Really . You are also from new jersey . Class i had no trouble on the roads. Here. Is joining us it is the hour ahead in just a bit. Next week netflix earnings will come out after the bell. Also watching apple. He came out on twitter of all places and is selling his stake in apple for more than 3 billion. We should mention who will be speaking to him as well. I will and it will be coming up in an hour. Princeton University Economic president alan krueger, also the author of explorations and economics. Us today. For joining the news out of pimco. What is your reaction he is leaving . He has been there sometime. Mohammed is a great economist. People think of him as an investor but he is sensible and well trained. I got an email from him yesterday saying he is looking forward to interactions in the future and has always been a friend, someone i rely on. Hindsight is always 2020. Pimco and other funds had a difficult year. It is probably difficult to have copeople in charge of investment. There is talk turnover. It happens. Bill gross was saying the said,had cornered him and you cannot go and we cannot let you leave. Would you call it a Seismic Shift . He has been known with pimco for so long now and he is one of the faces of the organization. He has been a public face. It is a big shift. Gross will continue to have or even have a stronger hand and the key all along has played a major role. No disagreement between him and mohammed despite earlier speculation and mohammed is the apparently saying he wants to spend more time with his family. Theyll say that. I look forward to reading his book. Im sure he is looking more time spending with his family. Bill gross is really making an effort on twitter and speaking to Bloomberg News with some of those comments. There was nothing that happening here. Engaged and he is ready to go for another 110 years. Are people making too much out of this . They are grownups. They will keep their disagreements between them. Mohammeds father is a diplomat and he was diplomatic in his own demeanor and that speaks volumes for both of them. Presume though gross will for the next 40 years, a significant role. That is what i would expect going forward. It has been a challenging time for bond markets as equities continue to out perform. You just wonder whether or not it had something to do with it. It seems likely. To share theasier helm when things are going well here it i can see that would create tension. It is natural. Said, they are professional and you do not hear any of that coming through. Story, tim geithner said s ps downgrade of u. S. Responsed be met by a according to the s p coming out and saying there was a phone call that Timothy Geithner is said to have made back in august of 2011 when they came out and downgraded the u. S. And tim geithner saying, this is in fact not true. Do you think this stuff is this has taken on a life of its own. I am highly skeptical tim geithner would threaten anybody. I worked with him for two years at the Treasury Department and it is just not the way he operates. The Justice Department started this investigation two years before the downgrade. It seems out of character to me. His spokesperson issued a statement saying it did not happen. I worked with jenny for several years. Yes. I know jenny well and have interviewed tim geithner. No one thinks these things happened, but you look at what is happening in new jersey right now, and they tend to take on a life of their own. Is politically motivated . Why would they say this . I do not know what their motivation is. The Justice Department opened up an investigation just two years before the downgrade. It just does not seem plausible to me anything like that would happen. John was my Deputy Assistant secretary at the Treasury Department and he discovered the 2 trillion mistake in s ps baseline, which was an embarrassment. You think story something could have been misunderstood . I do not know. I was not part of the phone call character. Ut of his just to piggyback, you are saying this is probably out of the realm of possibility. I didme, when i saw this, not believe it. Were going to new jersey. Chris christie. Implausible or plausible . There were emails. All we know is what we read in the papers. It is interesting, all of the controversy going on politically. We will have more with alan coming up. We will also seize the business of the olympics broadcaster the games are coming up in less than three weeks. A lot to talk about. Security issues there because of threats of terrorism. Abouthe social issue russias antigay laws. We will get into that and more when we come back. Welcome back. Withe here for the hour economist alan krueger. Lets turn our attention right now to the Olympic Games in russia. We are two weeks away, a little over two weeks away from the start of the games. Nation will bee tuning in to nbc, the exclusive rights to broadcast the games. It is set to deliver 1039 hours of programming. Lets head out to connecticut where we are joined by the man putting it all together there, the executive producer behind nbcs olympic coverage. And the head of the olympic broadcasting route and head of strategy of operations. Good to see you guys. Forpaid a lot of money this. 775 Million Dollars for the right to broadcast these games, 1. 2 billion for the right to broadcast it in rio. Enough to justify this kind of money e money . What remains valuable and incredibly unique about the olympics is that it rings a massive audience together for a sustained 18 consecutive days. Here is nothing like it there are big events that happen in a single day or single evening. This happens over 18 days. An Incredible Opportunity for marketers in the country to get demographically diverse market. Some of this is live but a lot of it has a time difference. Will you stream much of the programming online . How does that go over with advertisers . Kenny marchant ties that significantly . We are able to in ways we have not before. This will be the first Winter Olympics ever where it will be streamed live. We do that in london with summer games in 2012. What we found was people engaged in the content whether it was streaming or online, they were more likely to then watch television, whether in prime time or the afternoon or our sports cable channel. To take iting vantage of the capacity has been a success in all fronts. In the world of social media, how do you decide what will be shown live . Everyone will be there. It is anticlimactic. If you are not showing anything life. We are streaming everything live. And there is no decision there. What we have found through the last few olympics as we circulated and made more content available live, Live Streaming simplyin london, it galvanizes and circulates and