Right now down there. That, crickets, the sound of nothing going on. It is a sad sight indeed. Three days and 11 hours from now we will be over the cliff. The hill does not seem like a behive of activity today, but a key meeting is set for today. In about two hours time at the white house the congressional leaders will be there with the president. Good afternoon, everybody. Im tyler mathisen, Michelle Carusocabrera is with us and eamonja javers is joining us. Mary. Tyler, weve been wait in see mode on wall street as investors react to any kind of signs or headlines that come out about possible progress on a deal, a mini deal is what traders are expecting now to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. Basically weve been held in about 100 point range from the dow. It is midpoint. As you might expect on the second to last trading day, volume is light. 1 billion shares changed hands. On average we get about 3. 2 billion every day. Take a look at the vix. Its a measure of fear. Yesterday popping above the 20 level. It is something we havent seen in five months. It is above that right now but, again, it has come off its highs of the day. We do have some movement in the transports today, this in the wake of the news of that port strike has been averted, at least for another 30 days. That was impacting some of the truckers because there was concerns they wouldnt have some inventory to truck around the country. Theyve turned around and transports actually having retreated yesterday. They did move into the green a little while ago. Also look at the consumer discretion nar ris because this is reflecting reaction to the news. Strike has been averted as well. Keep in mind there are a number of retailers in this group. There were concerns, of course, that a Retail Supply chain would be disrupted if we had a strike at the ports along the east coast and the gulf of the mexico. In the wake of it being averted for another 30 days weve seen some strength in home depot and lowes of course. Those stocks benefitting from days news on pending home sales which once again was very strong. The dow up 68 points. Michelle, back to you. All right, mary. Washington, the country wants to know are you going to rise above or are you going to throw us off the cliff . Another meeting set for the white house. Eamonjavers is at the white house. We could fix this on the back of an envelope. Thats not hard to imagine. Whats hard is getting washington agree to it. That sound that you hear is the sound of thousands of reporters trying to read the minds of five people, the four congressional leaders and the president of the United States who are going to be in that room at 3 00 this afternoon. A whole lot of mind reading going on. Not a whole lot of fact to work with. What i am told is if you want to understand where the president s brain is as he goes into this meeting today, youve got to look back at his remarks just after 5 00 p. M. On friday last week in which he laid out his vision for sort of a shorter term emergency kind of a deal. With that in mind, let me lay out what barack obama could propose in this meeting today if he lays something out. It would start with extending the tax cuts for those under 250, maybe 400 as some have said and up to 500,000. Unemployment extenders for those on unemployment who face that being turned off at the end of the year. A medicare doc fix as they call it and a turnoff of the sequester in exchange for some larger spending cuts tpd. That is the outline of what a small deal could look like. Guys, we dont have a whole lot of information on whats going to happen in that meeting. I should also mention that joe biden, the Vice President , will be in there. Of course, he led some of the early talks and they were all about trying to avoid this problem a year or more ago. Those got nowhere. The talks over the summer got nowhere and so far the talks that are going on now have gotten nowhere as well, michelle. Eamon, the last two things that you talked about, the doc fix for medicare, you dont cut what you pay doctors for medicare. Thats right. Turning off the sequester, theyre talking about spending more money. No talk anywhere in his plan about any kind of spending cuts. Yeah. Remember, im laying out sort of a potential plan that the president could offer. Youre right about those two items. Also take a look at whats not on there. What the president didnt mention on friday of last week is the debt ceiling. Now we have treasury secretary tim geithner reminding the country and the world that the United States is going to start to run up against the debt ceiling now on monday so that might have to be part of this ultimate deal as well. The president didnt mention it last week but the treasury secretary has certainly under the ante and the drama. Thank you, tyler. Eamon, thank you so much. Representative David Schwikert is a representative from arizona. He is opposed to any tax increases. Welcome back. Happy to be here. I hope what you heard what eamon reported there and apparently the outlines of what the president is calling for would be to extend the bush era tax cuts but not for people in the plus 250 or 500,000 level. Is that in any sense a deal that you could go along with under any circumstances . It really isnt. Once again, this is something i think thats important that the markets start to absorb is this sort of theater