few hours that he's not going to sign that continuing resolution that would keep the government open, so they are right now trying to battle it out over adding that $5 billion in wall funding to the continuing resolution. we will watch that. connell: if you had to bet, say shutdown but things change quickly. "bulls & bears" starts now. breaking news. markets rocked as the president rejects the senate spending bill with less than 48 hours to avoid a government shutdown. this is "bulls & bears." joining me today, rick unger, michael black, carol roth and gary kaltbaum. well, the house of representatives scrambling to come up with a new spending bill that includes $5 billion in funding for the border wall. here's what the president said about that this afternoon. >> i've made my position very clear. any measure that funds the government must include border security. has to. not for political purposes but

for our country, for the safety of our community. this is not merely my campaign promise. this is the promise every lawmaker made. it is the solemn promise to protect and defend the united states of america and it is our sacred obligation. we have no choice. >> the government facing a partial government shutdown at midnight tomorrow if an agreement cannot be reached. let's bring in fox senior capitol hill producer, who just ran to the camera because he covers this stuff tick by tick, second by second. you have been talking to lawmakers. where do things stand right now? reporter: that's a big question. we are going to know here in the next hour or so because we will have a procedural vote in the house of representatives which will tell us a lot. when you put a bill on the floor in the house of representatives you have to first approve the rule. they will have to debate that right now, then vote on it. if you don't approve the rule which is the revamped bill dealing with $5.7 billion for the wall tacked on to what the senate approved yesterday to keep the government open, if

that vote goes down, if that vote fails, that's it. they are dead in the water. they have to come up with a plan c or plan d at that point. if they are able to get through that procedural vote in the next hour or so, then you have general debate on the bill and then you have an up or down vote on the overriding measure. now, if they pass that, and that remains to be seen, we don't know if they have the votes, republicans contend they do, we'll know, it goes over to the senate, then you have the house and the senate out of alignment. they have not approved the same bill. here's the problem in the senate. if the house does pass this bill with wall funding, it goes to the senate, you need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. what does that mean? you need democrats. so it's hard to see how this plan gets through the senate even if it moves through the house of representatives later tonight, and that is a big question unto itself. >> gary kaltbaum here. i'm just thinking logic. how is it possible that this year, federally we are going to spend $4.4 trillion and just recently i think we approved

funding for central america for $6 billion, $5 billion ironically to southern mexico, yet we can't get $5 billion done on the wall? reporter: yeah, that's one of the big questions here. in this bill, before it was amended by the house of representatives today, there was $1.6 billion for wall funding in that bill. i should say $1.3 billion for wall funding, $1.6 billion for border security. at the end of the day, it always is about the math on capitol hill, not so much the dollars and cents which they spend, but the votes on the floor. that vote matrix in the house of representatives and in the senate so far has not proven that they have the votes for a wall. we'll know more here in the next couple of hours. if they do, this is a win for republicans. if they don't, that is a big embarrassment for republicans. >> i want to pick up on that point, since you are there on scene. it was dicey to begin with whether or not there were enough republican votes to get funding for the wall.

beyond that $1.3 billion the democrats were probably willing to go along with. many of the house members have gone home already, including republicans. as you do a vote count there, what are the odds in your mind that this will even get through the house? never mind that it's dead on arrival at the senate. reporter: right. well, sometimes what happens is you sweeten the pot. sometimes these amendments are sweeteners, sometimes poison pills and they kill the bill. i did a vote check yesterday. only 83% of all house members were even here to vote. the house has 433 members. they were down in the upper 350s, lower 360s. i spoke with steve scalise, the republican whip in the house, i said are you whipping this vote, are you doing an actual vote count here. he said we are talking to members individually. that's not a whip. you are just kind of checking in and sometimes you are playing with fire if you really don't know exactly where members stand and you don't know if people are here. >> are they flying some of the lawmakers that left back? reporter: well, that was a request that was made.