creates more and more communication to chat around the olympics. You see the primetime audience continue to grow. They just want to know who won and who lost. The result may be known in a mans. We see in london that the opposite is true. The olympics are a different kind of event. We are talking about sports most people are not familiar with and athletes. Programelay, a polished in time prime time. It is one of the things that makes the olympic olympics unique. It was just alluded to, part of the lure of this, making a new star and a new International Hero the community will galvanize around, beenery olympics, we have going over to sochi multiple times and our Research Team has been doing an amazing job two years now, trying to find the right stories to bring to our audience and having spent time with some athletes, american athletes and athletes from other countries, we inevitably know they will be that athlete, that story that people will be talking about the next day, whether it is at work, the water cooler, the coffee shop, the school bus line, it is one of the great things about the olympics. Drive the conversation for an extended time and we know at the heart of it, it is really the athletes and their stories. And ask whatlow up the sports are that people are watching the most . Where is the biggest tune in factor now . Figure skating is big. What else are they watching . One of the great things is the excitement, the speed and the acrobatics you will see on sports like this lopes slopes style snowboarding and the half pipe snowboarding. Probably the most recognizable member of team usa. There are new added sports in sochi noteworthy and they are designed to appeal to a young audience. We have seen success with that. They have added some of these things. I think sochi, it has gotten so big the olympics are starting on thursday, february 6, the night before the opening ceremony, something atypical. We will ask you to stay with us through the commercial break. On sochi in more the upcoming Olympic Games still to come. Welcome back. We are back with our guest host for the hour. Economist and from connecticut, theman running for operations for the sochi games coverage, thank you for staying with us through the break. Sochiyou two have been to many times in preparation for the coverage. What has been dominating the headlines so so far, the threats of Vladimir Putin and what his administration are facing. We have thousands of police and troops there. How has this affected the planning for the coverage of the games . It has not affected planning. We have done nine games each. We have seen two olympics in their preparation, and there have been Security Fears. We remember Salt Lake City six months after the attacks of 9 11. We remember the aft athens games, which had a tremendous amount of Security Fears going in. Ofare always very aware potential security risks around the planning of any big event. The events of the last few months have essentially heightened Awareness Among those here. Planning, in very close coronation with the u. S. Government and the russian olympic planners, and of course the Russian Security planners leaves us very confident there is a very serious plan and a tremendous amount of resources deployed by the russians. You mentioned coordination with the russian government. Any restrictions been placed on you and your team . No. We are operating within the olympic precinct. The benefits of the way the sochi games are set up, with a coastal cluster with all the indoor venues aligned in one location, and the mountain cluster, where the outdoor venues are also aligned more or less in a single location as we are operating essentially in those two locations, very comfortable and both of them today, we have about 900 people on the ground there. Building out our production facilities. We are all quite confident given the level of security we are surrounded by. In terms of not having restrictions, we have had nothing but great cooperation from the folks running the sochi games led by dmitri and his team. We work very closely with them from the outset. Far from restriction, there has been a lot of association. Whatwrote a book, will makes a terrorist. Its part of the world has long had a history with conflict. Should people be more concerned about this than others . Risk, probably relatively high compared to other places where the windex had been held. Tend tors of terrorist be more political with political conflict and governmental oppression or a lack of civil liberties. You have got a mix at play. Isthe other hand, terrorism fortunately relatively rare still an hard to pull off especially when Security Forces are on alert. Sociale is also a question here about russias antigay laws. How is nbc planning to handle that . Have already seen it being covered aggressively buy all new out news outlets, leading up to the games. When we get to sochi and we begin, we will get that along with several other news issues that have come up heading into sochi. We will just have to see how the games go. Continues to be a story. If i might ask, how do you plan on covering that . Will you profile any athletes . We will simply talk about the issue. We hired the editor of the new york magazine, who will come on, and we talked to bob and matt about it. It will be more in that form as opposed to doing an extended profile. We will be transparent about the issues that have come up and then we will see it. That is really what olympics are about. Is always so fascinating, the story that uncovered all of the tremendous young people competing and it is an exciting thing overall to watch. Before we let you guys go, since youre both in the sports field, i have just got to ask, Warren Buffett is offering 1 billion for the perfect bracket. Are you putting money in . Not think so. I wish there was a way we could come up with an olympic bracket therein bracket. That would be great. 