Latest on what is going on. Press effectively what we have right now is a standoff between antigovernment protesters on the one side and riot police on the other. What divides them is a smoldering fire 30 feet wide. That is what that is. A 30 foot wide gap that in some cases has a kneedeep amount of coals. On the far side of that picture, across from the protesters, you see the police. They are not china move over that at the moment. That is independent square at the moment. 7000. Many have come more armed than they have in the past. Almost all of them are armed with clubs. We also have other room other weaponry. This all began when the president ordered the riot police, telling them to clear the square. Injured. 350 people we stopped short of that. See this kicked off at any time this could kick off at any time again. Class is there a possibility we could see an outbreak civil war . Say, no, we want to reject that and move toward. He European Union one is against a popular government and the other could turn into a civil war. There is a geographic divide in the ukraine between west and east and were seeing that with antigovernment protesters. Ultimately, i do not think it is that yet. What we have here is the president on the one hand and the worldfamous heavyweight boxing champion on the other. Unable to come to any kind of about replacing the government. That is effectively the situation. The president was told they needed a truce. We got nowhere. There is no sign these guys will sit down any time soon. Thank you for keeping us up to date on the situation on the ground. U. S. Pair back to the the debate over the minimum wage. Increasing that wage may left about 900,000 americans out of poverty. Loss ofld lead to the as many as one million jobs. The cbo of the Congressional Budget Office. That will likely harden the line of democrats versus republicans. The cbo has done it again. Class another bombshell from the Congressional Budget Office. Class give us the details. Just like the healthcare numbers we got a few weeks ago, there is something in this report for both sides. Numberts seized on their and the republican saw the headline number that people would lose their jobs, the exact argument they were making for a long time against minimum wage. Andpresident gets his way instant Campaign Fodder in this election year. It is an easy at any kills any chances for an increase in minimum wage. Class i was going to say what are the prospects. To some extent, democrats are pushing this because they believe it is a potent political issue this year. Senate democrats will bring this to the floor anyway when they come back next week. The chances for it to ever pass report the house this does a lot to bolster republican arguments. We do not want to do anything to damage job creation. Have you seen republicans already latch onto the numbers . It was almost instantaneous. Speaker boehners office right away. I will also say the democrats saw the potential damage coming from this and they were almost the first to respond. House, just aste they did with obamacare numbers, had a special briefing for reporters. A blog post, the president posses chief economist tried to shoot this down and earthly challenging the cbo, very unusual. Can point republicans to this and say, we are right on this, it doesnt benefit them politically to to be that upfront about the issue. Class that raises a good issue. The public and surveys indicate most americans are in favor of increasing the minimum wage. It is a good ad, a compelling argument for democrats to make that this is something theyre fighting for. Those struggling to make ends a risk for republicans, but they believe economics are with them and maybe politics will be as well. Thank you. Our chief washington correspondent. Musk. This hour, elon shares of tesla closed about 200 for the first time after a report about a meeting between elon musk and apple. The San Francisco chronicle. Eported he met early last year Neither Company has said anything about that meeting since their since then. He said one of the possible outcomes of his company he said a potential buyer would have to have a lot of cash to buy his company. We will hear directly from the man. Me a littlell join later today. At 6 30 pmk with him eastern time exclusively right here. Interview. For that a Great Program for you this morning, including another exclusive interview with hank greenberg. Aboutt the outspoken ceo what he thinks about the new government report on raising the minimum wage. To all introduce you killer sound system with implications totally out of this world. Stay in the loop. Were just Getting Started on this wednesday. Lex you are watching in the loop here loop. Investment, and insurance powerhouse headed by greenberg, partnered with switzerland, partnered to buy this company. Four point 4 billion. The news came out over the the weekend. On the phone with us now is the chairman and ceo of cv starr. What the emphasis was impetus was to buy this company. It is a great company. Ive known the ceo for many years. He used to work with me. At a Prior Company iran. Iran that i ran. I think it is the best. From my point of view, it was a great opportunity since we knew each other. He is a great manager. Adds versification, an outstanding company. In some of the articles that ,ave come out analyzing this people are saying, hank thatberg is now betting obamacare will work. Millions of people have signed onto the exchange. What do you say to that . That shows they do not understand very much about it. A hugepany has got with millions of subscribers. Obamacare does not have a thing to do with it. It was great before and it will be great after with or without obamacare. Will you see a group with more and more people signing on to the exchanges . No. What we see is opportunities adding products to the vast. Opulation they do serve we see opportunities internationally. Not got a thing to do and did not enter into our thinking whatsoever. The start of your Company Branching out into youerent areas and are looking at more acquisitions now . No. You know. This fits into what we were doing. We had a separate Investment Group apart from the insurance headed byinvestments a great team. They are doing very well and had been. So, this was another opportunity that came down. The most important thing about it that made it happen quickly was we knew each other for a long time and work together. It was a great opportunity. I want to turn over to your role on the Business Roundtable and dialogue with ceos. Thee is a report out from Congressional Budget Office that said raising the minimum wage to 10 and . 