mr. bernanke has now opened? we'll get to that later in the show. now, let's turn back to our other breaking news story of the night. the u.s. downgraded by rating agency egan-jones. they say qe-3 is the reason for the downgrade. now, since bernanke pulled the trigger on qe-3, markets have gained almost 300 points. the achilles' heel in all this? king dollar. that's what egan-jones talked about. we'll get back to that story. i want to break down the numbers because this is an interesting story. stay with me on this. this is the exchange value of the u.s. dollar, the trade weighted u.s. dollar. and down here we start with the first qe -- i'm sorry, the second qe which was november 2010. notice how the dollar fell sharply with qe-2, not qe-1, but qe-2. that hurt consumer incomes and wound up hurting the me. my point is there's such big numbers here, let's go back and look at this. we have ending of qe-2, the ending of qe-2, all right, into mostly the late 2010 and 2011. look what happened. the dollar goes back up. do you see that? when the fed stops p

mr. bernanke's dense d mr. bernanke insists both the public and private should let him do his job, he's focused on the economy and he's not worried about politics. but everybody know it is fed has to worry about politics and they're concerned if they get too embroiled in politics it will curtail their independence. but for now he insists i'm doing what i'm doing because unemployment is high and inflation is below my target and i'm not paying attention to to the electoral calendar. >> woodruff: and mitt romney had announced he will noteappoint bernanke when his term is up. david wessel from the "wall street journal," thank you. >> you're welcome. >> brown: and we return to the still unfolding events in the middle east to ask, as secretary of state clinton did yesterday after the death of u.s. ambassador chris stevens, how could this happen? joining us: marwan muasher, who served as jordan's deputy prime minister and foreign minister earlier this decade-- he's now vice president for studies at the carnegie endowme

mr. bernanke believes in.uly believes in the kinzean model of stimulating their way back to prosperity. if you create enough money ultimately it will gain velocity and bring recovery. there's a problem with that, neil, all of this pent up demand all of the trillions sitting in balance sheets what happens when the money hits the market. we can have inflation like we had in 79, 80 we could see interest rates go up 15, 16 percent inflation rate and then we have a real mess on our hands. >> the state about to hit mitt hard. just you know walking, sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering and i found myself in the middle of this parade honoring america's troops. sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering which is actually inquite fitting becausearade geico has been serving e military for over 75 years. aawh no, look, i know this is about the troops and not about me. right, but i don't look like that. who can i write a letter to about this? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on

mr. bernanke hinted, the fed opts next week for a third round of post-crisis q.e. but if other countries follow brazil's lead and meddle with exchange rates, the money will simply flow into freer floating currencies such as the australian dollar and the chilean peso. at a time of weakening global demand, that's an unfair burden for such countries to bear. what's to say they won't eventually intervene as well? such tit-for-tat responses raise the risk of an all-out currency war, a 1930s-style threat to international trade that the fed, the steward of the world's reserve currency, has a responsibility to avoid. i'm michael casey. >> tom: that's nightly business report for tusday, september we'll see you online at n-b-r- dot-com and back here tomorrow night. captioning sponsored by wpbt captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

mr. bernanke's press confence he wasn very straight forward. the fed has been very forward with wanting to be transparent. i don't think he was transparent. everybody on wall street thinks the fed is going for more inflation and we're all concerned about how much more and what are they going to do to limit it? until the fed speaks to this issue instead of avoiding it-- when asked the question, mr. bernanke said we have a dual mandate and we're concerned with inflation and unemployment, but that gobled the question. the question is, is the fed really willing to tolerate more inflation? if of if so, how much more and for how long? and the fed needs to address that in a very transparent way. >> susan: listen, bob, we just have a little bit of time left and i want to ask you about unemployment. the fed said they're trying to create jobs. can the fed solve the unemployment problem? can you give me a 30-second answer on that? >> yeah, well, the 30-second answer is no. there's some evidence that structural unemployment is high, and if so, it's going t