were engaged in. This may be our vision for 2013 because were going to have the debt ceiling, were going to have the issues within the obama care, dodd frank, nlrb issues that are coming up affecting the market. We have to deal with the reality. Its about spending. Its about the debt and when the president s proposal, original proposal would produce, what, about 80 billion next year . That would just cover the incremental increase in interest costs on our debt. Were avoiding the truth. Were avoiding the reality and thats why a lot of us are very cranky about some of the lets do a patch work, lets push it off into the future because were going to crash and burn under our own debt. If youre cranky, think about how the American Public feels right now, congressman. They are very cranky that you folks have not been able to make any seeming head way, either on the spending side, which i agree with you is the truly important one that we have to address. Exactly. Or on the tax side. But nobody seems to have moved this ball very far forward unless i and everybody else is missing a heck of a lot. On the spending side, what precise specific spending cuts would you like to see and could you buy into, any spending cuts of the defense establishment . Oh, sure. Hey, look, you guys are one of the good guys. Youve started to run the debt clock as well as the time clock so the American People are starting to understand how fat that 16. 3 trillion is just growing and growing and growing. The reality of it is if we dont deal with the explosion in entitlement costs, the baby boom is now retiring so what would you like to see done there specifically . Apparently theres no major fix on entitlements coming as any deal this weekend actually. Thats actually where my frustration is. We go through a month here of agony and every time i turn on my television the talk of the fiscal cliff but the thing thats actually driving us off the fiscal cliff is our debt and the explosion in the entitlements and yet thats the very thing we avoid dealing with. You ask about what we should do . Look, those on the republican side on the house have voted for the ryan budget and others which actually gave a vision of how to put Market Forces into entitlement spending. If you dont like the idea, give us another suggestion, but dont do what nancy pelosi has done where saying spending cuts are off the table. In that case were negotiating with ourselves again. Im sorry, we have to leave it there. Congressman, have a pleasant flight back across the country tomorrow evening. Its always a joy. All right. Lets hear from the other side. Representative Allyson Schwartz is a democrat from pennsylvania. Michelle, jump in. She sits on the ways and means and budget committees. Thanks so much for joining us, representative. You just heard that whole discussion. Why is it, madam, that the democrats seem so resistant to any kind of reform to entitlements . Well, actually, thats not true. As you certainly know, the president offered very, very straightforward spending cuts, over a trillion dollars hes already done. Another trillion, 1 or 2, that the president put on the table in his last offer. It included 400 billion in savings from medicare and 200 billion from savings in medicaid. Those are not easy, but the democrats have actually put medicare on a path to greater sustainability. You really believe that . Oh, absolutely. Were seeing it already. The kinds of well, you have to look at some of the cuts that we made in the insurance industry. We were making overpayments in the insurance industry. That should be invested in medicare directly and we did that. Of course the what about means testing . What about means testing for medicare . We thought youre very focused on raising taxes on the wealthy. If you want the wealthy to spend more, you could means test. You could say, you know what, if youre worth several million, your premiums should go up. If youre a billionaire, maybe you shouldnt have access to government financed health care at all. If the republicans tomorrow said to you, you know what, you can have all the tax increases you want. Well raise taxes on people who make 250,000 or more would you then be willing to do serious entitlement reform . Let me just say that in fact we do means test millionaires right now. There is a serious means testing. Not by much. A millionaire who gets medicare is nothing. It costs them nothing relative to their net worth, nothing. You know what, if the republicans would move, and they havent yet, you just heard it, no willingness on the part of the republicans to do anything. If they did, you would do what . We already put 600 billion on the table to get savings out of medicare medicaid. Those are entitlements. Thats pure cuts to spending that you claim are going to come from waste, fraud, abuse, etc. Or just from cutting certain programs. Youve got to decrease demand in some parts of medicare and a great way to do it is for people who have the money to spend their own money instead of spending young peoples money and working peoples money to pay for wealthy seniors retirement. Look, if you consider wealthy seniors over 85,000, thats the cutoff we have right now, they are means tested. Are there other possibilities . Potentially. Understand, if youre only talking about multimillionaires and youre saying we should never ask them for a little more in