10 an hour is going to lift almost one Million People out of poverty. But it could also cost up to one million jobs in the next two ears. Where do you stand on this . It is a very difficult question. Obviously, you want to lift people out of poverty. You do notr hand, want a vast increase in unemployment. The numbers i heard was 500,000. I did not hear one million. Up to one million. You have got humanitarian the economic realistic issue. What happens is people lose their jobs and they will go on Unemployment Insurance and it will cost the same thing. , a longer line, it is a tough decision. Frome republicans kill it, a political point of view, it will be very difficult. What does your gut tell you . It says yes, we should raise the min wage . Yes. Because . Because, the republicans have as thenot be viewed party that killed it. If they do that, they will have the forthcoming elections. So i think from a practical point of view, i would hope they go along and get it done. Just on a final note, over the weekend, the president before he left on his holiday lifting of law the the debt ceiling into march of 2015. As a member and a leader at the Business Roundtable, you finally say, it looks like gridlock is being taken care of in washington. I would not say it is taken care of, but i think getting this out of the way was the right thing to do. You cannot have the Republican Party having this image all of the time of being disruptive. Be very negative to the party and we have elections coming up and that was the right thing to do not to have another gridlock in washington. All right. Great to have you with us. Thank you for joining us. The chairman and ceo on the acquisition. Heres a look at other top headlines this morning. The Unemployment Rate unexpectedly rose in the fourth quarter. Improvement may have lost some momentum. The jobless rate rose, the first increase since last february, from 7. 1 in the three months to november. A slight increase. In january, jobless craze jobless claims fell more than economists forecast. An acquisition worth 1. 4 billion. It represents about a 41 . Remium the Golden Gate Capital holds a 22 stake and is backing that deal. Billionaire john malone says he is giving the ceos of discovery key medication and Liberty Global the right to buy his stake should he decide to sell them. He said in an email statement nothing is changing right now with him. Engineers at the European Space agencys created a killer sound system. It is literally so loud, no human being could survive direct exposure to the noise. It is in an effort to test whether the agency satellites can withstand auditory assault. Sam has more on this. This might get loud. The European Space agency created something extraordinary. A large european acoustic facility, which is basically one of the worlds loudest boomboxes. Forget your splitting. It can create sound so powerful, it could kill you. Four massive nitrogen gas talled into a 50 foot chamber, reaching volumes of 154 decimals, about 100 times louder than a jet plane taking off. Europeans use this to test whether satellites can survive intense sound waves from a rocket launch. Toned down the acoustic assault of liftoff by spring 100 hundreds of thousands of water on the launch pad. Be allowed, but european rocket scientists have competition. Decimal a subculture of decibel drag racing in which they compete to create the loudest. The volumes could reach 180 decimals, making rocket launchers sound down and let downright polite in comparison. Very cool. Coming up, apple is known for creating great products. Some argue the tech giant is not create where is the is connect and why is that . Love and marriage may be good for your health but the divorce is good for the economy. Some say, we want to see more divorces if we want a growing economy. And coming up, lifestyles of the rich and richer. We will show you how the states stacked up when it comes to the wealthy, where they live and how they spend. Good morning. The market. Equity futures this morning are just a little bit lower. The s p rally the last three straight trading dray trading days. We are seeing some declines after the Economic Data yesterday came in a little lower than expected. We will get cpi and Housing Starts in just a few moments. Again with yields on the 10 year following to the lowest level in a week ahead of that. Ben, the fed chairman bernankes last month. Rise. Fouryear high more than half of the u. S. Homes in the United States fell. Extremely cold weather we have been confronted with around the country has sent gas prices up by 40 so far this year. We are on the markets again in 30 minutes. We need to heat our homes from the cold. I want to do take a look at one piece of the puzzle. Americas divorce lawyers have been a lot bigger since the economy started to client climbing out of the recession. Pace ince has picked up the last years, there is a stimulus affect. Peter cook is on the job now. I am on the divorce be. Tell us, is it a positive for the economy . We know it is. Ofing forces are indicator economic strength. The number has been rising. It got us thinking about the divorce. Is divorce a net plus for the economy even though it may be difficult for families and painful for them to go through. The logic is that all of a sudden, you have two households, someone going back to the workforce, more spending and ultimately a boost to the economy. The notion we got back from a lot of them is that it is probably a wash and not really a net plus. With more jobs and lower unemployment, unhappy couples delay divorce because they cannot afford to go forward with it. Everyone is in worse financial shape after a a divorce. Then before. Divorces leave individuals with less Discretionary Spending capabilities. Rather than sharing a house and car, each have to rent and purchase their own. Nethere has got to be a positive for lawyers. Is a plus for lawyers. What about housing . If you have two separate households, the needed place tuesday. Logic would suggest we need two roofs over people said at this point. We ran it over test analysts. People look at homebuilders and for example, we spoke with raymond james. I suspect the reality is we are losing other recent divorce is into the absorption of other households. It is probably a wash relative to other information. They call Improvement Stores head, he does not see those companies factoring into their model. Home depot and lowes are counting on more details, it will not end well. Would not be terrible that was part of your Business Strategy at the class you have got to look at all the factors. Logic will tell you, maybe would leave us more spending, but, the pros have looked of the looked at this and said, it is basically a wash. Tough on families and not necessarily a net plus. Question anyone talk to about the local areas, the geographic components of what areas get divorce more than others . I am sure there is more out there. We did not get into that yet. That would be round two as we continue on divorce week. You are an entertainment reporter yesterday and now a divorce correspondent. What about tomorrow . A food critic . I am ready to go. We will challenge you. Thank you. Our chief washington correspondent. A slew of economic numbers are just coming out now. Sterns has more on the breaking news. Lets start with housing numbers. Exit price. To 880,000. 6 we expected them to fall by about five percent but they have fallen by about 16 to 880,000. We are also hearing from the Commerce Department that Housing Starts in the midwest, to the lowest number on record. The reason seems to be the terribly cold weather we are having. The list january in the u. S. And 9094. Building permits are also out and they fell by 5. 4 in january to 937,000. That is shy of estimates economists we surveyed had. It wouldve been a fall of about 1. 