john dorfman is chairman of thunderstorm capital. he joins us from boston. ur are are great to see you and welcome back. >> great to he you again. >> tom: why shouldn't we be concerned about europe's problems being imported here to the u.s. for shareholders. >> people are pretty terrified about europe right now. i'm not saying they shouldn't be concerned. what i am saying is the concern is a bit excessive at this point. for example, lack at trade. our biggest trading partners are canada, china, mexico and japan in that order. and the next biggest is germany at 4% of our trade. europe all together is less than 20% of our trade. so the chances that we will import a recession in europe in 2012 i think are pretty small. >> tom: the worrywarts will say it is a globally interconnected world and about half of s&p 500 company earnings come from oversea, not just europe but all of overseas and what happens in europe could trickle down to china and that could certainly hurt the united states. >> yeah, there are a number of pathways of contagion that could happen. i ju

then, investors are too obsessed with europe-- so says tomorrow's "market monitor" guest, john dorfman. he's chairman of thunderstorm capital. >> susie: about 20000 white collar workers at ford will soon have more money in their paychecks. the auto maker is boosting their pay by 2.7% on april 1, and its no joke. ford's business has been picking up with sales rising 11% last year. so the company sent letters to workers last week notifying them of the raise. ford says the goal of the pay boost is to hold on to top talent. >> tom: from detroit to wall street, 2,000 fewer people reported for work on wall street last month. that decline is expected to continue. poor profits have forced banks and brokerage firms to tighten their belts. tens of thousands of additional layoffs have been announced, but they came without specific locations. that means more layoffs are likely in new york city, where the unemployment rate climbed in december to 9%. if recent history holds, about a if recent history holds, about a half million americans will start their own businesses this year. tonight's commentat