our colleague peter doocy indicated the whip's office was trying to get members who are not hard-nosed against the wall to come back to washington, d.c. they have had an attendance problem in the house of representatives since the midterm elections. you have a lot of members on both sides who lost or are retiring but particularly republicans, those are going to be the members who will vote for the wall. if they are going to be here they have to get here quick. this vote is going to happen in the next couple of hours. >> i feel like i haven't heard so much about a wall since the last time pink floyd went on tour. in terms of the government shutdown -- >> great album. >> it was a great album. it's not a great talking point for government. >> we are definitely on the dark side of the moon right now. i know that. >> we need another brick in the wall. the question is in terms that we actually get to a government shutdown here, will it actually do anything? we have seen so much political theater over the years with the government being shut down and yet nothing really ends up

coming out of it. it ends up just being a stunt. do you think the president is willing to shut down for long enough and potentially feel some pain in order to get this wall built? >> well, it depends what goes on over the next week, especially at christmas. if he goes to mar-a-lago, to florida, and you have workers who aren't here working. granted, there are a lot of people off the week between christmas and new year's but there's actual business that isn't getting done. they just passed a farm bill, they signed the farm bill at the white house just a little bit ago. farmers right now are trying to get ahold of the department of agriculture and if there's a shutdown, what are they going to do about seeds and planting? you make those decisions in the late winter for springtime and if you can't, you're trying to figure out how the new farm bill works and you can't get those questions answered, that starts to have a business impact. that's one thing. keep in mind that the federal paychecks are supposed to be processed on the 24th. they would next go out on the 28th. so again, the optics of federal workers not getting paid is a

problem. i would look to see if there's any movement by the lawmakers who represent the biggest chunk of federal workers around washington, d.c. look at the maryland senators, the virginia senators, congressman don byer from northern virginia. do they have some give here because they want to get these federal workers back on the job. but again, you know, democrats are more than willing to just push back from the table and say look, donald trump, you said you were going to shut down the government, nobody said -- no one has said that before from the white house. there's always been blame on the other side. if that's the case, this is kind of uncharted territory. we don't really know how this would play out in the court of public opinion. >> the problem here is this. over and over again, we are in a situation where this becomes a fire drill. when he was running for president, donald trump promised that he was going to build this wall. you could be for that or against that, it's become a lightning rod. my point is this. why are we constantly facing a situation where it's a fire drill and we are facing government shutdown, folks not

getting their paychecks on december 24th or whathave you, and this crazy scramble to get things done? this is no way to run a country. this is no way to run a 7-eleven. this is ridiculous. >> that's the irony here, what this would be, to be clear, is a partial government shutdown. there are 12 annual appropriations bills which fund the federal government. what they did back in september is they got five of them passed. there's only 25% of what we call discretionary spending, the type of spending which congress controls, not entitlements which goes out the door automatically, that this affects. it's a lot of people still but in terms of the percentage of money it's pretty small, and the senate was moving through its appropriations bills and got them passed at the earliest stage for the first time in 25, 30 years. i mean, this was significant. on one hand, you're right, it's the same fire drill. on the other hand, they actually got something done in a positive fashion earlier this year. >> one of the misconceptions i think people in this country have, we know t some government workers that

continue to work because they are in critical jobs but people seem to think they are still getting paid. they are not, in many cases, all i keep thinking about are the tsa workers who will be critical and they are going to be dealing with you particularly coming home from christmas and they won't be getting paid. >> be nice to them. >> why do you love tsa so much? >> he loves the pat-down, carol. >> i am having great sympathy pains. i'm not flying this holiday. but i'm having great sympathy for all the millions of americans who are going to have to interact with the tsa. never a great experience to begin with, but with tsa agents who aren't getting their money for christmas. not good. >> i prefer entrepreneurial endeavors over political endeavors. if you look at the go fund me that the american citizens have set up for the wall earlier

today, it was at $6 million already. there are other ways this can get done and if president trump wants to open that up to the rest of the american people and put an endorsement behind it, i bet the american people can get it done before congress can. >> carol, that's just it. my whole point was with the fire drills, it's been two years. if we are going to show leadership and he wants to get something done, i'm not even for the wall, have a plan. come up with a plan. it doesn't need to be this way. >> go ahead. >> it brings us back to pink floyd. how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? one or the other. what do you do? >> is there something creative they can do to get this through? the chances of donald trump getting his border wall or steel slats or whatever you call it when the house goes democratic in january is unlikely. >> that's unlikely, because this is a last chance with republicans controlling the house and the senate and president trump in the white

