hi, i'm rick steves, back with more of the best of europe. this time, we're in a city that for centuries has been a magnet for world travelers -- we're in eternally entertaining rome. ♪

hi, i'm rick steves, back with more of the best of europe. this time, we're in a city that for centuries has been a magnet for world travelers -- we're in eternally entertaining rome. ♪ there's history everywhere here in the city of the caesars. the coliseum reminds us of ancient pageantry and gladiators. monuments like trajan's column boosted imperial egos. statues show how emperors were worshipped as gods on earth. and the pantheon, with my favorite skylight anywhere, inspired future ages to great domes of their own. but we'll learn about these ancient wonders in another episode. right now, we're interested in a different rome, busy with life and bursting with baroque. ♪ we'll ramble through the venerable heart of rome, admire breathtaking bernini statues, ponder sunbeams inside st. peter's at the vatican, and mingle with the romans over an early evening stroll. we'll eat really well, and go local after dark, lacing together the eternal city's most romantic night spots. the old center of rome is best explored on foot, ideally in the spring

steve forbes, ricking unger, richard karl guard, elizabeth mcdonald and john tandy. steve, first, is this the solution everybody's been looking for? >> absolutely. getting free markets in health care is the only way to go, doing away with the disconnect between providers and consumers we don't have free markets today. if we did, you'd get productivity, turn very expensive procedures today into more common place things tomorrow. so this is it a good start. it can start with simple routine things an go right up to the most sophisticated surgery. when patients are in charge, it's their money, by golly you get real bargains, including lasik surgery costs less today than it did ten years ago. why? because there's not that disconnect between providers and consumers. >> it's not just the patients. when patients and doctors together go around looking for bargains, that's what brings down the prices, rick unger. i'm looking at some of his menu here, if you will, of what he offers, an office visit is 75 bucks, including a diabetes follow-up if you need one. a joint injection of

rick: well, it's not just regulation though, steve, it's money too.holds the pursestrings. and this is a headline from november of 2011: senate republicans block the president's $60 billion infrastructure that was aimed at exactly the types of projects that you were just mentioning, highways, rails, airports. so it seems like it's either blocking the funding, or it's regulations and that both may be contributing to this. >> well, look, i disagree with this idea that there's not enough money for infrastructure. there clearly is. and by the way, the biggest infrastructure program we need right now in this country is, obviously, the keystone xl pipeline. and, rick, that would not require a penny of government money. that's all private sector money that would be used for that shovel-ready project, and washington and the epa are holding that up. so i do believe the primary impediment here is regulation in washington. i talk to people who are involved in building these projects, and they've been involved in it for decades, and what they tell me is 20 years

we'll go with steve and rick and rich and elizabeth and sabrina and john. john, ould customers like us be able to sue in >> yes, we should be. companies should not be helping the federal government to snoop on us. we have to ask ourselves how much liberty we are willing to give up in order to create the false ilsion of security. to live in a fro society, rsks arvolved. the risks e worth to to have what we have. >> steve, if i am buying a service and i don't wnt them to share the service th the vernment should i be able to sue them if they do against my will? >> companies for a impossible positi. if they help out the governme they are snooping on privacy. if they don't help out the government they are helping terrorist. the focushould be on the government and labuses,on't brg in compies that are doing the bt and caught in an impossible position. >> sabrina, the government made

we have rick santelli. steve liesman is in the studio. d time around on first quarter gdp, now only 1.8. 1.8 consumption, dropped to 2.6 from 3.4. the price index moved up from 1.1 to 1.2, and core personal consumption expenditure quarter over quarter sits at an unchanged 1.3. wow. this is a pretty big revision. the silver lining is it will probably make the next quarter which is not very large look a little more in line with the current 1.8 read. remember, we're about ready to finish up the second quarter, so one month from today will be handicapping our first look, the advance on second quarter gdp. everybody's pretty much excited about the notion we could put back-to-back positives in the equity markets but i do point out that yesterday continued the march of higher closing yields in treasuries and today it is easing back a bit and the reason, 1.8. back to you. >> thank you for that, rick. steve, what do you make of that? >> there are some significant revisions to important parts of this survey. consumer spending revised down from 2.6 f

