. >> we also have web core and jeff peterson here as well for any questions. >> good morning board. you have a very long start to report. i'm not going through every bit of it. we had six qualification package received at the end of june last year. we reviewed and scored and only one failed to meet the requirements. we had 5 major fabricated structured steel. one was a general contractor and others did large jobs to specialized subs. we issued the package at the end of october and the bid period was extended twice so we can answer a lot of bidders questions which were technical. we had 8 addendums all to reduce the price and to make it easier for them and get competition. the fact of the matter is that on march 7, this month we received only one bid from the general contractor, which was $259.5 million. over a hundred million more than the engineers estimated. we analyzed what was in their bid and we made inquiry and made attempts to explain their bid and because they had 4 major subs to do fabrication on this job and 4 were the previous prequalified bidders but they did actually re

jeff dotts, cnbc contributor ron insana, and our own rick santelli. good to see everybody. thank you for joining us. >> good afternoon, maria. >> i want to continue my conversation with rich peterson that i was just having in the break, that earnings growth. i know you've got all the stats that we want. first quarter earnings growth expected at up 0.6%, under 1% for the first quarter, earnings growth. second quarter? >> about 7.1%. we celebrate to 9% in the third quarter, according to the s&p capital iq statistics. and by the french quarter ourth this year, looking for a double-digit percentage. i see jeff shaking his heads. >> i have no idea where those numbers come from. we got those same numbers that we were supposed to see a 10% increase in the fourth quarter, 11% increase in this quarter. we're obviously not going to see that. and i think that the reason is, if you look at fedex earnings today, we're just kind of seeing this economic slow global growth story. i don't know where these earnings are going to come from. >> well, you have lennard today, coming in the consumer discretionary sector doing very well. i talk about chairman bernanke saying hep doesn't lack at asset pric