lind-waldock. call lind-waldock, the premier futures broker, at 800-445-2000 and see if commodities are right for you. >>> welcome back. the fcc losing an important ruling on so-called net neutrality. cnbc's julia boorstin taking a closer look now what the decision means for broadband and content providers. julia? >> maria, the federal communications commission wanted to require that broadband providers give equal treatment to all internet traffic. but a federal appeals court issued a blow to the fcc and a win for broadband providers, ruling today that the fcc lacks that authority. this ruling weighs in on comcast's efforts to slow customer access to bit torrent, which exchanges large video files, dominating network capacity and slowing internet service. web companies like google, microsoft, ebay, and amazon have opposed this ruling, wanting to ensure unrestricted access to their content. while allowing internet providers to retain control over their broadband space should benefit the likes of time

talk to lind-waldock. call lind-waldock, the premier futures broker, at 800-445-2000 and see if commodities are right for you. >>> mirant agreed to take over rival, rri energy. the company said they will combine to create genon energy. mirant share how olders will hold 54%. rri about 46%. and they are both trading up substantially today as you can see. >>> last week white house economic adviser paul volcker is saying the u.s. should follow europe's lead and institute a vat or value added tax. is he right? joining us now, former labor secretary and cnbc contributor. also former chairman of the council of economic advisers under president reagan. thanks to both of you for joining us. really quick before we get started, martin, let me start with you. you're a member of nber. they said today it is too early to call an end to the recession. a lot of private economists think it ended in june or july of last year. do you agree with that? >> i agree with the nbr's statement that we still don't have enough data to

talk to lind-waldock. call lind-waldock, the premier futures broker, at 800-445-2000 and see if commodities are right for you. >>> welcome back to "the call" with your daily realty check, i'm diana olick in washington. the number of vacant homes in the u.s. rose as the nation's homeownership rate declined. the homeownership rate stands at 67.1% in q 1, down from its peak of 69.2% in 2004. that all the from the u.s. census. >>> national home prices were flat in february. up just 0.3% from a year ago. that according to first american core logic. the states with the best price apreachuation, north dakota, hawaii and right here in d.c. the worst, nevada, michigan and florida. heavy demand for the first private residential mortgage backed security bond in over two years pushed the yield down. redwood trust's $222 million bond priced at an interest rate of 3.75% p. a quarter point below the market rate. >>> it is certainly a huge week for earnings. we've got more than 160 s&p 500 companies getting ready to repor

lind-waldock. call lind-waldock, the premier futures broker, at 800-445-2000 and see if commodities are right for you. hey can i play with the toys ? sure, but let me get a little information first. for broccoli, say one. for toys, say two. toys ! the system can't process your response at this time. what ? please call back between 8 and 5 central standard time. he's in control. goodbye. even kids know it's wrong to give someone the run around. at ally bank you never have to deal with an endless automated system. you can talk to a real person 24/7. it's just the right thing to do. >>> welcome back to "squawk on the street." march leading indicators are more impressive than anticipated, up 1.4%, and this is on top of a upwardly revised 0.1%, which now stands at 0.4%. so, let's look at the trend of leading indicators. december was up 1.2%. jan was up 0.3%. feb was revised to up 0.4%, and now we're looking at 1.4%. so, the trend has been broken from a strong december that started to mitigate lower. thi

lind-waldock.aldock, the premier futures broker, at 800-445-2000 and see if commodities are right for you. >>> welcome back, everybody. financial reform is at the forefront this week as congress heads back into session. joining us right now from his home state of new hampshire is republican senator judd gregg. he is the budget committee ranking member. he's also a member of the senate banking committee. of course our guest host today mark olson, former federal reserve board governors joining us as well. senator gregg, thanks for being here. the way politico laid it out this morning is you're going to have some liberal members of the senate who are going to really push their agenda when it comes to financial regulatory reform. do you think that's the case? and if that's the case is there bipartisan support? >> the problem we have this populist fervor saying that all banks are bad and the financial system is evil and as a result we must do things which will basically reduce our competitiveness as a n