mr. bernanke cannot get the economy going. the trade deficit, you don't fifix the american economy. mr. obama promised d to do someing about that on the stumump in 2008 and he has not delivered. >> when it talalks about creating 12 million jobs, the obama campaign comes back and says that 12 millio jobs would be created and whyhy -- anyway. it is hard to forecast, i think that people wewere looking for really solid policy descriptions from romney. i am not sure how specificic he really got. usually th cvention speeches about demonizing him, right? the question is, did that set -- about humanizing him, right the question is, did that side wo? i thinit did. >> a candidate who hashe name mittbot -- he did appear to be a real pson -- >> that's the point, hes ever a person, to say he is not is just ridiculous media propaganda pitt it ilike to sing that ama is just ininterested in redistribution and class warfafare. i am not saying that our viewers should vote for him, but ideas time to give them a hard look.k. -- it is time to give

mr. bernanke do? the sense is they do want to ease but the numbers stronger they hold off.uestion of how the market greet that is. >> there's a question of professional money managers that have missed some of this rally, as well. >> right. >> they're going in to the end of the yore. they have to make the back. >> that's right. they have to do something. we were talking about that. feeds on itself because a lot of people have been waiting an waiting and they have to jump in at the end of the year. >> right. >> it's going to be self fulfilling and the market higher as a result. >> not only the s&p at a multi-year high, anger and frustration is because these guys, many guys underperforming because they don't like the fact that -- they shouldn't be here and the economic realities and agreeing with bernanke-draghi put and does help the market. >> so what you really talk about is artificial stimulation like you said. the market essentially shouldn't be here but it marches higher. >> thanks very much. ty, over to you. >> thank you very much. >>> next hour, all the reasons for the

mr. bernanke deliver more quantitative easing? >> well, i think it's a much closer call than what your survey suggests and what price into markets. i think the chance of qe-3 already tomorrow is only about 50/50. as if i can't make up my mind, but i think there are clear pros and cons. i think the pros are, first of all, there's what i call this bbb economic expansion is becoming ever more bumpy. we saw that in the ism and the payrolls last week. and also the fed clearly misses on both parts of the mandate. unemployment is high, inflation is headed below 2% soon. these are the pros. but what are the arguments again? well, first of all, financial conditions have eased recently, they have not tightened as they did before the last two rounds of quantitative easing. so we have easier financial conditions and largely due to europe getting better. and the second reason in there, i think is the main argument against qe-3 tomorrow is that the fed wants to stay out of the election campaign. this is why i think there's a 50/50 chance they d

mr. bernanke, for sure i would resign after having messed up the u.s. as badly as mr. greenspan and mr. bernanke have done over the last 15 years. and mr. bernanke before he was fed chairman, he was one of the principal architects of ultra expansionary monetary policies, never paying any attention to credit growths that led to the housing bubble. and if i had messed up this badly, i would for sure resign. but secondly, if you you really want to have an expansionary mop taker po monetary policy that helps the man on the street, should you do what sheila bair proposed, namely send each household a check for $5 million interest rate free. i would go as far as to say send them each $10 million free as a gift and put it on the balance sheet of the treasury and the fed and that would boost consumption temporary. don't forget, no countries has ever become rich from consumption. it's capital spending that leads to riches. and i think the mandate of the fed and the hope to boost asset prices to then create wealth is ludicrous. is ludicrous. it doesn't work that way. it boosts spending, that i agr

mr. bernanke's moves. investors enjoying another day of gains across the board. if our next guest is right, that may all change if mitt romney wins the election. >> brian gardner says if romney wins, he'll likely replace bernanke and that would trigger a selloff. also with brian along with reaction is former hewlett packard ceo carly fiorina. >> i think the stats you just cited proved my fite. the fed has been fueling the economy over the last three years. it's not obama policies, obama administration policies, per se. it's monetary policy. the romney campaign has made it very clear they would like to replace ben bernanke. i think the market reaction would be a romney presidency equals a withdrawal of monetary accommodation. i think the market would react negatively to that. there's a lot of good things coming out of the romney campaign. this would offset it. >> carly, what's your reaction? >> the stock market right now is completely disconnected from economic reality. we're going into a simultaneous global economic slowdown. yes, the stock market has been helped