5 . Housing starts and Building Permits were really disappointed disappointing. See the median forecast rising 1 10 of one percent. It gained by about 1 10 of one percent. That is pretty much in line with estimates. It comes intoime effect with new changes. Still a key measure of inflation. The ppi pretty much looks like a match, whereas Building Permits fall well short of estimates. Another time as momentum is coming out of the recovery in the Housing Market area right. You mentioned seasonal factors here with winter weather. Im looking at futures now. We are returning back to the lows of the session and equity futures, particularly for s p. You saw a sharp dip right after the numbers came out. Lets turn to technology. We we just talked about divorces. Last month, we told you about google. Because made sense google uses household data generated. Specifically, was google tempted ,y the founder and apple alumni tony, who developed the ipod at apple in an effort to beef up googles management spending. Are these tech giants after tech leaders . Did apple create tech leaders as well as Tech Products . Editor who bloomberg counsels companies on growth and development. Your answer to that is . Not really. Most of these guys coming out of apple are onehit wonders. When youre looking for good talent, you want people who have done it many times. Big Companies Like google and other companies we have an around the world are much like hospitals. They go around killing viruses. They take wipes and wipe out anything that might not look ike the mothership. To have someone who comes in to change all that, that is not what they want. Typically, they want somebody who will add something and not change something. He think about someone like jack, who was able to create ceos for other companies. He had a great management system. People who rose up were considered the cream of the crop. You could not say that about apple. It is not with a due. Jack did that and he did a great job. Look at all the things they have given the rest of the world and mostly corporate america. When you look at apple, they are really good at making these products and that is what they do. Job by a very good putting their heads down and getting it done and sticking to the system and that is what they do. It is not just apple were talking about. We are talking about google and other Tech Companies. Will that eventually backfire that they are not focused as much on leadership and creating aand system . They have got a great culture. There is no doubt about the people who have been there for a long time. I know many of the executives who have been there. They love that place. You do things you cannot do in other places but it benefits them. Time, apple is not going away. Remember when they did not have leadership at the top, they suffered. Even despite the culture. They also need the leadership. Steve jobs gave them that. Whether or not present leadership can do that has yet to be seen. So far, they just adding things to the product, nothing groundbreaking. Google came out of apple. Tony is the one we mentioned here at ron johnson. Genius. Another example. Became theinstein ceo. Why did they all bomb . They did a really good job at what they did. Cultureto impose apple in jcpenney, it is not an apple culture. It is where i go to get my socks and underwear. The whole retailing model. Do not set it on fire. They typically start to shift things around and move but fundamentally, ron johnson is a great guy but was commuting back and forth. You have to absorb yourself into the culture. You have to be part of that altar. You need to get back to the core of what the company was about and i never got to that core. All right. You will stay with me and we will talk more about millionaires and billionaires. People you know every day. Speaking of ceos is, shares of elon musk rose to an alltime high yesterday on speculation apple might be interested in buying the electric car company. Elon musk, is he ready to sell the company he has founded . We will be sitting down for an exclusive interview later this evening. Point one million millionaires live in the United States. Billionaires live here too. Phil mattingly look at which states have how many millionaires and where wealth is being created in the u. S. 119 million households in the United States, about five percent are millionaires. The highest ratio of millionaire households, it percent and over 1 million in assets. Proximity to the nations capital. The government jobs will not make you millionaire, but the lobbying sure will. Jersey, 240 2647 millionaire households the money comes largely from wall street workers who commute to new york city. ,orth dakotas ratio is surging 29th in state rankings because of the shale oil boom. Four percent can fewer than four percent to call themselves millionaires. Making it the poorest state in the nation. 353 people live in the United States. New york has the most, 19 billionaires. ,he highest net worth proximately 49. 4 billion. Also worth 49 billion. No other billionaires keeping him company in kansas. Silicon valley, a close second. 18 billionaires calling the golden state home. Among them is the oracle founder , 42. 3 billion. Mark zuckerberg, the facebook founder, about 24. 2 billion dollars. Americas richest person is bill gates, one of four billionaires in the state of washington. Worth approximately 75 billion. 12 states still waiting to see a single billionaire make their homes there. Only a matter of time before you see a billionaire in alaska. Phil mattingly joins us now with more. And jeff. He knows a lot of the superrich. Mike, the cofounder of a new york city based company. You get behind the scenes of the superrich, what they want and how theyre spending their money. Is there any difference now than when you first started the company . It is more authentic now. The numbers are getting bigger and people are getting more real. People used to shy away. They had big ideas but one the price tag came back, maybe theyll be back next week and they would never call back. They fall in love with david and say, can we get him for a private dinner party and they say sure, next thursday. More real rich people than fake rich people . Yes. I have become a thousand air thanks to the millionaires and billionaires. They are coming out of the closet in terms about out in the open. I am from the midwest. We have a lot of millionaires coming up out of north dakota but a lot of them are land rich. We do not show it off. Lets take Warren Buffett i was driving down the street. Private car going down the street in new york and i passed Warren Buffett, who is hailing a cab. That is why hes a billionaire. Ve also been partners areere in new york, we talking about displays of wealth, huge penthouses and fancy cars. In the midwest, it is different in terms of the way people display their wealth. Turner, one ofed the biggest landowners in the world. Certainly in the United States. He owns massive land in the midwest. You typically, we have those folks worth 100 million and hes out mowing his lawn. Worth. What he is you see those kinds of things. They are doing the things were not talking about and not showing it, like a lot of folks. Phil has been put on this job now. Tell us about the regional differences in what you found. That is the most interesting thing. What is fascinating about maryland, it is all related to the federal government. Is most interesting thing washington dc, virginia, and maryland were basically recession proof. We have all these millionaires and marinette maryland has been leading the list for the last couple of years. That might change when the federal government starts to cut its size with all the spending cuts. That has a negative impact on lawyers. What im what im interested in seeing, with the spending cuts, these millionaires might start disappearing. North dakota, as you mentioned. What youre seeing there is the oil, fracking and all the things going on. A lot of other industries are going around. The guys who are selling picks and shovels are the ones really making the money. Perhaps a newa, branch for your company. Classic could be. This is midrange stuff. I know there is a lot