let's go in focus with steve forbes, elizabeth mcdonald, rich carl, rick unger and morgan brennan. good to see you all. steve, first to you. should we really trust these guys with our health records? >> of course not, david. their new name is now the internal revenge service. they've fundamentally blown the trust of the american people. and if a 29-year-old can blow the lid off of our most secret intelligence secrets, why in the world would we trust the irs? i don't know why there's a debate on this, david. >> morgan, most americans, 76% don't trust the irs to enforce obamacare. are they right or wrong? >> i understand why they don't trust the irs. i have my issues with the irs. but looking at what obamacare essentially boils down to, which is a massive tax package according to the supreme court last year, who else will enforce it? we're talking 47 tax code-related provisions and 17 tax increases. this falls to the irs. i think the bigger issue isn't whether we should trust the irs. i think the bigger issue is the fact that we have murky, poorly written legislation. i think if there

steve, the fact is that now -- i think rick unga is right. if you agree with obamacare, you should let the irs. a lot of americans don't agree with obamacare. now it's 5 #5%. is this more proof it's becoming more unpopular? >> it is becoming more unpopular because what it ultimately means, as anything government thing means, you'oing to pay more for less. yore going to be denied treatment. renovations are going to be halted or slowed down. this is unworkable, especially in the spreadsheet tech era we're in. the idea that we must all be quet serfs is preposterous. >> the real problem is how we govern ourselves. i don't like all the taxes in it. >> the fact i is that the devils in the details, and theore the public finds out about the details like irs involvement, the lesthey like it. >> of course. and i think that's the int. the irs is but a symptom in a larger cau here which is the legislation itself it is what e government has passed as obamacare. >> rich, that's the problem is that government is just getting -- the mor government does, the

we'll go with steve and rick and rich and elizabeth and sabrina and john.n, ould customers like us be able to sue in >> yes, we should be. companies should not be helping the federal government to snoop on us. we have to ask ourselves how

we'll have steve fosh and rick and elizabeth and mike and bill baldwin. >> taxate cuts are always a good idea. reduce the price, risk taking and success and this is the way to get the economy moving and does go things for the balance sheet. when people see prospects for growth they upthe value o assets. >> rick, this is the weakest recovery that we've had since world war ii. 2.3 million fewer people are working now than the ession. please don't blame it all on bush? >> i had forgotten about him. i have a vague memory. i would love to agree with steve. i don't like pay taxes anymore than the next person does. there was a in- dth study by the congressional research that s skwalch by the republicans who ordered it and tat survey shed that over the 40 years tting taxes. >> o no, it doesn't. >> yes, it does. >> y will get an argument. >> we have our study and you have yours. >> it was the national research service. >> john, the growth was estimated 2.4 percent and the latest figure 1.8 percent and a emendous drop. how much did tax hikes play in that? >> they don't help. taxes are aice and a p

wells fargo, one steven grasso from stewart frankel, joining us and bill nichols and our own rick santelli. steve, tremendous volatility last week. what's going on right now? what's the message of the market, do you think? >> well, we bounced right off the 50-day moving average in the s&p cash. we've done that a couple of other times. each time we've done that, the mark has increased in value by 7% to 9%. if we were to do that again, you're looking at 1,750 in the cash. is that going to happen? for me, i don't think that's going to happen. i think we'll see a retracement back down to that 50-day moving average, maybe a sell-off. a lazy monday. i wouldn't read too much into this. i do see lower prices before we lift. >> lower prices before we lift, john, though, i want to ask you, you say now might be time to move into the cyclical names like industrials, like i.t., if the market is expecting pullbacks, is now the right time to get into some of the names? >> absolutely. you have to give away a little bit. sometimes the market goes down a little bit, but it doesn't go down a lot. it's like keeping

