the president of the north american car utility and truck of the year awards and they have made their selections is going to be nice all that directly ahead but first we had some headlines let's go. the latest round of u.s. china trade talks lese our global report today as the chinese vice premier and u.s. trade representative meet in washington racing to beat a march first deadline to restructure trade relations talks take place in an auspicious in a spacious context the u.s. just department recently filed formal charges against the jailed chief financial officer of chinese tech giant wall way while china is pushing back firmly on the u.s. effort to impose a new government in venezuela yesterday u.s. intelligence officials detailed the greatest u.s. threats saying russia and china with a particular emphasis on vulnerabilities related to cyber security are keep intentional problems china comes to the table with an apparent concession on a major u.s. complaint in the form of a new law that will proportionally ban the practice of demanding technology

transfers from foreign companies seeking to do business in china and speaking of trade airplane manufacturer boeing seems to be flying high above the turbulence in a transpacific economic currents the seattle based company dropped a blockbuster earnings report today that seemed to fall out of the clear blue sky with revenue of twenty eight point three billion dollars in the fourth quarter and a total of one hundred one point one billion dollars for all of last year the q four revenue figure came in above market expectations by a billion dollars perhaps the experts aren't so expert look at that boeing bump today on the news from the three hundred sixty four dollars per share to three ninety one while at boeing investors may have had to buckle their belt as boeing stock price wavered recently dropping below three hundred dollars per share some say on concerns related to that boeing seven thirty seven max eight that had some problems like you know one of the planes falling. of the sky and crashing into the

job of cease killing all hundred eighty eight people in that lion air flight in late october but boeing seems to be cruising comfortably in fact the stock price flew above the all time price high reach early in early october of last year. and another u.s. based company with significant vulnerability to the u.s. china trade conflict apple also seems to be showing resilience that all lower level with an earnings report that boosted their stock price by six percent you can see that jump on the news there i think it went from one fifty five to one sixty five apple revenue for q four revenue was eighty four point three billion dollars that figure was a five percent fall for the same quarter in two thousand and seventeen but above expectations apple's all time price high was back in early october at two hundred thirty two dollars per share trading today at nasdaq with just above one hundred fifty dollars and for more we are pleased to be joined by the sea overvalued research alex fleiss alex welcome back it's great to see you again we just spoke

about apple there obviously and they are in the news with a major security issue after a fourteen year old boy kid discovered he could spy on his buddies using apple's video chatting the flaw impacts millions of i phone users alex and the company seems to have made some unexpectedly bad moves recently with their china sales etc what's your take on apple. i've got to tell you it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their problems apple hasn't been working on their brand for years they haven't had a new major innovation since the i phone in two thousand and seven in fact in india apple stores are bare and nobody is buying i phones whatsoever in india because they don't care about the brand they want usability and they want price and right now apple's losing in both accounts my friends at samsung joke to me why have an i phone x you pay up for no new function from the i phone seven or i phone six and

it's a status symbol and nothing else and so i felt it was rather a copout for tim cook to blame the economy on his fourth quarter the fact is people in china just don't want to spend the money cost for an i phone next when they can get really better phones at this point for a fraction of the cost yeah and alex they're not worried about the wall way by the dry is government spying on they accept it so they're not worried about any of the other concerns that some of us may or may may not have let me ask you related to that alex you know when we went from when the world went from three to four g. there was this real spurt everybody had to have a new phone so you could watch videos and listen to music and blah blah blah but now that we're thinking you know about going to five you're on the cusp of that will that have the same impact upon wow way samsung samsung number one of course in the world and then apple number three will everybody have to rush out and get

a five g. phone or is there not that same urgency to five g. that there was we are moving to four g. . while the rollout is taking place in urban environments at first and it won't really be across the us till the end of two thousand and twenty but i'm going to tell you it's the future and the future is now you know four g. enabled the apps of to take place and you know three g. . just the very beginning of the internet on the phone with five g. will be downloading movies in seconds we will be able to have really seamless internet wherever we go so we're talking about driverless cars but much more so think of the jetsons we're going to be able to have flying taxis with five g. internet you get. up to ten times as many as one hundred times higher speed and so what you have is without the need for all the spend with the actual devices

themselves can have a longer battery life and so it really opens up a potential that we can't even imagine i mean before four g. came out no one had even thought about hoover clearly they would have invented a nuber so what will five g. have in store at this point if you can imagine it you can do it the next twenty years the technology is going to be so exciting let me get your take on the thing that i spoke about briefly in the opening in davos we covered davos where we were there took the show there last year but there's a little bit of you know telling one side and doing something else all these corporate executives flew in on jets and then they talked about the need for a cult to deal with climate change same is true on artificial intelligence on robotics they talk about being sure that we're learning and we know that we're going to deal with workers that they're not going to all lose their jobs because of robots etc but then behind closed doors there's been

