and that's gonna do it for our show today thank you for joining us we hope you enjoyed your stay in wine country and we'll see you again next time. for more information about today's show log onto our website inwinecountry.com. my, even. welcome to the "the wall street journal report." i'm maria bartiromo. it's summertime. my conversation with the man who knows the economy inside and out. what larry summers says about jobs, europe and america's future. is the -- going the way of the horse and buggy. my conversation about the personal computer. and a look inside the obama white house, marriage, michelle and the hot glare of the spotlight. the "the wall street journal report" begins right now. >> this is america's number one financial news program, the wj "the wall street journal

report." now maria bartiromo. >> here's what is making news as we head to a new week on wall street a blockbuster jobs report for the month of january. the labor department reporting that 243,000 new jobs were created last month, way above economists expectations. the unemployment rate is down to 8.3%, down from 8.5%. the greatest increase in jobs created since april. the unemployment rate now at the lowest level in nearly three years. the markets closed off a powerful january rally on tuesday. the dow and standard & poors having their best start in 15 years them nasdaq with the best beginning since 2001. by wednesday, the dow had approached a 3 1/2 year high. the markets rose later in the week. in the most widely anticipated initial public offering since google facebook announced the terms of the ipo this week. it will likely go public in the second quarter of this year and is looking to raise $5 billion

under the ticker symbol fb. morgan stanley will be the lead under writer. no word on which exchange fb will list on. mark zuckerberg owns about 28% of the company and with a valuation of $100 billion that will make him worth $28 billion. it's good to have friends. lawrence summers has one of the most impressive economic resumes you will ever see. director of the council of economic advisers, chief economist at the world president and president emeritus of harvard university. he is a university professor at harvard and he is joining us right now. thank you for joining us. >> good to be back with you maria. >> let's start with the job numbers on friday. 243,000 jobs created for the month. the unemployment rate falling to 8-1/3%. what do you think it says about the economy today? >> these were good numbers.

the unemployment rate down, the job numbers you mentioned, the household survey, which has been showing relatively weak performance showed more than 600,000 jobs created. strength in the private sector across almost every sector of the private sector. these numbers suggest that the economy's got some momentum. it doesn't have as much momentum as we'd like but it has more momentum than it had six months ago by a significant margin. that's attributed to the policies we have put in place. it's very fortunate that president obama, a year ago, was able to persevere, insisting to have a payroll tax cut which made a big difference for middle-income families. we avoided a budget catastrophe with a potential default in august. the president absolutely insisted that that payroll tax

cut be extended for these two mep months and that helped to get the economy going and we look forward to it being extended again. i don't think there's any ground at all for come place sency. there's nothing to feel like we're done, or feel like the recovery is all there, but these numbers are a favorable indicator in a quite murky economic story. >> let's talk the fed for a second. fed chairman ber gan nan i can testified before the budget panel this week saying quote interest rates can sour quickly if invest trs lose confident in tens dense if a government about its policy. he said congress should not cut expenditure necessary short run. are you about a grand plan to get a handle on the long-term

debt and deficit or should that not be the priority right now? >> the biggest priority is getting recovery going at a rate that is rapid enough to produce sustained reductions in unemployment, sustained increases in the economy, relative to its potential to produce. economic growth, over the next five to ten years, is the sengle most important determineant of what the national debt will be five or ten years now. there has to be a focus for monetary policy, fiscal policy. it has to be a focus as we concentrate on exporting more, on getting this economy growing more rapidly. we are going to have to put in place a set of measures that bring our revenues and bring our expenditures closer in to balance. the deficit projections, even

assuming the economy recovers, are not ultimately sustainable. that's an issue that has to be addressed as well. >> let me ask what is going on in europe. it seems like everyone i speak to thinks that's the wild card and could be the one game changer in terms of this improvement in the u.s. we seem to be inching toward a resolution of the greek debt crisis, greece and its creditors talking as we speak. how do you think it plays out? >> it is still too early to know. europe is -- europe has been smoldering in many ways. the european central bank, under mario droggi's leadership took an important step with the ltro facility, a program that lent a lot of money to banks on various generous