we'll have steve fosh and rick and elizabeth and mike and bill baldwin. >> taxate cuts are always a gooddea. reduce the price, risk taking and success and this is the way to get

steve forbes, ricking unger, richard karl guard, elizabeth

. >> rick, stay right there. we've got steve liesman here.% for unit costs. everybody was searching running through the numbers, what happened? >> well, hourly compensation fell and i guess output remained pretty much stable. didn't fall as much. >> yeah. >> unit labor cost is the cost of per hour of making a widget. >> right, this is a phenomenon that's been pervasive in earlier sessions, as well. but it's much more pronounced here where firms have been able to figure out how to make due with less. if you look at the data from companies which i've done with a couple of colleagues. what you see is that the effort component, the amount of work that each worker is doing has gone up by 3% to 5%. so what's actually been happening is firms are cutting employment and then the remaining workers are actually doing more on the job. we're continuing to see that. it's surprising that we're seeing it that late in the recovery. >> i wouldn't call it deflationary, but it's not inflationary. >> if that's the case, why aren't the productivity number higher?

joining us is joy reid, the managing editor of thegrio.com, and steve kornacki. governor rick quoting him, it's unfortunate wendy davis hasn't learned from her own example. it's also unfortunate that rick perry possesses the intellect of a dead rodent, but that doesn't diminish this woman's stand in any way, does it? >> no, i actually sat up until about 1:30 in the morning watching the entire sort of wendy davis filibuster, which was a true filibuster, the way it's supposed to be done, a talking filibuster, really brave. what was striking in that room is the disrespect that the men in the republican party in texas had, not just for her, but any woman who attempted to stand up and speak. another senator actually had to say, what is it that we have to do to be heard here on an issue that has to do specifically with women? so the total disrespect for women's lives, and then to add to that, rick perry's disrespect for ms. davis' own personal story, sort of flinging that into her face as proof that she ought to be on his side, the republican party has to eventually under their bran

let's bring in our guys on that, rick santelli and steve leesman. they say they're going to cut back on the taper talk, but now we're hearing they may step it up. >> i'm hearing keith richards and mick jagger saying fed communications is in tatters. that's what i'm hearing. i don't know exactly if they're intending to send the signal if journalists are freelancing. i continue to believe there will not be a taper this month. i think the likeliest, earliest time is september. the market has been very volatile since the may 22nd communications from the fed chairman, and i think the reason is because the market is no longer certain or has less certainty about the reaction function of the fed, how it's processing incoming data and how that may or may not relate to tapering. so i think bernanke has a lot of work to do to reset communications with the market. >> and that's wednesday. >> rick, this is not just about articles published by the wall street journal or the financial times, this is about the market's response to those articles. what did you make

. >>> joining the conversation, we have rick santelli, steve liesman, bob moglia. e action. mr. rick santelli, we have been watching the ten year going higher and higher. it was 2.5 on friday. it's at 2.63. how high does it go and how fast? >> it's impossible to say. this is one of the unintended consequences of management on the interest rate side. as a technician, i would say the momentum has been aggressive. there is many technical reasons to look for more peeling back of the onion, more structure of finance and varies positions and leverage to continue. china hassing a nojd, but they're big boys over there, whether you like their form of government or not. they've decide enough is enough. we need to turnspeck ought off. that's what -- turn the spit off. ty think they would be wise to protest very little going forward. i think this is about the healthiest thing i have seen in years. i think you will see a pause at 1.62 on a closing basis the way we saw a pause around 2.39 to 2.41 a. pause is not a break in momentum. >> i agree with rick it's healthy if the market

in a "closing bell" exchange today, mark miller, scot graham with us as well as our own steve liesman and rick santelli. good to see everybody. thanks for joining us. steve, let me kick this off with you. misinterpreted. we had a knee jerk reaction to the down side. fels like after thinking about it and recognizing that it is data dependent, investors are changing their mind as far as when the take begins and what it means. >> i think it is the latter that is more true. what fed officials are saying is that when you hear bernanke talk about a schedule for tapering, it did not affect plans for raising interest rates. and out there in force trying to convince markets, and they brut out one of their bigger guns today, the president of the new york fed, has a permanent vote, to say, look, yeah, there's a plan in place. and he pretty much agreed with that plan. but that plan does not affect when the federal raise rates. he believes the rate will remain low or zero for a long time to come. and in fact, hinted further that they could remain low even after the unemployment rate goes below 6.5%. >> see