house. it's not going to get better with nancy pelosi there. you know, unless they can show in the next couple of hours they have those votes. there is something called reprogramming in federal spending where they have already approved what we call the milcon v.a. bill. it was one of the five they approved earlier in the fall. what happens is if you get the blessing of key members of the appropriations committee, you can reprogram money and say okay, we will move this from one area of spending and over to the army corps of engineers and they can build the wall but you got to get that sign-off. the president and the white house spokesperson, sarah sanders, said no, we can go around that in some way. sometimes they can come up with creative ways. i'm not sure, we'll see. then it might just come down to optics. are people able to live with something less than that. democrats will say we're for border security, we're for drones, we're for electronic frontier, what can we do that's not an actual brick and mortar wall. if the president is going to stay on that position, keep in mind this is great politics for

the democrats, they are eating this up because you know, they lost -- the republicans lost control of the house of representatives because donald trump was toxic in certain places, and you know, if we get into a shutdown that leads into january, nancy pelosi, they are giving her every political point on a platter here. it's pretty clear at that stage unless they are able to get this through tonight, who won round one. ding-ding, you can hear the bell sounding in the boxing match. it would be nancy pelosi, frankly. >> chad, you talked about the optics of being shut down. are republicans on the hill talking about the optics of president trump being at mar-a-lago for 16 days while this is going on? >> yeah. there's concern there. they are also concerned about whether or not they get blamed for the shutdown because the president took the mantle during the oval office meeting a couple of days ago. the other thing, you talk to other republicans and they say we need to act on this because we promised and we campaigned and we told our constituents that we were going to fight for a border wall, and if the

president never resolves this, that's what the big fight was over back in march, when they approved the omnibus spending bill, they said we will fight about it in september before the end of the fiscal year. that fight didn't really happen. then they said they would fight about it at the end of november. that didn't happen because they punted for two weeks. here we are yet again and that's where republicans say what is the message out of the white house and are awhat are we goin do. here's the other thing. this is reflective of what happened in march. the president and his administration negotiated that omnibus spending bill, they got it through the house and senate, then they woke up and the president said no, i think i'm going to veto it. he backtracked and said i will sign it but not do it like this again. that's why they were able to move those appropriations bills but again, they didn't resolve anything on the wall. the president was dialed in. i talked to richard shelby, chair of the appropriations committee from alabama yesterday, i said you think he's going to sign this. he said well, i don't think mitch mcconnell would put a bill on the floor unless he had some promise from the white house that the president would sign it. well, guess what? that was the promise then. it's not the promise today.

>> yeah. and the deadline is tomorrow. chad, thank you so much for taking all our questions and trying to give us clarity on the topic. >> my pleasure. any time. >> merry christmas. another wild day for markets. treasury secretary steve mnuchin speaking in an exclusive interview with fox business earlier today. hear where he is placing the blame for all of this volatility. we will play you that sound bite next.

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markets selling off badly again today. stuart varney speaking to secretary of the treasury steve mnuchin, who had a little blame on why the markets are going down. let's go to it. >> do you think the market reaction was overblown to what -- to the fed's move yesterday? >> i think the market reaction is completely overblown, and you know, if you look at the u.s. growth versus europe, versus the rest of the world, the u.s. is still going to grow significantly higher. you look at a slowdown in china

and the emerging markets, so we continue to see, when i speak to businesses, i still see a tremendous investment dollars coming into the u.s., people investing in the u.s., and i also think you're going to see a bunch of rebalancing. the bond markets have rallied significantly. you look at where the ten-year is, i think you're going to see rebalancing out of bonds into equities at these levels. stuart: i have a theory that part of this volatility is the result of all this computer trading, algorithms. are you with me on this? >> i am completely. i think that with the advent of computerized trading which has such a big part of the market now, combined with the voelker rule where you can't have market makers commit capital, you just have much bigger moves in both directions. i think clearly, you have a situation here where the market is overreacted to the fed's comments and you see program trading taking over. >> so michael, everything's great, the market's fine, the economy's strong, and it's all

the program's fault. what's your take on that? >> where do i begin? let me begin by saying this. i'm not going to sit here and point fingers at high frequency trading or algos but i will say secretary mnuchin said something interesting a few days before that, where he said something to the effect of this is all about market structure, and in 2019 we need to address this. fact of the matter is markets have become more volatile, more whippy, i said to my clients we live in a whippy age where there is just a lot more movement. look, that goes in both directions. we see it in the way up with the fang stocks and how they act. we see it in the nasdaq stocks and in the cannabis stocks. tesla, we see volatility in that name. fact of the matter is this. look, mnuchin's old firm, goldman sachs, when i was a hedge trader at a hedge fund, i could call the guys at goldman sachs and say i got a million pfizer for sale. they would buy it on the wire. now you get a 25-year-old kid at a place and they put in the algorithm and it gets chopped up