1 billion from Warren Buffett. Not bad. Absolutely. You think they should have what . Up with ast to come bracket with the social media they are using. I look forward to the Olympic Games. Thank you. The executive producer behind mbcs olympic coverage, and the president of nbc olympic broadcasts. Krueger as well. Thanks for staying with us. 26 past, alix steel is on the markets. We head toward the closing bell. Good afternoon. Steady as she goes. We take a look at stocks. We have the dow down a little bit less than before. Clawing its way back. Still down 1 10 of one percent. The s p is up and the nasdaq is up by half a percent. Support for the s p traders are really looking for 1840 and 1850. The s p is right around those two areas. A couple of individual movers we want to highlight. First, shares of the luxury retailer falling after its quarterly profit missed analyst estimates. For north American Stores for the worst in years. Economists shaking that off today. We are also watching welcome back. We are about 30 minutes from the closing bell. We are back here again with alan krueger, talking about something on everyones mind right now. Income inequality, something you have written about in length and something becoming more and more of a political hotbed issue. What is going on in the country and the world . Income inequality combines a whole bunch of things. Andave had stagnation decline in real incomes for middleclass families. A shrinking middle class. Havingome families are greater difficulty making it into middleclass. Economy,an hourglass with some on top, a lot on the bottom, and everybody in the middle is really getting squeezed. That is right. The middle is getting thinner and thinner. It is not healthy for the economy or our government or the economy. Why do we keep hearing the refrain that everything is Getting Better . Continuing to is recover. Long way to go until we are back to health, but we are in a stronger position than clutter years ago. The problems around clutter years ago or five years ago before the recession struck are still here. Strongero build a foundation to expand opportunities for the middle class. It is one of the criticisms for the feds policy. It is not helping to add more jobs to the economy. Limited tools to help in terms of jobs but it probably is because it is helping the housing market. Housing is continuing to improve. We have a structural problem. Roll something you need to back to the basics . With our team here this morning, it was said there is something that can and should be done and it boils down to education. Take a listen to this and lets get a reaction. Need to educate people that appeared when you have 25 of people Enter High School in many urban areas not completing a higher percentage wind up in our prison system. I think income inequality cannot be solved overnight. We commit to do it over a time, but education is probably key. It is part of the solution, a very important part. We have fairly widespread consensus that we should do more, particularly in preschool education. I do not think that will solve the whole problem. It was a book i wrote 20 years ago now at berkeley when we looked at the evidence on the minimum wage. Another part of the solution could be way raising minimum wage. It is at a historically low level. A lot of people say doing that would be a job killer. History has not done that. Growth andsee a big employment of young people and skill workers. The evidence suggests, and if you you look at the u. K. , it has not had an adverse effect as long as it is kept at a moderate level. What is very . Fair . Point, 10 or 12 an hour is not that much more ahead of the game. Ask a family making 70 and . 25 an hour how much it would help them if they got a raise. The government, i got with many of these families and they are barely scraping by at all. You really think we can fix the income inequality gap by raising the midway . The minimum wage . It can be part of the solution. It is lower now than when Ronald Reagan was in office. Several things. Education is part, an important part. That will take quite some time. Why are we seeing recovery but not jobs . We are seeing job growth. We headed over 2 million jobs. The Labor Participation rate has not bear that out. A lot of people throw out their hands and say, i give up and no one will hire me. If ive been out of work, no one will hire me. We have had a major challenge. We have seen the participation late rate decline. It is good they can afford to retire and we expect that to continue. As a nation, we need to focus how to help the longterm unemployed. It is clearly an issue. Lets dig in a little deeper. From education, use a minimum wage. I think it is open to debate. There are other things out there that could help nurture our economy, our middleclass. Part of it is manufacturing. We have seen a tremendous renaissance in the Manufacturing Sector with more and more jobs being added. If that continues, does that go well for our country . We lost 5 Million Manufacturing jobs in the last recovery. Manufacturing fell off the cliff. Do we need policies in place to bring the jobs home . First and foremost, we could support research and development. We have seen this working with natural gas. The shale gas is helping manufacturing. It is quite sensible to create manufacturing innovation. Very much aould be part of the manufacturing strategy. What is the role of unions . One of the reasons we have seen inequality rise in the thet is traditionally decline of monetization and some of it is a result of changing the laws and the uses of the laws where employers thought the fought the unions more strongly than in the past. Where is the market in all of this . Youre talking about unions and minimum wage. It seems like we have a lot of Government Intervention to try to create and support a better middleclass. Where does the market come into play . They are both important. All have been subject to technological change but the u. S. Has had a sharper rise in inequality. Some countries like canada have been able to lean against the forces through a combination of helping people get through education. I do not want to be canada. Coming up next, we will talk about women, one of my favorite subjects. And why it is they are all making seven cents . 70 per hour. We are talking about house of cards versus the real thing in washington. Welcome back. Were thought talking about and unemployment. Working moms. Women right now are still only earning . 70 . 77 on the dollar compared to men. It has been that way for a while. You ask yourself why. What is happening and why are women not doing better . I told mark earlier today the reality is, when you are in the prime of your career, you are having kids. I have three little ones at home. Youre having kids. It is challenging for me and every woman out there. Workforce needing to make decisions on a daily basis. You will never have to face. Why does the gender pay gap exists . The first law president obama signed when he became president was the fair pay act. What happened . Some of the wage gap that happened was a result of discrimination but a lot has to do with career choices. We are seeing more and more women going onto higher education, more so than men, and yet they go into the field at a lower rate. Look for ways to make the workplace more flexible so it can accommodate the workforce, such as more paid work like itzing has happened in the pharmacy industry. If corporations want to retain women and make sure they are conjuring part of their workforce, then these are programs they need to