mark zandi is chief economist at moodys. welcome back. this retreat on housing starts, it was broad-based three or four regions in the u.s. all the kleins good what happened? >> there's a general upward trajectory. to go back to the teeth of the recession, 500,000 phones -- homes. it's going to move up and down and all around each month. the trajectory is positive. quick the u.s. labor market indicators are showing strength. isn't that supposed to underpin home sales question mark -- sales question mark -- a salesperson mark -- sales? >> the quality of the jobs are improving. i think the rate the labor market is getting to wage growth. >> the starts for single-family homes fell down nearly 8%. have builders concluded that there is more profit in constructing multifamily dwellings? >> there is profit in both. there's a lot of action. there are a lot of millennial's, 18-34-year-olds. >> there is profit in both. they are going to rent. there's a lot of room there. vacancy rates in the multifamily space are low. >> we did see an acceleration

host: to our last couple calls for mark zandi. ron is calling. caller: i just why to say thanks for having me on. there is so much junk science all over these polls. global warming, all that kind of thing. i think the three things that could help most in this country would be a flatter consumption tax, term limits on our politicians so there are not lifers down there and a loser pay clause. in the court systems, they did it in england. it would free the courts. i would like to know what mark zandi thinks about these three things. guest: of the three things that the caller performer, let me focus on the thirsti first thing. i think he said we need a lower consumption tax. i think there is merit to that. we have obviously an income tax in states and localities. some states and localities have a sales tax kind of income tax. we are very odd when you look at our tax code relative to the rest the world. when you look anywhere else in the world, not only europe, but emerging economies, they have some sort of consumption tax. i think long-run, that woul

because mark zandi is going to join us on set. going to join us and the talk to us about the retail which macy's just bought. >>> beauty is in the eyes of terry lundgren the ceo of macy's talks about this acquisition of bluemercury on a first on cnbc interview. >>> jobs front and center. the adp payroll data set to be released. we have the reaction from the report's creator mark zandi. >>> and foursquare plans to talk to mark crowley about how he plans to keep his plan relevant in a very crowded room. as the "squawk box" continues right now. ozzie, take it away. >> announcer: live from the most powerfulle city in the word this is "squawk box." >>> wow, welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernin along with andrew ross sorkin and becky quick. futures at this hour have pulled back a little bit after a big two-day rally of about 500 points on the dow. when you least expect it the dow down 44 today but we can deal with that. some of that is probably milk i guess, which sharply lowered its revenue forecast for next year.

. >> with mark zandy of moody's analytics about lots of money issues out there. mr. zandy. first question, how is the u.s. economy doing heading soon into the spring of 2015? >> much better. you can see that best in the job market, over the past year, the economy's created over 3 million jobs. that's about as good a year as we've had since the height of the technology boon back in the late 1990s. in fact, in the last three months, the economy's created over 1 million jobs and the job creation is increasingly broad based. if you go back early in the recovery, was mostly low-paying jobs, retail and the hospitality industry. still some low paying, a lot of low paying and high paying, middle paying jobs, as well. we're moving in the right direction. >> this is the quick look here at the economic report at the president. we have it here on the set. he highlighted 2014 the president did as the fastest job growth since the 1990s. >> i think all the trend lines look really good. some of the best indicators in the labor market is the number of opening positions. the number of job op

i will be joined by mark zandi of moody's analytics. in san francisco. >> samsung the dominant phone icompany in china but no more. getting hit hard by chinese companies and apple. what happened? how samsung has fallen so far, so fast. ♪ >> i am cory johnson. this is bloomberg "west." samsung's dominant in china is over. it has been overtaken is the largest smartphone pundit -- vendor last year. second place? sam -- samsung in fifth place in the fourth quarter. behind apple, lenovo. what happened? crawford don't product joins us. ashcroft-- crawford del prett joins us. but it reflects an amazing fall more than anything else. going back to 2012, every single quarter samsung was the leading supplier in china. basically it has fallen apart. what they see now is you have this upstart in shall me -- how choime. they had bundled, like at&t whether china label phone. those folks are now selling direct and getting a lot more sophisticated product design. as you point out, apple has absolutely moved in and move in fast. >> when i look at the ris

mark zandi talks about the state of the economy and the housing market and possible action by the federalve. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. host: the u.s. senate will try for fourth time today to advance a bill to fund the department of homeland security. this rolls back the president's recent executive active -- action on immigration. the gop is considering various options to end of the stalemate and avoid a government shutdown. they are back on it at the senate at 4:30 p.m. you can watch all live over on c-span2.