mr. bernanke spoke about it quite a bit at jackson hole and made the argument- > > he says he does not believe it is structural. > > absolutely. he made the argument that he is likely to act, and that he doesn't believe the future cost of potential inflation is large enough to justify not doing something, because he fears more having people unemployed. > > yes, but brent, if they go for another round of stimulus, that is it. they have nothing else to throw at this darn thing. > > right, and that's my worry, and that's why i think he does some more incremental and doesn't announce a huge quantitative easing like the market is hoping. i think it's something more incremental and more of a tweak, or even something where he leaves it open-ended so the market doesn't know when it may possibly end. so there would be no completion date or no number announced. > > it's interesting because you have smart people on both sides arguing for easing and the other smart guys saying not. and he's caught in the middle, because even the fed itself, as you say, is somewhat divided. we'll find out soon enough, late

mr. bernanke wants to do.e'll probably get some clear picture on whether he's going to act on qe3. i'm not completely convinced he will do that on -- in the next fed meeting, he may delay. the whole issue of that and presidential elections, whether he should do it now because otherwise he'll be seen as being just trying to help obama in the election. >> if he doesn't do it now, then you can't do anything now until january. >> january, yeah. that will be a long delay. on balance you think he will act if he has support -- >> that's the question. that's why steve's interview with lockhart was fascinating. he sits in the middle and he's a swing vote. and heed this is a very clear call. he's the swing vote. we don't know, do we? >> i think -- i'm sure bernanke will not decide on the basis of his own position. clearly, if mitt romney wins the election, mr. bernanke will be out of office, and he'll probably be out of office anyway because he's had his run. he probably says, i have nothing to lose. my research of grea

mr. bernanke is going to take his message directly to the senate finance committee in a close-door meeting love to be a fly on that wall? we won't know exactly what is said in that meeting, but we can imagine it's going to be something like, please do your job. everything the fed has done really won't matter. >> reaction now from the senior managing director at tangen capital investors. chris, it is a bit exterr extraordinary, but it's understandable given the fact it's the economy and the recovery has been all on the fed. congress has done nothing. >> yeah, congress is the primary bailout recipient, aren't they? we've had no action from the congress on housing, on all of the important issues. the only thing i think chairman bernanke is to be congratulated for speaking out, but i wish he would have done this earlier. we have a deficit in this country in terms of leadership. we talk about debt. we talk about the deficits on the fiscal side, but the real deficit is that the elites in this country and the business community, the political community refuse to engage. they say, well, it's not o

mr. bernanke's big move that ignited the market rally. a big week for big ben, mark zuckerberg revived his sagging stock price. who delivered the most for investors. zuc, cook or bernanke? >> i think all three. i like what zuck had to say. that was one of the wild card of the group. zuck came out and gave us reason why we should have hope for facebook right now. we know about the heavy valuations. what he defined margin businesses that they were definitely be growing into and other areas. because of that, and the emphasis on mobile that makes me say zuck. >> look at the chart. one week, up more than 16%. he saved face. >> this time around. i think in the longer term and i'm actually i talked about this the other day this isn't a trade. for me this is an investment. in the longer term they can deliver. and because of that, i think this stock can go a lot high zbler who delivered the most for the markets. ? >> i'm very happily married man, was i considered leaving my wife for bernanke, he spread so much joy for everyone in the world. it was

mr. bernanke has to do something, but those who say he won't play politics, he won't play into that debategton, and he won't give us anything on thursday. so we'll see. david: some people would say it's a little late for that. thank you very much, cheryl. let's go to nicole at the new york stock exchange. well, let's talk about individual stocks if we can, nicole, and starting with apple. apple wasn't a big mover today, but there's so much buzz about what thai.com -- they're coming out with tomorrow, whether it's another ipad, iphone is going to do something unexpected, etc. >> reporter: that's right. it did not get back to highs at 683, but the iphone 5 is coming tomorrow, that's what everybody's say, so we're waiting for that. also at the same time rudy giuliani, former mayor, is here on the floor of the exchange. he just left cantor fitzgerald, and there he's up on the podium, obviously, to remember september 11th, 11 years ago. david: rudy is still america's mayor, at least in my heart he is. facebook getting a little bit of a facelift from zuckerberg who's going to be talking about it

