you for watching. i'm paul gigótx happy new year. we hope to so you right here next week -- to see you right here next week. ♪ maria: welcome to a very special edition of wall street week. i'm maria bartiromo. usually we are the program that analyzes the week that was. today, we are analyzing the year that was by looking back at our biggest news-making interviews, most memorable moments of 2017, including this moment of myself with president trump. >> this weekend is the 31st anniversary of when president reagan last instituted tax reform. >> right. on sunday. maria: that's a big deal. on sunday. exactly. do you think we have the votes?

>> i think we have the votes. i think that rand paul actually is going to vote for the tax cuts. i think that other people -- you know, we had tremendous enthusiasm this time. health care. i want to get it by the end of the year, but i would be very disappointed if it took that long. maria: we will also hear from steve ballmer, martha stuart, and leon. first of all, 2017 was easily defined by washington, d.c. and year one for new president. president trump pushed unsuccessfully on repealing and replacing obamacare right out of the gate. he had better results with tax cuts. back in june, i asked home depot's billionaire cofounder and business icon about the climate in washington. as usual, he did not hold back. >> what's the state of washington today? >> chaotic. maria: that's what it sounds like. >> every place you look, chaotic. the wheels have come off. i understand the democrats being obstructionists. i understand the democrats

seeking an identity. right now, they want to be relevant. the best way they can be relevant in their minds -- i don't agree with it -- is to be an obstructionist. say we stopped this. we stopped that. we stopped that. the republicans on the other hand have skin in the game. in my opinion, if we don't get some significant things done, we'll lose control of the house next year. and it will be safe because largely they have more seats than we do and are more vulnerable than we are. maria: yeah, but that's the point. if they don't get something done, they lose seats in the house, fine. >> they lose control. maria: lose control of the house. but what about the economy? if we don't see tax reform getting done, it's going to be bigger implications than just losing control of the house. >> look, you go back to the campaign last year, a lot of noise was made about tax reform, about the hernandoous nature of health care in america today, the affordable

kay act, immigration issues, the environment. you've got to deliver on something. the american people last november in my mind did a very dramatic thing. they elected a man who the republicans didn't want, the democrats didn't want, the media god forbid. what the media is doing right now is trying to establish their relevance because what happened last november was the public said to hell with you, media. i'm voting the way i want to vote, and they were shocked. it was that simple. maria: well, the media really does not like president trump. >> hate him. they hate him. maria: you look at something like a cnn or msnbc. >> bob woodward. look what bob woodward the way the media is acting now. where's the objectivity? i haven't seen one headline on the front page, although i read it less and less. so when i read the new york times, which is less frequently than i used to, the headlines in the front are

more relevant and objective statement of fact. maria: they're nasty. >> they're subjective. they're like the editorial page. maria: you're right. where do you want to see the regulations lowered now? i know the financial services sector. but you're saying health care. >> let's make sure one thing. we never want to harm the public. so any regulation that's designed to make sure we measure twice and cut once, i'm for that. but there's a lot of regulation out there that's superfluous. that does nothing good except the guy in washington. you realize obamacare we added 16,000 people to the irs to collect the tax money that's coming that came from the new taxes that were levied to pay for obamacare. i mean, these people all have to eat. and there's a solution to that as well. because people want to work 20

years and retire. you come don't replace those jobs. i have to believe when you have hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people working for the government, there's an opportunity just to let the clock take care of the problem. maria: right, well, there's an immigration people that people say is taking people's jobs. but also technology. robotics is really the issue. >> look, the problem is our children are not getting the educations they need to be competitive in a high-tech world. i don't want to blame anybody. but we are doing a horrible job in public education in america today. we spend more money per student in public education than the 30-most developed countries on earth. and in result, we ranked 28. maria: wow. so should it be on government or businessesner has training our people? because they had fantastic training programs that i was so proud to be a part of. >> right. maria: building essential leadership skills and all of these classes. should businesses be doing

more of that to train people to thrive in the new economy? . >> but let's go back a step. business has no control over public education. the beginning has got to be we give the kids the basic tools. read, write, count. i'm not talking about extra calculus, superior this. i'm talking about giving the kids the basic tools that prepare them to go into an entry-level job. take home depot. how come we have somebody helping a customer if that associate can't read the directions on the package to help the customer figure out how to do it? as far as i'm concerned, take what you want from me. this country's been great to my wife and me and our family. i can't believe all the wonderful opportunities i've had and i can't believe thank god the success i've had. my philanthropy is driven from one thing. and that's given back to those places where they are for me.