put into play. I will pay devils advocate and be the Small Business owner for a moment and say, what do i do if this employee says i can only work 20 hours instead of 40 . Is it really the companys responsibility to make up the difference . It is societys responsibility. It is also important in our countrys interest that we make full use of the resources. You will see more and more enlightened companies. Speaking of labor storage, there is an oped in the washington post. She said the president could issue an executive order that would ban federal contractors from retaliating against workers who asked about wage practices or say shared salary information. Would that be a good second step if there is some blockage in congress . Obliged toesident be sign executive orders . It is a competition legal issue, a funny thing getting to the point of where the market is. It is not something that exists on its own as a stock market. The market is messy. Preferences matter and the way you treat people matter. The late you treat stocks does not matter. Imperfect information that employees do not share information about their salaries or they will be retaliated against. Usually, the markets work better if people have perfect information. My point is there is range where companies have the flexibility to provide better benefits, better pay, more flexibility. And it is profitable for them. For themfascinating and challenging. We have got to do better than . 77 or dollar. Per dollar. We will be right back. Not a single vote cast in my name. We are just a few minutes away from netflix earnings. We will be watching those. Do you watch the show . I i have not but i feel like have seen 100 in clips. To theow close is this real thing . I enjoy watching the series and request the president says he watches it as well. The president watched them all in one long clip and he said in a meeting i was at, and he the it publicly, he said progress problem with congress is that there is no cabins ac. You are telling me you would take kevin spacey over the republicans . I would have to take i would have to give it serious thought. In the dayst like ahead . What is happening now as you get ready for that big speech. It is a watershed. Of a scramble. Nd how hard is it to keep it a secret . Agohere was a problem years , and it is much more silent. The process only probably a very few people know is that the president would appoint someone to coordinate the ideas. The president plays a very large role. Doesnt start three or four months out . Are about ideas continually. If they are good or big idea, they would not mind seeing it promoted in the state of the union address. There is a policy process. The process will look at different areas. With their come ideas. Timothy geithner always said to come with ideas and not convictions. You have had time to reflect. What is your greatest disappointment and your greatest , we have gotten that done, moment . Work was a privilege to for the president. End of thet the financial crisis. Just seeing it come to an end, the panic, and when the economy began to recover, although it is not far enough along, it was warning rewording. In some housing plans, which i think contributing contributed to the recovery, we could do more providing for stronger job growth earlier on, i wish we could have persuaded the congress to invest in infrastructure. It makes no sense with unemployment still high and a tremendous need in the u. S. , to improve our roads and bridges and airports. Investing now, helping to raise our productivity. In Infrastructure Bank. It seems like you could get consensus on that. And Infrastructure Bank was in the president posses budget repeatedly. It is an example where there is not the kind of will in congress to do what is in the interest of the country. A lot of private money is on the sidelines, which could help improve our infrastructure. It seems like a nobrainer but in the days of partisan warfare in washington, alan krueger worked in the white house, thank you so much. That hour went by fast. It did go by fast. A very interesting hour. From the limpets to the white house. We have got it all down. Carl icahn is coming up next. Stay tuned for that. Tomorrow, the former white house Senior Adviser will be joining mark and me right here on this set. Happening at 3 00 p. M. The closing bell is next. Welcome back to the show. We are heading into the close of the trade. Investors are low watching the latest earnings. Earningsave a lot of coming forward. Ebay and netflix reporting minutes from now, right after the close. Lets get right to the top 10. Number 10 is apple, up half of one percent. Purchased 500he million worth of apple shares, freeing a total stake worse worth. On the phone today, he will join us momentarily to talk about his big bet on apple among other things. The thirdlargest out . Yes. He is putting his money where his mouth is. Teflon reports earnings. Beats the analyst estimate by about a penny. Jet,r revenue from its helicopter businesses, as well as industrial. Ibm, three percent and the biggest decline of the dow. Revenue fell for a seventh straight quarter. Ibms hardware business. Yes. Cannot blame him. Technologies up about one percent, and forth quarter earnings Beat Estimates thanks to a last minute deal with handoverostponing the of the aircraft. P eightkberry is percent. The smart phone maker plans to sell most of its real estate. Try is the latest move to to win back confidence. They have got to sell the property. Recontract. Number five, coaches down six percent after saying north american samestore sales fell 14 . Competition in probably the more luxury handbag segment, came in the Holiday Season that saw many retailers with promotions to draw weary shoppers. Theyre on a thin line. A lot of people have been deciding it is not. Market. Going down basically copycat on sales. I do not like their handbags. If you do not like their the style is not there. Way too many outlet stores. Every time i go to one, i see a coat very it feels like youre in an outlet store whenever. All right, number four, General Dynamics up four percent, climbing the most in nine months. Sales, and said it would step up sales repurchases. 11 . Projected to jump climbing nearly five percent after posting fourthquarter profit heard the secondlargest Eastern Railroad with more agricultural products. It is great looking. There is the horn. The New York Stock Exchange can wayne. Number 2 forecasting a deeper than expected drop in the fourth quarter. Like other chip makers, and d curved by a downturn in pc sales. People still buy those . You still have a pc at home, you dont have a pc at home . No. I remember when i got my laptop, i thought that thing was so hot. Sixve not used it in months. Number one, netflix. Rose to 33. 