taxes. Pay 4 more on millionaires. Im not saying that. If the democrats said theyd raise taxes on everybody you want you know what, i love raising taxes. I think you put the question out there. We dont love raising taxes. The facts is, if youre serious about this debt, if youre serious about deficit reduction, we have to be able to both get some new revenue. Asking millionaires to pay a little bit more in marginal rates. We have to get serious about how were going to do spending cuts in the right way. Republicans have said department of defense shouldnt be on the table. We shouldnt demand more of the 50 seat accountability from across government. We are putting spending cuts on the table and investing for Economic Growth on the table. We need to stop having a discussion about who the bad guy is and start getting serious about getting this done. Good luck on sunday night. Were all looking forward to seeing what you guys get done on sunday night when youre back in session. Its good to have you on. We have a market flash. Michelle, want to take a check on the share of facebook today. Reversing some of the losses on reports that ichb stay gram had lost 25 of its users since it changed its service. The data came from a firm called app data. Doing a bit of a deeper dive saying that the drop in instagram daily users actually happened around christmas time. Thats when people are traveling, when theyre on vacation, when theyre not logging into facebook. They also note that we saw similar trends in Companies Like skype, pandora, and pinterest. So not necessarily seeing the decline coming from when instagram changed that policy. You can see there facebook is trending not over the flat line just yet but its a little higher than it was earlier at 2595. Jackie, thank you very much. Because we are in this position, the fiscal cliff imminent arrival, and weve been seeing it coming, a lot of people are scrambling to make plans assuming we go off the cliff. Hampton pearson is in washington with the ripple effect. Hampton. Thank you, tyler. This is a wealth version of lastminute christmas shopping. With two Business Days left to protect assets primarily from the tax consequences of going over the cliff. Tax planners say its been a banner year, especially for estate planning. Theres a big change coming with the gift tax. Right now theres a 5 million exemption and the tax rate is 55 . At midnight it drops to a million and the tax rate goes to 55 . The Capital Gains expected to rise from 15 to 20 . Theres a tax on raises over 200,000 a year. A future cap on charitable deductions and among those closely watching president obama and House Speaker john boehner for any kind of break through, millions of married couples facing a higher tax burden if we go over the cliff. The bush era tax law eliminated the marriage clause meaning that incomes of couples earning as little as 80,000 would be subject to taxation at the rate of the higher earning spouse. Now as far as their Wealth Preservation strategies, a nationwide survey done by Northern Trust found High Net Worth persons, more than 5 million in assets, are much more proactive in anticipating the tax consequences of going over the cliff than those with a Million Dollars or less in assets. That same survey had 44 of High Net Worth individuals saying their top priority for the country is Economic Growth and reducing unemployment versus 19 who are reducing the federal budget deficit. All right, hampton. Thank you very much. The finance. Yahoo. Com poll puts you in the shoes of a member of congress. How would you handle the fiscal cliff . Go vote finance. Yahoo. Com. The results are coming up. There you see your options. Michelle. Tyler, one of cnbcs best known traders making a very bold call. Get out of everything, everything, all cash. Get the take of other two other wall street trading pros in two minutes. See if they agree. Hi. Im steven yee. Im the operating partner of the exchange bar and grill. Im annoyed. Im annoyed with the fiscal cliff. Were looking at not knowing whats going to happen. We fall off this cliff and everyone gets affected. Theres no trickle down effect, its more like a slush. We will lose income. The question is how much income are we going to lose . If we fall off the cliff the fear is that we fall off the cliff, not slowly glide down the cliff. Government at this point needs to understand that we should be able to trust you to do the right things. Put politics aside. Think about us, the people. Thats why we have government. Fix it. This is 100,000. We asked total strangers to watch it for us. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Ill be right back. They didnt take a dime. How much in fees does your bank take to watch your money . If your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. We call him dr. J. Hes got a name. He made waves on the fast time money report because hes become an investor in nothing. For the first time in 31 years in the market i am completely out of everything. I see no reason to stick with this thing. No reason to get short either, but i think weve assured our self, judge, that were going to get very small deals done and we virtually assured ourselves of getting our dent downgraded. Matt is with virtual financial. Anthony is with grg. Do you agree with dr. J. . I would agree. Were starting to get sick and tired of whats going on down in washington. Were getting complacent about the fiscal cliff. People are for getting about just about everything. Why not get out, take a look and reevaluate. Are you saying everybody go to cash . You know what, obviously theres going to be a small mix of stocks, bonds, cash. You know what, why dont you keep your cash. What you could do for next year, maybe if we do get a selloff maybe you could find some great entry points in the beginning of next year. Anthony grisante, what do you think . Anthony . Its very prudent to do that right now. I think you see the volumes on the exchanges. I know in crude oil its about half of what it usually is. Bonds, the same thing. A lot of people are staying on the sidelines. I think you have to be ready for when a deal is done and ready to jump back into the markets. Heres the thing. I mean, when he says hes in nothing, hes not saying hes going short but anybody whos got a long portfolio and has to sell, its the equivalent of going short, right . Telling people to sell at this point is a pretty strong thing. I mean, are you willing to say that . No, i definitely dont want to say that. I understand your thinking there, that it definitely is being short. There are ways to protect yourself against that. If we go over the cliff, gold should do better. Maybe you want to be a little more in that. There are ways to protect yourself against that right now. You know what i think when i see three guys all at the same time saying dont buy, sell . Buy. Yeah, i get nervous. I think i should be doing just the opposite. You should. Matt, anthony, thanks so much. Dr. J. , very provocative thought for a discussion today. Much appreciated. Tyler. All right, michelle. Thank you very much. Christmas 2013 is now 361 days away. Too early for a countdown. We get you. Fine. It is not too early for something else. Jane wells live until sunny southern california. Jane. Hi, tyler. One of the best things about being in the malls, theres no more christmas music. Up next, weve been talking about returns. How many returns to retailers are fraudulent, and are you still getting hurt because someone you gave a gift to didnt like it. Get over it. Everyone else has. Well have that after the break. They have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. A smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. Letfor an idea. S a grand idea called america. The idea that if you work hard, if you have a dream, if you work with your neighbors. You can do most anything. This led to other ideas like liberty and rock n roll. To free markets, free enterprise, and free refills. It put a man on the moon and a phone in your pocket. Our countrys gone through a lot over the centuries and a half. But this idea isnt fragile. When times get tough, it rallies us as one. Every day, more people believe in the american idea and when they do, the dream comes true. Were grateful to be a part of it. Excuse me, sir im gonna have to ask you to power down your little word game. I think your friends will understand. Oh no, its actually my geico app. See . I just uh paid my bill. Did you really . From the plane . Yeah, i can manage my policy, get roadside assistance, pretty much access geico 24 7. Sounds a little too good to be true sir. Ill believe that when pigs fly. Ok, did she seriously just say that . Geico. Just click away with our free mobile app. [ male announcer ] this december, remember what starts with adding a friend. Could end with adding a close friend. The lexus december to remember sales event is on. This is the pursuit of perfection. Holiday shopping season has given way to holiday return season. Real headache and an expense for retailers. Jane wells keeping track on what didnt exactly make the grade this year and why returns are expected to be way up. She is in the valley. Mall heaven. Jane . Reporter that is right, tyler. Totally. I am at the Northridge Fashion Center where they just opened about 25 minutes ago. People are starting to get in here. Im starting to see some bags. Returns are expected to reach 63 billion this holiday according to Liquidity Services which manages those returns. The National Retail federation says about 5 of that, 2. 9 billion will be frad due lent, returns without a receipt. That sort of thing. 2. 9 billion. Youll be on santas naughty list. One in three will return something and 81 of us dont care if they return a gift. We dont get hurt. According to fedex what we hated the most wa that sweater. 45 of all items returned is clothing. Gadgets are ahead of apparel. And one thing to watch, i know of at least one person who returned some selfgifted items after christmas because it hit her that she spent too much and shes concerned about the economy. Rbcs Consumer Outlook index has turned pessimistic in december with 44 of consumers less confident about the future versus 40 last month. I dont know if we should be happy its still under half. A slight rise in people worried they might lose their jobs. 31 compared to 28 in november. Merry cliffmas, tyler. Facebooks ipo may have been one of the biggest stories in the ipo. There is a looming threat that could derail all the social players in the new year. We will tell you what it is and get you to the trading floors when power lunch comes back after this. Announcer if a budget is not agreed upon by Congress Americans in the top 1 will see a federal tax increase of over 7 . 