think that this applies to the amnesty. >> yes and the earned income tax credit this will arouse republicans as much as it's out itself there, the thought that money could be paid from the treasury to people that are here illegally and have never pay taxes. it's not like they are getting taxed with something they overpaid. this is an inducement for them to come here and an inducement for them to stay here and it was not created by the congress but done by the presidents on lawful and unconstitutional use of the law-abiding powers. >> it is profoundly unconstitutional state on the

earned income tax credit goes to people of a very low income. they are working, they are on the books. the treasury says that we will give you a check every january. >> usually, and under the law after they have worked and after they have earned income after they have filed taxes and pay taxes. >> you don't have to pay any taxes for this. >> in this case you do not have to have work you do not have to have filed tax returns, the minute that you do they checked shows up from the treasury. stuart: isn't it a great comfort, walk across the border, the president said that is okay, you can stay and by the way here is a check and that's okay you can stay, it is profoundly unconstitutional. he cannot be the log writer but the law enforcer.

stuart: it could take you guys years and years to sort this out. >> there is a solution right in the constitution and it is this word. >> your dislike grover norquist and i happen to know that even you would like to get rid of the iris. stuart: of course i would. [laughter] >> thank you are you done? [laughter] stuart: the time is 11:40 a.m. eastern. we have the former crew chief with us after the break.

reporter: the nasdaq today hitting the highest levels that we have seen since 2000. the s&p 500 up 11 and taking a look at the dow jones winner, including the cisco systems,.update .5%, jpmorgan

and intel and chevron are among the other leaders. as i mentioned apple is the real winner moving up to 127. market cap above $730 billion. and we have a big deal of the day of the online travel world expedia buying its rival orbitz. we have more "varney & co." coming up next

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to get it right. are you type e*? stuart: higher profits at the cybersecurity firm cyber eye. share prices moving higher, 39 on fire right now, 11% higher. now this nascar driver jeff gordon announcing his retirement. he explained his decision on "fox and friends." >> i have been racing all my life, it's the right time for me personally, i have two young children and the wife a wife and i want to spend more time with them and also you know, it's the right time when you look at what the future holds. stuart: here is a man that knows himself very well. his pit crew chief thank you

for joining us ray. you are the guy that changes things really fast? >> yes. actually they are doing it so fast for the daytona 500 i expect them to put fuel in the car and gas up and 11 seconds. stuart: can you repeat that? >> and 11 seconds if you're competitive. to be slow it is 12 seconds. stuart: what was that like working with jeff gordon? i don't know a lot about nascar. but nonetheless, but i am told really made a difference they took the sport and made it into a worldwide phenomenon. >> when you look at what he accomplished as a driver, and it also took this from the southern regional sport where it is and

you can be conservative on this so are you going to look at the car that elvis used to drive? >> well, that is -- you see that he has a warehouse where he had a lot of things hidden and he used an old pickup truck sneak in and out of graceland in disguise and we actually uncover that in a warehouse with a lot of elvis' artifacts. >> some of them we put back together and some of them we tell the stories about because there's so much emotion involving a car and about

technology. cars used to be the technology. it's about cars and emotion and that is what we do. stuart: let's rewrite the tape i want to show the pink cadillac again at the beginning. when i was a kid back in the 1950s, i remember hearing that elvis presley, this star was buying people pink cadillacs. he would go to a gas station and meet a lady and give her a pink cadillac. did he do that? >> has come and he absolutely did. that was one that he gave to his mother. but there was a time when he bought almost 40 cadillacs were his friends and there was a lady on the floor who happen to be looking at cadillacs and he bought her one as well. >> it is really a car culture show and john tabak, we find these incredible stories that document the timeline of america not just indefinitely but you think about music fashion just

about everything that we do, there is a motion tieback to an automobile. stuart: what channel enact. >> velocity channel, we kickoffs season two, we are on at 10:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. stuart: do you make more money in a reality show is the pit crew chief of jeff gordon? >> the reality of it is you don't make as much money as when you're playing a professional sport. stuart: your time is up. ray evernham american americana on the velocity channel. good to see you. coming up next elon musk spacex rocket blasting off yesterday, mission did not go perfectly, dined out what went wrong yesterday. plus, check out this video. nasa releasing a time lapse footage that was taken over a span of of five years. it's kind of cool.