of Development Going on in up north toronto. Im thinking about going up there. It is the same phenomenon that happened in new york. People are looking to rent them out and it is a safe haven for their money. In north dakota, there are no penthouses. Few people will look in the embargo. I have an industry booking private cars. That would be awesome. I have always been curious, is there anything that has been you could not do . No. Often times, things fall short because money is access and people of access but they have to understand there is a price with it. Therehe price is right, is nothing i cannot do. Except when it is illegal. Most just want it they say to go get it. You are buying them time and access, which is cool. Thank you. , you definitely got his book. Phil mattingly in washington bringing us that story, instigating this debate. Thanks a lot. We will be back in a few moments. Football helmets may not affect players protect players as much as you might think. They reduce the risk of dramatic rain injuries by only 20 on average versus not wearing a helmet at all. , the makersith more of the helmet. Thank you for joining us. A hot topic for the nfl right now given the lawsuit waged by former nfl players saying they have been subjected to concussion after concussion and suffered the consequences of that. Is there no helmet design that 20 prevent injury more than better . Class you cannot say, can stop concussions. What you can say is it reduces the risk of the concussion. The problem i see is helmets out there today are the same helmets designed for the last 50 years. I cannot tell you why it has not changed since the 1990s. Proven to be working. Unfortunately, helmet companies discouraged it and it went away. It has now come back again. People are starting to see that it works. How committed it is not more widely adopted . It is new and different. It is something that was different. People are used to the helmets with the logos on it. Somebody told mark kelso the other day fashion trumps protection. It has got to get to a point where people are more interested in the overall safety of the kids and looking for better designs. You hear more parents say they will not let their kids play football. Yes. Were hearing that a lot from a lot of coaches. At conferences, football clinics, the signup rates are reduced. Down 10 or 15 in football these days. Quest that is significant in how popular football is. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. The founder of guardian caps on helmet safety and football safety. We will be back in a few moments. Stay with us. Bloomberg television is on the markets. This is a meeting where the fed decided to taper by an additional 10 billion a month. Ringing asset purchases down to 65 billion a month. We want to tell you about a deal announced this morning. 1. 4 billion. The company will operate more than 35 million retail stores. Were on the markets again in 30 minutes. Stocks are hugely on the move on this wednesday. We will be back in two minutes. 30 minutes until the opening bell. With bettythe loop liu. The countdown begins right now. Here is what we are working on. Housing starts plunge last month falling 16 , the biggest drop in three years. Bad weather getting much of the blame. Shares of electric car maker tesla open over 200 for the first time ever. Earnings are out after the bell. And after that i will speak to Tesla Ceo Elon musk in an exclusive. And we will talk to the man who dresses the world. St andomens brands he is branching out into mens fashion. A possible merger between comcast and Time Warner Cable raises a number of questions. For instance, what will happen to the efforts of netflix and apple tv to secure streaming services on cable . , jonng us now for more erlichman can take the netflix and apple tv side, but first, netflix trying to get on Time Warner Cable, they are nice right now . Probably. But not as much because comcast is necessarily taken the idea as much as the various different parts of the regulatory process needs to go forward in this deal and it is likely any sort of big move like that that Time Warner Cable would have done on its own is probably halted. That has to do with Time Warner Cables management decision as much as comcast. That said, no doubt these two companies have had different strategies when it comes to netflix or apple tv or other products that potentially could compete with the cable products. The main difference is that Time Warner Cable has been very willing to be open to the idea of other companies coming in and melding with their product. Apple tvwords, if wants to study user interface for time warner customers, time warner says we are fine with that because they are better at that. Has been a little bit more closed. They are a little bit more wary about letting the intruders into the gates. So we will see how it progresses. From the side of netflix and apple tv how much trust do they have of comcast and Time Warner Cable . If you think about the broadcasters themselves, the ones cutting the deals with the likes of netflix, they get paid a lot of money from comcast so they have to be respectful of that. But a lot are skeptical that all of the people who watch those various shows will continue through cable. That is why they are developing. Heir own apps it is almost like a hedge. They will go as far as they can without frustrating the cable company. And then, of course, disney did this landmark eel with the netflix where much of the feature movie content, when it is out of the theaters it will not be available through the cable world first but available through netflix. They have a vested interest in seeing Services Like netflix continued to get big, almost a validation of the kind of deals they are cutting. That is where things get complicated. It doesnt sound like it can become desk, located. It doesnt sound good can become, located. Is this an issue for regulators at all . Theyen looking at this, if start to think that innovation for television might get stunted by doing the merger. And other words, if comcast gets so big i buying Time Warner Cable, it may feel like we have all these customers right now and we can do our own thing and basically shut out competitors like apple tv trying to innovate or other companies that could potentially use the structure of comcast wiring, in other words, the pipes, to innovate. If comcast says we dont want anything to do with you, we have our own structure, we will stop innovation if that is a concern for regulators it could be an issue. But i highly doubt it will be because comcast knows that. Being very straightforward and say, look, were not going to curb this. We are very open to partnerships. I imagine the language gets out there in the regulatory process and will not be an issue. Jon, out of raynaud, it was less than a week out out of reno, less than a week out since it was announced. They have been very cautious on their comments so far. As we said earlier, they get paid so much from the likes of comcast that ruffling too many feathers would be a dangerous thing. What i would say on top of what alex is saying, apple has a lot of goodwill. In a world where generally it is assumed that we dont really like the cable companies, a lot of people or a lot of consumers like apple. That is why we sort have sort of have been beating the drum about whether they would move in the living room in a bigger way with a product. That is one of the big factors for apple to continue to go down the path, it is just the tricky part has been to figure out all deals. Hts