do you have a "strange inheritance" story you'd like to share with us? we'd love to hear it. send me an e-mail or go to our website -- strangeinheritance.com. ♪ >> from the fox studios in new york city, this is maria bartiromo's with "wall street." charles: welcome to the program that analyzes the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead. i'm charles payne in for maria bartiromo. president biden signing a record number of executive orders over the last week and a half. we'll look at the impact on jobs and american businesses still struggling amid lockdowns. and later, senator cruz sounds off to maria about the new climate change crackdown and the growing threat of china. the major averages going on a wild ride this week including the worst selloff since october on wednesday, volatility driven in large part by a surge in buying and a historic move by

retail investors buying up heavily shorted stocks like gamestop, taking on the hedge funds and driving prices even higher. i want to bring in mike murphy and mitch roschelle. mike, let me start with you because -- [laughter] it's been an amazing ride, and so many amazing things are happening with the stock market and the economy, but all of a sudden there's a focus here on the retail investor. and one thing that i saw, and i think a lot of people haven't even paid attention to, was there's a revolution that began march of last year. when the market was in complete freefall, wall street said it's going i lower, individual investors on their own stepped in and said, no, we sold everything when you told us it was going to lower in 2009, 2000 and 2001, this time we're buying. this is a different retail investor than in the past. what's your thoughts in. >> i agree with you, charles. and i'll even add to that a

little bit, it's a retail investor that just missed out. remember, going back a few years we were talking about the retail investor is never going to come back. post '08, they missed the boat, it's all the -- the little guy isn't taking part in the market. now not only is the little guy involved, they figured out a way through reddit, through messaging boards saying you and i probably don't remember the yao messaging boards -- yahoo! messaging boards, and they're controlling markets, they're winning. but i would just, i think for most people the money to be made in the market is by investing. it's not by trading. gamestop's been incredible, some people have made huge moves in it. i think long term people are going to do better by investing in the market rather than trading these short squeeze names. charles: and to that point, mitch, you've got the large

swath of folks who are now doing this. i mean, the people that i hear from, believe it or not, i think nothing has been more unifying than the stock market in terms of political ideology. i hear from young people on the far left who are on the resist -- in the resist camp. they're under 30 years old, they watched their parents long term invest, and they loaded up on buy general electric at 50, buy ibm. you know that's a blue chipper. so they're kind of afraid of that. in the meantime, they have been empowered. they've learned some tricks. they know about buying these calls out of the money, they know about the gamma shorts. they understand the game, and now they're playing it as well. what are your thoughts? >> they also, charles, have the tools that are much different than the tools their parents have, tools like robinhood, like interactive brokers that you can trade less than a hundred shares, and you can do it for free. we've completely democratized the ability to play in the

market. and the other thing is let's remember since the lockdowns, the savings rate in this country has gone through the roof. there's $1.4 trillion worth of safe money, to some of these folks actually have additional disposable income that they're pumping in, and i don't think it's also just kids in their basements. i think it's a lot of kids who have been on the sidelines looking at the markets. expect interesting thing is the names that they're going after that are in the short squeeze are companies that they understand. they bought a nintendo game cube once upon a time from gamestop. they've gotten dragged to bed bath and beyond with their parents, they laughed at blackberry. i think they understand the products, they have the tools and they have the resources, and that's what led to this perfect storm. charles: and, mike, the other thing here is they also watched the tesla story in realtime. and they watched where every, all the experts on financial media -- including most of the commentators -- said disparaging things about elon musk, said the

stock had no earnings, it was destined to fail. you can add netflix in that bucket as well. and they watched those things go through the roof. i was at a cheesecake factory about ten years ago. four college kids in front of me laughing, and they were laughing at their a parents. and one of them said, yeah, my dad, all his does is binge watch, and he shorts the stock, and they were laughing. there's something going on there that maybe the old guard isn't paying attention to. >> yeah. yes, i agree with that, charles, but i think it's less, you know, when you talk tesla and you talk netflix, as you point out, that's people using the product, and, you know, a lot of -- everyone's on netflix now, and tesla's sales are going through the roof, and you've got people who really believe in the product and believe in elon musk and stay long the company. i think what's happening right now is completely different. i think the people on reddit -- and if you're in the market, you're there to make money.