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stuart: a successful launch for

the latest spacex rocket, taking off from cape canaveral florida. and the mission wasn't a complete success, high winds rough seas and preventing a rocket from landing on an offshore landing plaut. getting more on this from our expert. are you getting a little worried about this rocket and what it is supposed to do coming back to land onshore two this is the third time that it has an made it. >> to be clear, it could have landed on the platform as the weather was perfect, but mother nature did not cooperate. they had to recall this and so they just pitched it into the ocean. stuart: but you have to have protection. >> you do, space is a very unforgiving business. that is part of a reason that they recall that. if the rocket would have crashed we could've lost this and the rocket.

hoping that the recovery crew is -- stuart: they did have a successful launch. >> yes they launched a station called discover. stuart: that was talked about by al gore. really to look from this to inspire and provide. stuart: yesterday he said that tesla will be worth as much money as apple. >> i cannot say when he unveiled his plan i was very skeptical and i will believe it when i see it.

but now over 10 years later he has launched this and the missions flawlessly and i can say that so far things seem to be going his way. he is not giving up any service with the rocket launcher is with these tests because it happens after the mission so we haven't seen this that far. stuart: does he intend to make money? big profit at some point? >> yes, i believe if he can prove the technology, you save money servicing them, it can make it cheaper for people to launch their own satellite and stuff. and this week he also signed a lease with the air force to use this as the landing pad for the rocket in the future. so that could happen faster than we are thinking. stuart: manukau, would you be a space tourist?

[laughter] >> no i would not. >> i think that that would be great. stuart: the concorde 58,000 feet, you can see the curvature of the earth. stuart: foreign policy looks like it's in shambles. three out of people say we have a clear strategy to fight isis and we talk about the chaos over there with tom mcinerney over there. and a passed situation. former sony ceo amy pascal for the bottomless pits of need

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yemen force rebels allied with iran, embassy closed-end united states marines have to destroy their own weapons as they fly out of the country. that is standard operating procedure but still accumulation. america has been run out of the following companies, yemen, somalia cn and iran. that is the real treat. the leader of our close ally israel will address congress but president obama will not meet him. america's generals openly lament the president's policies and here comes the fourth defense secretary in six years. an unprecedented turnover. what is our strategy to deal with this? 54% of democrats say we don't have one. the barbarians are at the gay. don't think what happens over a there doesn't hurt your money

over here because unless we stop them over it there they will hit your wallet when they arrive right here. ♪ stuart: we will talk foreign policy and everything i outlined all leader with general tom mcin mcineirney mcineirney. rather and negative numbers on the economy, retail sales down, the layoff rate going off took the steam out of the rally but that deal in my view cream, it is giving a modest lift to the dollar 60 points. tesla is a loser today. it reported disappointing numbers but ceo elon musk tries to talk up the company. he said ass market value could hit $700 billion by 2025. that would match where apple is right now. stock of tesla is below 200.

apple stock making yet another new high, that stock is up 14% this calendar year. 14% on apple, will back on the upswing, $2 higher at $51 a barrel and gas continues to go sharply higher very quickly gaining another 2 sent overnight to a national average of $2.23. we are up a dime from one month ago. now this. new politics. where is hillary clinton? she has gone underground. the gop has pointed out it has been 202 days since her last news conference. elizabeth warren just won a couple early polls in iowa and new hampshire beating hillary. look who is here blood feud author ed klein is with us. you know all about the fight

between the clintons and the obamas. how is this working out in the current campaign? hillary appears to be running. >> a couple months ago the obamas called hillary and said to see her in the white house. don't bring built. and met with valerie jarrett and michele obama and the oval office. at that time obama made it clear to her that he was going to remain neutral in the democratic primaries. stuart: he just -- >> remain neutral and according to my reporting, they're looking at martin o'malley. they skipped over elizabeth warren, she does not have a fire in the belly to go ahead.

