nobody has figured out how to pay it, to quote david walker, he said we're adding a wing to our house that is already mortgaged for more than it's worth. neil: adam, i was there at the president's speech and i came away from this thinking that was out to lunch on this or politically not astute on this. i think he is told a lot of party insiders, i'm going to kind of doublespeak on the public option. a lot of you will know a lot about this, but the camel's nose will be under the proverbial tent, and like medicare when it started, $65 million bucks a year t can only grow and did go and so will this. what do you think? >> i think your political instincts are right, neil. i don't think it is a crackpot suggestion that we're going to get some sort of reform bill here, because, remember, all the pez really needs to do is to get enough -- is to get enough of the democrats who aren't with him right now to support him, to get most of them, and some republicans, very, very few politically to make it happen. we're overlooking some things here. ben said this is an unqualified negative thing for t

david walker is our special guest when "squawk box" comes right back. >>> welcome back. john mack staying on as chairman and stepping down from the wall street giant. james gorman, he's going to succeed mr. mack in that role come january 1st. the troubled bank could be on the verge of an earnings turn around. dick, tell me, do you want me to say rockdaily or roach dale? >> rock dale. we're rocks. >> three straight quarters of losses while goldman has been doing better indicates all the hoopla about not taking enough risk on, this seems to be a continuation of that since this guy is going to -- you know, his bread and butter is running the low risk brokerage business. why is it going to be better for morgan? >> well, i mean, let's put morgan into perspective a little bit. over the last couple of years, it's lost $400 billion in assets. at the peak, it had $32 billion in revenue. this year, it will be lucky to get $23 billion. that's a 25% decline. it's had three bad quarters, as you've just indicated, and nobody made any money in this stock for a decade. it's selling pret

david walker's group is doing a good job. other groups out there that want to reform social security. we need to reform medicare, too. >> when in 2010 will we start seeing monthly comps of housing prices going up? >> you said in 2010. those are your choices. any of the 12 months. >> when comparisons from '09 when we have a positive comparison. will it happen in 2010? >> yes. >> when? >> i'm not sure. we're already starting to see bumping along the bottom of housing prices, ups and downs. >> says at one point we were still going down to the total of whatever he was looking for, 40 wasn't it. we were at 27, still going to do 40 u don't think so? >> stweerting to stabilize. some of the problems put in place, a little slochlt we're starting to get progress on the refinancing program, refinancing of certainly mortgage rates at a point. >> in september we may have -- by september of 2010, we compared them to this september we may have price increases, right? >> yes. >> that was my question. or it might be earlier or might not be. i

david walker, a harvard professor, expressed some disappointment that the actual cost side, cutting downn the cost of health care, seems to take a back seat to adding 47 million new people. i hear what you're saying about getting the burden off of corporations but aren't you just really transferring a burden in a bloated system to the government which may or may not be better at controlling costs? >> we know a lot of the burden companies face in the rising cost of health care is because of the tens of millions of people who are uninsured. so when they show up at the emergency rooms, governments are having to pay for it. hospitals are charging off that emergency care that should never have been done in emergency rooms to people that pay the rest of the hospital bills which are insurance companies. there's a huge costship doing on. so many corporations i've talked to said, yes, we they'd to drive down the cost of health care. that's why some corporations favor the government option to compete with the insurance companies, to keep the insurance companies from unnecessarily raising their rat

the comptroller, david walker, who retired a year ago or so -- are you involved with him? guest: he is running what is called the peterson foundation, and i am working at an organization called the peterson institute for international economics, and they are separate organizations. caller: i always enjoyed seeing him on c-span. one thing that struck me is that he said our pentagon folks were unauditable. our defense budget was so huge, it is much more than 10 times all the countries the money that we're spending on defense here. i personally am not afraid of anybody coming in and hurting america. i say that as a mother of a 9/11 person, and i think we have to get our house in order. i remember one time not too long ago, bill clinton said, how do you treat china? he said in the morning you go and you say, would you buy some of our debt or our bonds? in the afternoon you are expected to go there and behave. and to say we do not like what you are doing. you cannot do business that way. guest: i very much agree with the premise of your question, which is we would be in a much

the comptroller, david walker, who just retired about a year or so ago, i don't know if he works, you are the pedersen grew. are you involved with them? >> guest: he is winning what is called the pedersen foundation, and i'm working at an organization called the peterson institute for international economics. so their separate organization. tranforty was obvious a brilliant man and always enjoyed seeing him on c-span. one thing he said was he said our pentagon books were unauditable. our defense budget is so huge it is much more than 10 times all the countries beneath us. we are spending money on defense that could be spent here. i personally am not afraid of anybody coming in hurting america. i say that as a mother of a 9/11 person, and i think we have to get our house in order. i remember one time, not too long ago, bill clinton said how do you treat china? he said in the morning, you go and you say would you buy some of our debt or our bonds. and in the afternoon you are expected to go there and say hey, we don't like what you are doing. you can do business that way. >> guest: i gu

the comptroller, david walker, who retired a year ago or so -- are you involved with him?guest: he is running what is called the peterson foundation, and i am working at an organization called the peterson institute for international economics, and they are separate organizations. caller: i always enjoyed seeing him on c-span. one thing that struck me is that he said our pentagon folks were unauditable. our defense budget was so huge, it is much more than 10 times all the countries the money that we're spending on defense here. i personally am not afraid of anybody coming in and hurting america. i say that as a mother of a 9/11 person, and i think we have to get our house in order. i remember one time not too long ago, bill clinton said, how do you treat china? he said in the morning you go and you say, would you buy some of our debt or our bonds? in the afternoon you are expected to go there and behave. and to say we do not like what you are doing. you cannot do business that way. guest: i very much agree with the premise of your question, which is we would be in a much s