a bunch of reports are saying hey the competition is out there is so much in ai we need to move fast and demo torpedoes full speed ahead to act with the workers what do you make of these stories alex. well you know it's without a doubt true i mean mcdonald's biggest expense right now is their labor cost so when they can automate their workforce you know mcdonald's you know looks to be able to save tremendous tremendous amount of money but. the same time that you know we really need to retrain our workforce you know we have to the ai is going to according to mckinsey their major ai report that came out last year actually can create more jobs for instance the average quantitative hedge fund requires five times the employees to manage every single dollar that the average old value fund would so in fact building these systems takes more manpower and so the labor will you know be in high high high demand but in the meantime we really need to retrain

our workforce absolutely well we have i want to have you back to talk about this again and again you spoke with about us about before and you were great you were today too and and great on the apple two very interesting stuff about five g. alex why is the c.e.o. of rebellion research a great to see you again thank you so much alex oh my pleasure have a great day enjoy the stakes stay warm you have saluted. and the us congressional budget office or c b o has surveyed the damage from the thirty five day partial government shutdown the longest in u.s. history c b o reports the cost of the economy has already been eleven billion dollars with the most of the impact from delayed economic activity that can now proceed but a three billion dollars in costs which will never be recovered cvo has also revised downward the expectation for twenty nine thousand growth by the by a seven tenth of a percent from three point one to two point three two point three as the new g.d.p. number for next year and trying to squeeze in

a quick break but hang here when we return the u.s. probably reserve concluded two days of meetings today professor emeritus at university after massachusetts amherst richard wolfe joins us to discuss their next steps and to help the mystify some of the finer financial jargon plus the selections have been made and we now know the best vehicles out there the president of the north american cars utility and truck award of the year will be here lauren fix the car coach she'll give us the inside scoop on the big winners and here are the numbers at the closing bell good day for stocks and all green arrows on the big board today back in a flash. the millennium goals i think are trying to restore the rights of individuals rights of

humans in the face of this dystopian nightmare and that's probably why they claim price is being held back from crossing over twenty five thirty thousand dollars per call it is because of the rise if they all say she is successful and humans have a agency that's a net negative for big coin in the short term but will say because. a lot of people that don't want her seizing power in any meaningful way. let me let you go where you know you're. on t.v. it's one of. those whom you know most of the best will be in yours and yours was notable just. not by you. please don't believe the ways but i did my best which nights there was. no. need for them

you know. this is one of those little. these who get. you know it's one. of. the. united states can always had the right tools it's news and it's a tax on other country's. economic sanctions or are often just the beginning another thing you like to do is place some military pressure on the countries a true talking about. and there has to be an effort to demonize that country and the leader of that country. we have a responsibility for the home. and we need to make rules for the rest.

because without us there will be chaos. welcome back there is major a merger an antitrust news out of europe today as the european union's competition commissioner margaret vested or signal she will block the proposed merger of rail giants alston and simmons the commissioner rejected last minute arguments from the two companies which would have created a merged entity with about fifteen billion euros in annual revenue is best to go discuss the case earlier this month for me being a true european champion is not about just doing the right thing it's also about doing the best thing because then you can prevail. in the global marketplace and i

think that's that's a space simply one of the things that we're looking for that the success that european citizen are expecting. and spain santander bank as opposed to some impressive q four earnings with a net profit of just over two billion euros nearly two point four billion dollars up thirty four percent year over year and hotspots were santander profits last year were in the u.s. mexico and brazil and speaking of brazil authorities there now say eighty four people are confirmed dead after that deadly dam collapse in brazil earlier this week meanwhile brazilian authorities may be taking a closer look at the role of a mining company that operated the dam brazilian mining giant ballet with regard to a previous dam collapse in the same area of l.a. has now said it will dismantle ten other dams and five people including three valley employees have been arrested in relation to the disaster ballet says the

adjustments and operations will reduce annual production by ten percent. and the federal reserve finished two days of meetings today and chair jay powell spoke to reporters moments ago saying he believes the fed is on the correct course take a listen. the u.s. economy is in a good place and we will continue to use our monetary policy tools to help keep it there. the jobs picture continues to be strong with the unemployment rate near historic lows and with stronger wage gains. inflation remains near our two percent goal. we continue to expect that the american economy will grow in a solid pace in two thousand and nineteen although likely slower than the very strong pace of two thousand and eighteen. we believe that our current policy stance is appropriate at this time. and here is talk about the fed to help demystify some of their finer financial jargon as professor of economics of america's at the university of massachusetts and horace professor richard well professor welcome