right now rick and steve for their pre-dicks as well. h the may number. >> 140,000. also on the weak side. growth is weaker than last quarter. and i expect average growth. >> waiting for the five-week thing, though. >> may is also a weak month. beyond the technicalities, i expect that after the initial minute of hysteria in the market, take a step back, we look at the average and take a broader look. >> it might go to 7-4, 7-5. >> we need to pay attention to the u6. we need to see the affects of part-time versus full time and see if this is giving clues that congress ought to take under consideration. >> our panel will stick around for reaction. it is just about three minutes away. it's the moment you have all been waiting for. as we head to break, take a look at the u.s. equity futures which at this point have actually moved up a little bit ahead of that number. up 18 points. s&p up by just . it's lots of things. all waking up. ♪ becoming part of the global phenomenon we call the internet of everything. ♪ trees will talk to networks will

nasdaq off about 13 points, rick santelli in chicago, steve is here, rick, the numbers. >> the litanyprisingly strong, headline up .6. if we start the take away, autos up .3, good number. autos and gas up .3, everything outside the headline is spot on, pretty good. we had a stronger headline before you did the take aways. initial jobness claims moved down 12,000 from an unrevised 346,000 to a grand total of 334,000 and import prices dropped .6 of 1% on a month over month, shy of 2%, down 1.9 year over year, both numbers are larger negatives than anticipated along with larger negative revision, last month down half a percent down 2.6 on year over year. really quite an amazing round of data points t. news is if they go up, not down. dropping importing prices is key, especially if you are one of the many watching huge amounts of volatility. let's not go inflation/deflation. once again oil an gasoline, especially us in illinois are paying some big prices, back to you. >> we will get more info on the data, you see the futures there moving marge family. >> you are in the bad news, good news

let's go in focus with steve forbes, elizabe mcdonald, rich carl, rick ung a

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rick. thanks, steve. >> hey, a great hockey game last night. wasn't that an exciting game? out of seven? >> it's 2-2 on the games. >> awesome. great. >> acre styles on cnbc. >>> coming up, the conversation of the morning, what did fed chairman ben bernanke really tell the markets yesterday? we have two different opinions when we return. then this afternoon on power lunch, check this out. five of wall street's top strategists in one place during one hour, all about the next six months. the huge lineup at 1:00 eastern. you don't want to miss it. >>> tomorrow, top executives come to "squawk box" t.ceo of darden restaurants and ceo of hiltonle world wide plus a health care summit with the ceos of aetna and the cleveland clinic. "squawk box" starts tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. eastern. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 [ trader ] when i'm trading, i'm so into it, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 hours can go by before i realize tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that i haven't even looked away from my screen. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 ♪ tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that kind of focus... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that's what i have when i trade. td

rick, what doou think? >> i don'tknow where to begin. it's not true wha steve said.california exchange range come in better than expected and people under 25 with me income is25,000 qualifying a large percentage of them for subsidies will pay less th they have t pay now. >> overall, what e they 30% more? >> no. here is the other part of this, though. this poll that came out that you refer to saying 65% don't know if they are going to si up, you know what? i wish i had a nickel for every call i get, i'm turning 65 in a week. how does medicare work? people haven't focused on this yet because exchange don't open until october. talk about this when that comesnd people think about it. >> it takes along time to get covered. >> costs are going up because this is not insurance. surance is historically cheap you buy something for the unthinkable. politicians with obamacare want to us have insurance, to pay for every malady. they want it to be that we can show up and get insuranc when we are already sick. this is not insurance so it's expensive. >> didn't kathleen sebelius say