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Because personal Service Starts with a real person. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. Our support teams are nearby, ready to help. Its no wonder so many investors are saying. [ all ] im with scottrade. Closing right now. Bertha coombs tracking the action at the market. Very quiet. Very low volumes. Gold edging lower as the dollar has edged higher. They say incentives to buy are postponed with so much uncertainty over the fiscal cliff and whats going to happen over the next couple of days. Gold is on track for its fifth straight weekly decline, but for the year its the 12th year of gains. So this is the first year since 2004 that weve seen gold under perform stocks. One of the big winners came under a lot of selling pressure as a lot of people try to get ahead of the fiscal cliff. Silver on track its fifth weekly straight decline. Copper backtoback gains this week. A little bit of hope that well see more demand for copper this year as chinas new government may do some more urbanization. If you take a look at the metals, those with industrial properties, particularly the precious metals, platinum a big winner, palladium a big winner, those used in catalytic converters. Thank you, bertha. The iranian navy holding Massive Drills in the strait of hormuz. This comes from Iranian State television. The exercises include fire ships, warships and hover craft as well. We dont see a lot of reaction from the oil markets. Wti is below 13 cents. Thats a premium that weve seen for now, gosh, nearly a year. Higher by 20 bucks relative to crude. 110 per barrel. Lets get trading action in terms of stocks. I dont know. Mary thompson joins me here on the floor of the nysc. Well, were going over the cliff, mary. Should we hold hands . Lets jump. Do you have a parachute . No, i dont. I dont. You know, a lot of traders think that a parachute is going to come in the form of a mini deal. So thats the feeling right now. I dont like anything mini, mary. I like the mini cars. Are hoping for. Ats what traders as a result, stocks continue to move lower, but theyre basically stuck in a waiting game in large part because they want to hear some news from this 3 00 meeting thats being held by the president with the congressional leaders today. Ahead of that weve seen little bit of reaction about any headlines coming out about possible deals being struck at this meeting, etc. The tone continues to be negative. Lets take a look at the s p 500 because it is down for the fifth straight session and on track for basically its fifth straight or worst week, i should say, in the last six along with the dow and the nasdaq. All three of the major indices expecting for the worst major decline. Sector checks, were seeing those return to the risk on trades being off. Energy and materials under pressure today along with technology and telecom. Consumer stocks though have actually turned a little bit higher on the news of that deal being struck that will avert the port strike for another 30 days and so what weve seen is retailers actually at the highs of the section, there was some concerns that there would be disruptions for the Retail Supply chain. That has reversed since that deal was announced right about 11 30 or so today. We also want to point out that the Home Builders are looking fairly strong. Also reversing earlier declines. That comes in the wake of novembers pending home sales which was another data point that showed the Housing Market had certainly been a bright spot in the economy this year. We should say, yeah, with all the doom and gloom, we can say this, that for the first time in many, many years housing prices actually declined. Since 2006 housing looks good. Autos also another bright spot. Yes. Very good auto sales. Expicksed to be the highest since 2007. Thank you, mary. Sure. Seema mody following it. The nasdaq is down for the fifth consecutive day. However, keep in mind tech stocks off of their lows were down six to seven points on the nasdaq. There are hopes that a mini deal will be put into place to prevent falling off the cliff as you were just discussing. Some tech stories to hit. Nokia shareholders are unhappy with the details of the patent details settlement with research in motion. Nokia is getting a settlement with rim. You can see research in motion higher and nokia lower. Another event is aside from selling its cloud unit but you can see both stocks moving higher. From seema to the bond market. Rick tracking the action. Have you got your fiscal cliff parachute ready, rick . You know, when it comes to the fixed income market, i dont think anybodys going to need a parachute. Youre right. I dont know if the credit markets are going to do a whole lot. There will be a response that will correlate, of course, with the moves in equities. Its about a range part of that is the hold em and fold em. The feds holding, its just that. We talk about a range. We have been in a range. It was really no different at the end of last year. Lets do a charge starting a couple months before the end of 2011 and youll see the left side of the chart and the right side of the chart are both in a range just 20 bases points different. No deal last year was 180 to 2 . For the last several plus months its been about 160 to 180. So really no difference. A lot of the volatility has been taken away