and learn to love volatility and profit from it. the man who saw the financial crisis coming says what could happen now and why we should embrace it. congratulations to all of you. thank you so much. the "wall street journal report" begins right now. this is america's number one financial news report, "wall street journal report." now maria bartiromo. >> the kick off to the most important shopping season of the year is underway. it is started earlier some retailers opened their doors on thursday night after thanksgiving dinner. it got off to a good start and analysts expect sales to rise a little more than 4%, not as strong as last year. retailers earned one-third of their profits during the holiday

season and consumers make up 70% of the u.s. economy. during the holiday-shortened week the markets moved in tandem for the fiscal cliff. up more midweek. the markets continued to climb on friday. stunning accusations that one of america's iconic companies hewlett-packard which acquired autonomy last year for $11 billion is accusing autonomy of what it called serious improprieties in its bookkeeping and inflating its own value. meg witman says the company lied about how much it was worth. >> we believe there's a willful effort on the part of certain members of autonomy management to mislead shareholders when they were a publicly held companies and mislead buyers including hp and we stand by the forensic review we have seen. as you know, we have turned it over to the fcc. >> we are shocked. we have been pretty ambushed by

this today. first we heard about it was a press release and we refute them. they are factually incorrect. we'd like to learn more about them. i'm afraid the details haven't been shared with us. >> reporter: autonomy ceo said the company followed normal accounting practices. hp took an $8.8 billion charge this quarter. the stock has lost 50% in 2012. they are off, the holiday shopping season this year is the longest possible clocking in at 33 days from thanksgiving to christmas. will consumers be naughty or nice to ever-more competitive retailers? ronald boire is chief merchandising officerer for sears holding and dana telsey, from the tellcy advisory group. good to have you here. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> in the middle of the first holiday shopping season, the weekend after thanksgiving both sears and kmart were open on thanksgiving itself. how did it go?

>> we were very pleased with the response we saw from our members and customers. there's certainly a trend that we see in consumer and members of wanting with flexibility whether that is the ability to buy on line and pick up in the store and buy black friday deals on sunday and pick them up or have the flexibility of having their thanksgiving meal and shop at a sears or kmart. the trend consumers wanting flexibility and wanting to buy the way they want is very strong. >> so you did see people come out on thanksgiving night to spend money there. there was a big debate. should we not open on thanksgiving. a lot of people felt they wanted to save thanksgiving and not want the stores open but you feel it was a success. >> the traffic was solid. we will have to look at the whole holiday to see how our members responded and how it looked over the holiday season. the first read was traffic was

solid in the key categories of con qumer electronics, apparel, appliances and tools in sears and kmart saw a good performance for today. i will emphasize it is early in the season still. >> dana, what do you think? what do you make of the season starting earlier every year? will it help retailers who are slow from superstorm sandy? >> i don't think we will see every retailer do it. i think it will be selective. i think it is spreading out the season and making black friday seem as if the traffic is elongated. the fact we should have a decent friday. i think saturday and sunday typically tail off but i don't think we will see every retailer open on thursday. i think black friday is still the event but feels like it keeps getting earlier. i got more e-mails in my e-mails about black friday starting on monday. >> what do you think about black

friday, do you think it will spread out the whoel whole weekend or is black friday as important as it has been. the young people come out midnight to 6:00 a.m. and the parents come out after wards and there's a lot of time in the day to shop. what are you seeing in terms of the 2012 impact so far. ron, can you speak to that in terms of what we are seeing this year? because we have a different economy versus last year. people are still worried about unemployment and the fiscal cliff. is that impact's people's to spend money? >> we are in week one of the holiday season. we will have to let the season play out. as you said in your opening, this is the longest holiday purchasing with 33 days between thanksgiving and christmas. it is true, consumers will traditionally spread their purchases out more. the bigger trend is how people are purchase ing.

younger shoppers shopping later at night are more social and connected and the shoppers that are kind of driving this trend of my stuff, my place, my time. we see some of the technologies and capabilities we're providing whether multichannel or retail tech tolgss the ability to let the retailer shop when they want to shop. the same shopper that may come out at 7:00 or 8:00 on thanksgiving evening is probably also browsing on their ipad or their tablet over thanksgiving dinner. the world has changed and seeing where they are going to go shopping. it is an integrated approach to the season and way too early to call how things will play out. we certainly saw traffic start out solid on thursday night. >> dana, is it still all about electronics? what sectors or gifts do you see