stuart: elizabeth warren, very much to the left of center. very much in the obama mold on the left. >> including all this valerie jarrett has been quoted as saying in private that martin o'malley is malleable meaning if he got the nomination the obamas would have some big feed in during his administration. they would still be relevant. stuart: is there any doubt in your mind that hillary clinton will not be the nominee? >> no. bill clinton set up this strategy months and months ago in little rock with a bunch of his advisers. the strategy was to delay delay and delay the announcement as long as possible as far as the primary is concerned. first she was going to announce after the new year, then she said in april she would announce and now they pushed it to june.

the longer she delays harder it is for anyone else to raise money and that is their strategy all along. stuart: i want to go back to 2008. hillary clinton made comments about coming under sniper fire during the visit to bosnia. listen to the tape for a second. >> i remember landing under sniper fire, there was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport but instead we ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. stuart: video of her actual arrival tells a different story she was greeted on the runway by journalists, members of the military, she walked very calm across the runway, no sign of sniper fire, she said she miss spoke. in light of the problems with embellishing stories we have heard recently from brian williams for example, in light of that do you think this comes back to haunt hillary clinton?

>> absolutely. hillary, the close friends given a choice between telling the truth and telling an exaggeration or a lie hillary almost inevitably and automatically tells a lie. stuart: that is a little nasty. >> it is nasty but true. think about she said she was named after sir edmund hillary when he was still the sheep farmers in australia. he had never even gotten any kind of notoriety. he hadn't climbed mount everest yet. she said her daughter was at the world trade center during the bombing which was absolutely untrue. she said she made $100,000 in commodities trading by reading the wall street journal. not true either. stuart: you can have fun in this campaign. always of pleasure, thank you for joining us. back to the markets. we don't like to show you charts, i don't like the met all but we have a couple good ones.

su billy down big today, below $15 a share. i think that chart really does tell the story. that is almost straight down for a long period of time. on the opposite spectrum you have cisco. i call this a door stopper because the stock never moved. it was at a certain level, $23 a share. it hit a 7 year high it is of 17% in the past year ceausescu, that chart also tells the story. disappointing economic numbers on two friends weekly jobless claims to me is the firing rate essentially. a number of people finding unemployment benefits first time. retail sales, for the second straight month down 1% in january down the same amount in december. that is a strange phenomenon. cheryl casone is here to explain it all, encouraging numbers. cheryl: if you think of what is

happening on the surface we added a million jobs in the last three months but those jobs are low paying jobs. that explains why americans are not spending. the unemployment rate has fallen but americans are scared, either paying down their debt, putting money into their savings account, if you look at the jump for january, gaining 1% if you exclude and that is the other number, excluding autos, gas building materials, everything. i didn't go to footlocker to buy new tennis shoes last month. you have to look at these numbers. stuart: that is disappointing. in third quarter of last year we had a growth rate of 5% third quarter last year, looking good. then it drops to 2.6% in the fourth quarter. now all we have a decline in retail sales. this is the same thing we have seen for five years. looking good in the summer or fall then all those hopes are dashed as we get into winter and

spring. >> the economic and manufacturing data, the growth of the country, everything has been negative. economists will start taking down their forecasts for the first quarter for gdp and that is back. we have to ask ourselves what is the underlying core issue of what is going wrong in this economy? what is it? stuart: we had a mistake on the graphic, i think we set down 8% down 0.8%. >> that is the overall number. that is correct. the 0.1% 5 was mentioning is a few excludes everything, 0.8%. down 4.8%, 40% and yet americans are going on and spending. what is going on? congress was going to raise the gas tax? stuart: you our viewers, america are not feeling this recovery the white house is touting. fox news poll latest 65%, two of

three, you think the economy is still in recession. look at this, 49% half say you are, quote, just able to pay most bills. obamanomics is not doing that well. all right, that is how people feel. there is a real dichotomy, a real juxtaposition between what the president says is going on in the economy and what people say they feel about the economy. explain it. >> it is interesting because obama's portrayal of the economy sound like brian williams's eat portrayal of his helicopter ride in iraq. marshawn lynch fabrications. look at the american consumer how they're feeling they are feeling bad. 65% still believe we are in a recession and 40 good reason. the biggest number is 93 million americans are not in the labour force. that is astonishing if you stop