and market information and discovery doesn't exist anymore and things fly around. as someone who used to trade custom orders, i babysat 50,000 shares of supposedly liquid stock so he's on to something saying market structure. that's not the whole answer here, though. that's part of it. lauren: i love the fact that he's blaming the millenials. it's the 25-year-old's problem. everything is about the millenials. the high frequency trading obviously affects intraday moves but over longer periods of time, that should all play out. i think there's a bigger issue here in terms of the fed dependency and the fact that the market is so crazy over the fact that we have raised rates another 25 basis points. we started this exercise in 2007, rates were at 5.25%. we are nowhere near this. if they had come out and said we're taking a pause, it would have sent a signal saying they

didn't have confidence in the strength of the economy so it was really a no-win situation. i think that the markets should have priced in the fact they were going to do it. maybe we get some pauses coming into next year, but we want a fed that is independent, we want one that is data dependent and the fact they have confidence in the economy should be a good thing. lauren: whatever jay powell did, they were between a rock and a hard place. the market probably would have sold off anyway. we have quantitative tightening going on, we have interest rates going up, arguably, we don't know how much. trying to find that neutral rate. on top of all of this, we have a trade dispute arguably trade war with china, and now companies are trying to exist in both. also questioning how long can a bull market run. i remember when the word was synchronized global growth in the beginning of the year. then it was no, no, just the u.s. is the place to be. now it's like synchronized global slowdown. it's everybody's feeling this pain. >> here's what i'm worried

about, very simply. you have oil crashing, the ten-year yield coming down, everything at new yearly lows, and powell and mnuchin arguably the two most important money men in the world, are not listening to what the market's saying and have this nonchalant devil-may-care attitude that everything is going to be fine while the market has a bull horn yelling and screaming at them. i think that's part of what's going on with the markets on this latest -- >> i think gary's got that right. i don't think mr. mnuchin did himself any favors this morning. if you're going to blame computerized trading when it goes down, you got to give them credit when it goes up, right? i didn't hear him doing that. look, there's a lot of things going on, making the markets, making investors incredibly cranky. here's the good news. nobody's paying attention to it. there is no bidding going on in the market. lauren: there's no reward. there's no reward to own it. >> why that's good news, come the first of the year, you could

see the bidding kicking in again. lauren: that's a good point. >> what is this really about? we have slowing growth and even the u.s. is showing slower data here. europe and emerging markets have been in the mud all year, frankly. they just haven't been buyable. the u.s., now the data is starting to slow down and markets slowing down has an effect. it will be affecting the data. on the 31st and then right after the new year, we will get that chicago pmi and manufacturing. you think purchasing managers are in a good mood when their 401(k)s are going south? lauren: you are supposed to be in a good mood now. santa claus rally. christmas, come on. >> it's not one of those years. >> my point is this. there's a lot of pain out there right now. pain begets pain. when you have a day where the stock market's up but oil is down 7%, don't tell me fund managers are not getting hurt by that. that's why -- lauren: guys, hang on one second. i got to break in. we do have news hitting the tape. president trump tweeting that general mattis is retiring. this is the tweet. general jim mattis will be retiring with distinction at the

end of february after having served my administration as secretary of defense for the past two years. during jim's tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. he goes on, general mattis was a great help to me in getting allies in other countries to pay their share of military obligations. a new secretary of defense will be named shortly. i greatly thank jim for his service. more to come. we'll be right back. jardiance asked:

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today the department of justice is announcing a criminal indictment of two hackers associated with the chinese government. the charges include conspiracy to commit computer intrusions against dozens of companies in the united states and around the world. it is unacceptable that we continue to uncover cybercrime committed by china against america and other nations.