not only partner with Time Warner Cable. When these shows show up anywhere and everywhere it gets legally complicated. This greatu wrote story about where does this leave charter communications, which is now become small and is looking smaller. Possibly may be partnering with Cox Communications . But cox came out with a state and a statement saying we will not comment on rumors but we will be clear that cox is still not for sale. Do you believe this . I do. A few months ago i reported chartered and charter and cant bring talks. They mayt for sale but be willing to acquire. The idea is that cox what technically acquire charter and then have to find out who will run the company. It will be similar to a tmobile and sprint merge. It is not clear he will run that who will run that company but sprint would be the acquirer. Cox may acquire charter if something would be done but it is potentially possible charter management can run the company because tom rutledge is such a known operator. It is just speculation at this point. Look at Time Warner Cable and look that comcast did do a partnership with Time Warner Cable. Time warner cable was very open saying we may be for sale at the right place at the right price. I was speaking with one of the bankers involved in this deal, and he was saying that what kind of turned the tide in many ways johnrian roberts was that malone and their team came in and kind of complicated the situation. They made the deal seem so complicated for shareholders. Whereas it was very simple and betweeny, an alliance comcast and Time Warner Cable. That is what he said kind of turned the tide for ryan roberts 18, i think that its a much easier deal to deal with. One, it is an all stock deal. Heres a price, here is all stocks. The charter bid was both stock and cash. Time warner cable wanted a collar on the back. It got complicated. The second point is that cable is a collegial industry, not competitive, because all of these companies dont compete with each other. There he simple in a way that comcast and Time Warner Cable, who have done a lot of working together over the years, will come to a friendly agreement instead of a hostile bid where a Smaller Company was buying a Larger Company and all of a sudden there are words being thrown back and forth. What i heard, brian was a little uncomfortable with that, especially since he had such a Good Relationship with the Time Warner Cable ceo. The other thing pointed out to me by the person who was part of the deal was that this is a classic activist shareholder type move, except for the fact that john malone walked away from this deal with nothing. He was saying if carl icahn had done this deal, he would have at least made money. A lot of questions about what was going on. Why didnt john malone and tom rutledge managed to at least make money for their shareholders . We would have to hear from them. It is a great question. Other advisors have brought it up. I do want to say one thing, though, which is, even though brian went like this to be some sort of a friendly deal, there is no doubt once this to be some sort of friendly deal, there is no doubt he was talking with charter and at least handed totally onboard with the idea of a hostile bid and partnership, so i dont want to make it like Brian Roberts comes off as above the fray. He was definitely involved. The question therefore would be, he decided eventually that he could get more of what he wanted by doing an all stock deal and by doing it friendly. He comes away looking better in the end from it. I cant imagine there are any friendly feelings right now between comcast and charter. Exactly. And malone. Thank you so much for joining us. News andman, bloomberg jon erlichman, great to see you. Coming up, he has been dressing women since the 1980s and now he is branching into mens fashion. The founder and ceo who worked with everybody from different the simpson will join me. Stay in the loop. In the loop with betty liu will be right back. You are watching in the loop live on bloomberg television, streaming on your tablet and bloomberg. Com. Camutos 1980s, Vince Company has dressed women starting with the issues, from his First Company nine west, which i knew very well in the even theerships and famous ballet flats that are a hit. Now he has his own company the middle group with vince camuto stores all over the world and more on the way. To talk about his Market Expansion plans addressing men now for a change is the very welldressed ceo of vince camuto. Events, great to see you. Great to be here. You mention when you start at nine west that you found this sweet spot. You noticed there were not fashionable shoes for women that were under 100. Absolutely. It was hard to believe, only 25 or 30 years ago. A shoewanted to buy under 100, it would not be fashionable. It would be ugly. Physically very traditional. We were not listening by the cusp to the customers. It was mostly run by men and complete the not listen to women. We had a different philosophy when we entered into with. It was a huge hit and now you are trying to do sort of the same thing with caputo group. You are more upscale. Basically with nine west we went public in 1993. We were doing close to 600 million. We ended up with basically doing 2 billion when we sold it to jones in 1999. After a couple of years, even , we had friends who approached us and said we need you to come in and give us guidance. We loved brazil. We also found brazil. A big market. They were the forcing giant. All the expertise is really design and sourcing. We stilln china but make in brazil, Dominican Republic and things like that. Your price point is what . 250 for shoes . Lines one is the price above the generic shoes. My old company, generic shoes. We go above that. For 100,y a pump vc0, boots 250 and then a signature line that we started a year ago with great success, particularly nordstrom, where we are trying to do a very exclusive brand. Those are prices roughly from 200 to 300 for sure and boots up to 550. Now we are extending into mens. In thea 25yearold son business now. Does he work with you . He worked with me, yes. I think was two years ago or three years ago, he had an event to go to any said, i want to buy a suit. I give him a list of places where to go. Came back and he said, dad he says, i cant buy a superior dad, you have to see them on me. They are huge. The pants are too huge. They are too long. They dont look like your suits. Because i think about, when i tried to think about mens suits, i think about brooks brothers. Then you have joseph a. Bank and mens wearhouse. I sent him to all those places. So i went out with him. Love men in suits or jackets. No question about it. In all my research through the years. Best ng like a well welldressed man. I agree. I think the look is a little different. They are finally finding out super cool. You can dress it with a prince, like i am wearing, and with a tie. But the shape has to be a little narrow, a little more shapely. The panther little shorter. Are modern fit the pants little shorter. A more modern fit. Very high, exclusive mens suits thousands of dollars. 