and think about that. one third of americans are not looking for a job and it is an insult on the american people's intelligence for the president of ghana victory lap around the country touting and unemployment numbers it doesn't tell the full story. stuart: the president turns that around and says it is business's fault business is being mean. look what he did to staples, saying you make a lot of money, your executives are well paid stock doing well, you can afford to be generous and paid decent wages. he blames business, private enterprise for the failures in the economy. that is what he is doing. >> it is so easy to throw that are out there for the president and not explain the full picture which is the implementation of the affordable care act has created so much uncertainty for companies, companies don't want to hire new workers, don't know the costs coming down a pipeline in terms of health care burnett in with more regulation and look at the epa regulations released last summer, those hurt businesses and piled on top is the corporate tax rate the

highest in the developed world, the president saying he could raise capital gains tax. all of that together creates this environment of uncertainty that forces businesses to not hire but the president leaves that out of the picture. stuart: with you all the way but the president always turned around and says you deregulate and business will get away with murder. look at wall street and what they did in 2007-8 and if you cut tax rates for the rich just get richer. you will be -- is that a winning political line when the president does that kind of thing? >> it is a winning political line. it is a simple rallying message to buy into but when you look as i said at the full picture and republicans need to do a better job explaining it. there's more to the story. look at the 2008 crash and you see the housing reinvestment act and barney frank and the culpability of hud and what happened, you leave that out of the picture and it takes understanding the broad picture and what is going on as a whole

and not just the simple rallying point wines but for republicans to get full picture out there. stuart: it is to you. you are a harvard law school student and it is a d to get the message out to fellow socialists. thank you very much indeed. good to see you again. here is what is coming up the rest of the hour. sony pictures chief amy pascal telling her story, hollywood actors are bottomless pits of the need. full story at 12:25. after the break valentine's day, capitalism at its finest. what does father jonathan morris think of all this money spent on chocolates the commercialization of saint valentine's day? what did halfwit say? he is next.

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stuart: expedia buying orbits for $1 billion. tracy byrnes is here. what is this about? >> size matters at the end of the day. price line is the big behemoth in the room. orbits is all about size keeping under one umbrella. will this change your booking? not at all. you should still go with the metadata sites, google hotels, that searches for all the best things for you. orbits basically an online travel agency. stuart: if there was one business that was totally wacked out by the internet it was the travel business.

they took it over. >> we never thought they would make it this far and look at it now. stuart: $700. >> it is taking over the online reservation world. stuart: a $1,100 a share. if you look around, there are countless travel sites out there. >> many of them are under these umbrellas. cheap tickets and hotel clubs, and travelocity, expedia has hotels hot wire. stuart: like procter and gamble, countless grams. >> the packages if we want a package deal, expedia or orbits is a better place to go. >> the other ones are searching for you, big search engines search everything to find you the best deal. you want to purchase of the end up in an online travel site. stuart: i still have a travel

agent. >> online they are not allowed to undercut the hotels if you can get a better deal. stuart: it was a great report. thank you very much indeed. what is your name? i will look it up. >> bigger is better. stuart: on that note, on that note. i got to introduce the man. saturday is valentine's day. america is going to spend billions chocolate, flowers and jewelry just to say i love you. joining us is father jonathan morris. >> great segway. what is with -- it used to be st. valentine's day. now it is a purely commercial enterprise. >> not only the catholic church

but orthodox and anglican, of st. valentine, third century martyr, a man who respected love. stuart: christians celebrate the spiritual angle. >> there is little known about saint valentine. celebrate romance, celebrate devotion both of which are very good things. i congratulate businesses for making money off of very good things. >> the commercialism? >> if not we would not be celebrating yet. women all over the world are very grateful that people are making money off of that. stuart: just for a moment i am going to make you feel better about the commercialization of valentine's day. roll tape. >> i am grateful for what you do