1ibers billion. Can they sustain that kind of growth . We will have those earnings come into you and just a couple of moments. And im supposed to say there is the closing bell it was. Here be markets mixed, the dow jones and s p trading higher, the nasdaq trading lower. The whole session, it was a boring session, if i can say so. The dow was down, then it closed flak virtually flat on the air, right . So goes theanuary, rest of the year. That is the concern. That is what they talk about. If they cant turn it around in the next week and a half. With that we have breaking news out of washington on the debt ceiling. Were going to go to peter cook. The debt ceiling will be happening probably sooner than or walln washington street would like. Jack lew is reaffirming what he said in december. Based on the treasurys analysis , the government will reach the debt ceiling. He originally warned in december either late february or early march and now he is reaffirming its. Reaffirming it it will be late february. We do notto say foresee any reasonable scenario in which the extraordinary measures would last for an extended period of time. Of time. The difference of is it is tax season. They have to anticipate that there would be the amount of cash on hand. This is significant, because the window of democrats and republicans to reach a deal is shrinking. You have the state of the union on the 28th. The house gop rich rates after retreat after that. According to jack lew, he is asking congress to take action preferably before february 7. Thank you for bringing that to us, peter cook. Etflix earnings simply revenues are better. Lets get the full details from julie. Manye key details how customers did they have total . The company added on a net basis. 3 million new customers still adding customers at a higher rate than analysts anticipated. Internationally, the additions came in at her than expected at 6 million. The First Quarter additions will be better than analysts were anticipating. It looks like netflix still has this advantage that a lot of investors and cynics have been questioning. How long is it going to be able to hold onto this kind of pace of growth when you have all those competitors out there . Some of reassuring to those skeptics as the shares are rising 14 right now. Basically, the Company Giving a little reassurance as to its offering more plans for the first time. For the first time it is offering a plan were more than one television in the house can run netflix. Wouldrrent lance plans be grandfathered in if it does change. American eagle sales have been struggling, and now its ceo of the company is out. Is in as thein interim ceo. The chairman is going to be the interim ceo. That, by the way, is effective immediately. More on this later. For now, back to you guys. Wow. Wow on netflix. Did you see the stock . 44 million subscribers. Thats a lot. And still growing in the u. S. As well. Right now, it is 378 point five. Thats a new alltime high for netflix. What a story. Reed hastings switch to the pricing wallace he and he has figured out how to bring it back. And it speaks again to the value of content. People want to go in and see what they want to see when they want to see it. When you think about it, its not that expensive to have netflix. Its less than the 200 bucks you are paying for cable. When you want to stream something faster on the internet, you may have to pay that with the new ruling on net neutrality. A very good point. If you want to access streaming tv, that might cost more now. That is pay for use. If you do not want to borrow it, youve got to pay for it. Good point. Very it could derail some of this. The more expensive it is to watch it we were talking about this the other day, right . Watching the cell phone videos online, versus going home and getting on your broadband connection, wireless connection, which is going to win out . The bottom line is this. If they raise prices, adults like us will pay whatever they want. The kids will not. They will steal their content. Theres more competition. There are competitors now. Amazon may be will potentially competitors. More competition. All right, there is the roundup. Joining us you did it right. You call them i dont know if i gave my full on the armored wolf, right . This is a good story. Listen to this. Tmobile is going to give you a free Checking Account. Is available to anyone with a tmobile phone number. You walk into a tmobile store, open your Checking Account. They give you a prepaid visa card. Eventually you get a debit card with your account number and name, and a sickly tmobile functions as your bank. At it does not have a savings account though or Premium Service poopooing you this . There are 40,000 atms that you can find on the network. That is something. You get killed with fees. I dont buy it. Listen, Business Insider wrote the story like it is a free Checking Account. Its not really a Checking Account. Pay peoplee tmobile if you want, but they are probably not going to, right . Comedy people do you know t still have land lines how many people do you know that still have land lines . Thank you. [laughter] why not have a Checking Account that is mobile . Why do that when you can have bitcoin . [laughter] a company in africa does this. 88 billion customers. And the third world mobile phones glad that you are here today. Theres an important story we are talking about. That is Mohamed Elerian stepping down. That was unexpected. That happened just yesterday. There is an internal memo circulated regarding this to pimco employees. In it, he says as of midmarch, i will remain member of the Aleris International executive committee. Basically he is not doing anything. He wrote that in a memo, but it doesnt mean anything. I mean, what you get from this as someone who works for bill gross . You said he was shocked, by the way. Bill gross is disappointed that he is stepping back. I think that he has been putting in 18 of 20 hours a day for at least six years. Limit. Gotten to his it is a tough job, right . Look at on markets. 