i'm fine with that. but i think these people are looking for the company with the least fundamentals, the worst fundamentals, the worst story, and they want to get behind it and be able to run it up, to force the short squeeze or to kind of play the market in a way where they can make money. and it's legal, i believe. so -- [laughter] but i don't think the fundamental story really matters here at all. they're looking for what can i buy at the cheap price that we can get behind, buy out of the money calls and force a massive squeeze with. charles: and to your point, all you had to do was look at the top ten most shorted stocks, and if you bought all of them, you've made a fortune. let me ask you this, mitch, and i've got just a minute to go, what role do regulators play? it feels like all the chatter's somehow about these firms helping out the hedge funds, maybe adding some things in there. i'm not hearing about any rules to stop a hedge fund or anybody shorting 140% of a company, and

that's also adding fuel to the ire and really determination of these traders. >> i'll say two things quickment one is shorting more than the float of a company makes zero sense, so that's low hanging fruit from a regulatory perspective. but this sort of reminds me of when tech titans got dragged into congress, and congress really didn't even understand what they did. i can't imagine members of congress truly understanding what's going on right here. and it's going to be hard to regulate, and it's very rich to me that some of the democrats that are reaching out and saying we have to regulate, they're realizing that this populist movement of young people wanting to invest isn't necessarily something we should shut down. charles: yeah. >> so i think it's going to be a slippery slope from a regulatory perspective and a highly political one. charles: well, we did see one thing this week. after all the talk of unity, we finally got it, aoc and ted cruz on the same page.

mike, mitch, thank you very much. meanwhile, folks, president biden signing executive orders at a record breaking pace. we're going to look at the impact these could have on american businesses. and senator ted cruz out with a stark warning about the threats from china. what he says the biden administration needs to do right administration needs to do right no you're clearly someone who takes care of yourself. so why wait to screen for colon cancer? because when caught in early stages, it's more treatable.

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sounding the alarm, undoing the business-friendly policies of the trump administration. a lot of businesses already hurting from this pandemic, so there's additional cost. explain to the audience just how much of a cost there is. >> well, you know, the cost can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. first of all, the first thing to understand is that during the trump administration trump actually had an executive order which basically said anytime a federal agency wants a new rule, in order to put a new rule in place, they have to get rid of two rules. the whole idea was to shrink the federal bureaucracy. one of the first thingsed that biden administration did is they got rid of that rule. so they're not looking to shrink the federal bureaucracy. and we've already seen a whole bunch of things like, for instance, limiting drilling on federal lands which are already having an economic impact. several governors have already complained about the tax revenues they get from that kind of activity which are going to

go away. so the whole idea is just, it's not deregulatory anymore. charles: heather, i think this is just the beginning, right? this is the tip of the iceberg. we already see there are attempts to get rid of pay-go for surgeon things like -- certain things like climate change. weaver talking about billions of dollars and spending without any accountability. >> absolutely. think about all of the jobs that will be lost. you look at the keystone pipeline, for example, the executive order to halt that. even the prime minister of canada, justin trudeau, who i would put him in the progressive camp, he said he was highly disappointed with that decision. the biggest hit comes when you look at the new hires, 10,000 high paying union jobs were supposed to come from that. so will those jobs and they actually be -- can they actually be replaced by these clean new energy policies, that's yet to be seen. charles: steve, they've been

building up towards this already, so, you know, the narrative has sort of been forgetting about profits, even certain jobs. they're sort of emboldens now and say -- emboldened now and saying it's saving the planet, all about different things. even if you think about some of these business organizations saying it's no longer about profits, it's about stakeholders. so it feels like president biden and thing progressives have the wind in their sales right now to keep doing these kind of things. >> well, first of all, if you've been following the progressive agenda, none of this is a surprise. and even if you looked at some of biden's position papers, which i wrote about on things like labor, none of this is a surprise. i just think the people don't really think about things at this particular level. but they're clearly very serious. i'll give you an example. during the trump administration when the economy was really going well, a business group, the national federation of independent business, they

actually called the rally that was going on a regulatory relief rally. that's how important the regulatory relief that they were getting was to small businesses around america. charles: and to your point, the nfib survey the day after president trump was elected rocketed higher. i think it set a record that november. so there was a big sigh of relief, heather, from the business community. so where do we go from here? again, like i told steve, we know there there aren't going to be the same high-level paying jobs in the so-called renewable space where maybe you could be a bus driver driving a natural gas bus and you'll check the box, but it's not the same as news amazing quality jobs that could go away. >> absolutely. and you know what's even further devastating to small business, it's that minimum wage hike buried within the covid relief bill. on the one hand, you're providing government tens of billions of dollars in assistance to small businesses, and on the other hand, you're

making it un affordable for them to cover their payroll. over 25% of employees make less than $15 an hour, and while it sounds like a great idea to increase minimum wage, we want people to make more money across the board, it's a high bar to set because $15 an hour in new york, for example, is a lot more than maybe south carolina or somewhere else. and all the small businesses who are paying $15 or $20 an hour now will also have to bump up their per-hour cost by, let's say, $8 if it's going from from $7.25 to $15. and that will really reduce business investment, and it's going to increase your price as a consumer as well. charles: and to that point, watch amazon. they're targeting amazon which is paying over $15 an hour. i think, heather, you are 100% correct, that's the new walmart. thank you both very much, always appreciate it. meanwhile, folks, texas