mark zandi talks about the state of the economy the u.s. housing market, and possible action by the federal reserve. and beth akers examines the cost of the student loan program. we will take your calls. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. >> the new america foundation hosted a cyber security conference. watch it live at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two. the democratic national committee released an interim review saturday examining democratic losses in the term elections. it showed the democrats lack a single election strategy. kentucky governor and democratic victory task force member outline the report of the winter meeting. this is about 90 minutes. >> police rise for the presentation of the colors. join me in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. join me in thanking the color guard. [applause] the colors are ret

host: we are talking economy and money matters with mark zandi of moody's analytics. he joins us from new york city this morning and we welcome your questions and comments. phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. democrats, independents and republicans. we look forward to you weighing in. there are parts of that are doing particularly well right now and who is left behind? guest: one of the hallmarks of the current recovery is that it is across the country. we are seeing solid growth from the east coast to the west coast and everything in between. given the collapse in oil prices. across the country, the job prospects look as good as it has in 10 years. host: at the democratic winter meeting, the president said the success of the economy may not he an accident. want to take a look at what the president had to say about the economy and get your reaction. [video clip] >> but the facts are before us. the economy kept growing. stock market has more than doubled, restoring the 401k's of millions of people. our deficits are down by 2/3. [applause] i always find it curiou

sort of on the bullish side mark zandi of moody's is arguing that we're on our way back to full employment by mid 2016. and i was wondering whether that's an assumption or that's a forecast you would agree with. it would, obviously, be great news for democrats to be in a full employment situation in 2016. what's your sense? >> yeah. i mean, first of all i'd note that to date the unemployment rate has fallen much further, much faster than anyone predicted. be you look at the fore -- if you look at the forecasts as recently as 2013 they said it would take us until 2017 or later to get to where we already are today with an unemployment rate below 6%. and that accelerating economic growth i talked about in part because in the last year we didn't have brinksmanship we didn't have unnecessary austerity put us in a position where that unemployment rate was falling a lot faster than people thought. we have a forecast underlying the budget in terms of the trajectory of the unemployment rate, and it has us over the next, i think over the next two years getting back to something like our long run une

so one -- some of the thinking that's out there, mark zandi pointed this out to me yesterday -- >> the strong dollar? >> the strong dollar lowering prices so on a nominal level we're down but we won't know until the end of the month when we get the cpi what's happening on a real level and from an economic point of view real or inflation adjusted is what counts. >> art, help us understand what's going to be the main driver of the market? >> a couple things. you have to have europe deliver, okay? you're going to have to see where is the beef and prove that we're not going to have some disruption out there. to grasso's point, a breakout is not a one-day event. you have got to close above those necklines and breakout areas for at least two to three days and then you can consolidate and maybe take off again. and the other thing is janet yellen is coming up and we're going to hear a little bit more about fed policy and hopefully we'll get past being data driven and get a little better handle on where things are going. >> so that event is coming up february 24th. that's her semi annual moneta

this is from mark zandi, chief economist at moody analytics. he's a former economics advisor for senator john mccain when the senator ran for the united states presidency. and he put it this way. for every $1 invested in infrastructure investment $1.57 is pumped back into the american economy. with well paying middle class american jobs. this is just really critically important. the question for us, and the reason we're here on the floor and the reason we're talking about this issue of middle class economics and now transportation is that we're up against a timeline here. we've got the transportation cliff. we've got a bridge that is collapsed and the question is will this congress provide a transportation bill that can bridge this collapsed bridge? and rebuild it? i think we can. i know we must. my fear, my fear mr. nolan, is that we have become really really good at something we used to play when i was a kid and it's called kick the can. we've become really good at kicking the can down the road, rather than just coming to grips with the reali