morgan's jamie dimon, bank of america's brian moynihan and goldman sach's lloyd blankfein joined 13 other c.e.o.s in a letter to congress and the white house. expiration of tax cuts and automatic government spending cuts already has held back businesses, and if the cliff is triggered in january as scheduled, things will get much worse. bankrate's greg mcbride says all americans would feel the pain. >> it's going to put a few million more people out of work, the stock market would tank so everyone with a 401(k) would feel it, and even the people who are still working, they're going to make less money, they're going to have less money, it's not going to be fun for anybody. >> reporter: the bank c.e.o.s also raised concern over the potential for another credit downgrade for america. they said it could lead to higher interest rates. >> higher interest payments would worsen our nation's fiscal burden and likely increase uncertainty and instability in global financial markets. >> reporter: but it's not clear yet whether that would happen. >> in this environment, europe's in the middle of a debt

the salem witch trials ok you take a big stone around these guys like brian moynihan over there break america you throw him into the lake and he stinks as well maybe we made a mistake if he floats back to the top then drown him. well it's not just limited to america where we have all these toxic derivatives and mortgages and loans and our source of so-called assets going to feel like the little demonstration you gave for us there it's also here in the u.k. and we're looking at the next set up for the next crime right here in this headline max r.b.s. is isabel deal rests on mystery triple a counterparty. read this coolmax to understand just the which language the speaking in tongues speaking of jamie dimon royal bank of scotland dealt with the out of the money hedges on its recent commercial property repackaging it's about finance number one by bringing in an unidentified aaa counterparty to write swaptions against adverse interest rate move right well that clearly makes no sense but that's the point of it that in other words you're creating a statement that within the statement some o

we talked about brian moynihan's prospects over the next 12 to 24 months.on was he could be next on the block. but when you go back and look at the sort of board room drama and this he said she said, where do you come out? if vickram gets a call from o'neal and says, look, come to my office and talk to me and by the way, i may fire you and you actually go to the office and say i'm going to resign, can you say i wanted to go visit with him and i visited with him and i decided i'm not going to do it any more? >> you know, yeah, i use the word at one point i think firing yesterday. the journal today uses ousted. andrew, we know how these things go. in my opinion, and i know mr. pandit spoke to maria bartiromo and she reported on his comments. but in my opinion, this is not how it goes and given the way it went and what i believe and many other people believe, certainly a lot of his key executives who i was able to speak to yesterday believe he wanted to stay at that bank. and so, come on, you know, what really happened? well, yeah, all right, we disagree with

this was a letter sent by the nastional brian moynihan of bank of america and john stump of wells fargoany. interestingly enough, you'll see how fast warren actually moves here. you'll see the new ceo at citigroup. >>> delay're just saying that washington needs to come together and get this done. >> here's the real problem, a lent obama bum -- he's willing to risk a 400 cnbc contributor, former white house contributor. by the way clinton knew how to make a deal. and house majority leader dick armey is part of the deal of that era. dick armey, the economics are very hard. he's willing to raise all of the taxes just to get the upper income people. >> he's very, very poorly schooled only economics, finance or anything that results in job creation. and he it's damned if he's not going to have his way no matter what the consequences, he's a really scary person. >> there is a recession gun to his head. just to get his own little way of raising taxes on successful earners and small business, he is going to allow the entire bush tax cuts to go down the drain. and give this a $50 billion tax hi

stanley, james goreman is doing an excellent job there with greg flemming, i actually think that brian moynihan is doing quite a good job. as you go down the list, you see john stump has had some hedge funds, he's been a strong leader at wells fargo. i think we're going to find that the bank has been managed much better. in terms of five reasons why it was right to replace this ceo, but not now, the reason now has nothing to do with those reasons, has nothi reason reasons. >> if you don't know jeff, jeff runs a big conference, he knows everybody in the industry. >> including people on this board and some of the lieutenants that we have been talking about. >> yes. >> what's really been clear is eight people on this board were not there when vikram was hired. if you had the time and i know we don't have the time to play maria bartiromo who did an interview in 2007 when he got the job, he was defensive, mercuri mercurial, and he was -- he didn't have a board that -- he had a board that new what he was going through. they were his solid defenders. there's only two or three that were there when he w

they laid that out last year, that was brian moynihan's personal project as ceo. i think when we start to get toward the end of that cost cutting plan, that's when you can start to think about succession, what happens when the bank enters its new stage of life. i think until then, the board's letting moynihan carry on with the current strategic plan that they have in place. >> kayla, thank you. >>> if you can't beat m 'em, at least match 'em. price matching a major theme this holiday season as big box stores try to take on the online players. courtney reagan on the retail beat. >> price matching seems to be last year's free shipping. we're still two weeks away from halloween but retailers are already one-upping each other when it comes to enticing consumers to shop with them this season. target revealing its holiday strategy, including a look at the merchandise it is partnering with neiman marcus to sell. it is offering price matching select online competitors, including amazon.com. it is race to a bottom for retailers this season. margins will get compressed. >>