. >> steve? >> rick? >> i like that you brought up autos and housing. a new car, how does your warranty get stated? >> 3 years, 36,000. >> right. >> chrysler did 100,000. >> the fed should do the same thing. a certain amount of growth or five years, six years, ten years. >> yeah. >> at some point the fits and starts in the nonsustainability of the underlying economy highlights instructing surely issues. we need to learn something from the auto industry. believe me, you don't get to say that very often. >>. >> they found it to be too unconnected to anything. if they just say a date, why not that date? >> the discussion needs to be we need to find a congress to reign in the notion, the price, the oil not only the u.s. globally. i don't see why they should be able to experiment in such a wild way. i agree with the assessment they are in the gray. they have develop from the gray to the surreal to the rod serlingville. >> from a guy who does cost of capital every minute of every day. >> inappropriately cheap. >> given the risk appetite out there. because if

that's a different -- rick, thank you very much. stevepression of the flow of bean fibabies into the garage, pushes the stock of beanie babies in the granl. that's the debate we are having. i love to put nit beanie baby terms. >> rick, thank you, nathan, thanks for coming in, appreciate it. >> steve was the single-most important thing? >> the single-most? >> another one of the single-most. >> yeah. isn't if there is only one? >> somebody has to do it, joe. somebody has to hold the for the down on language, otherwise, it will go off, will you say, lol, walk off. lmao. >> what's your forecast going forward? >> that's what you guys did it for her. >> bear out through the nose. botn. >>> okay. it's time to talk a little chinese. we will talk bacon. we will talk chinese bacon no less. activist, investor starboard value is lobbying smithfield floo foods to explore a breakup than go with the planned sales to a chinese meat company. joining us is starboard's jeff smith. he sen at letter to smithfields today. good morning, jeff. >> good morning, h

steve, stick around. i want to bring in our own jeff cox and rick santelli to further discuss the state of the economy, howy influence how much stimulus, obviously, the fed will continue, and for how long. steve, what's your take? do your views match with what he found in the survey? >> i don't like to focus on what people say. i like to focus on what they do. when you looked at the numbers this morning, you can see the consumer is not as robust as we thought. when you try to translate this into how is main street and wall street, how do you reconcile those two things, and i think you can't. i was so disappointed to see this market -- i hate to sound like debbie downer here, to see the market go down, because i don't, but to see the market rally on bad news just seems like we haven't come anywhere. >> oh, just wait. just wait, jeff. >> -- rallied on good news. what does the market want here? i'm a little confused. what do you reckon, rick? yesterday, rallies on good news. today, rallying on bad news. what does the market want here? >> what's the common denominator? what's the operative word? rally. i think

rick: we will see what the jury this is about it. steven manuelian, thank you very much. we'll be right back, don't go away. ... ... ... jenna: this is quite a story, a war hero, a missing metal of honor, and the new effort to find it. marine veteran art jackson received the medal from president truman for bravery during a bloody world war ii battle in the pacific. the metal was stolen. the man claims he had the metal and returned it to jackson. it turns out it is a fake. at 88 years of age jackson wants to see his medal one time more before he dies. >> this is one of the stories where you really hope that someone does the right thing. it was september 1944 that bloody battle, where arthur jackson showed extraordinary valor, single-handedly taking out 12 japanese bunkers and killing 50 enemy soldiers. he received the medal of honor from president truman a year later. when he went to new york city to be honored his medal was stolen from the waldorf astoria hotel. >> i had left my medal in its box on the bed in the room, and i now when i wen

rick santelli is joining us from chicago. first, stevewe will look at the numbers here. i will tell you, they are a little polluted by one forecasting. we take seven or eight over the weekend. >> strong language. >> skewed would be a better word? okay. skewed. sorry. the guy that i will say polluted it which i didn't say, 2.3, remember they reported 2.4 first quarter gdp, it's now down 2.3. a lot of guys in the 2.2% in the first quarter. second quarter is 1.9. we have our friend, drew matis from ubs at 2.9%. you take that out. it looks like the mean is more like 1.5%. drew stuck with this all the way through. he's a god economist, a god guy, a friend of "squawk box," we give him a little deference there. then you see the trend is strengthening with the third quarter and fourth quarter. i want to show you our flash poll, beginning tapering january, 2014 on wednesday, it was to have, the jobs number pushed it ahead a little bit. a lot of noise in the data. first response was 24%, december 20 thrown, that's where i think the average is, the