and grateful for to you are. >> when all was said and done and all the music is gone and the noise is gone and conversations are gone, there's still a bond between us. that is the best way i can describe it. stuart: that wasn't commercialization of valentine's day. it was wonderful. >> i love it. it goes beyond i love you. hallmark -- >> and other holiday. >> using guys would be giving presents if there wasn't an expectation created by business? no. stuart: do you think the good lord approves of the shift in the concept of romance and love toward commercialism? selling cars and chocolates? >> aristotle talked about different types of friendship, one that does utilitarian and another based on pleasure and it was an increasing level of

friendship and the third one was loving another person based on who they are. that is bigger than utilitarian, bigger isn't pleasure but loving somebody for who they are, that is -- stuart: the commercial did that. >> it is the recognition there's something more than buying something. chocolates are good, diamonds might be better. love is the best. stuart: i am in tears. >> to get you into tears. stuart: are we having lunch today? >> i think we are. stuart: i am in tears. thank you very much indeed. >> hope you like mcdonald's. stuart: listen to this. sony pictures chief amy pascal has choice words for hollywood's a list talent. what she said coming up next. check this out please. the new ford mustang and

just-in-time for st. valentine's day. several guys set up on a blind date with a stunt driver. more from this next. just watch. >> seriously! 3rd and 3. 58 seconds on the clock, what am i thinking about? foreign markets. asian debt that recognizes the shift in the global economy. you know, the kind that capitalizes on diversity across the credit spectrum and gets exposure to frontier and emerging markets. if you convert 4-quarter p/e of the s&p 500 its yield is doing a lot better... if you've had to become your own investment expert, maybe it's time for bny mellon a different kind of wealth manager ...and black swans are unpredictable.

stuart: it sent guys on a blind date with a stunt woman in the mustang. that is an icebreaker if ever i saw one. roll that tape. ♪ >> what do you like to do for fun this weekend? >> go to the music festival.

>> oh yes. >> yak, baby! >> one of those things we did. >> oh! oh! >> the best i have a for been on in my life. stuart: what do you think? >> women can't drive. and so sick of hearing that. they did a bad job on that commercial. a couple of the guys maybe i should drive not a good idea. she needs to drive. stuart: now this. former sony pictures head amy pascal used choice words to describe the talent in hollywood. >> bottomless pits of the need. never seen anything like it. >> you have to rack up. you need to tell them. >> they are so great because they are it this magical thing that no one else can be. stuart: just to be clear talent is the word to describe the people in front of the camera like myself.

i am not a bottomless pit of need. >> we are all bottomless pits of need. we are all crazy. beyond that good for her for owning up to everything that happened last year. she came out and said i said it the e-mails were abusive. she and angelina jolie are fine. she called her a minimally talented spoiled brats in one of the e-mails and they are fine because basically, quote, and he gets it. you went on to say that hollywood wouldn't work if everyone was nice to each other. it is insisted, dirty business, lot of anger, the glass saying things, this is l a culture, never to your face in new york, we tolerate your face the don't like you better and l a it is a different story. she has got a new project key is producing, the spider-man thing in may and she is a owning it and saying i said it. stuart: bottomless pit of need will live forever.

>> i am going to steal that. i know a lot of people who are bottomless pits of need. stuart: no further than that. syria stuff, another u.s. embassy closed this one in yemen and the marines forced to leave their weapons, destroying them. it is chaos in the middle east. general tom mcinerney on that next. >> the mission is on the offensive. isil is not on the defensive isil is going to lose. the real question that needs to be asked is "what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers.

it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, that's what i'd like to do.

drive a. stuart: investors like what they hear from the ukraine, there is a cease-fire deal there, the dow jones up 80 points, 59 points away from 18000. that elon musk says that this company is going to be as big as apple. so what do you think? what about the great dreams of elon musk? >> i love elon musk but i don't love the dock, yes or no it has to be a no answer right here.

