bill, so it was your survey or the nfib survey that showed that pessimism. we had you guys for a little while, but now you've gone back to where it was. what do you think will turn people's attitudes around, get them more optimistic again? >> well, i think we have to get consumers to be a little more optimistic. you notice the consumer optimism went into the tank as well last month, so if they're not spending it, of course, there's not much we can do. we'd be happy to hire a few more million people if we just had customers to take care of and that's really not the case. so we've got a very dour outlook. in fact, the november reading was the tenth lowest in our survey of our 350,000 members so we don't really have a very positive outlook for what's going to happen here. >> do you think, bill, this is because of uncertainty and so once things are resolved that might change or do you think it's because of something bigger? >> uncertainty is worse than having certainty. and then, of course, what's the certainty. you know, on the tax rate side, business people lo

i actually had the pleasure of interviewing the nfib chief economist.id that you would've thought that confidence was down because of hurricane sandy, but it wasn't. it was because of the election. people fear the future. these are our job creators to absolutely. they are paralyzed. >> they are not sure what to expect. the longerwe go on with fiscal cliff nonsense, and then we have obamacare, which then a lot of them will have to endure in some way shape or form, everybody is very concerned about that. in the face of uncertainty, the choices do notng. it is very difficult to play a game if you don't where thh rules are. the small business community is kind of sitting on the sidelines awaiting, and that's not what we want from the job creators were country. >> it's interesting because we saw cap tech spending for big companies come to a screeching halt. we are starting to see it with sml businesses now as well. everyone is just in this holding pattern, we? >> absolutely. a small business owner, a capital investment and hiring of an individual person is s

when you look at the nfib index and consumer confidence, both have fall i don't know after they were starting to look up in the fall. i think it's really the fiscal cliff. all the attention on the fiscal cliff and no action is really producing i think a dampered view from small business and they're kind of waiting on the sidelines right now. >> but on the other side, if you're a company and we go over the fiscal cliff, how the heck do you figure out the paycheck and what has to be taken out unless you call paychecks? >> depending on the number of regulations, there's probably going to be more regulation and that does help us. but we'd like to see new business formation get back to where it was a few years ago and i think you have to get past these things. what you're seeing in our clients, they're not opening up their second location, not hiring more employees. it's kind of quiet. our client base is still positive but it's starting to moderate. 1.8 to 1.2 is a key metric. the journal felt that it wouldn't happen and it didn't but now it does seem to be happen happening. >> the 1.2 wa

pricerewind. >>> we may have seen a slight uptick in job creation for the month of november but the nfibs that small business hiring is still being stunted by the election results, and the effects of superstorm sandy. joining us with the latest on that, bill dunkleberg, chief economist at the national federation of independent business. bill, in reading your findings, am i wrong to say you found that it really wasn't sandy, that it was the election results, and if that's true, how do we give -- can we give the president the benefit of the doubt in that maybe it just, the election results means that the cliff is front and center? the cliff would not have been front and center with romney because he would have probably just extended all the bush tax cuts, i think. so is it the election result that's causing this? and is it the president himself? or the gridlock that it's causing with republicans? >> i think you basically have it right. we spent billions of dollars and then woke up the day after the election and nothing had changed and i think that's the issue. because the management team c

we've seen small business, the nfib, the small business surveys decline and ceo confidence beginning to turn down. that may not reverse quite quickly. >> can i raise, though, so interested in today's numbers, very strong, surprisingly strong numbers on personal income and spending, consumer spending. and for the second month in a row, surprisingly strong numbers on capital goods investment, surprisingly strong. is something going on there? is the economy better than we think? >> yeah, the funny thing is if you read the headlines, you'd think we were in the middle of a recession. but quite frankly the economy is not going gang busters by any means, but it is growing, and even with the fiscal austerity baked in the cake, you're talking about a 2% growth rate and housing is an important component with that. you're talking about durable goods today, there's a core measure of business spending which has begun to pull out of a tail spin. >> yeah. >> there's a little bit here. and ben bernanke's last speech was interesting. he ended his last speech at the economic club of new york, i believ

the nfib chief's economist says the election just didn't give those surveyed any reason to hope thingse woke up after spending billions on the election and everything was the same. and since they were unable to really kind of come up with a scheme for us before, i guess owners are now pretty pessimistic that they will be able to do it now. >> small business which largely drives hiring is pessimistic, that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. >> with that kind of outlook on the economy. you are not going to hire or make capital spending or do any of these things that would help grow g.d.p. and boost the unemployment rate. >> it's not just firms but their customers as well. index of consumer confidence by the university of michigan shows that consumers are also very pessimistic. back to you, shannon. >> all right, brenda, thank you for keeping us updated as though mourn the school mates they lost they will not have to return when school reopens this week. we will tell you about other plans for them next. [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso. your soups are so awesomely delicious my husband an

but nfib was a much large human beings on human beings fighting. and it took 12 hours to do this. five companies in contact at once. very, very difficult. but the in state of that was all the political entities, the provincial towns, the governor, the district governor in the area were ecstatic that finally something had been done to this growing insurgent problem that kept coming in to kunar. it was a festering cancer that had metastasize and was destabilizing everything. so that was the first thing to do in the first three months was pushed that bubble back, and then from then on we did a series of operations like that to expand the security bubbles elsewhere. ending with units three and four in april of 2011 before we left. similar operations to prevent and preempt a spring offensive. you know, people of talked about the fighting seasons, that's true in some sense because there are snow and it passes that prevent fighters from coalescing, moving, supporting inside the area. and we are 1000 to 4000 at the pakistan border. we are right there. most of our camps. so to go in early

nfib, big collapse in small business optimism in this country. german confidence, positive for the first time since may. and the fed meeting begins, a two-day meeting with that press conference tomorrow. when we come back, goldman making a call on retail today with a number of buys. we'll tell you what's going on next. phil lebeau talks about virgin atlantic. and we'll talk aig. >> absolutely. >> one more look at futures. more "squawk on the street" in a minute. try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. governor of getting it done. you know how to dance... with a deadline. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. this is awesome. [ male anno

you saw what happened to the nfib small business survey last month.o economic fallout on this, at a point where the real disposable income growth is at its lowest level, its lowest level during the whole recovery period. the savings rate's gotten drawn down fairly significantly. earnings estimates for retail or media, all of those things, are really elevated. so there's a whole level of vulnerability here, even under a fairly benign outcome to this. now, obviously, if the outcome is worse, then the downside gets even more significant. you don't have a downbeat assessment for all 2013, we think by midyear some of the uncertainty starts to clear up, capital investment will recover and we'll have a better cap. but we think the market's totally not been fixated on the timing of this deal, and not the contours of the deal and the implications of the deal. >> i know we never like to advocate market timing for investors in the world. however there's a lot of people who watch this show and other people in the world who think that they can market down. over th