bucknell, nyu. and i think all of us have done well and some of us have done extremely well. there's a strong moral obligation to make sure we do our part to give the next kid the same chance we had. on the other hand, there's so many people, so much hurt in this world. you go to the ronald mcdonald house on the east side and 10-year-old kids coming here struggling to live. how can you not help that? jeff candidate, children's and what they've done there and the opportunities they're giving these kids. i'm very active up there and in charge of the academy. and you see these kids and they're blossoming and doing so well. >> what satisfaction must that give you? >> more of the value of the stock going up. more -- look, you reach a point in life where material things are frankly in the

abstract. okay? but when you can touch a life, you say i've made a kid's life a little better because i wanted to and i had the ability to do it, and i had the financial wherewithal. there's no greater glory. maria: our thanks to ken. this special edition of wall street week, the best of 2017 returns right after this. >> coming up, martha stuart's next big move. what she shared with maria is next. >> we're trying to do a big job with amazon. amazon is here to stay. >> and later from microsoft to the nba, steve ballmer talks with maria about with why he made the transition from the boardroom to the hard court. yo, check it out dawg. that was just a'ight for me. i mean, you got the walk. you got the stance.. but i wasn't really feeling it. you know what, i'm not buying this. you gotta come a little harder dawg. you gotta figure it out. eh, i don't know. shaky on the walk, carriage was off. randy jackson judging a dog show. i don't know dawg.

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i realize that ah, that $100k is notwell, a 103fortune. yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time. then it's a fortune. well, i'm sure you talk to people all the time who think $100k is just pocket change. right now we're just talking to you. i told you we had a fortune. yes, you did. getting closer to your investment goals starts with a conversation. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today. maria: welcome back. one of the big stories in media this year was acquisition of time, inc., which included a big financial backing from the coke brothers. >> we licensed our precious

magazine martha stuart living and martha stuart weddings to meredith. and meredith is a very aggressive seller of very fine lifestyle magazines. they have better homes and gardens, they have martha stuart living, they have a lot of other kinds of magazines that really do reach 100 million people. maria: they really resonate with a lot of people. >> yeah. and so meredith wanting to buy time, inc., magazines is a very smart move. now they've gotten a huge infusion of cash from the coke brothers, who probably want to get into media also in a way. i mean, they manufacture products that touch everybody's lives in america, the coke brothers. and i can see exactly why they're doing it. you know, coke brothers make all the liners for every pampered diaper sold and all disposable diapers and those are the women who buy the magazines.

the housewives, the mothers. so why not? why not reach them in another way via media? maria: yeah, i love it. so how have you changed the company, your brand as everything has shifted? i mean, you have amazon eating people's lunch on so many levels, truly. >> well, we're going to do a big job with amazon. amazon is here to stay. i've known amazon ever since they started at perkins, and i really admire what jeff bezos has done with his ten afte tenacity and his brilliance. maria: and a media mogul. he owns the washington post personally. >> he bought the biggest house in washington recently. he wants to really be in every single aspect of our lives. and he's doing it brilliantly. maria: so your deal will include -- i mean, are we delivering. >> just selling. we already sell our martha and marlie meals through amazon.

we're working on doing pets and garden through amazon. not only amazon. it's just another vertical, another way to sell beautiful product. i mean, everybody's selling on amazon and to say, oh, i'll never put my products on amazon is crazy. maria: why would you do that? >> because they're selling. maria: exactly. i don't know that black friday is as important as it once was. when you've got venues that you can buy anything any time. >> well, it's only about the price. black friday pricing. it's the sales price that people are going after. and it's an excitement. it's really trying to get people to get out, shop. they're going to buy other things too. stores are really suffering because of online sales. but i think it's 59% of americans want to shop online. maria: yeah. >> either by their phone or just sitting at their desk at home. maria: martha stuart and snoop dogg tv's oddest couple. it seems like an odd couple.