back what do you make of the fed chair his comments just a little while ago about being patient on rate hikes i mean it looks like they're still on a course for two additional hikes this year what do you think. well i think the basic problem for the fed is at the same for all of us they don't know what's going to happen you notice that mr powell said we're in a good place we have a strong economy at the same time he then says literally five seconds later that it looks like the economy is going to slow down well if you just listen to him the honest it thing to say is if it's going to slow down which nearly everybody believes then the only really interesting question is how much it slows down and the very risk that it could be significant and lord knows back in two thousand and eight it was the second worst slowdown in capitalism's history well then it's a very dangerous to raise interest rates if there's even the chance of an economic slowdown because a rising interest rate would make any slowdown that much worse so all this is

a nice soft statement but it doesn't tell you very much except that we are in very uncertain times and that itself is a problem yeah i mean you're so right you go back to two thousand and eight i mean the fed and everybody else treasury secretary even they acted like it was a lightning bolt of shock to them that the financial system was about to you know go into the gutter in a hurry and they weren't prepared at all you know i'm curious and i don't like talking about. trump is as much as other folks are around but he's been trying to bully the federal reserve to hold off on interest rate increases for the last year sending sort of tawdry tweets and taunting them i mean you know i know as an independent regulator in the past that's not appropriate but what do you make of that whole circumstance professor. well what he's doing what mr trump is doing is

a kind of extreme or exaggerated version of what other presidents have done to their major focus is the way our political system works is to get reelected mr trump faces a reelection effort over the next two years he doesn't want higher interest rates even if there's a danger of inflation even if the increase in money supply of the last few years has been beyond anything we've ever seen in our country before he really doesn't care about any of that his time horizon is two years and over those two years he doesn't want interest rates to rise which is what the fed was going to do and the reason is very simple if you raise interest rates the cost of borrowing money is higher it means your credit card bill it means your mortgage it means your car payment program all of those will become more expensive to americans they won't like that their economic conditions are very precarious anyway and that won't be

good for his reelection so he is in there pushing the fed taunting them as you say tweeting in order to keep interest rates from going up but the only reason for that is his own reelection not a concern with the broader economy he probably feels that if he can't get reelected the condition of the broader economy won't matter much to him even if it's crucial for the rest of us right i mean i guess and it is it isn't specific to the president trump i guess it's with all politicians and particularly presidents although he's been more out there with his tweets but i guess they just look at yes you know short a short short term political gain for longer term potential pain to the economy. by the way you're quite right because in the past presidents have been sharply criticized when they started to make that kind of an intervention so they generally tepid low key not so often not

a personal attack they gave it less because it was criticized as compromising the role of the federal reserve which is to be an independent guardian of our economic well being what mr trump is doing as he does in so many areas he's basically trampling on that tradition he is increasing not decreasing the level of public pressure he puts on them it means that the federal reserve clear make a decision based on the economy because they are afraid either of what he'll say in criticism of them or they're afraid that they'll compromise their independence which they have slowly tried to build up in other words he's doing what's good for him and the wreckage the chips are just falling all over the place and we will all have to live with the results and yeah one of the things i really enjoyed when i was a financial regulator was once i was confirmed by the senate i couldn't be fired so i could say what i want and as people who know me know i did and it's

a great attribute of independent agencies we don't we're sort of running out of time as we always do with you we love having you on but let me ask you one thing we talk about all this financial jargon and we'll have you on to do more of it but let me ask you about the phillips curve we hear that talked about we heard about it today with the chair explain the phillips curve but to all the boom busters professor. very easy to do it's named after as you might have guessed an economist named philips and what he's famous for is having charted you know on a graph that the lower the unemployment rate in general the more rapid the rise of prices and the idea is very simple the less unemployment there is the more employers who want to grow can only do that not by hiring unemployed people but by getting workers who are already working somewhere else and the way you do that is offer them a wage increase and then the final idea is if wages are going up because of low

unemployment employers will try to pass on the cost of higher wages to their customers in the form of higher prices so what the phillips curve does is show the relationship between the rate of unemployment and the rate at which prices are rising you did a great job of explaining that but easy as the tight rope walker says easy for you my friend a professor of economics of americans at the university of massachusetts amherst thank you so much professor sure appreciate it. glad to be here. so which were the best vehicles last year we have the answers now i want to welcome the president of the north american car utility and truck of the year awards lauren fix the car coach hey lauren welcome back up break it down for us let's start is the drum roll well let's start with the car for twenty eighteen what was

a best car it was the genesis g seventy which definitely deserved it we knew it was going to win and when you looked at the compare competitors that were in that category it really shined i mean if you're looking at a german car and ality a b.m.w. and you're thinking you want something in that category even a lexus go drive the genesis g seventy you'll be totally impressed when it comes into motors you get a male transmission it performs on the track it has better warranty and the price just blows everybody away lauren when i know you and your cohorts get to drive these vehicles when you drive them are you just driving them like around your town or do you get to take them out like on a track if you can or are one of the restrictions that you have. well typically there's a dr event to begin with and they invite all the jurors there's fifty of us at one time and we'll drive them on the track while driving on the street to play in a vehicle obviously a truck you're not going to drive the truck you might have an off road portion so each vehicle manufacturer will choose what we do and then we get the vehicle