terms. all that moisture, all that liquidity, if you like, hazardoused the immediate -- doused the immediate flames. if you look at the crash in the six to nine months the risks have been brought down substantially by what mario has been able to do. if you look at the deeper tensions in the euro system, the fact that you have areas that become depressed and because of the common currency they can't devalue because there's one currency. they can't cut their interest rate because of the way europe is, people don't move in and out. those structural tensions haven't really fully been resolved. so the europeans have a lot of

work before them. there's a lesson of economic history, which is you can't simply cut your way to greatness. short run, i feel much better. risks that in this key year for the united states, europe will knock us off track. i think those risks have receded significantly, but for the medium term there are very deep issues that the european union faces. >> i guess the banking sector there in a capital raising mode. do you worry if we were to see a default in greece that that will impact the u.s.? europe is the largest trading partner of the u.s., right? >> europe is the largest trading partner, maria. of course i worry. you can't not worry. on the other hand, greek debt has been selling at 25, 30 cents less below the dollar for a --

on the dollar for a long time now. i think markets have recognized that if you put money in to greece, it's not all coming back. that recognition has been there for a long time. >> larry, good to have you on the program. appreciate your time today. >> always good to be with you. >> larry summers joining us from harvard. up next on the "the wall street journal report," going for growth, michael dell tells the next billion users around the globe, you are getting a dell later from the audacity of hope to life in a bubble. the author of "the obama" discusses marriage and life in the white house. as we go to break, look at how the stock market ended the week. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years,

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welcome back. chances are the computer in your office, your post office and even your lobal shopt made by dell. the company that michael dell started at age 19 years old turned to one of the largest makers of computer hardware is looking for new business. he's hoping to bring dell where it hasn't been before. >> customers are interested in the new solutions that are helping them transform their businesses. so they want cloud. they want virtualization. they want the things that enable them to stay productive and competitive. obviously you need technology. >> which of course coincides with what you are doing at dell, a transformation of the business. more services. tell me how you are changing the company. >> it is a different business than five years ago. we have expanded in to end-to-end solutions. we have a much larger capability

around i.t. services. that really means understanding the vertical means of our customers. health care is a big segment, manufacturing, education, understanding those sectors and being able to provide a broad range of services that help those customers. that's expanded the opportunities for dell, and over the past year our earnings per share have grown 60% on a year-to-year basis. we are seeing a lot of success with the strategy we have been applying. >> do you worry about the mob e mobility trend with devices et cetera, is moving forward and dell is not necessarily there. what growing to do with mobility. >> what happens when people buy these great mobile devices is they consume enormous amounts of data that we are actually serving up. we're in the business of providing infrastructure to the companies that provide, you

know, that data. so, that's a huge business for us. certainly, you know, the pc is still here. there are 350, 400 million pcs still sold a year. it is a core productivity device. many other devices as well. we are excited about windows 8. we think it will be a powerful force if as that comes out in the latter part of the year. >> you are not worried that people will forgo buying a pc and instead buy a blackberry or iphone. >> we are in a $3 trillion industry and 250 billion of it is consuminger and 2.75 is the commercial and small medium business and public. we focus on the 2.75 trillion. you can't ignore what's going on with devices, but remember when people connect devices they consume this data. the data doesn't -- it comes from servers and has to be secured, managed, protected.

the other thing that is happening, as the amount of data that's being stored is doubling every 18 months. that in itself is a huge business. then companies, organizations want to not just store the data. they want to make better decisions and have better outcomes for their patients, for their students and shareholders. that is an enormous business. >> let me ask you about health care. i feel like we talk so much about consumer applications when we talk about technology but there are other applications in other areas like health care. what's the opportunity for dell? >> we're doing a full range of services around health care. we're number one in the health care i.t. segment. f from hospital information systems to electronic medical records to evidence-based medicine systems to affiliated physician systems and all of the systems to basically bring

health care in to the 21st century with all of the tools and technology that is available today. this is one of the things that can make health care much more efficient and productive. >> what is your impression of what is going on in social networking right now. you look at social networking and it is fundamental extraordinarily and some the valuations, is this a bubble. >> it is an incredible force. the valuations, the market will have to sort that out. no question when you can connect hundreds of millions of people together very quickly it can change elections. it can change governments. we saw i that even in the united states with sopa. it is interesting to see how we have a social democracy now and how these tools are enabling change and engagement with customers and causing this co-creation of products and services and we

have a social command center at dell where we are listening to billions of conversations and engaging with customers all over the world and it helps us to build better products and services by listening to our customers. >> my thanks to michael dell. up next on the "the wall street journal report," a look at the first family and first couple's life inside of the white house. with the author of the