>> the justice department charging two chinese nationals with an extensive hacking campaign. they say it went on for about 12 years and affected 45 different tech companies along with government agencies all across the country. now, this happens on the same day as more than a dozen nations joined the united states to condemn china's tactics. so does this tough action and global support give us an advantage in the upcoming trade talks with china, or does it hurt? what do you think, carol? >> i think that first of all, i'm thrilled that they are actually going down this path, because while trade, trade, trade has become the marsha, marsha, marsha of this administration, at the end of the day, it's not as important as things like hacking and espionage and i.p. rights when it comes to our future and working with china, and i think it is great that we have allies who are standing with us. in terms of giving us an advantage, i say absolutely not. i think if anything, it complicates the talks and

potentially makes the president have to yield something in order to get something from china on these important issues that we're talking about like espionage and i.p. so i'm thrilled that we're going down the path. i think it's incredibly important, but i don't think this helps his marsha, marsha, marsha cause. >> look, not to take away the importance of the seriousness of this, but let's follow the bouncing ball. we have somebody arrested in canada, china detains canadians, and now this, that's supposedly been going on for 12 years. i do wonder about the timing. next question, what does china do next week in retaliation to this, and again, the ball keeps rolling. i don't think it helps trade in any way, shape or form and if you notice, nothing continues to get done on trade, and tariffs are really starting to hurt globally. lauren: now we have an alliance. we have other nations on our team here in calling out china for their wrongdoing. that could help us if we sort of isolate china in that way. don't you think, michael? >> look, we have seen even

germany is going after china on things like this. it gets lost in the headlines, but that's happening out there. fact of the matter is what happened with the huawei cfo was a bit much. it was a bit of a show piece and china retaliated by detaining some canadians but fact of the matter is this. we want to get a trade deal done that's going to help our manufacturers, going to help our consumers, but china really wants a deal. there's carrots and sticks involved. the carrot is opening up markets, letting them have an opportunity to grow because chinese growth estimates are going down. but the other part of this is saying that no, no more hacking, that's it, it can't be allowed to happen anymore. so there's carrots and sticks involved here. >> there's a school of thought it's not going to help certainly with trade. it's also not really going to hurt. i agree, the huawei thing was more problematic because it was screwed up so badly. the fact that the president had no idea that we had issued a warrant for this woman's arrest, then went into his meeting with

china while he was at the summit not knowing that we had arrested her. can you imagine the reaction of the chinese president, who probably did know. lauren: and now, major banks are isolating huawei. so in that sense, i spoke of this global alliance, maybe we do now have the upper hand in enforcing beijing not only to the table but to cut a deal. carol? >> the only problem with that, though, is that china has sort of an unlimited time frame. they don't have the same political pressures that we face here with elections happening in the u.s. or around the globe. if you think about all of the different manufacturers that they have right now, what's called a supplier plus one strategy when it comes to china, because they know they don't want to be dependent on china long-term. that being said, not everybody has that in place and this is something if china wants to play hardball it could affect small businesses and the companies that haven't made those appropriate situations in terms of getting those new suppliers.

>> i just deal with the evidence at hand and all i know is we keep hearing china wants a deal, china needs a deal. their economy's going south. all i do is ask the question so why don't we have a deal. if they are so desperate, why don't we have a deal. i just wonder about the election thing that china sees that trump lost the house, sees investigations, see maybe weakness and they don't need to have elections or are not going to have elections so they sit back and wait. >> let me say one thing here. talking to people in beijing and shanghai, people high up in business there, have contacts with the government, a lot of them are waiting for midterm elections to be over. that ended. we had the meeting at the end of november and now have this framework where they will have trade talks in january. i don't feel like anyone is lolly-gagging here. i feel there is progress being made. there's a road map here. i can tell you, they want to get a deal done. they not only want trade open, they want to invest in the united states again. that door is closed. they want to invest in u.s.

assets again. again, it becomes a question of doing it the right way and making sure that things aren't being compromised. but that's what i'm hearing. >> all right. so bad omen for retailers? why millions of gifts are being returned and it's not even christmas yet. when we come back. all money managers might seem the same, but some give their clients cookie cutter portfolios. fisher investments tailors portfolios to your goals and needs. some only call when they have something to sell. fisher calls regularly so you stay informed. and while some advisors are happy to earn commissions 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. metastatic breast cancer is relentless, but i'm relentless too. mbc doesn't take a day off, and neither will i.