>> we are a very odd couple. maria: you have commonalities. tell me how that came about. >> well, we were on the justin bieber roast, and he had been on my show a couple of times. on the martha show, and we just hit it off. he's fun to hang with as they say. and remember, i'm not a rapper. i'm not black. i am, you know, i'm sort of like a teacher. and snoop loves to learn. so we get to talking and some brilliant agent or somebody brilliant at vh1 decided they were going to approach us about doing a cooking show. they wanted a contest. snoop and i decided we wanted to do a dinner party where we would invite all kinds of people. and this year from jamie foxx to puff daddy to -- i'm trying to get eminem. he hasn't come on yet, and i want beyoncé. maria: she's now the highest paid singer. >> her album just got number

1. maria: that's right. knocked swift off the list. it's a cooking show. it's celebrities. >> it's cooking, it's talking, it's very immediatic because snoop has a great sense of comedy. maria: this special edition of wall street week returns right after this. >> former defense secretary leon lays it out next. >> they have nuclear weapons. that's a direct threat to the national security of the united states. >> and before bitcoin took off, jeffrey had some interesting thoughts on the cryptocurrency. all of that when wall street we when a cold calls... achoo! ...answer it. with zicam cold remedy. it shortens colds, so you get better, faster. colds are gonna call. answer them with zicam! zicam. get your better back. now in delicious fruit drops.

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maria: most new administrations have a bumpy new year and certainly the trump presidency was no different while the economy was stellar in his first year, the white house saw a lot of top officials either resign or get fired in its first few months. and there was serious concerns over leaks. that seemed to largely stop when the president named john kelly as his new chief of staff. we had the chance to talk to clinton former chief of staff certainly after the announcement was made and got his instant reaction. >> i like john kelly a lot. he was my military aid for two years when i was secretary at the defense department. and the best thing to know about john kelly is he is first and foremost a marine. he's dedicated his life to public service, committed to whoever is commander-in-chief. and he's somebody who believes deeply in discipline and a strong chain of command and a processes for decision-making. and doesn't tolerate chaos very easily.

so i think he's the right guy to be able to try to get the white house back in order. i think the real question is going to be whether or not the president gives him the room to make the changes that are going to be necessary in order to improve the operations of the white house. maria: what would you advise him to do at this point? because that's really what i was about to say. this is a different president. this is a different approach. president trump goes directly to the american people with his treating. he's sometimes saying things that perhaps, you know, are not scripted. he's sort of, you know, not the discipline that you would think of when you think of a general like john kelly. >> well, you know, i think john has to first and foremost focus on the staff operation in the white house. he has got to be the chief of staff, which means that you can't have a bunch of people who are also chiefs of staff

running around the white house and having access to the oval office. and my sense is he's beginning to impose that kind of discipline. he's also got to establish a strong chain of command where people are responsible to others or supervised and have clear responsibilities. and then he's got to create an orderly processes for decision-making in the white house. now, you know, i know the president is going to continue to tweet. that's something he's been doing. he'll continue to do that. but in the very least, if he's going to tweet policy, it ought to be the result of the decision-making processes in which people have been able to present their views and information to the president before he does that. so i hope that john kelly will at least be able to impose that kind of discipline with regard to the president. maria: yeah, in fact, one of the things that he said this week, this past week was, look, any information that gets in front of the president needs to come in front of me

first. we don't just want willy-nilly the president looking at all different information because some of the information may be bad, and we need the president to be looking at good decisions based on good and strong and accurate information. >> that's john kelly to a t. and it is important because the president has to deal with a number of crises, a number of problems. he has a national security processes that involves both deputies meetings and principle meetings in order to move forward on recommendations to the president. he ought to follow that. he ought to do the same thing when it comes to economic policy and to domestic policy is to create an orderly processes where information is provided, options are viewed, and then they are then presented to the president. when i was chief of staff to bill clinton before any briefing went to the president, it had to come to me in the chief of staff's office at the white house. i think that's the right way to do business.