running against headwinds in their production by the business execution risk with tesla right now was brought home by fourth-quarter earnings that we got and the third quarter has the same picture and problems again. ramping up in 2025 to be as big as apple and because of this model, mass production car, if you can't get this taken care of, there's no way did that they can bring this to market profitably. stuart: currently it's worth $700 billion. about 126 per share. >> i think you have to be a buyer until proven otherwise they are such a joke or not. some of the real striking once we have heard of some of the

real striking ones that haven't been talked about so much are 39.9% gross margin, 35.15% return on all of that equity and this is a company that if you are a money manager and you don't have apple in your portfolio, it is basically financial suicide in this has to be a buyer until something else comes along that can knock them off the top spot. they are a momentum and financial juggernaut right now. stuart: thank you very much indeed, that's interesting stuff or in more news affecting your money and lauren has the stories. reporter: that's right let the veto show began. house giving congressional approval in the keystone pipeline to transport oil from canada to the gulf of mexico. the house voted in favor of the pipeline to 70 to 152, president obama has vowed to veto the

legislation facebook leading family and friends manage the pages of their deceased loved ones and users today can select a legacy contact to make a final post on your page after you die and that person can respond to new friend requests and update your page for you and archive your pictures and your posts. >> and in other news they couldn't come to terms on a renewal agreement between costco and amax. stuart: president obama asking for powers to fight isis. according to a new poll, you don't think that he is prepared to take them on. 73% of voters say that the white house does not have a clear strategy for defeating them. a majority of democrats, 54%

say that president obama does not have a clear plan and then we no longer have embassies in syria, iran, somalia libya and we just left yemen. general tom mcinerney is here. have you looked at that map where we no longer have embassies, we are clearly in retreat which leaves a vacuum. what happens? >> well, that is a great question. personally have to have a good strategy and we do not have a strategy, 73% of americans agree 54% of democrats. it will be higher when people start asking what happened to our embassy in yemen, which was the poster child of our counterterrorism strategy as the president articulated months ago that we have to get a strategy and i would start with this identifying the threat, whether

it is this or isis or al qaeda or hamas, they are radical islamists and we must focus our attention upon to and did the arab world to pick up their responsibilities. only they can defeat the ideology of radical islam. but if we don't name it and get them to do it we will not be able to defeat it. stuart: i don't think american people want him to do that and he's not going to do that. so can they be defeated by isis troops. >> let me explain why. first of all we have to have a very aggressive air campaign and

we have since august average somewhere between seven and 15 sorties a day. this is not an air campaign in with the technology and intelligence surveillance reconnaissance assets that we have we can make it i don't want u.s. boots on the ground at any large size, i support that what the president is trying to do which is where the arab nations to pick up that responsibility. and they can do if we put the burden on them and work with them on it. and frankly 40000 troops is not a large force to defeat with the capabilities that we have but without a strategy and identifying threat we can't do it. stuart: i have 20 seconds flat. what do you figure the odds of your troops do the job?

>> well, i think it is 5050, but if we don't ask them to do it and if we don't give them a strategy to work with the president has certainly articulated a problem with the ideology that they are fighting, we are not going to be able to do it but we see no leadership out of this white house. stuart: general tom mcinerney. we appreciate your time. >> thank you. stuart: then we had mcdonald's still struggling maybe the problem is in their marketing slogan but the food. we will deal with that in a moment. your daughter has a brilliant idea for her science project. and you could make it happen. right?

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reporter: i have your fox business for you. seventy points up on the dow jones, sitting at 17,938. the s&p 500 up 15 points the nasdaq, that's the best one of the day after we have watched apple soaring to new highs, moving the highest levels since 2000. also looking at some of the names -- apple is at 12652, setting lifetime highs record

highs very at cisco systems also. intel, yahoo! microsoft up as well. biggest drop since 20 leben and it's down at the moment about 9%. after the bell reporting earnings at aig and groupon. more "varney & co." coming up next i'd rather do anything else than sit at a dealership. it's a lot of haggling and it takes so long. craig's experience is completely

different than mine. yeah. yes, mike has used truecar. at truecar, we'll show you how much others paid for the car you want and how much you should. because i used truecar there was no haggling about the price. they treated me so well, and it was just such a quick, easy experience. get your car, and get back to the life you love. welcome to the future of car-buying.