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done now. also, sales are really good so it's the whole one for you, one for me thing. sometimes the one for me gets expensive, right? you have that problem, too? >> i have to tell you, i think there's a structural phenomenon going on here. we have seen this proliferation of third party sellers in the online channels, never mind ebay and amazon. they are everywhere. everyone is making and selling something. that's wonderful. the problem is, quality control may have gone south but everyone has to offer the free shipping, free returns, make it easy, and it's become sort of a thing upon itself, where people are just sending things back no problem. check this out, send it back, so more things moving now. a lot of that's happening right now. >> the answer to the question is highly dependent on data. who is sending it back? if it's the people who originally bought the present, they get them, they bought a lot earlier this year because now you can buy pre-black friday or whatever they call it right after thanksgiving, then you get it and you go i don't like this, you send it back. you may go buy the present

somewhere else. people who get the present, when they start shipping it back, they get store credit. they got to go back and buy it there. so we're going to have to see who is doing the shipping. >> havei have to segue to the r problem for retail as we move forward, the wealth effect. we have had our way with the wealth effect in markets, not only here and around the globe for a very long time. that's now in reverse. that's going to matter a lot. i watch fox very closely, new yearly lows all over the place in retail. they are even getting cruise lines, hotels and airlines so that's the travel part. i just think overall it's saying that going forward we will have some issues as we enter 2019, unfortunately. lauren: retailers have done something else. go ahead, carol. >> staying on that for one second since you follow this so closely. investors who follow retail are used to looking at things a certain way. they are looking at fourth quarter, they are looking at first quarter for people coming

back into the stores. they're looking at things like comp store sales that don't exist online anymore. does that mean the market has to shift the way they look at retail? >> all i can tell you is for a few months, retailers were leading the market. even target and costco and names like that were at new yearly highs. now it's the opposite. i can get into all the minutae about online and all that. to me i just look at the total weight of the evidence here and i got to tell you, these spots haven't just corrected. they have pretty much been bombed and i'm talking across the board. discount retailers, dollar store retailers, department stores, you name it. again, i'm a big believer that a market has a big bullhorn and that's shouting loud and clear right now. >> let's wind back the clock six or seven months. a lot of strategists and analysts saw wages going higher. a lot of big banks were out there telling hedge fund clients short retail because wages are going up and it will kill margins. what happened was retailers were able to raise prices. we heard that on earnings reports, we read it in the beige

book. retailers were dictating price and getting higher prices. the question now is, can they still do that. their ability to do so in the beige book and other evidence has shown it's coming down. key thing for me going into q1 is going to be can they dictate price again. i think we are going to hear a lot about that. i'm optimistic that they can do that but obviously, what gary mentioned very as sttutely, the wealth effect. maybe people don't have that money to spend and that's why stocks are making the lows. >> let's not forget credit purchases have skyrocketed also. how much more can they do of that? >> let's not forget wages haven't really gone up. actual numbers, huh-uh. >> in all sectors. >> i'm keeping all of my presents. i'm not returning any of them and i'm going to go buy some more. >> what a patriot. lauren: reports now showing oil demand plummeting next year.

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lauren: we are getting more now on another change in the administration. after president trump tweeted that defense secretary james mattis will be retiring, we're

getting a look at his resignation letter. this is key. mattis writes in part quote, i have been privileged to serve as our country's 26th secretary of defense which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the department of defense, of our citizens and our ideals. i am proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our national defense strategy. putting the department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, i believe it is right for me to step down from my position. the end date for my tenure, february 28th, 2019. a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed. >> what a nice way to put that. lauren: understatement. >> moving on to the eloquence of the mad dog on to the mad commodity traders. a new report out showing oil

demand slowing drastically next year across the globe as crude drops to a 16-month low today. what does this say about the health of the global economy going forward? >> the global economy is a disaster. we know what's happening. i don't know why everybody is still trying to work this out. you look at what's happening in germany. i think they had no growth. i mean, we know what's coming in the next two years. is there anybody left who thinks it could be otherwise? lauren: first of all, carol, you're laughing but rick said in the break he doesn't really worry about this sort of thing, oil or gas prices, because he's never owned a car. you don't own a car now? >> i don't own a car now. lauren: he doesn't care. >> plus i always balance, i buy oil stocks if the price of gasoline is going up. lauren: he told me that, too. but i think the question now is what signal is this precipitous drop in the price of oil sending? we did get data that not only is u.s. supply at a record high but so is u.s. demand.