senator ted cruz sounding off on the notion for president biden and john kerry that blue collar oil and gas jobs can easily be replaced in a new green world. hear what he had to say about that and the growing threat from china next. ♪ ♪ >> you know, the nobility of the elitist left is they show how noble they are when they're willing to give away your job. it's never their jobs they're giving away, their silicon valley billionaire supporters, it's never wall street, it's never hollywood. if they're willing (naj) at fisher investments, we do things differently and other money managers don't understand why. (money manager) because our way works great for us! (naj) but not for your clients. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. (money manager) so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? (naj) nope, we tailor portfolios to our client's needs.

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somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense. no, it's not. i think that workers are going to see that with the efforts of the biden administration, they're going to have a much better set of choices and, frankly, it will create more jobs. charles: biden's climate envoy, john kerry, says don't worry to the thousands of oil and gas workers who have lost or could lose their jobs under the new climate orders. here's how texas senator ted cruz responded when he spoke with maria on fox news prime time. >> -- that the democratic elites have decided that blue collar workers, that union members, that men and women with callouses on their hands -- call us on their hands, they've made the wrong choices, in john kerry's word. that is not a unifying message. it's not doing the job we should be doing fighting for working men and women in this country.

maria: i know that when businesses are faced with new expenses, a new regulatory backdrop which involves higher cost, that consistents into earnings. the first thing the they do is look to where to cut the fat, where am i going to cut back because i'm facing new fees, i'm facing new regulatory hurdles. are you expecting business to look at these new regulations around climate and say, well, i'm going to have to cut here, i'm going to have to cut there, and we know that the oil industry is not just one segment. there's a lot of indirect exposure throughout the economy and business that gets touched by this. >> well, that's exactly right. you know, the nobility of the elitist left is they show how noble they are when they're willing to give away your job. notice it's never their jobs they're giving away, it's never their silicon valley billionaire supporters, it's never wall street, it's never hollywood. if they're willing to give away someone else's job.

and, look, among these orders, joe biden shut down new energy exploration on federal lands. just shut it down, again with the stroke of a pen, and by the way you know who that helps in that helps russia, iran, venezuela. that means america relies more on middle east oil, sending billions of dollars to nations that are not our friends, and it pollutes the environment worse. the irony of what they're doing is there will be worse pollution. you know something that neither joe biden nor john kerry ever address, maria, do you know what nation last year had the single greatest total carbon reduction of any mission on the face of the earth? if -- nation on the face of the earth? the answer, of course, is the united states. yes. and what they're doing is they're slowing that down. they're saying let's not rely on lesser-producing, more efficient, job-creating american energy. instead the, let's go back to being dependent on foreign nations. this is hurting a lot of jobs, and it's undermining the

security of our country. maria: this is also requiring cooperation with china. look, we talk about china a a lot on this program, but john kerry said cooperation with china is the key to progress on climate change, and that climate is the number one issue between the u.s. and china as if china has not broken promise after promise across the world. >> well, maria, that's right. and there is a hopeless naivete among the biden administration. you know, one of the really disturbing patterns that we've seen come out in this past week with biden nominee after biden nominee is a warm embrace of china. you want to talk about one of the most dramatic shifts the next four years are going to entail is the biden administration crawling into bed with china -- maria: google's ceo, eric schmidt, okay, you can't get worse than this. he warned today that china is surging to overtake the united states in critical areas. this from the former head of the company that walked away from

the pentagon and the project maven, remember that, so that it could go set up its a.i. office in beijing. >> china poses the single greatest geopolitical threat to the united states over the next century, and we need serious, clear-eyed, focused policymakers. today when i was questioning biden's nominee to be u.n. ambassador, i asked her a simple question whether, whether china had committed a genocide as the u.s. state department determined targeted at the uighurs. she refused even to answer that straightforward question. and i don't know where the decision has been made, if it's joe biden directly or simply everyone who surrounds him, but there is now a growing pattern of refusing to confront and apologizing for the oppression, the malign activities and the anti-american influence of the chinese communist party. charles: you can bet maria will

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and lee zeldin. and watch my show, "making money," every weekday at 2 p.m. eastern on fox business. thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. ♪ ♪ ♪ gerry: welcome to the "wall street journal at large." now we know at least where some of that stimulus money went. the big story on wall street this week was a few hedge funds getting crushed by trade thers perhaps using their $600 checks from the government. who would guess fiscal policy could be so effective? we'll have more on the gamestop insurrection later in the show. the weight of the fury on trading platforms, this was the first full week of the biden