>> the north korea situation has become incredibly dangerous in the last few months. what's your take on this latest provocation where you have north korea launching the first intercontinental ballistic missile hidden from spy satellites and aimed into space. >> maria, there's a number of flash points in the world. dangerous flash points in the world that's confronting our country and challenging our national security. probably the most dangerous right now is north korea because they are developing an icbm, and they are continuing to try to develop a miniaturized nuclear weapon. they have nuclear weapons. so they're trying to develop a delivery system for those nuclear weapons. and it's obvious that they have the potential right now to be able to reach not only

the pacific region but obviously reach even the united states. that's a direct threat for the national security of the united states. and for that reason, it's really important that we have to develop a comprehensive strategy to deal with north korea. but the principle strategy has to be containment and deterrence. that's the strategy you have to use with north korea. and it involves both military and diplomatic efforts. on the military side, we've got to strengthen our presence in that region. we've got to work with south korea and japan and other countries in that region. we have to make sure that overtly or covertly we have the capability to take down those missiles, even when they're testing them, take them down. and in addition to that, we need diplomacy to try to push china to put pressure on north korea to come to the negotiating table. all of that is what constitutes a firm strategy in

dealing with north korea. maria: have you ever seen an environment quite like this one where you don't have any conversation between the two parties? i mean, when you were running defense party, when you were running the cia, even between the republicans and the democrats and the republicans will say, look, we don't have any participation from the democrats. not on health care, not on tax reform. how does? >> well, maria, i think you touched on one of the fundamental problems. if you ask about national security, i think one of the big threats to national security is the dysfunction in washington. the inability of democrats and democrats to sit down and work on issues. the inability of the president and the leadership to work together on issues. and the result is very frankly

that we're operating by crisis. i often tell the students that in this country in a democracy, you operate either by leadership or by crisis. if leadership is there and willing to take the risk associated with leadership, willing to sit down and work together to find solutions to problems, it takes risks. i understand that. but it's leadership. and that's what we elect to the congress and to the white house. we hopefully elect people who are leaders who are willing to take those risks. but if that doesn't happen, we operate by crisis. and right now frankly almost on every front, we are dealing with things by crisis. the problem is when you do that, you lose the trust of governing, and that's dangerous. >> my thanks to leon. this special edition of wall street week returns right after this. >> how to win in life, business, and the stock market.

how is that for a 2018 resolution? tony robins told maria exactly how to do it. he spills all of his secrets when wall street week returns. >> the general investor what they really need to do it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same. but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management.

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maria: tony robins is one of the most well-known strategist in history. he has written seven best-selling books. people continue to flock to his motivational speaking events. at his core, though, tony robins is a businessman, despite his personal empire to be worth more than $4 billion, robin had no problem telling us his secrets. in fact, he wants everyone to use them. here's what he told us back in march. maria: when you first started, you said someone gave you great advice. and that person said to you pay yourself first. >> those one-minute managing books. i helped him take five strokes off his golf game. he thought i was god. yoplait golf.

it took him two months, and he said i figured out how to pay you back. and long story short he said tony the best financial advice of my life came when a very wealthy man said you're about to write a manager book. and he said a business will eat any cash when it's growing. you have to draw a line in the sand and that money you're getting, don't give it to your business. don't give it to yourself. put it in a investment account and don't touch it. when the business had trouble, had cash. so i turned my head straight, and i did the first thing with my first books. now i give away my books. but i infomercials years ago about every 30 minutes, and it made me financially wealthy more than i worked throughout my entire life. so that's what i want for anyone. maria: so start creating your own little nest egg. and depending on how you get paid if you get paid every two weeks, maybe one week it will be $50 and another time it might be $100. maybe it will be $1,000. whatever it is, start that little nest egg.