2000 and then you have mens wearhouse. And nothing in between. We thought it would be a cool way, since we are all interested it in it, and we put a team and weust to do are very happy. Aside from the price, what will be different about your suits . The big difference is, we make different fit. A little narrower lapel, almost like a european fit. When you go to europe, i know with my wife, she says, these men dress really great. Be short can never enough. Are you saying men in america have been test . I dont say they have bad tests. They dont have the opportunity. A are finding when you have something out there, they are jumping on it. Are finding when you have something out there, they are jumping on it. We have always cater to women. We believe there is a womens movement. At nine west i just hired women with a few guys in between. You are probably the one percent there. With men, we cant keep men out of it because it is a huge opportunity. Vince, who is on your best dressed list . Basically tom ford. He is cool. Nobody from manufacturing, tech . I havent really studied it that well. It is hard to think of someone, to be honest. What about the biggest mistake men make in fashion . They dress in a hurry. They dont do research. They should bring their girlfriend or wife basically with them. Is catching on. I think in america there is a Great Movement for men to buy updated clothing at reasonable prices. 595, so range from that is great. We make certain shirts. Is there anything guys do that drive you nuts when they get dressed . Think about the bankers on wall street, for instance. I dont know. I think, again, what they buy is basically what is out in the marketplace. They are ready to go. We meet with them. I cant tell them truthfully, if it is there, they buy it. You worked with Jessica Simpson and other celebrities. It seems like almost every celebrity out there wants to have their own perfume line, their own fashion line. Whatdo celebrities do are the biggest mistakes they make when they try to start expanding their brand like that . I think, you know, it is one idea. Calls aeveral care week. But jessica was homegrown for eight years. We picked her. We did our thing. We are not interested in other celebrities, so to speak. It worked out. She was the only one. We passed on a lot of others. To 2the brand going billion. You concentrate on that and that is it. Where does it go wrong for some of the celebrities . Just like the business we are in, someone asked me, what makes you different . Because we just dont have design. You have a nice design, you want to have it made, it is one thing. But you have to have the Technical Assistance and you need the sourcing capability where we are really strong. We are in china right now. We do 30 million pairs of shoes. We have a team. 750 people over there. It is not just the idea of wanting to do something. It is the execution of it. That is what we are able to do. The same thing with a celebrity. They put a team together. Dubai so due by exciting . Number one in our portfolio. Number one market. Unbelievable the amount of ,usiness we are doing in dubai abu dhabi. I think they see an opportunity basically. They love fashion. They are out there. They are ready to buy. Very big for us, besides london and so forth. I hear other ceos the retail groups always flying to dubai and i am trying to figure out what exactly is in the market it is a playground. I know there is the ultra rich but only so many of them. I think the way they have it right now, people love to stop over from so many different places. And it is going to continue. We are opening more stores there. One was very successful, thousands of shoes per month. And our clothing line is very hot. I dont know if you know that. ,he clothing line was a topic in nordstrom, the partnership award. He so much. Vince camuto, ceo of the communal group. Group. Of the camuto much more coming up. Stay in the loop. Welcome back. You are in the loop. Im betty liu. 26 minutes past the hour, which means we are on the markets. Olivia sterns. Futures right now are in the red after the s p 500 closed within a point of an alltime record high yesterday. A key catalyst this morning looks like the weaker than expected housing numbers. Insing starts fell 16 january, the biggest increase since february 2011. About three times worse of the drop economists forecast. Numbers, the new overall Producer Price index, taking wider account baskets of services, it jumped more than expect it in january than expected in january. Without volatile feud and food and fuel, it was still up. The key is the fed minutes out at 2 00 p. M. , the latest minutes of the fomc meeting they had in january. Ikea so much. We are on the market again in 30 minutes. Lets count down to the open with the top 10, the only trade you need to know today. Olivia stays with me and also alix steel. Eli lilly. Pharma company said the experimental lung cancer drug significantly improved patient survival rates compared to a placebo in late stage trials. Shares rose on the news. Number nine, chelsea therapeutics. It won u. S. Approval for a drug to prevent sudden drop of blood pressure. The medicine was cleared under the fda accelerated Approval Program and the stock is up 50 the past three months. And this Mining Company reporting record gold and silver reserves and the quarter, and also said Gold Production rose 190 . Number seven, herbalife. The magician Company Posted a 10 increase in fourthquarter profit, the nutrition Company Posted a 10 increase in fourthquarter profit. Sales in china rose more than 120 in the quarter, the fastest of any region worldwide. And everbright falling after the chain announced it is investing more in its istaurants panera falling. It also gave a disappointing forecast in the Current Quarter due to the weather. Reporting a 27 gain in fourthquarter profit, helped by Strong Demand for the aviation and fitness products. It says the nonautomotive segments were 50 of total revenue. Carlyle group says fourthquarter profit more than tripled as the value of its funds jumped on the profits generated from the sale of assets. Rose inequity portfolio the quarter. Number three, mgm resorts, the largest casino operator on the las vegas strip. Its loss narrowed in the fourth quarter, beating analyst estimates. The results reflect continued strength of governing gambling in macau along with the recovery in las vegas. Number two, joseph a. Bank launching a tender offer to buy back shares. The offer price, 65 a share, marking nearly a 20 premium over yesterdays closing price. Number one is the big deal this morning in the jewelry business, Signet Jewelers and zales, agreeing to buy its smaller rival. Leadership as the largest jewelry chain in the United States. We are watching herbalife this morning after they reported their earnings. The Nutrition Company that Hedge Fund Manager bill ackman has accused of being a remit scheme posted a 10 rise pyramid scheme posted a 10 rise on the strong sales. Bill ackman continues to press afterse against herbalife investor carl icahn continues to maintain his stake in the company. Our Bloomberg News reported joins us with more on this. Say, we knowd to bill ackman has lost quite a bit on herbalife, but what is he saying on this latest move, bill ackman, i am talking about . He is still pushing the regulatory front. He is pretty much still moving on all the fronts that he has the last year. You have seen a lot also from him on the question of hispanics. Hispanics make up about 60 of herbalifes business in the u. S. Herbalifelegation is is taking advantage of those hispanics may be being less sophisticated, maybe some immigrants, people dont want to report that they have been ripped off. You heard him talk a lot about that lately. He as action he has been joined by a major Latino Advocacy group that met with the ftc last week and also talking about the fact that they believe herbalife is taking advantage of latinos. Affirmed bill ackmans position . What difference does it make now . They again met with the ftc last week. It did not seem anything substantive came out of the meeting. That theyno feel actually got commitment from the ftc. The ftc hears people out. But the group definitely is not going away. It will definitely keep pushing the case. It will be interesting to see how it progresses. Hiseorge soros trimmed stake. What is that about . Look, last year herbalife stock more than doubled after bill ackmans claims the previous december. George soros trimmed his state. It appears may be to take some profits off the table. The stock has been down this year. A little more trouble this year. China overhang and people trying to figure out what will happen there in terms of new rules on mlms perhaps. I think it is being seen by people i talk to see it as pulling off money off the table for right now. And the big question is whether george soros is having second thoughts but there does not seem to be real clear evidence on that. Herbalife in China Growing like gangbusters. Is this a surprise . China has been one of the new s includingr mlm; herbalife. These numbers came in before you had the issues that came about whereecember with newskin there were reports of government was looking into practices, perhaps distributors doing the wrong thing, some would say at the behest of the company. The company says that a few might have been making mistakes. Youve got reports of that china is going to be maybe proposing new rules. The numbers came in. China was really good for herbalife. My understanding, talking to the company yesterday, that january was looking fine. No real clear idea of what was happening in february. We will be looking to see how those distributors perform. Switching gears. You and i talked about cocacola after their results yesterday and you came up with a story i thought was interesting, where you look back at a comment Warren Buffett, who is of course the larger shareholder, individual shareholder, and has held the stock for decades, warned management that you dont want to get too complacent in the soft drinks business. That kind of warning has come to fruition with the results yesterday. It was interesting. Feeling they were really good. They had a great 2012. Warren buffett was sort of saying, look, the companies have to be aggressive. You hear kent all the time saying he is constructively discontented. After cocacola reported they will save as much as a billion dollars through 2016, some notstors said maybe that is enough. Maybe they need to price more aggressively. They are starting to question whether cocacola is really adjusting to this new world and some of the new trends coming around, including the health and wellness trend which is growing around the world. People are looking, trying to say, ok, is coco going to be as aggressive as they have been in the past . And they want to see bold action. Blaine stanford from Bloomberg News and atlanta. Coming up, discount jeweler zale has been scooped up. More details about this transaction. A few minutes into the opening theyll opening bell. Stay in the loop. The big three automakers are taking on Tech Companies in a fight over spectrum for talking cars. Microsoft, comcast, and google forming a new group lobbying for more wireless spectrum. Ad, do you like being called that, matt miller . I dont choose the title but i dont mind it. One small correction. It is really the internet and google,panies led by microsoft, and comcast taking on the automakers to wrench more of the spectrum away from them. Boring tocally very talk about spectrum. Toy patent is used nesxt patent disputes. It is airwaves you cannot see but it is incredibly important to consumers and it impacts on two fronts. Video on your use mobile device as more and more and you wanted to upload fast. B, you dont want to be involved in a car accident. Estimates is we will get in a car accident on average once every 17 years. For me, it is a lot higher than that. The way you drive, yeah. I dont want to be in the car with you. Those two things for consumers and for drivers and aboutlso for congress, 200 million a year for lobbying dollars. If you look at the two sides in this fight who want to get access to a part of that spectrum that is very limited, the Tech Companies, the Internet Companies google, microsoft, comcast have given together 140 million a year to congress. And that is only what we know about. On the other hand, the carmakers have given 58 million. It would seem they have the losing hand. But carmakers also had unions that politicians typically care about, huge box blocks of voters and also they create jobs. This is going to be an ongoing fight. Exactly. But we are going to see the benefits of what carmakers can give us very soon. Vehicletwovehicle communication is already happening. I talked to a lot of car executives about how this can save lives. There were 5 million crashes on u. S. Highways last year, which led to about 33,000 deaths. The national Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimates that could be reduced by 80 if we were to use more of these vehicle to vehicle Communication Systems which automakers have already developed and have ready and they think it would only cost about 100 extra per user each car. Seems like a pretty good gamble. They need to use the airwaves to make the system work. But what google and microsoft are saying, most of the time the airwaves they have allotted to them are not being filled up. They are not being fully used by the systems. We could come in and use the same spectrum and share this airwave use and it will not be problem a problem. Dont worry. Not used yet, is the answer. What carmakers are saying as well, you dont know when we are going to need it and how much we are going to need. No one can see the future. Matt, thank you so much. Great to see you, as always. Our resident gearhead thinking about the gears and cars and collect electric cars. , tesla will be reporting after the bell. We will talk to him 6 30 p. M. Exclusively on bloomberg tv to talk about all that is happening with tesla. Moving and shaking this hour in tech am a blackberry ceo john shannon chen. He chastised tmobile for encouraging the users of his devices to switch to apple. Chen said tmobile must think the gag is a good idea but they could not have been more wrong. Americas largest jewelry chain signet agreed to by zale, putting it under the same umbrella as kay and jerod. Ultimately reaching more than 3000 locations in the United States. Cristina alesci has more. You can go into a mall before bumping into one of these jewelry stores. Now they are all going to be under the same parent. Bigger,t is the healthier company. It never really got battered in the same way zales did because of the recession. Zales was really on life support for a Long Time Coming up in out of recession and needed Emergency Rescue financing. Around 1600es stores and it will be combined with the signets 1900 stores. A behemoth. What it will do is probably get some flexibility with their vendors. Where they get the raw material for their product. It could actually make the margins better for the combined company. About this being subject to shareholder approval . Will it fly through . Side, becausele they got rescue financing, private equity owns 22 of the stock. And golden gate already signaled they support this deal. On the other hand, signet has an activist investor, big surprise. We know back in january signet met with a guy who came out of ahns ferments spun off. He took a position in signet. We have