for a variety of reasons. When it comes to foreign exchange, i cant say this enough. No matter what you put the yen against, the charts all look the same. Whether its the dollar en, the euro yen, the yaz zi yen, they all look the same. The moral of the story is theyre all going to be chasing after the export market in 2013. Look for a repeat of the 30s. Back to you, tyler. Wow. Thank you very much, i think. Rick santelli. Social media has had a huge footprint and influence this year, of course, but will that trend continue in 2013. Which companies will be the big winners. Managing partner with media tep capital partners. Porter, lets start with a New York Post headline. I love to read the New York Post. You cant live without the post. You cant live without the post. It says that instagram, which was bought by facebook for a billion earlier this year, has lost nearly 1 4 of its users because of privacy concerns. Two questions here, number one, was that instagram deal a good one for facebook and, number two, do you think privacy is going to be a bigger issue for social media come 2013 . Well, ill take the privacy issue first because that is already on the table with facebook and instagram. There were two class action suits last week launched in california against instagram for the breach of privacy, whether they announced that they were going to sell to advertisers the photographs that people posted on instagram. What were they thinking, porter . I mean, theyve tried to back from that and say, well, it wasnt what its being portrayed to be, but by any measure thats a bone headed move. Oh, absolutely. And Mark Zuckerbergs own sister, Randi Zuckerberg complained mightily and went public with her own complaint because some family photos that shed put on instagram suddenly went viral and were posted around the world. And they have rolled back that policy of selling photographs. They say theyre not going to do that, but privacy is going to be the really significant tech issue on the internet in 2013. It already is a big, big problem in europe. Google, amazon, apple are all under did your reese duress from the e. U. Operators. Who is most at risk . Im going to come down and put words in your mouth and say that you dont think the instagram deal was a good one for facebook. I think Mark Zuckerberg needs to go back under his hood on that one. Hes got a billion dollar boondoggle in instagram. He has not figured out how to monetize it. That was one of the drivers thinking he could get away with selling photos to the advertisers. Look, the big furor this week was the collapse of 25 of instagrams users. They only had 16 million users and they went down to 12. Thats less than 1 of yeah. Facebooks users. Netflix when they decided to go to a different pricing plan, they lost their users. Let me probe companies that you think will be winners and why in 2013. Take it away. First of all, i think we all have to focus on twitter, which has the big mo and is really, really getting traction right now with advertisers. The issue with trwitter, will they go public in 2013or at some point . I think you will see twitter as an ipo. The rest of the Internet Companies are all desperately trying to get to the year of viral and social media, thats 2013. You have google, netflix, amazon, yahoo. Everybody is jumping into the social media pool but theyre all trying to figure out a way to monetize it. The year of twitter, 2013. Ill tweet you if youll tweet me, porter. Im tylermathis im tylermathisen. Hes okay. Can any of this viral social media be effectively monetized without breaching privacy rules and regulations . All righty. Porter, have a good new year. Thank you. Same to you. Michelle . I will follow you on twitter, tyler, thank you. Thank you. Hard to imagine a worst way for politicians to be ending the year. Voters want action. Theyre giving excuses. Next year any reason to hope things will be better. First though, another direct message from our viewers to the hill. Im Ali Sheffield marker. Im the ceo and president of the Lighting Corporation in west haven, connecticut. We are being held up dramatically by the lack of decision making. What were finding is the uncertainty of the fiscal cliff is keeping people from making decisions where it hits our order flow. Well be forced with even more of aal of layoffs. Doing nothing is not an option. Help us get strong again right here in america. Announcer the bond report is sponsored by pimco. Your Global Investment authority. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. Executor of efficiency. You can spot an amateur from a mile away. While going shoeless and metalfree in seconds. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. You can even take a fullsize or above, and still pay the midsize price. Now this. Will work. [ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. Just like you. Go national. Go like a pro. Just like you. We replaced people with a machine. R, what . Customers didnt like it. So why do banks do it . Hello . Hello . if your bank doesnt let you talk to a real person 24 7, you need an ally. Hello . Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. [ male announcer ] this is karen and jeremiah. They dont know it yet, but theyre gonna fall in love, get married, have a couple of kids, [ children laughing ] move to the country, and live a long, happy life together where they almost never fight about money. [ dog barks ] because right after they get married, theyll find some retirement people who are paid on salary, not commission. Theyll get straightforward guidance and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isnt rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Welcome back to power lunch. If you were a member of congress what would your fiscal cliff solution be. 2 of you, 2 , said big tax hike. 31 said massive spending cuts. 58 said a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. 6 said do nothing. Blame the other party. 3 said stay quiet. Now lets see whats coming up on street signs. Mandy is down at the nysc. Hi there, ty. Were scaling numerous cliffs. We have the fiscal cliff, the milk cliff and the ranmar cliff. Stick around. Will 2013 be a do or die year for big box retailers. Which ones could be on the line. And its prediction 2013. Were going to give you three of our big predictions for next year. I brought along a friend. Top of the hour, folks, back to you on power lunch. Thank you, mandy. Back to our top story. Congressional leaders heading to the white house in just about 1. 5 hours in a lastminute meeting to try to avert the fiscal cliff. The debate on the hill has been downright discouraging. Republicans and democrats resorting to namecalling as the year comes to a close. This is what we can expect in 2013, more partisan bickering . Ill vote yes. Eamon javers is back with what may be ahead on the hill. Reporter 2013 is going to be the year that wall street lurns to love elizabeth warren. Since shes been appointed to the Senate BankingCommittee Says they think they can work with elizabeth warren. Part of the reason is shes going to sit all the way down here as one of the least senior members of the Senate Banking committee and also because they say they think that warren is going to want to take a much broader approach as a United States senator than just focusing on wall street or consumer issues. Immigration reform is coming here to capitol hill and the battle is going to be whats in the final bill, and particularly whats the path to citizenship forexisting undocumented workers here and the penalties for employers who have hired them. All of wall street will be watching a new relationship between key players at the House Financial Services committee. Gone is mr. Backer. Were going to have Jed Hensarling here. Over here with barney frank used to sit as a top democrat, instead were going to have Maxine Waters. They expect to see Maxine Waters and Jeb Hensarling trying to find om some area of agreement that they can work on a project together to get the relationship started off right. Eamon javers is here now. Maxine waters and Jed Hensarling working together. Well bring in manu raju. Manu, we spoke to you the other day. You think were going over the cliff if i recall correctly. Eamon, what do you think . Are we going over . Its increasingly likely that were going over. Senate majority leader harry reid thinks we are. Theres two problems, one is is that procedurally and process wise were running out of time practically to do something here depending on what comes out of this 3 00 meeting. Its the problem weve been facing for two years in washington, they dont agree on how to fix this thing. On very core principles. Youre right. Nobody wants to give up their longheld beliefs on this. Manu, i do this a lot. We have a democrat on and i say, listen, if you got everything you wanted. If they were willing to raise taxes on everybody in their mother that you wanted, would you do any kind of entitlement reform . Would you means test medicare for millions arsz and billionaires . The answer is no. I turn tow republicans. Listen, if they had an epiphany, representative ryan is right, we should turn medicare to a vou voucher system, would you raise taxes on anybody . Whats going to be different in the new year . It seems like were going over the cliff because nobody wants to budge. I think its going to be very unlikely that youll see much action in the new year. What were going o have to watch out for is the debt ceiling needs to be raised in the early part of next year. Its already going to be hit as soon as monday. The Treasury Department said its going to take extraordinary measures to keep the government from defaulting on its loans into the early part of next year. Thats going to be a big battle. Thats going to be the same battle over spending cuts and tax hikes that the two parties just cannot resolve. But ultimately in any tough negotiation each side has to throw the other some faith saving votes, right . Thats ultimately every deal throughout the history. World and yet neither one seems to want to do that at this point. I mean, is that just their bargaining position . Is it ultimately going to come to that ever . I think that right now the democrats feel they have a lot of leverage in this fight because become january 4th they havent gotten nothing done. I think republicans are worried whatever deal they would agree to right now would be a bad deal. Come in the next congress what were going to see is more democratic seats in the senate and the house. They think theyll have a better chance of getting what they want. John boehner is not going to roll over and do whatever they want. Were going to play this over and over and over again, not just on the debt ceiling but when