40 million redemptions. Ofthats merely a function Interest Rates going up and pimco rotating into other products in total returns. Total returns going to be the benchmarks. Everything looks to be on target. Erians mohamed el killer work ethic, i can imagine after five years of no vacations you are right. Be watching for his next move for sure. Coming up next carl icahn. He will be joining us. We will find out how much his faith in apple is worth. Dont miss this one. We will be right back. Hey, look who is number one. Time for little insight and action. Poll is a new bloomberg that is out. Bloomberg went out and asked all our investors, what you think is happening in the world . Which economies are doing best question mark 71 of those is doingid the u. S. Better. The u. S. Head and shoulders above china, japan. Look at brazil. All the way down here. U. S. All about the what is curious is, we basically found the same thing from central bankers around the world this morning. Look at this. In the u. K. There are growth headwinds that again will persist for some time. In japan, they will continue which in ksy, you cannot remember is add another 671 billion worth of bonds this year. And in canada no sign of rebalancing towards exports and investments. It all points towards the u. S. Dollar. Here is the dollar for the last this. At look at really the past couple of months. The dollar trending up. No wonder. The u. S. Economy is improving. Look at the rest of the world, at least central banks. They are having problems. By the dollar. That is your play. Thanks, adam. We have news crossing here on ebay, first on earnings. Some that seems to be relating to carl icahn. Lets go to julie is usual to get the earnings news first. The analysts estimates beat by a penny here, but i do want to get to the hypotenuse. There is a proposal from carl off paypal. N this is something investors talked about around the margins that ebay before. Exactly what the statement says nominatedrl icahn has two of his employees to the word of directors a classic activist investor move and he is proposing for a spin off of the paypal business into a separate dump in the. Companies controlled why icahn acquired shares and derivative securities gives them a stake of about eight percent in the company. This is a small share, according ahn has in theicha company, but he is requesting that ebay spin off paypal. Paypal tends to be the most profitable portion of ebays business and a good chunk of it. Be passed offill to a committee to consider. All of this going on at the same time the company is announcing its five lien dollar buyback plan, 5 billion buyback plan. The revenue coming in a little bit better than estimates, or in line with estimates, we should say. The big news here. Fascinating. The idea is to spin off paypal here. Karl will be joining us. We will get some insight into this. Paypal is the business that has been growing. It is 45 of revenue. You can understand making the argument to set it to the side so it is the premium multiple it deserves. The question is, do you really want to do that . Because that is the business that matters right now. How much would ebay retain . And ebay shareholders . Well, he nominated two seats to the board. He is going to have the ability to throw a little weight around. We will get more details from mr. Icahn himself. He we joining us momentarily. We thought we were going to be talking about apple. Now we realize we have a lot more to talk about. We will take a quick break. When we come back, we will talk to the world squash champion. Not just over the past year, three of the last four years. Matthew mcmahon will be on set with us. All right, mcdonalds opens its books tomorrow. Hey have over 34,000 locations more golden arches worldwide means more catering to local taste. Mcdonaldsive products that we wish were sold here in the u. S. All right, moments ago, we got word that carl icahn head stake in ebay. He is pushing the company to spin off paypal. This comes on the heels of the news that he has a multimillion dollar stake and apple. We are thrilled to have him on the phone right now. I know we were delayed a little bit with this news coming out. You were not ask you were not kidding. What is your plan for ebay . What would you like to see happen with the paypal spin off . With trish, we think , we thinkophy we have shareholders should have a lot more to say on the big picture items like companies. This whole business of the eight ownership of management of the ownership of management, i think it is hurting the economy. I think shareholders should have more to say. The big picture, not micromanaging. We have done a lot of work on ebay. We believe without question, it is a nobrainer, paypal should be spun off. They are saying the break off for the, i cant speak board. You can speak for yourself with your 0. 8 stake. Why would ebay go for Something Like this . I will not venture to guess right now. When i think you say goes for you spin it off. Theres no reason they should be in ourr at this point, opinion. In fact, i think it would be held for a Management Team to be separate and they could go the wrong way. I think the multiple would go up traumatically, and also the health of the would go up dramatically, and also the health of the company would be better. If the right time for an acquisition. Is it in part the businesses are just so different . Well, they are different now. I really do not think i think ebay has its own management. I think they have a lot to do for themselves at this point. Even though earnings have gone up, it is certainly lagging behind their peers. So, i think be certain things done. Being that said, we are putting at this moment, we are going to put a slate to them. So, youre nominating two people to the board to try to push this idea that we should see the spin off of paypal. It does seem when you look at what the board has said, initially, they do not like the idea, its not the best opportunity for the company. At this is thecause crown jewel of ebay. This is the thing that everyone points to as the real opportunity for growth. Not the but that is issue for the owner. That is an issue you know, they are not bad people, but on theare not always side of the owners in many instances. Their agendas are somewhat different. The board likes to have a Bigger Company sometimes. I have that with my own boards were i control them. You have a difference of opinion. I do not think in this case they should be together, but obviously the board and management i mean, you are they are concerned about losing that. This is going to be an argument. We areday, i think seeing sort of a cyclical change. I think the boards are listening more to what shareholders say. What thee will see shareholders want here, and if they dont, so be it. It has been three or four years and they have not got anything done. Emember right off the back i fought for four years way back to get that done, and when it was done, the shares one up fourfold. Separating nabisco from the tobacco company. And it took four days. Look at time warner. They finally did what we said for four or five years. The largew shareholders and institutions want to see results, want to get more involved to some extent. You have the situation in this country where you have a lot of potential. You are bailed out somewhat with this market, but i dont think necessarilyis showing what is happening