perform well this year versus others. talk to us about what people are spending money on. >> electronics and footwear is doing well. jewelry, watches continue to be one of the highest margin items and could we have for the first time in a long time a little better apparel christmas. prints, patterns and colors are driving the business and we have seen women's is getting better. we heard about it from chicos an the teen retailers and that could be a changing dynamic for the holiday season. >> interesting. are there a lot of discounts out there, or are people waiting and not spending unless they are lured in by sort of bonuses and discounts? >> there's always a lot of discounts out there. one of the things this year retail has bought inventories to manage the margin. if there is a surprise for holiday 2012 it should be more profitable than last year, given they kept inventory levels

clean. cleaner than last year. >> thank you, ronald boire and dana telsey. up next on the "wall street journal report" embracing disorder. how to prosper and profit from economic fragility. why you should think of the economy like a cat. a new book from the man who was one of the few to see the financial crisis coming. and the hi, i'm phil mickelson. i've been fortunate to win on golf's biggest stages. but when joint pain and stiffness from psoriatic arthritis hit, even the smallest things became difficult. i finally understood what serious joint pain is like. i talked to my rheumatologist and he prescribed enbrel. enbrel can help relieve pain, stiffness, and stop joint damage. because enbrel, etanercept, suppresses your immune system, it may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events

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he's one of the few people who saw the financial crisis of 2008 coming before the rest of us did, and he's the author of the best-selling book "the black swan" and now he has a new book called "anti-fragile."

nassim taleb is joining us now. good to have you on the program. >> thank you for inviting me. >> i want to get to the book in a moment but let me start with the fiscal cliff. this is what everybody is talking about, this debt and deficits of this country. the drama is playing out. how do you think it impacts the economy? >> first thing is i don't like what i see. i noticed that the politicians don't have their head in the game. they are like two teams playing to win. we're not represented by them. they are not coming to agreement to try to win points from each other. that's not what we want. >> it is all about winning. >> we are paying the price. these people are not paying the price. absence of the game is becoming the main source of fragility in american society and of course in the world economy. >> what do you mean by this? they aren't in the game. the john boehners and the barack obamas they don't have skin in the game.

>> they are shooting for numbers to look good but they don't pay the price of the mistakes. you and i pay the price of their mistakes. >> let me bring up your book. the book is called "anti-fragile, things that gain from disorder" you said think of the economy as being more of a cat than a washing machine. >> let me explain about anti-fragile. the opposite of fragile is not robust. it is not harmed and doesn't get better from shocks. there is a category of things called anti-fragile that gin from disorder. the biggest mistake is to think of the economy and society in terms of an engineering problem. it's not the same thing. your washing machine and your cat are different. your washing machine needs continue ois maintenance and repair. something organic, the human

body, if you don't subject it to stressors, use it or lose it. if you don't object it to stressors you get atrophy and get weaker and blow up. >> i like what you say in the book. you say you favor businesses that benefit from their own mistakes. not those whose mistakes percolate in to the system. and here you use banking. >> not the business but the safety side. there are two kind of businesses. businesses that benefit from the mistakes of members of that business. so you learn from mistakes of others. for example in the airline business, if a plane crashes, the next plane crash will be less likely. compare that to banks. when a bank crashes, the next bank crash is more likely. >> why? >> because the banking system is not set up in a natural way. they don't make a lot of

mistakes but when they make mistakes they are terminal. businesses make mistakes all the time with small kos and big gains when they do things right. and we learn a lot. look at how safe airline travel is and unsafe the banking system is. >> what you said earlier in terms of having skin in the game. i want to get back to that. decision makers must have skin the game, you say. this seems like common sense to me. you have a stake in the ground, you have a goal. you are working toward it. you have a story about a firefighter that explains this. >> i have difficulty over the last 15 years. i have been writing about risk as a professor of what economists do and why is it so me, a firefighter to understand your ideas and i thought about it and i figure ed out what it was. a firefighter has skin in the game. he cannot afford to misunderstand risk. an economist, a professor,

someone who works for washington, a employee of the federal reserve can afford to misunderstand risk. someone else will be paying the price and our society has never at any point in history had that much people in power who don't have skin in the game. >> goost good to have you on the program. great to see you. nassim taleb joining us. up next on the "wall street journal report," a holiday treat with legendary le cirque owner sirio maccioni and his opinionated partners. one business that keeps it all in the family. and at some point you will americans believe they should be in charge of their own future.

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together for your future. ♪ whether you have been to new york on only dreemd of visiting you have certainly heard of le cirque. it has served the rich, famous and powerful for decade and something of a bellwether for how high profile consumers are spending their money. the phrase is french for the circus but the tight night business for one of the brand names of hospitality is anything but. >> thank you for having us. >> for nearly 40 years he's ruled the roost at the ultimate power spot le cirque. all the ladies of new york and there you are. >> in those days, 30 years ago.