>> if people put aside $40 a week for someone who says i have no money. over a 30-year span of 8% return, which has been our average, you're going to have a half million dollars without a loan. >> tony, of course, a big issue is financial literacy and the fact that we know social security is running out of money. people are not going to have that safety net when they retire, how do you figure that out when you don't actually have that kind of knowledge? >> i think most people are going to. i mean, the average american has less than $1,000. if something happens to their paycheck they're in trouble. so my mission is to change that. so i interviewed 50 of the smartest people in the financial world. the warren buffets, carl icahn, and i asked these people win in a world where 70% of the trades are the evaluations so high and they give me their best strategies, so i put that in these books. and my last book was 700 pages. this is 200 pages. unshakable you can read in four hours.

weekend time, whatever. so some people have been waiting for eight years or when trump came in. and what i really found is that you have to get in the game. as well as people to remind themself that the crash that comes. they come every five years. we're just overdo. it is a leveler. it gives you a chance to leapfrog if you're not fearful. if you get in the game and stay in the game. and what people have to remember is every bear market in history. every crash in history, two and a half centuries has been followed by a bull that was explosive. 2008, we lost 50%. but what happened in 2009? 69% upside. so if you didn't sell, you're up 70%. 250% right now for the bull market. >> some people don't equate some of the people that you just mentioned, warren buffett with fear. did they have fear? do they have fear when they're actually putting tens of millions -- tens of hundreds of millions of dollars into this market? >> i would not call it fear.

they're cautious. they're still proceeding. saying, look, there are things to fear in this and there are things to respect. because no one knows how long it's going to go and everybody think so it's over before it's over. great research. they all go for a reward. they all focus on the core four. some are macrotraders. they all look at number one how do i make sure that i don't lose money? and the market by having great asset allocation. ray's whole theory is 15 uncorrelated bets will reduce your risk by 80%. and your reward ratio goes up five times. so if you diversify, then you look at asymmetrical. how do i get the least amount of risk? and risk a dollar to get three, four, or five. maria: that's a hedging strategy, basically. >> so they don't have fear. they just have respect for the market and then they're focusing on tax phishes. so the net dollars they receive really matter. those are the four items they

all seem to have in common. >> so basically what you're doing too because you've got these 31 companies in all different industries. >> that's right. i've modeled them. >> right. okay. so let me ask you this. when they are putting money to work, how important is the overall backdrop for these folks? are they looking at this company's prospects are going to be really strong for that company? or are they just looking at the backdrop of the economy is getting better. the backdrop looks good so a lot of boats will be lifted. >> well, it depends on who you're dealing with. that's what's different. the macroguys are obviously looking at the backdrop. the individual guys are looking at a individual company. but for the general investor what they really need to do is get in the market. if you ask warren buffett he's been talking about it constantly. you have to get into the index. the fees are what kill most people. the that do get into the market don't realize the difference between 1% or 3% fees are having abundance or. >> and they don't tell you that. they don't tell you, hey, i'm charging you 20% right now. >> well, as you know they're

cutting their fees right now because they've underperformed for the last six years. but i want people to know that they're not getting in the market mostly because they're fearful and, yes, it's cautious. but you never know what the timing is. so the research done by jp morgan that was really fantastic was a 20-year study and what they found was if you were in the market for the ten best trading days in 20 years instead of having the s&p's compounding 8.2 per year, which you double your money every nine years, you drop to 4.5. maria: you miss the whole thing. >> well, just one day a year, could you think i might come out or wait and hold onto my cash, you dropped at 2%. and if you missed the top 30 days. one and a half days out of 20 years, you made nothing. >> wow. so, in other words, what you're saying is this market is up 15% since election day, don't be afraid of it. >> yeah. no, what you have to do is keep supporting your 401, and you're probably going to see a correction. but it won't hurt you if you don't sell because you look at the long-term. every one of those corrections becomes a buying opportunity.

talking to howard marks managing hundred billion. he was investing a billion every week, and he said he was giddy. he said these evaluations are the greatest thing in the world. everybody should be doing this. but everybody else is running. so the whole purpose of this book is i'm going to show you and literally get you to have a sense of certainty not by enthusiasm or positive thinking, by knowing the fuel actually facts so you don't react. listen, leaders anticipate. losers react. you can anticipate what's going to happen because there's two centuries of history. and you're not going to do it day to day. you're not going to time the market. it's not timing the market. it's time in the market. as long as you stay in there. as warren buffett said to me. he said i said this many times. he looks at me, and he goes i have to tell you. the stock market is a device that transfers money from the impatient to the patient. he says if you stay patient, and you stay -- he says, look, tony. get in the market. here's what i tell people. stay there and do nothing. >> a thanks to tony robins. this special edition of

wall street week returns right after this. >> up next, bitcoin mania. what did jeffrey think about it before the value went to the moon? find out when wall street week returns. i know when i hand them the keys to their first car it's gonna be scary. but i also know that we're gonna have usaa insurance for both my boys. it's something that they're not even gonna have to think of. it's just gonna be in the family. we're the tenneys and we're usaa members for life. but when we brought our daughter home, that was it. now i have nicoderm cq. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. it's the best thing that ever happened to me. every great why needs a great how.