usually a few months later for a week and we get enough for to drive it again and see how it fits in your garage you go to the grocery store you know a lot of you go to cosco you know you kind of get to see what it's like to live with and then that's when you really get a good feel for that the breakdown sixty vehicles in each category down to comes down to us three and then from there we choose the finalists do you have the best job in the world or what taking a truck out on i shall end of the job but i love it. so we put it up on the chart there but talk about the best utility the hyundai co knows that it the hyundai conan the honeycomb electric now we all thought it was going to be the jaguar i pace which is an all electric s.u.v. and then we thought it would be the acura r.d.x. no one really thought about the hyundai but think about one hundred comes in at twenty thousand dollars and they offer an electric version both models one because you're not an electric s.u.v. person but when you're getting everything that's in our nine s. electric vehicle in an electric vehicle like he had seen school see it's the kind

of things that we all kind of used to want to live with especially in this cold weather that's when you realize that hyundai did it right in that ten year hundred thousand mile warranty and the vehicle without the electric coming in at two hundred twenty thousand dollars that's a winner so that vehicle one it took me a while the first one thousand for the jaguar i was really surprised well i'm channeling you know except if you're in a rural area with the electric you know that may be the right problem i mean who would have thought hyundai whatever ten fifteen years ago people thought it was a piece of garbage and now it's winning awards like this and i've had a bit too there i find them all to be pretty great vehicles and let's talk about the ram fifteen hundred the best truck tell us about that the rand fifteen her. really blew away the competition although the chevy silverado and the g.m.c. fifty hundred are great trucks when you drive the ram you see that it's capable and it has so much more such the capability it's where you live inside the vehicle big screens comfortable seats lumbar adjustable seating heated seats cooled seats i

mean you've got storage in the rear area of the truck that usually wouldn't over where the wheels are on the sides you could lift that up they do a cooler you can put storage in there it's lockable tons of tide ons and you really think about how you use a truck every day whether you're using it for work or you want to have one vehicle this vehicle really and that everybody's needs and it was super impressive we knew from the moment we drove out to go this is the winner it was hands down the winner by far you know very interesting although it sounds like too much work or too much fun for me but i'm very interested now tell me more and what happens you know you've been the president for this last year when you still be a girl what goes on we will have you on all the time because you talk about great stuff in the auto industry but what happens in this regard i stay on as president for another term and i'll probably continue my term you just get reelected so it's a two year term and after that you can decide to run again and i think i'm going to i've got a lot of great things planned we had amazing exposure on

a global basis remember to korean cars won so the coverage on a global basis is pretty impressive in the koreans get very excited about this and so they're covering they've converted the logos into korean and other languages and so they're really happy and excited to promote it so that's all good for the brand and so next year we'll have a new location for the awards that hasn't been announced yet but the sure to tell you first and we'll have a comparison drive and again we'll be out driving cars and we've already started out i'm actually going to be in greece driving the new range rover evoque that's going to be coming out of we have chicago auto show next week so there's a lot of excitement coming up and when does this all start by the way when you get to start driving the new cars. we're already starting driving believe it or not soon as the first the year hit some people went off to drive lamborghinis and other people i've already been out to drive the new chevy blazer i've got the full line of b.m.w. rolls royce and many we're driving and two weeks we get the key is sol so anything that's new you can find me on my website lauren fix dot com and we were view

literally everything if i haven't driven it i will i've got a brand new to sign in my driveway i mean it's i have so many vehicles that i'm driving you almost forget what you're driving at one point is you have to clean your brain out and go to the next vehicle but you know it's great to be able to help people and answer their questions and guide them to find the right vehicle so easy to get confused with all the new product or we've got we got to run you have the best job in the world thank you for joining us and guys that's it for this time thank you will take it take care we'll see you next time. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then.

i think about one of them we reason why no we have worked on this complaint nationals but is this because most of the day it's going to disrupt organization. to the previous issue or so i was sure so those who. else used to. do all pretty askew so today it was sort of it's one of the best national into the thing as you see the. president of the stand he has some of. i know that i know you are right over there are rather democrats i thought before or yeah yeah.

i'm going to let them but i don't question then you can keep an eye on what i have to lose each other for praful that it. was. doing. its whole fool place choice i knew you didn't pay off a mysterious. british. civil. model for them after the whole fucking mr hates it for jim and then oil for hope that our freedom and for. the money. ah i.

was. nothing but i. think that. venice where lazy opposition leader secures the support of the european parliament takes for the overthrow of the troubled nation socialist president. also ahead this hour families in rural france the mom to know why over the last decade a large number of children there were born with it with a government report on the probable cause as we.