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so does happily ever after include living in america's most famous address. since moving in to 1600 pennsylvania address, their marriage has been in a national spotlight and attracted attention and controversy. jodi kantor is the author of "the obamas" and she is joining me. >> thank you. >> you told a story of two normal people that ended up in the white house. have they stayed normal. >> they really tried to. when they came to the white house it was part of their vow. it is not easy because normal in the white house doesn't exist. three weeks after the inauguration they tried to go to chicago and thought they could step back in their regular lives every couple of weeks. the trip almost a disaster. it turns out going home for them is like the invasion of normandy. >> why? because people want to be with them? >> they are city people. they live in an urban

environment. it's hard for the secret service to protect their house. the secret service dropped two black curtains down the sides of their house to prevent snipers. even the question of what the obamas would eat that weekend was confusing because the secret service says it caused huge traffic in chicago. there's no such thing as a quiet restful weekend at home for them. >> they were not wealthy prior to the election to the senate. let's talk about that. much has been made about their consumer choices, interior decorators, clothes, vacations, michelle's dresses. tell me about the relationship between them and the average middle-class family today. the election and inauguration happened at a fragile time for the economy. >> it is a fascinating debachlt as a reporter, i'm not sure who's right. but there is one camp in the white house led by michelle obama that said, first of all, our personal choices are still

our personal choices and second of all, we're the first african-americans in the white house. michelle obama knew exactly what the negative stereotypes were and she wanted everything to look beautiful and sophisticated and chic to counteract those. on the other hand you had robert gibbs who was very cautious in his approach, dealing with public resentment over job loss and foreclosures and his position was we do not want any john edwards, $400 hair cut moments. the obamas have to reflect a much more sort of regular american lifestyle. >> is that why they clashed? >> it caused a lot of attention. >> over such small things. one thing about the white house is about how tiny things can be magnified. even the question of whether they would announce a new florist that had come to the white house? could michelle and obama take a hair and makeup artist on trips.

this these are matter of quiet contrast. >> how do the magement styles of the obamas differ. the let's move initiative, the campaign that could have some policy implications? >> well, the thing is we have to stipulate the comparison is a little unfair, right, because the problems the president has to deal with are so much more complex than the ones the first lady does. but the funny thing is the first lady had arguably more management experience coming in to the white house. her east wing has and is this hyper organized stra teej eck place. one her criticisms of the west wing it wasn't strategic enough. they weren't looking far ahead and sending a clear enough message to the american people. >> you have gotten push back as a result of this book, and the familiarity with which it probes the obama marriage. some from the first lady herself, right? >> it is funny because she also

said she hadn't read the book. it is hard to say what she was reacting to. the book is carefully reported. i fact checked the book before publication. no one i interviewed has taken issue saying they never said that. what white house aides may have been saying is she may have been reacting to tabloid dmoench the first week. the book blew up in a way i didn't expect. it was strange for me, as a reporter, to see what some of i what i had uncovered used in the context. >> congratulations on the book "the obamas." jodi kantor joining us. and then how many of us us are winging it this weekend? and clucking over the second biggest food day in the united states? it is game time. stay with us. back then he had something more important to do. he wasn't focused on his future. but fortunately, somebody else was.

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for more on our show and our guests, check out our website. a and i hope you will follow me on twit and google+. find me @maria bartiromo. a look at the stories in the week ahead. we are getting fourth quarter earnings reports from coca-cola, disney, warren buffett, groupon just went public in november. friday we get the u.s. report on imports and exports. we will find out if the u.s. is importing or exporting more goods in the international trade balance report. something to cluck about

today. americans are expected to eat 1.25 billion chicken wings this super bowl weekend says the usda's national chicken council. enough to circle the earth twice if each wing was laid end to end. they peak at $2 a pound. when hungry fans can't beat the heat. that will do it for us. thank you for joining me. next week my guest, one of the middle east richest individuals and citigroup's biggest individual shareholder. i will talk to the saudi prince. keep it here where wall street meets main street. see you next weekend.