maria: what to say about bitcoin. it has been a curiosity and mystery for a while now. but only did this year did its value start to rise at a stunning rate. in october, i sat down with

billionaire bond king who remains a skeptic on bitcoin. >> i know you said you're going to have this charade. >> it's a speculation. the thing is this: i -- by the way, coin had a tremendous move and there's a lot of believers in it. i got an e-mail from a 86-year-old mother. >> you uh-oh. >> in august when bitcoin was first at 450. maria: she was talking about bitcoin. >> her cousin's daughter said put all of your money in bitcoin. this is the greatest thing ever. and my mother said what do you think of that? and i said these types of advertisements come out after the big move is made. but bitcoin is million or a zero. it's currently not an investment. it was at 500. now it's at 5,000. so it has changed 50% in a month. that's not a currency. i've seen it drop 10% in an hour. so how do you buy a car with

something that's changing value 10% while you're filling out the paperwork? maria: yeah, well, i'm sort of feeling like your 86-year-old mom where the shoeshine guy was back in the day. exactly this is the teachable moment. >> i famously turned a bearish apple back in 2012 when it was 600 and change. that's presplit. and it went to 700. but i was right it went down below 400. and one of the reasons i got there was that kind of joe kennedy shoeshine moment. one of my mortgage traders was getting its haircut and his illegal immigrant, you know, drug addict hairdresser said she was going to buy apple. and she felt bad she sold it because it had gone up further. and he said, you know, aren't you worried about, you know, the product cycle and all of that? and she says, oh, when the tv thing comes out, it's going to be huge. and said, well, that's the

type of thing that you get when people are falling over each other to beat everybody else's price target. >> do you think at some point collapses? there was all of this skepticism going into the creation of the euro. now we see brexit. >> well, the euro has been going up through all of this. the euro is something at a local high. it was up at 120 a couple of weeks ago. >> and the dollar has had a horrible year as a result. >> it has been the worst trade of the year for most investors because the number one recommendation from so many strategerists was highest conviction rate for 2017 is long the dollar. we didn't fall into that trap at all because we realize that it's not short-term expectations that drive the dollar. people think it is. but what drives the dollar is longer term fed expectations. and expectations for the fed raising rates along with their plan. the bond market is buying it. they're buying december of this year. but they're not buying the 2019 concept that the fed has and the 2018 concept.

the bond market think so it's only a 50/50 shot, and you get one hike in 2018. so we're getting back to that point where the longer term outlook of the fed is being disbelieved. what they publish is being disbelieved and that means that the probability is market-based probabilities of the fed to tightening a lot have come down. that's why the dollar's down. maria: yeah. >> so you would need the bond market to decide if the fed is right. and so far, they aren't buying into it. maria: well, we had a little bit of a creeping back. left two weeks of the dollar. do you think it's sustainable? >> it was really oversold. the month of august, the dollar had a year to date return that was the most negative of the last 20 years of any of them. that basically suggests that it was very oversold. and you have gone from the highest conviction trade was long the dollar to tremendous speculative positioning against the dollar in august. so a counter trend was due.