revenues miss with ceo brian moynihan pointing to several possible trends, including increase on depositscations and small business lending. here's the chart of bac. stock up two-thirds of 1%. >> and the small business lending up 21%. that's a very, very key element. yes, they had to take off charges, but they still managed to put up pretty decent numbers on the core earnings. because of that, it's a pretty interesting stock. do i think this is going flying up to $11 or $12 right away, absolutely not. if you want thd in a core position, it's not going to kill you either. i still like the beta names in the financials, but this still is a solid report. >> citigroup, stocks hitting a 52-week high a day after pandit is out. that's citigroup basically at the highs of the day, up 2.66%. you want to comment? >> if you're looking for beta, that's the name. look at goldman sachs. it got pummeled yesterday, but joe was talking about it earlier, very, very strong fundament l a.als fundamentals. >> cree, an l.e.d. light be company, soaring after topping fores k forecasts. >> sxand it's a name that pe

senate, i got the same for it the vote as brian moynihan.s a lot of ground that has been which it the same vote as dan moynihan. -- the same vote as? moynihan. there is a lot of ground has been plowed. host: you see a way to fix the electoral college or are you find with the way it is today? guest: what changes could you make if i just said what i said? go look at the representation of wyoming or nevada against california, new york in the u.s. senate. gold with the disparities that go with everything in america. that is the way it is. you are going to get into those things, bless you, and keep strapping, but it will not get done, not in my lifetime, of course, i am stretching a little. host: senator simpson, thank you for joining us. guest: i am back on the witness protection program with simpson- bowles. host: thank you for your time. what about the argument that small states are protected? guest: i have a huge amount of respect for senator simpson, but i have to disagree with him on this. first of all, the point made that look how great it

a story here as we focus on pandit, there will continue to be focus on the ceo of brian moynihan as heme up in the debate last night, at least specifically, was yesterday's bankruptcy of another company in the energy sector that had received energy grants. the company is called a-123. they are a lithium ion battery company. they had received $132 million of a $249 million federal grant and it's another example of the danger in trying to seed companies with federal money that sometimes doesn't work out. the assets are continuing to work in the battery business bought by one of the biggest battery companies in the country, johnson controls. a little bit curious that this did not come up but i guess they had other things to focus on. >> they were and the questions weren't there as well. tyler mathison, it's good to see you again. >> thank you. >> we're back with more "morning joe" in just a second. >>> the romney's campaign is on defense over this paul ryan photo op at a soup kitchen. they ram rodded their way in so romney could get his picture taken. >> don't fault paul ryan here, folks.

among the co-signers, lloyd blankfein, jamie dimon, james gorman, brian moynihan, and citi's new ceoichael corbat. >> already on withere? >> already on there. joining us, rob nichols. his signature is there, as well. also a former treasury department official. good morning. >> thanks for having me. >> so i'm reading in politico yesterday that john boehner is quoted as saying he's not talked to the president about the fiscal cliff in four months. how is is that possible? >> yeah, it's hard to say. great question. one thing we're calling for in this letter is for both parties to work together so we avoid the fiscal cliff. there's considerable amount of damage to the economy that would occur if we go over the cliff. chairman bernanke has noted that that could plunge us back into recession. we could lose millions of jobs. the imf has said that if that happens, we would then perhaps set off a global recession. all sorts of really negative economic impacts associated with going over the cliff. so in the letter, one thing we do urge, we're not prescriptive of what the long term deal should

ceo brian moynihan pointing to several positive trends, including an increase in deposits, mortgage originalation and small business lending. as well, kayla, i know you were on the reporter calls. the analyst calls beginning shortly, i guess. >> it began at 8:30. i think there's still unprepared remarks, as well. it was interesting to see the stock up, even if it was just slightly in the premarket because on the face of it, the numbers aren't great. but there's two things at play here. one is the fact that in the third quarter, we saw bank of america settle some legacy litigation regarding merrill lynch and what it told shareholders about the quality of merrill lirn assets when it bought that company. i think investors were really excited to see that actually just get out of the way. bank of america actually came out in front of its own earnings and at the end of september said we're going to take a $1.6 billion charge to our earnings because of this settlement. investors had a settlement. they see that as good news. the other thing is their capital levels are better than any other bank. one thin

you think jamie dimon and brian moynihan are going to make the employees and bankers who are bringingem get their compensation in this kind of deal? that's something people talked about after 2007. i bet you not. this is the type of deal you see at the bottom of a cycle. there's many more, this is one they're trying to place right now. it's symbolic of being at the end of an interest rate cycle. i want to tell you, this is exactly the type of thing that is happening because of qe and ben bernanke. because bernanke has forced people to buy bonds, this is the type of -- i'll say another four-letter word, i won't say it on air, but this is the type of stuff you're getting. look at this postcard. tim, come on in here, look at this postcard i got yesterday. ubs inviting me to come to a dinner they're doing, how to prepare for a rise in interest rates and utilized value investing and potentially help your portfolio. they didn't get the memo that bernanke and the rest of the central banks around the world aren't going to raise rates in the future. the amazing thing about this, carl, check th