in the economy. It is time that they do not have an imperial board that decides what is good for everyone. Prices, itat stock is up more than 300 over the last five years. So, should investors when you look at that company, and i do not have it in front of me, but it has done much worse than its peers. Well, it has been flat for anyway andar sideways for the big runup. How do you convince management that you are right and that spinning off paypal is going to create the value mechanism . It, i way we look at dont know i think it will be difficult to convince management. But i think if you get the in the prefatory, i do think that has a large effect on the board. To51 of the shareholders vote went to see it happen, then perhaps the board will take notice. Iss would take notice of that. I think that is the way of it now. I think that is going to happen more and more. I hope it will happen in here. But again again, we think ebay is sort of a nobrainer. A growth area. S i dont think it has done as well as it should have in its own area, ebay it self. Obviously it has gone up. But look at the markets. Again, you could say there is such a thing as the rising tide the rising tide raises all boats, but you know, some boats more than others, obviously. How important is it to get the founder, who was the largest shareholder of ebay have you had any talks with him . How important is it to get him . I have had no talks with them. I have had no talks. He is an eight percent holder. I think im a little bit more than. 8 today. Idoes not necessarily dont think that is as important as the vote of the large shareholders, and we will see what happens there. We will see if we can convince them. In a prefatory is difficult to get. No question about it. But we intend to do it. Blackrock is the second biggest shareholder with five percent. Yourould you characterize relationship with blackrock and whether you can get them on board . Know, sometimes blackrock votes with us. Sometimes they dont. When they have voted with us, the proxy in all fights weve had in the last 5, 10 years, we have looked back. Look how well we have done with them. Tohave gone from motorola morris. Up 66 . It took a long time. Board see have the the stock go up 50 . Most look at chesapeake. I think what we say is this. The fact that boards, you know, boards shouldnt be tampered with with management dashboards managementbe with boards should not be tampered with by owners, i dont think that that necessarily holds. And we proved it. At the risk of being immodest, i have said it many times. Ieb is up 25 and i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are activists. It is ain this case, good example. Now, its a big company. Do not have that much influence. So, we have to go to the shareholders. Hopefully they will be speaking about it. You have taken some big stakes in a lot of Tech Companies recently. This comes on the heels of apple. You tweeted today you up to your state in apple. Why the focus on technology right now . Think apple is a value situation. As is ebay frankly. You are looking at low multiples. A techt that its company. They have such a huge circular growth pattern. Apple is just growing. They really are in a great spot if you look at apple. They really have a great ecosystem. A business that is growing. The ipad or the iphone they are growing at a 50 volume year overyear. These guys have 25 of the smartphone business. And apple has kept its margins. In fact, has probably increased it. So, apple there is nothing wrong with the management of apple. I cant necessarily say that about ebay, but i will say it about apple. Plain wrongboard is in not taking advantage of an under value situation at apple and using that capital to help the small shareholder. It sounds little funny and maybe it, but im at almost talking gives myself when i talk about apple. It is almost ludicrous to me that they do not use a lot of their money to keep buying up stock. Are not ins like you favor of you are coming out in favor of tim cook . Ebay, maybent of no . I think that is a good way to sum it up. I think tim cook is doing a great job there. I think ebay, we need to look at it more. At i just say they certainly do not have the record. You look at the last five years. Going up,earnings are but the fact is last year they have been flat. They talked today about earnings. I did not really get to hear, because you were calling me and there was another situation over here. [laughter] i do not think their regard is all that great. , coming out today, urging ebay to spin off paypal. We will watch this very carefully to ridley will watch you on twitter. Upping your stake in apple. We thank you for joining us. Ok. He makes news. Yes. Yes. Coming up, we will talk about netflix. You can make some money there as well. We will talk about earnings. He and his partner david have a derivative stake. We will talk about that. All right, time for the big story. Netflix reporting earnings. We have all angles covered with our panel. Bloomberg senior west coast correspondent. And these are some big numbers. Subscribers. People were looking for about 31 million. Are you surprised question mark are you surprised . Gamed thet they estimates. But either way, its all outperforming. Fine on the top line, but thats it. Youve got people signing up. You have that price on top of your cable bill. Eight bucks a month. Its easy to turn off. Thats the other thing. You can turn it off, go back on. When you want to. There are is flexibility which is appealing to consumers. All kinds of flexibility. We have the stock up almost 18 . We had anman, interesting point earlier. The pricing will become more expensive over time. How might that affect a company like netflix . Is the discussion around something called net neutrality. Netflix is going to continue to fight that. They talk about that in their shareholder letter today. I think the more important shareholder story is what admin was just talking about, the fact that netflix it self is testing different pricing tiers. Obviously netflix has a lot of members. At there is the concern around the number of users. Is that people might share an account. They have been testing different racing tears to potentially generate more tested toferent pricing tiers potentially generate more revenue. Thats probably one of the reasons why netflix shares are red hot in afterhours. Withn, just staying trishs point, and that is if more people stream on mobile, that gets expensive. What if netflix has to start 8. 99 a month, 9. 