stuart: higher sales at whole foods, customers like the price cutting that they have been doing and changing their first national ad campaign, and apple pay has been doing very well at whole foods as well. stocks are up 5%. kellogg skipping the serial for what they think are healthier alternatives, stocks down 4%. mcdonald's, the share price is 94, we love to talk about what it means to do to get back on track, joining us from boynton beach florida, larry rice a former chief officer at mcdonald's. here's what here is what i hear all the time is that there is a problem with the food. two problems, a problem with the food and the problem that it's not fast. addressing the food situation first. >> the last turnaround to mcdonald's, the first thing we focused on is the food. fast and quality and accuracy.

stuart: what about the food itself? are we at the point where people are saying that i don't want a burger any longer, i don't want those fries or a fattening shake. what i want is something that is more obviously healthy. the basic nature of mcdonald's food, is that the problem? >> i think that the biggest problem that they need to address first and foremost is that food needs to taste good. people come to a restaurant to eat and they want to enjoy what they are eating. stuart: do you think that mcdonald's food doesn't take good tastes at the moment? >> i believe that hamburgers and even worse the fries have degraded over the years. >> the fries are still the best

that there are. that's the one thing that they have going for them. >> it has been that, but we are receiving comments and research from customers at the fries are not what they used to be and not freshly prepared and not consistent. stuart: two questions for you it first was at fast food? >> yes, it is, the first word is fast. stuart: how about a facelift for the restaurants themselves? >> i think before we worry on a major capital expenditure that we need to get the experience in the restaurant right. ray kroc the founder focused on three things, quality food fast and friendly service and being the king of clean.

and mcdonald's has declined on all three. stuart: thank you for being with us. that's good stuff. what do you say? >> i think it is the younger generation, we talked about this before. they don't want the type of food that mcdonald's is offering. they have -- i mean i agree that the fries are great and the burgers are great, but it is the genre is what is dying, the overall genre of workers and fries and not -- it's not a mcdonald's problem. stuart: [laughter] , it's the genre. >> they're going to eat at

starbucks, aaa, they're going to whole foods, talk about that they would rather go there and that is what is hip and cool right now. stuart: but at twice the price, 49% of americans are scraping by. what are they doing with what is cheap? >> i can tell that they won't do it, it's part of the fabric and they do nothing different. and that is what they think is reality, they're not going to change the behavior just because i tell them in a bad financial sense. stuart: i am captain no fun. [laughter] stuart: tiger woods pulling himself out of competition putting the future of his career in question. it doesn't look like he is going to be good record of jackuals greatates. nicklaus it's a fact. kind of like mute buttons equal danger.

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commissioner. >> this is the third time in his career that i have heard he was finished, last time he came back -- stuart: don't mind my comment, that is obviously too harsh, but honestly he's not going to beat the record of jack nicklaus. >> i understand what people are saying. >> we have seen him rebuild this each time each time i've heard he's never coming back.

stuart: young stars coming into the latest professional tournaments. until this last year they joined our tour. stuart: during the break you were talking about the tv ratings for golf for ladies golf. >> i thought they were in the tank. >> the bottom line is one is in north america ratings are up. and we have gone from here and it's up 50% in north america. what's more impressive than that is we've gone from having a handful of countries watching as to averaging over 165 countries every time we tee it up.

and he said we want to put on a great hometown event and let the whole world watch and we really play locally. but the world plays attention. stuart: michael whan thank you for joining us, that was news to me.

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apple hits new highs in recent earnings and expansions and apple pay solar, setting this up for the third straight day. tesla will grow to be even bigger and it has to do with vision for growth in china. and making hardware count less than software with 1.5 billion users, we will tell you how much the competitors will be. the apple three-day rally, $126 per share as the tech giant market cap close to $740 billion. and and in some ways it makes it more calling attention to itself. jolene has more. we know that they have been pressuring apple. >> $6.5 billion, this guy is a top 10