mr. bernanke says thursday whatever he says. they've been printing money all year.t's not as though this is something new. assets are up, money supply is up. he's out there, in the market. i don't think they will announce it because they look like fools. qe-1 didn't work and qe-2 didn't work, you think they will announce it and say we failed so try qe-3. >> maybe qe-1 was necessary, maybe. qe-2 did nothing. if this was so good and it was going to work, how come it hasn't worked? economy is slowing down, unemployment high, all this money they're putting on, it hasn't worked. >> you're finally catching on, these guys don't have a clue. >> you're exactly right. let me turn back to the other side of the world. if china is getting worse, not better, some people think their numbers are phony and only growing at 3% instead of 7 or 8, what's that do to your commodity universe? >> i don't trust any government numbers, u.s., chinese, german, anybody, they make them up. india, good gosh, they make these numbers up. china is slowing down, trying to slow down for three years, be

mr. bernanke and the rest of the fed looking. watch the data and then they will react. >> steven, are you bullish on expectations that the fed is going to come to the party because of this jobs report today? >> i'm bullish on some action by the fed and i'd be happy, frankly, if they would just change their language and make it more hawkish. the reason being, that the expectation of more easing globally has helped the market significantly. so i am more bullish. i was somewhat bullish before. i like the action in the market. frankly, i could have been more bullish to job over 75,000. >> draghi delivered earlier in the week. we got that big, big gain yesterday in the market. where are we going today and how are you playing the stock market right now? >> for the last three or four days we've seen huge activity. it's been big but huge over the last three days in the barnnk. it's deutsch bank, credit suisse, ubs. the domestic banks are just on fire. if you look at bank of america where they are up 4%. goldman sachs which is at the high

mr. bernanke did it his last couple of trips to the hill without mentioning that dynamic.t is what's dubious in my opinion. >> so if everybody quits, we'll have no unemployment. >> to me, the battlefield of this election and the battlefield of everything everybody in congress and the white house should be partaking in is in the employment battlefield. i think that's why there are so many cross currents because the performance of employment an jobs has been so dire. >> i'm also dubious about how qe3 is going to create more jobs but that's a whole different discussion. thank you very much, rick santelli. >>> so our jobs, the single most important issue in this election? let's ask jared bernstein and tony frater. both of you are cnbc contributors. thanks very much for your contribution today. tony, what do you think is the most important issue in this election? number one, what ought to be the most important issue? >> oh, great. su i think it is a no-brainer. there are a lot of really important issues for different subsets of the population out there, whether it is immigratio

mr. bernanke will keep printing money until the cows come home.ouse members kevin brady and brad sherman will face off on all of this. >> they agreed to increase the policy of accommodation by purchasing additional agency backed mortgage securities. >> 90% probability of this happening. >> the markets are move, traders are reacting. >> the idea is quicken the recovery and help the economy begin to grow quick enough to generate new jobs. >> does that mean your intolerance for inflation will be higher in coming years. >> a gain of 200 points for the dow industrial average. we're at five yearing ing mhig. up. a short word that's a tall order. up your game. up the ante. and if you stumble, you get back up. up isn't easy, and we ought to know. we're in the business of up. everyday delta flies a quarter of million people while investing billions improving everything from booking to baggage claim. we're raising the bar on flying and tomorrow we will up it yet again. i don't have to use gas. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. drive

mr. bernanke's news conference.t starts in about 30 minutes from now and we will have all of it on street signs. h, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. i bought the car because of its efficiency. i bought the car because i could eliminate gas from my budget. i don't spend money on gasoline. it's been 4,000 miles since my last trip to the gas station. it's pretty great. i get a bunch of kids waving at me... giving me the thumbs up. it's always a gratifying experience. it makes me feel good about my car. i absolutely love my chevy volt. ♪ at usaa, we

mr. bernanke giving the markets what it wanted, saying the economy was too weak to do it on its own. >> welcome from me as well. the fed chairman wrapping up this news conference where he reiterated the central bank's key points at its latest policy meeting. the talk about $40 billion buying of mortgage backed securities. they're not going to be buying an additional treasury market securities. they're going into the mortgage-backed market at this point and trying to buck up what has been a weak part of this economy right now in the housing market. >> and the open-endedness of it also a factor here. >> they're going to monitor the economy as they go. >> you heard him say the committee will continue to the end of the year. the program to extends the average maturity of holdings. interestingly, they said if the economy does not pick up, we'll continue with our other policy tools. when asked what those policy tools are, they said the balance sheet and communication tools. so basically talking up the market, pushing money into equities and keeping rates low long term. >> he made it very clear. the k