>> the successful restaurant tour's newest project is closer to home. which of the sons is this. >> my older. >> reporter: with partners that including his wife and sons, mario, marco and mauro who grew up in the family business. restaurant sirio just opened in manhattan's hotel. >> i had the job here. >> something like a homecoming for you. you are here at the beginning of your year as a bus boy and now opening a fantastic restaurant. what does it mean to you? >> very proud of it. >> this must be such a treat and a privilege for you to be working with family all the time. >> we get to cover each other's shoulders most of all. most successful organizations have one goal in mind. we listen to what our parents

told us. mario is the strategist, i'm more of the service, dining room, wine aficionado and she is the true palate of the family. >> how do you do it without killing each other? >> we vacation apart. >> reporter: based on le cirque's brand of hospitality, the group runs three restaurants in new york and three in las vegas, a city that is home to the most profitable restaurants in america. >> we get to meet doctors, bankers, politicians, everyone in every walk of life and most of the time in a good mood. >> if they are losing at the black jack tables maybe that is when they are not in a good mood. >> that happens after everyone eats. >> who's most like their dad? >> this guy. >> why do you feel that that way? >> no. he's very stubborn. >> what do you think you learned from the business from your dad

most. >> sincerity and dedication, and taking care of people who take care of us. >> sirio, you have served some of the most well-known, most famous worlds in the world. what does that identity mean for you now with this new restaurant? >> the people i have met are great. there are two or three that have been captivated by their style and power a. >> i'm impressed everyone went to the family business. no black sheep that wanted to go somewhere else. >> lawyer, doctor and architect. >> and you got three restaurant tours. at some point you will retire. who's the successor? >> i ask you to teach me how not to get old.

>> let me ask you, the sons, what makes your father such a great businessman? what's the secret that is long lasting and successful as he has been? >> you first. >> one thing in his life. this. >> you want the truth? >> he's the reason why he's successful. she was multitasking and everything. we never ate out in restaurants and when she no longer had laundry or cooking to do, it allowed us to start our first project, which is on 55th street. we based on all of the things in our life that my mom was cooking. the three restaurants we're trying to use a term in the business for diversify portfolio and sirio is taking you out to dinner how we like to. >> in las vegas every has a steak house.

pharmacodynamicing, japanese, chinese. >> this is delicious. >> that is anyuki and salad. hand rolled with cherry tomatoes. >> dlish. >> let me ask you about your international expansion. why new delhi, india? >> nobody is in it. >> it won the look for you. it's good to go for people that look to you. if you have to find them it dunn work. >> they came to you. >> they made a big offer. >> couldn't refuse. >> sirio has been delightful. cheers. congratulations to all of you. thank you so much. cheers. >> my thanks to mario, marco, mauro and sirio maccioni. >> now to a weekend where eating takes such high priority. food for thought from mayor

booker who will soon be making do with less. r gift? uh... whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. ship fedex express by december 22nd for christmas delivery. [ female announcer ] today, it's not just about who lives in the white house, it's about who lives in the yellow house, the green, and the apartment house, too. today we not only honor the oval office, but we honor the cubicle, and the home office as well. because today it's about all of us. and no matter who you are, you're the commander-in-chief of your own life. ♪

i heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. that's right. i've learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. you know we've been open all night. is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office.

[ traffic passing ] ] ♪ [ music box: lullaby ] [ man on tv, indistinct ] ♪ [ lullaby continues ] [ baby coos ] [ man announcing ] millions are still exposed to the dangers... of secondhand smoke... and some of them can't do anything about it. ♪ [ continues ] [ gasping ] for more on our show and our guests, check out wsjr@cnbc.com. and hope you follow me on google+. look for @maria bartiromo. tuesday we will look at housing prices. the schiller index report. on wednesday more housing news

with the latest number of new homes sold out on wednesday. on wednesday the beige book will be out. that tracks activity in regional economies across the country. on thursday the second reading of third quarter's gross domestic product report. the sgpd the broadest measure of the health of the american economy. typically a mark mover. finally at a time of of the year when many worry about eating too much, corey book er is preparing to trim his food budget. he will live on the equivalent cost of the food stamp benefit for one week. this standarden state that is $133.26 a month or $33.32 a week. he initiated the challenge following an exchange with a twitter follower over the role of government in nutrition and food stamps benefit. he will begin to eat on less than $5 a day on december 4th and will discuss it on social media. food for thought in this time of plenty for so many of us.

that will do it for us for today. keep it here where wall street meets main street. have a great week. i

>> it's time for the hollywood it list. hi even. welcome to "access hollywood". the weekend edition. i'm shaun robinson. now throughout the show we are bringing awe ho