Government Spending runs out. To mr. Haven, my sons great english teacher, they havent gotten anything done yet. Eamon. Thank you. Michelle, the london whale the big headlinen2012. Will the orlando whale make a big splash in 2013. Just imagine, you may be able to get a piece of shamu. The story next on power lunch. This cnbc program is sponsored by the lincoln wish list event. When you have diabetes. Your doctor will say get smart about your weight. Thats why theres glucerna hunger smart shakes. They have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. A smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. Take a look at your screen right now. Mother nature really dumping snow on our neighbors to the north. They generally handle snow pretty well up in canada, but this storm came as fast and furious tying up roads, airports from ottawa to northern quebec. Im so glad thats not us, tyler. Yeah. There was a little snow coming this weekend but nothing like that. Time for the power rundown. Michelle will stay with us. John carnie is here with us as well. Shamu, lets talk about big whales jumping into the ipo pool. A world of crill very happy. Blackstone acquired Seaworld Entertainment three years ago. Theyve filed to take the operator of seaworld and bush gardens a good time . Let me point out they will still have a controlling interest in this company. Theyre still selling just a small part of it. If you jump into the ipo youre swimming with the sharks. Michelle . I think theme parks are great. We own some, dont we, tyler . Yes, we do. Anything that bolsters whats going on in orlando is great. Whether you should buy it, im not quite so sure. I would have to take a look at the financials. Blackstone has done a great job with this company. It was a bad time. People were freaking out about parks and theyve turned it around. Its been profitable. Theyve turned it around and generally the theme park stocks, six flags, i think cedar fair is another one have done pretty well this year. Im always skeptical of buying in on an ipo. They usually dont work out all that well. New york citys mta releasing a subway app to track train arrival times on seven of the citys 24 lines. Right now only passengers with iphones or ipod touches can access the new app. Do you have any thoughts here . I tried it this morning. Its a little bit confusing. I hope it gets better. The mta is a bit of a messy situation. Lots of complaints about the costs, etc. Im not sure they should be spending their money on apps just yet. John, my question here is the thing doesnt even work down underground apparently. Youre going to need its great if im standing up on 53rd street. Who needs the to know whether a subway is coming when you havent been near the subway yet . I actually have to say that theres a lot of commercially available apps now that the mta should have used. I know these people, theyre my friends. The guys who run four square could have had the train conductors check in. It could work very easily. They didnt need to develop their own thing. Good idea. You could be the mayor of the d train, huh . Yes. Kate winslet has been offered a seat on Richard BransonsVirgin Galactic flight. Shes now going to be a member of the family. She married ned rock and roll. She also saved bransons mother in a fire down on Necker Island back a couple of years ago. Were happy for this couple, arent we, michelle . Yeah, absolutely. Im so jealous that she gets doing into space. I have always wanted to be the first reporter in space. It absolutely takes up the opportunity. That sounds good, john. How about you . Remember what ralph cram den used to say, to the moon, alice, to the moon. Thats a wedding gift nowadays. King of rock and roll, its important that Leonardo Dicaprio walked her down the aisle. Is she kate rock and roll . Good last name. Thanks, guys. Have a great new year. Next hour a new take on the death tax. That and more. Well be right back after this. I got mine in iraq, 2003. Usaa Auto Insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. Because it offers a superior level of protection, and because usaas commitment to serve the military, veterans and their families is without equal. Begin your legacy, get an Auto Insurance quote. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. [ rosa ] im rosa and i quit smoking with chantix. When the doctor told me that i could smoke for the first week. Im like. Yeah, ok. Little did i know that one week later i wasnt smoking. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. It reduces the urge to smoke. 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Weve decided to were all having such a great year in the gulf, put aside our rivalry. cause all our states are great. And now is when the gulf gets even better. The beaches and waters couldnt be more beautiful. Take a boat ride or just lay in the sun. Enjoy the wildlife and natural beauty. And dont forget our amazing seafood. So come to the gulf, youll have a great time. Especially in alabama. You mean mississippi. Thats florida. Say louisiana or theres no dessert. Brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. Markets are lower. The dow down 80 points. They have been lower than 100. S p 500 lower by 7 and nasdaq lower by 9. Tyler, its been fun to spend this last day before the fiscal cliff with you. Yeah. Dont go near any cliffs this weekend, michelle