mr. bernanke was a real game changer for you.o if indeed that is the case, look out over the next six months for us. how would you deploy cash if indeed the central banks are pretty much on the same page? >> it is the co-insurance ens of the move. i guess i never believe in coincidence in terms of markets. in the last three weeks we've seen the ecb make a very aggressive stance here. bernanke literally put an all-in with regard to quantitativizing in the united states. you don't fight the bang of england, the bank of japan, people's bank of china, the ecb and the fed. this ends up being good for risk assets over the next 6 to 12 months. we've added stocks to european equity, looking at emerging markets again which has lagged. ironically specifically in asia, in a follow-up to the chinese context right now. but there is a lot of opportunity right now. >> what about china? michelle set up some of the diplomatic tiffs going on between china and japan. if you look at china's economy, a lot of people have written china off in terms of

mr. bernanke went out qe3. we saw break through and tent down to nearly 118 and now come back to 125. think as we see european woes persist and a little supply roll over there, we will see the 1.19. i don't want to see it. i am telling you what i see technically. >> is that the trade that you recommend? >> yeah. i think it is the best way to play this. i think they will approximator cyst and it is a monster and we talked about this in solvency and implementation and growth. right now the insolven say we have seen it shored up and installing the austerity and antiausterity is the word over there and you will see that catch up and maybe tomorrow in italy the next protest. >> we will see. thanks so much. the home builders, one of the year's hottest trades, incredible gains for these guys and some of them triple digits. could the rally be nearing an end? we'll bring in the research director at market research. lots of short interest here. what did you find? >> sellers took their time the last six months and remain very short this tech sore, on average 10% short and triple what it would be

mr. bernanke.ting this once and for all. >> the feds on line 2 for bob. >> it impressed me people didn't know who jimmy hoffa was. there's going to be a time i'm going to have to explain to people who o.j. simpson was. >> time goes by. >> unbelievable. very depressing. >> we can find o.j. we haven't been able to find the real killers yet though apparently. >> i'll leave it at that. >>> in one of the best tweet smackdowns ever, oreo recently asked followers if they had ever brought cookies into a movie theater. yes, i have. which prompted this response from amc theaters. "not cool, cookie. a reference to its no food policy. oreo quickly fired back. fair enough but don't hate the player, hate the game. and back and forth it went with amc's answer game on, oreo. game on. jane and bob, what do you think? this kind of social engagement help or hurt the brands themselves. jane? >> i think it helps very much. particularly amc theaters which has twice as many followers on twitter as oreo. and it was clever

mr. bernanke tells me it will be zero a couple more years. i can buy u.s. government bonds and we dealt with that already. i can buy high yield. well, i will give you statistics. the high yield index, bloomburg high yield index in november of '08 was 25%. today it is less than seven. the multiple in the market today is lower than it was when high yield was 25%. i left with equities by default, why i have a certain amount of cash to protect against the disaster because we have a lot of tail risk out there and i think equities generally speaking are the place to be and you have to decide with which equities you want to own and we have plenty we think are still attractive and i would say overall in the market neutralish. >> we'll certainly go inside your portfolio a little and talk stock specific stories. >> i had a question about kinder morgan. you were just discussing, sir, about the fiscal cliff as well as of course the election and the implications for dividends and so forth because of that. this is a big dividend yield or about 4%, a lot of mlps would fal

mr. bernanke, the most important man in washington. stuart: good to see you, sir.dent obama made the campaign promise he would not raise your taxes if you make less than $250,000 a year. not one dime. well, new at ten, new numbers out by the cbo, the congressional budget office that says he broke the promise and has to do with obama care. now, how millions of americans will face new taxes, yes, they will. that's coming up, the top of the hour. as we said earlier, reuters is suggesting that facebook's second in command, cheryl sandberg, could be headed to washington if the president wins a second term. nicole, where did facebook open? >> it's down this morning, down over 1 1/2% and you talk about second in command leaving a company at a crucial time and only went public on may 18th and since then, at $38 a share, they haven't recooped the losses yet. we will see, she has had, obviously, serious treasury back in 1996, 2001-- >> hold on right there. i'm told it's your birthday so we have some stocks to show you in honor of this great day. some of your favorite things,