rick. let's get more reaction to that data. steveit? >> this is a weak number and i'll tell you, carl, the significance of it. it's the first number out of the box for the month. it's also been, by the way, overstating growth. so the extent that it's 49 is that growth is weaker underneath and of course, the people will look at that employment number which tick down and it's still above 50 as an indication of what manufacturing may show in the friday jobs report where the estimate is 35,000. prices down, backlog of orders down. most of the internals aren't as weak as the headline number and this is a surprise and going along with the construction spending number, carl. along with what i thought was basically weak data at the end of last weekend and it's going to push out the tapering talk. back to you guys. >> thank you very much, steve liesman. s&p did spill a little bit on that news. dow's held up for a number of reasons and merck up 5%. >> it goes back to the question whether bad is bad again and we did see a weak close on friday.

. >> and rick santelli, you look at this as goldilocks, not necessarily for the economy, but goldilocks for the market? >> yeah, you know, listen, steve liesman said it best. yes, he did. he said, the thing that surprised me most today was that the stock market took off. so let's rephrase that. if right now the stock market was up 10, i don't think anybody would be surprised. that bugs me, because, really, it is isn't about necessarily the number. stephanie said, you know, we had some soft numbers, but, you know, now we're up 208. well, those numbers are still soft, just three or four days old, but they're still soft. i think the inflection point over the next week or so is going to be when interest rates go proactive again. in other words, we've already seen very close to 2.25%. so that has already been mowed. that lawn's mowed. if we start to get up there again next week and we're getting closer and we start to get above 2.25%, my prediction is the stock market will take notice. >> what's your take, rick, on if events of next week. we've got three auctions next week, right? what are your expectations? >> you know, i think that the l

stage with dreamers, it goes to this question that rick asked, which is do republicans see undocumented immigrants, largely hispanics, as equals? stevewhen he said illegals were invading his office, gave his answer. when we see that -- >> lincoln/douglas debate but sounds like you have a bunch of douglases? who's the lincoln? thanks to roberto lovato of presen presente.org. with o ur " name your price" tool, people pick a price and we help them find a policy that works for them. huh? also... we've been working on something very special. [ minions gasp, chuckle ] ohhh! ohhh! one day the world... no, the universe will have the pricing power they deserve. mouhahaha! mouhahaha! mouhahaha! ooh-hee-hee-hee! blaaaah! we'll work on it. watch unseen footage, wah-hah-hah! only at progressive.com/dm2. your children's health can affect their gpa. yes, exercise and education go hand in hand. so make sure your kids are active 60 minutes every day. you'll help them feel good and even perform better in school. the more you know. water, we take our showers with it. we make our coffee with it. but we rarely tap its true potential and just let it be it

joining me along with steve is david jones, former economist with the fed bank of new york and now ceo of dmj advisers, plus our own rick, good to see you again. what's your take on the fed tomorrow? >> i think we're going to have a strong hint, if not an actual announcement, that that tapering will begin probably around the time, in that september meeting that steve talked about. that looks like the right timing. remember, we got a really strong hint of this from chairman bernanke back in his jec testimony on may 22nd. he's had labor market conditions continue to improve -- and i am convinced they will improve on a sustained basis -- sometime in the next two or three meetings, which would be pretty close to that september date, we'll start tapering. so i think we'll get a decent hint in that direction, if not an outright statement. >> would rates and the level of the 10-year, david, be a catalyst for the fed? or do you think they stick to those two targets -- unemployment and inflation -- in terms of deciding when the tapering begins? >> that's an excellent question. and my view is that virtually all of the story is on