so is the oil market telling us something that we're not seeing, if the demand is there, is demand really going to fall off a cliff that severely? what do you guys think of that? >> i think if you were looking at oil by itself, i wouldn't be so concerned, but obviously, we're in a rising interest rate environment, we have a stronger dollar and when you put all of those things together, amidst the global slowdown that we all seem to think is going to happen, especially rick, i think that does not bode well for the international economy and while some people may say well, that's great, that means the u.s. is going to be strong, i think it's going to be difficult for us to continue the leadership we have and a lot of strength when everybody else is faltering. >> but we're not in a rising interest rate environment. the ten year just came down from 3.25% to 2.75%. that's what's tied to the mortgages and a lot of loans. this is specifically telling you there is a demand issue that's

coming down the pike and the greatest economist out there is not a person, it's actually the market action itself. if you go from 75 down to 60 in oil prices, okay, maybe it's about supply. but 75 down to 46 since october? that is again, the yell and scream of markets and markets are very good at forecasting three, six, nine months out that off the cliff we go in many areas. germany, the engine of europe, has already announced the contraction. japan announced contraction. if germany is heading south, i can promise you the rest of europe and we are definitively not immune to this, and unfortunately, we are going to go through some pain through 2019. it will be written pretty badly when all's said and done. >> the move up to 75, i have to point out, was kind of crazy, too. what was up with, you know, what were people forecasting for demand then? i was under weight oil then and

people rolled their eyes at me. lauren: but the oil companies can make money and they can spend money and they can invest in different ways to get oil out of the ground, now it's so low they will go out of business. >> there is good news. the good news is that if oil prices just stay here, gas prices, there's about an $80 billion expense cut to the consumer over a year basis that they're not going to be spending on it and that doesn't include cost of businesses like airlines and things like that. so that is the good news. my big worry is forecasting the slowdown so you got one good side, one not so good side. >> one thing on supply, though, i have to say, if we want to take care of the supply side of this, maybe we need to go to iran. look at iran and maybe cut off the sanctions there. >> can i just add this? only because i never get to say these words? >> okay. >> gary kaltbaum is absolutely right. >> whoa! awesome! >> the check's in the mail. >> let's go from humans being

right to crazy machines. coming up, we have tens of thousands passengers stranded after drones shut down an entire airport in london. do we need even stricter drone regulation? more on this, next. i knew about the tremors.

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reporter: chaos in london after drones entered the airfield.

police are calling this a coordinated attack. >> yes, we need regulation. it does pain me to say this. i am a small government person and i hate regulations. but this is an area where the government should be regulating. they need to be regulating where they fly, how they fly. i think the on question is how badly congress is going to screw it up, but we do need those regulations. >> just google the word drone hitting an airplane wing and look at the video to see why you need regulation. the number one role of government is safety and protection of the citizenry. probably 150,000 to 200,000

people were affected in the u.k. and all of europe. let's hope they catch him and put him away for a long time. >> i'm all for regulating it, too. the people doing this or the person doing this. they don't care about regulation. it's not because they are aloud to do it. all the regulation in the world won't stop an evil-doer. there has got to be a way the regulate this. if they can disrupt anker tired airport, it can be used for nefarious purposes. >> you make a good point. we don't know how to regulate a lot of these new industries. you can regulate all you want, but then something you didn't expect happens, and you are still regulating. >> people who do stupid things like this do not honor laws and

regulation. what we should do is send one of you guys over there for the holiday. you can sit on the edge of the runway. >> guys -- i was just going to say i think this is potentially a job for space force. what do you think? >> wow. this is why carol gets the big bucks. >> anything that can take an airplane out of the sky has got to be done something about it. simple as that. whether it's a drone tore not. you talk about oh these people don't fog regulations. put them in a 6 x * 9 for four years and they will talk about it. there are four miles away from air space. in the u.k. it's only one kilometer. i can guarantee youd the u.k. will be changing rules and

regulations going forward. >> this is happening a few days before christmas. folks are just trying to get home to see their families. that does it for "bulls and bears." have a good night, everybody. president trump: illegal immigration costs our nation $275 billion a year. 10 known or suspected terrorists try to gain entry into our country every day. 2,000 illegal aliens try to cross our borders. we get most of of them. it's hard without a wall. 10,000 illegal children are smuggled into our country. criminal aliens charged with or convicted of 100 assaults. 30,000 s