mr. bernanke said he was doing it to fight unemployment which has been high. the romney campaign has blamed the obama administration for the state of the economy. do you think there is more the administration could have done to fight unemployment? >> oh, you know in retrospect you can go back why wasn't the stimulus bigger? at the time they thought they couldn't get it any bigger than it was in terms of political and economic situation. >> do you think it should have been bigger? >> in the circumstances, and i was a little bit involved at the time, reasonable course of action. i still believe it was a reasonable course of action. >> in williams book he details multiple speeches that you've written over the years about policies that won't work if they are interpreted as inflationary and you saw in reaction to the fed's measures gold spiked, oil spiked and people are interpreting this inflationary. >> it won't be if affiliationary in the short run but there's a danger that you promote speculative activity of the kind that won't outlast and will be destabilizing.

didn't list a few countries on my list that maybe come to mind for us well i think it was being mr ben bernanke you ok he was not on the list he was known was guess who he was on the list he was missing and i think that the reason is they didn't see the equation that they used to derive the names on this list did not give enough weight to the balance sheet or a central bank so if you're if you're a disaster if you're managing the bank of guy you know you. can't be ok or you know maybe only at ben bernanke you know the two trillion dollar balance sheet that can do a lot more damage if you have nuclear weapons ok and you're certainly slightly the range you're far more dangerous than a fool with a range tyrant. forty seven. but these guys are you know these guys like ben bernanke he's of the sr yeah and we argue with zero percent in his arsenal dimitry that affects the entire globe. interest rates and rates affect the entire globe. absolutely death are you kidding me the u.s. dollar is been the reserve currency since world war two yes so this guy is a global banking money because i'm going to go t

mr. bernanke, qe3?ect some sort of stimulus, most likely qe3 but there are other tools they have available and we expect a small pop initially as a result of that but likely will be short-lived in our expectation. ashley: you're expecting a selloff. is that selling off on the news? >> the market priced in qe3, that is where the rally over last couple months have come from. we rallied significantly since the june 4th lows. one thing investors seem to have forgot, underprice risk and underestimate risk you get into trouble. that is where we find people are pricing in qe3 and pricing political action. we're loom we have fiscal cliff looming. we're getting ahead of ourselves. be careful. take risk off the table. option prices in terms of hedging your portfolio are relatively cheap because the vix is so low. so it is an opportunity to investors to avoid the mistakes of the past. ashley: would you agree based on that the market is in dire need after correction? >> i don't loo to use the word dire that is too

mr. bernanke had to say yesterday about fiscal policy. his comments on the impending fiscal cliff. here he is again. >> if the fiscal cliff does occur, i suspect it won't and i hope it won't, but, if it does and we get the kind of impact the congressional budget office is talking about, as i said, i don't think we have the tools to offset that we would have to rethink at that point. connell: we think at that point. no tools for either question. the question, obviously, does congress have the tools? >> they have the tools, it is just a question if they have the fortitude. one of the issues we will have to deal with is, the sequester will probably be put off. it was put in place to stow another credit rating to that u.s. treasury. the trajectory has not improved. we will have to do something larger than the sequester. they will have to replace the sequester which is $1.200 in cuts in the federal budget over the next ten years with something that is significantly larger than that. it has to be credible. i am not so sure we will do it. a lot of people say we will put off the sequester

mr. bernanke and the meeting and the decision with all of that, will they in fact give the economy more stimuluso happen. i am more excited about the fact that they will be talking about blue ribbon.

mr. ben bernanke, the fed.he market did not really react is that what they went to the fact that it looks of this is going to give him the trigger that he needs to pull the plug in more stimulus. what do you say that? do you think today was the final thing we needed for ben bernanke to do something? >> the likelihood of additional monetary stimulus wind up in response to the weaker than expected in plumb a report, but i wouldn't put the probability at being much above 50%. you know, despite troubling news from the employment front that also applies to a flat wages and relatively flat and hours worked, we have had pretty good showings by other sales, retail chain sells and by home sales. and the improved performance by household expenditures tends to offset the troubling news that was provided by today's weaker than expected employment report, and that may put the fed on hold until the next meeting. cheryl: all right. well, thanks to both of you. i didn't bring up those estimates. i could have, but i didn't pay