to see what Keith Meister says about this deal but it does seem like a very good investors. Le 40 premium over whether stock is trading. It could be a match made in heaven. We will see. A marriage made in heaven. Filled with im in. Dealsna alesci, our reporter. Still ahead, a former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine joins me to give some context for the major clashes the world is watching in kiev. You are watching in the loop on bloomberg television, streaming on your tablet and bloomberg. Com. Global now for the outlook. The violence we are witnessing in ukraine as a complex history and potentially farreaching implications for the u. S. And the rest of the world. Joining me is former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine and the arms control and Nonproliferation Initiative director for the brookings institution. Thank you so much for joining us on this story, as we have been watching very closely the next several days. Some livest showing pictures, steve, of what is going on on the ground, which is relatively compared to what we have seen over the last day or so, relatively calm. But what are the risks we will see this violence escalate even further . Think the concern is that while there appears now to be a still haveull, you the police surrounding tens of thousands of demonstrators in the central square. Sort of a safe area. The demonstrators were peaceful and there were no Police Actions since the end of november. So it crossed the line last night. I think there is concern the government intends to continue the crackdown, which is very unfortunate because it will only evil a broad public backlash against the government and will voke a broad public backlash against the government. You said before that the protesters, they feel very much that the president of the government is in bed with russia and vladimir putin. Now he isning right at the olympics, he is at sochi and he is watching what is going olympicshere with the in sports, but he must have his eye right now on ukraine. What do you think put in bank putin is thinking now . We have to bear in mind, the responsibility for what happened yesterday lies first and foremost with viktor yanukovych, the president of ukraine. But having said this, i think pleasedn is probably with what is going on in kiev. Images lashing across europe over the last day and a half of the totality of the Police Forces in attacking the demonstrators is showing ukraine in a very ugly light and from view, it will widen the gap between europe and ukraine. That was really the objective of russia last fall, was to try to stop ukraine from drawing closer to the European Union. These images are not going to make easier for ukraine to continue the course. I think there were people in russia uncomfortable by these ongoing large demonstrations in the ukraine, the worry being that at some point would russians get the idea that they, too, might take to the streets to protest an authoritarian government. Of heavy forcese only going to bolster the opposition and show the divide even more on a global stage and perhaps give the opposition even more fuel . O, this is exactly ukrainians are a peaceful people. They took a lot of pride in the fact that the orange revolution was bloodless. And because of the governments heavyhanded use of force, there have been 30 people now killed by some estimates. Seei think you are going to a broader backlash from the ukrainian public against the government for what happened yesterday. And that will bolster support for the demonstrators. Quickly, hereally in the u. S. , at what point do we get involved . I think we need to bear in mind here that the solution has to be found primarily by ukrainians. But i think that the United States can exercise some leverage, and that is targeting specific sanctions. Targeting specific sanctions to individual ukrainians to target two goals. First, if you engage in violence and use of force, there will be punishment, and second, to target the inner circle of mr. Viktor yanukovych. Pifer, thank you so much for joining us. Dont forget not to miss my interview with elon musk later today. It is 56 past hour, which means bloomberg tv is on the market. Im olivia sterns. About 30 minutes into the trading day. It is a mixed picture out there. The s p pretty much flat after it closed within eight points of its alltime record high yesterday. We did get a little disappointing Economic Data on Housing Starts. 16 in starts dropped january, the biggest decreased since february 2011. An annual pace of just 880,000 last month, much worse than forecast. Also the new ppi numbers showing wholesale rice is increased by about 0. 2 in january, led by food and pharmaceutical products. Even excluding volatile food and by 0. 2 . Was still up yearoveryear the gain was 1. 2 . Be thing investors will watching for by the fed minutes released at 2 00 p. M. Of the latest fomc meeting last month. Time now for futures in focus. In the limelight as a shrugs off weaker than estimated housing data. For more on the worlds third seniordely used metal, a comedy broker on the floor of the cme. Phil, a lot of the recent misses blamed on the cold weather. Is that the feeling on the floor this morning . If you look at the market like copper, you have not seen any kind of impact whatsoever. The market has been rising significantly in coming off of its lows. What im looking at doing is establishing longterm positions to the upside in the copper market. Some of the fundamentals currently, the london metals exchange. Stock isles have been down 75 since last march. You also have a ban on exports from indonesia. It is creating a lot of tightness in the global copper stockpiles. China, although they have been doing some tightening and they had mixed activity, they have been building stock piles quite aggressively and i think they are concerned about the shrinking supply that is out there. So i think copper prices with the rising volume, the upward trend, i think the upward target 370 and the 350, key level of support around 318 and any violation below the low you reassess. Housing starts have not had any impact on the rising prices. Back to chinae because china has been reducing their forecast for factory expansion. Yes, you say they are building stockpiles but what other key indicators are you looking at that make you bullish on china for copper . It is really interesting when you look at china because they do this push and pull. They increase their loan activity but their banks also decrease the amount that is available. So it is kind of mixing all over the place. I think with any kind of economy you start to see a turnaround start to take effect. I think the china story is maybe farther down the road. 36 months out things start to turn around, and i think that is what pushes the momentum higher. Were you surprised that all nonfarmst two weak payrolls have not dented copper prices more . I was really surprised, not only on koppel but metals like gold and silver. You start to see some kind of decrease in the prices when eusebius significant miss a rallywe start to see continued. I think the feds impact on continuing tapering we have to leave it right there. Thanks for joining us. We will be back on the market in 30 minutes. Market makers is up next. Live from bloomberg headquarters in new york, this is Market Makers with erik. Chatzker and Stephanie Ruhle impressive results in china and latin america. The prophets forecast, what this means for carl i can carl i cahn. Crush, butcandy one person says that this is low risk a