we actually are participating in that in some of our funds where we decided we would repair back on our dollar holdings. i think it will go to 96. the dollar index is dxy. it's having trouble breaking above 94. we think maybe gets to 96. but the longer trend is dash i'm more inclined to believe market-based abilities than i am ph.d. economists fed probabilities because i've seen the market be right an awful lot more than wrong on this. which means that the fed may after doing this systematic tightening that they're in, they might have to observe weaker data and maybe they'll have to drop their dots. maria: well, it's interesting to hear you say longer term the dollar is going to be down. when you have a guy in the white house who's all about america and getting growth numbers up. so, you know, president trump

is talking about 4, 5% economic growth. >> that's not going to happen. maria: okay. >> you just can't. you have to put the math together. what's the population growth? labor force growth is about a percent less than it used to be because of demographics. so right away it's difficult to get back to old school growth. and so you have to look at productivity, which has been congressed around 1% or so. i think a high economic growth number is 3% today. real growth. we've been at 2. for the last how many years now? six years. maria: thanks to jeffrey. this special edition of wall street week returns right after this. >> coming up, he went from running microsoft to owning an nba franchise. steve ballmer's revealing talk with maria whe you owned your car for four years. you named it brad. you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends, three jobs...

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maria: welcome back. the thrust of president trump's tax plan is on the corporate side. that's where the growth will come. back in april, i sat down with former microsoft ceo steve ballmer and even back then corporate taxes were a hot topic. >> the interesting question to ask is there's no such thing as a corporation. the corporation has shareholders. the shareholders are paying two taxes. they're paying corporate income taxes effectively, and they're paying capital gains taxes. so the question is what's the best way that let's companies make smart decisions but still levies the same amount of taxes on shareholders? and that's the thing i would encourage government to think through based upon this analysis and ultimately the voter's job is to make accountable whatever choice makes. >> how has microsoft grown

over in your view and where does the growth happen next? not to have you comment on your old company and what the ceo is doing now. but give us a sense of growth and technology. >> right. looking through a microsoft lens when i joined in 80, we were i don't know. some place around 5 million a year in revenue and when i left, i think the company was around 80 billion. >> wow. 5million to $80 billion. that is such an incredible achievement. >> that's basically 34 years. you say where does that go and the answer is almost limitless in terms of the what innovation can bring. there's still so much to do. i think of it in two pieces. there's what goes on in the back end of the internet where the apps get built and the computer systems and then the front-end, you carry your

laptop, your microsoft surface if you will where you're really seeing the world and there's going to be two sides. whether it's augmented reality, the back end, more and more intelligence and ability to learn about the world. those things are going to happen and there will be growth. some of the tech that exists today will become obsolete. but there will be new technologies that will replace them. i'm a great believer in all aspects of technology and economy that while things do change and that's disruptive for every door that closes, another door opens and the world grows and progresses and things improve. maria: you are such a perfect guy for sports, basketball, because you can insert technology to actually get more people into the court, to get more people to engage in the game. have you been trying to do that? >> yeah. i think there's two aspects to that, interestingly. there's what you do for the

fan who's watching at home or i think the new tech is super important. in the arena, you have to be careful. you don't want everybody sitting there with their face in their phone. you want people pumped up and watching the live action. so we're being kind of thoughtful about what we do with tech in the arena because the energy of the game i think is partly why people come to the arena instead of sitting at home. i want the fans to be part of helping us win. our fans will say that energy in the building is actually helpful. so we're going to find the right balance. >> so when you first bought the clippers, were you thinking this is a huge money-making opportunity? or were you thinking i'm going to have some fun now in my life? >> the focus was definitely on fun. but i'm also going to be stupid in what i paid. and there's two ways to look at it. what is the kind of return. what's the dividend, ie what's the pay out every year? and what's the asset growth? you know, the team can break even, it can lose a little

money, it can make a little money. i'm not afraid to play luxury tax first to win. so we'll probably lose a little money here along the way. if you don't pay luxury tax, you can get probably -- i think we can probably get a 3% dividend return. and we're getting price appreciation because these basketball teams will continue to appreciate as the stock market appreciates. people pay basically with appreciation in the stock market. now, i'm not going to sell my team. i'm not looking for the dividend return. i'm looking for the fun, which means we're looking for championships. maria: my thanks to steve balance ballmer. thank you for joining me. make sure to catch me on the fox business network. we have a huge guest lineup for 2018. and, of course, each weekday morning i hope you'll join me and my crew for mornings on maria on the fox business network. 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. eastern weekdays. and i'll see you every sunday morning over on the fox news channel for sunday morning

futures. catch the program live 10:00 a.m. eastern sundays. i hope it's a wonderful holiday season for you and your family. from all of us, have a great new year it's the phillips' lady!

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