99 a month . Cable. Till cheaper than exactly. The key metric in subscriber growth. When people get worried about the stock is up 18 now, in the letter they say next year we will invest in content in a Major International expansion. I dont think that is in consensus estimates for the margin for next year. That is what happened the last time they did this. Time netflix makes a change like that, the stock is very volatile, but at the end of the day, if that success is what theyve had in the past in expanding subscribers, it wont matter. We setone of the reasons the sidelines back in october. It was hard to, say, well, there is some risk coming up. If we saw a pullback like that during an international expansion, i think i would be more excited about the story. The company has been resized in the past about not being aggressive enough. Every time it has a new. Xclusive deal, that is content everybody is always worried about instance, the window for disney. In star wars films coming up 2016 and 2017. That is something the competitors do not have. They can only do that because of the big checkbook. I think thats a good thing. You bring up the content issue. It is expensive. Thats why i bring it up. Are they doing that to create their own . That is the other thing. There is some content, house of getting the awards and nominations. They technically do not own the content. They are just paying for the first stream rights. You may see that idvd later. They are paying a lot to not even earn it own it. That is a big liability for them. They are not technically owning the content themselves. International expansion is interesting because the expansion in europe, cable, that kind of infrastructure is not priced like it is in the u. S. , so its much easier to get a foothold. Available in the nordic countries. They will not anger those paytv channels like they would hear. Yes, we have to look at the content going forward. On theerlichman, you are ground in hollywood. We have the new house of cards coming out on february 14. Just in time for valentines day. What else do we have to look forward to . They are releasing a lot of documentaries. Right on the corner of the oscars, they are up for the best documentary for square. Thats another area where they invest heavily right now. At the end of the day, the story of netflix is proven when they add more subscribers. If they get 44 million members out of there First Quarter and continue internationally, they will continue to be the name everyone is talking about. We are going to have to leave it there, but certainly a very good day for netflix. Will be a good day tomorrow for shareholders. Thanks soh, it much, guys. All right, coming up we are talking to the three time world squash champion nick matthew. There he is. Knows what guest its like to be on top. He is the number one ranked squash player in the world. He has been number one for three years in a row. Nick matthew, very happy to have you here on street smart. Thank you. Whats it like to be World Champion three times . Its an just think. Im here in new york this week. Unfortunately, i was knocked out champions. Nament of another World Champion . He has won four times to my three. He just got the edge on the. Glass are now on the court. Sponsored by jpmorgan. Thats another part of the story. The was it like with sponsorship . I think with the venue, you see squash tournaments throughout the world with the glass court. Grand Central Station in new york, iconic venues. And sponsorship means you can actually make money. That helps. I mean, 20 years ago, you could not. Yes. Ive been working out as well. You have somebody to train you behind the scenes. Its good at your then playing these venues on that sort of stage. When i started. Im 33 now. Hopefully a couple more years. Yeah. Here is something i have to really salute you for. Street squash. You tickets from the innercity, give them tutors, teach them to play. You take kids from the inner city. Citys, we have squash programs all around the country actually. America really leads the world and getting underprivileged kids into sport. The kids are just so inspired. Weve only got 30 seconds. What do you tell these kids . To grand them to get central, be inspired. Hopefully one day they will be in a match for themselves. Thats great. What an inspiration. You are a pretty good squash player. Squash. Cant wait we will see you tomorrow. It is 56 past the hour which means Bloomberg Television is on the markets. Im su keenan. Lets get you caught up on the markets. Major indices ended the day makes, close to where they began the day. On the broader markets, there were more gainers that decliners. Miss ofunged on a analysts estimates. And we saw shares of ebay rally after activist investor carl icahn proposed a spinoff of paypal. Buffett has found a trusted advisor in an unlikely employee. 29yearold tracy. Who is this protege . Lets bring in our correspondent. Berkshire hathaway has a companies. On of she is officially the chairman of four units, including one in our backyard. Benjamin more is moore is a paint company a lot of people like. Laura colby and i spoke with buffett about her evolving role. Said that she thinks like he does and for that reason she trust him to be out there and oversee the sprawling Business Empire he has built. She was voted most likely to be a billionaire. Here are some who say that idea was not exactly the same as everyone elses. We spoke with some of her friends. They say that tracy is very interested in business. She has the kind of mind that can drill down and think about the things that matter to someone like Warren Buffett when he is overseeing a big business like he has. Had to fire three ceos and find replacements. She had to change three ceos Benjamin Moore had to change the ceo for a second time. It has not been entirely a slow smooth ride. But this is maybe a good thing for her to be going through these experiences. They will test her. They will make or potentially a more valuable person for berkshire longterm. They are a triumvirate, if you will. There are three similar individuals being tested by buffett. Buffett called them the ts. The other two are todd and ted. Both used to run hedge funds. These talk to buffett, are hires really leave berkshire or prepare berkshire for a succession in a really big way. What is the biggest take away here . You talk about the successor and how they can take it forward. Tracy has been in an operational oversight role. She has given a lot of information. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. For on the markets, im su keenan. Stay tuned for more. Forhis is taking stock wednesday, january 22, 2014. We will look at different forms of currency. Ebay and paypal, under the spotlight as billionaire investor carl icon says to split them a. A proposes that paypal get different management compensation structure. We bring you details. Plus, bitcoin comes to las vegas. And you will meet the gentleman who turns fake