Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Box 20130521

good morning, everyone. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm about becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. our team of cnbc reporters is spread out across the country covering all of today's top stories. we will have more on jpmorgan and jamie dimon from tampa in just a moment. plus, we will get to two hearings there and find out what is on the agenda there today. but we start this morning with what is likely muck the deadliest tornados in u.s. history. this twister, a mile wide at the base, stayed on the ground for nearly an hour today as it ripped across the oklahoma suburb city of moore. emergency teams continued to search for survivors overnight through miles of debris. jane wells is on the ground and she joins us with the latest. >> hi, becky. i'm at moore city hall where they're corralling the media and where they will brief us on the rescue efforts and recovery efforts. at least 20 children dead, more than 100 people injured in the hospital with what locals here are saying is the worst tornado they've ever seen. listen. >> well, when i was in the building, i could feel rumbling and everything and there was, like, a turned. it flipped off the door and i could see it with my own eyes. >> wow. >> after that, pretty much it threw bricks all over my body. >> it's a life-changing status. and i kind of -- i was in the tub and i woke up and she was underneath me and i thought she was dead because she wasn't moving or anything like that. i just took a deep breath and i said, i'm alive. >> i want you to take a look at this time lapsed video. it shows the tornado plowing across 22 miles over at least 40 minutes, reportedly a mile wide at times, classified by the weather service at at least an ef-4, the second most powerful with winds as strong as 200 miles per hour, maybe more. hard to believe looking at that it's only the second most powerful category. a state of emergency has been declared for at least five counties. the search through the plaza towers elementary school continues throughout the night. seven children were found drown there as kindergartners and third graders sheltered in hallways or bathrooms. the national guard has been called in to help as this massive job continues. the volunteer efforts are pouring in. the red cross is out here in force. walmart says it is sending in truckloads of water. lowes sells us it's sending in supplies. more cleanup supplies are on the way, including tarps, chainsaws and trash bags, shovels and rakes along with water, batteries and flashlights. and finally, look at this, the front page of the oklahoman with the headlines, worst than may 3rd, referring to what had been the worst ever tornado here in may 1999. 300-mile-per-hour winds then, 44 dead. guys, this tornado is deadlier. the question is, how much deadlier? we will update you throughout the day jane, thank you. again, that's jane wells who is in moore, oklahoma. we will check back with her later this morning, as well. >> we still -- we'll always have this sort of situation where we've got earnings to talk about now after -- even though we just saw something totally different. that's what we do, though. dow component home depot was out with quarterly numbers. first quarter werings came in at 83 cents, six cents above estimates. comp stores globally up 3.4%. it's raising its yearly earnings guidance to 352 and 337. although analysts are up to 354. the company says it's benefiting from that recovering housing market. >> among the other top stories we're following this morning, the big business story, the jpmorgan annual meeting in tampa. that's where kayla touchy is now and she has more on the fate of jamie dimon and his two titles. >> hey, andy. for the second year in a row, the meeting is taking place here at jpmorgan's tampa campus because florida is one of the places that the bank is still expanding. this year, the docket for shareholders is more unique. we have some proposals approving the auditor, approving executive compensation and re-electing the board. but the one unique and controversial one that we're talking about for a very long time is this nonbinding proposal to split the chairman and ceo role. that was proposed several months ago by a group of pension funds, four of them to be exact, to put this forward and has garnered a good bit of support in the intervening months. it's unclear if they have the majority to take the day here. look at jpmorgan stocks. dimon became both chairman and ceo in late 2006. the stock is up 9%. that compares to the overall s&p financials index down 45%. even amid that positive stock performance and positive company performance, that hasn't kept dimon from being the focus of a lot of regulatory fallout in the last year. to name just a few situations, of course, you have the london wales trading loss. occ downgrading the company's management rating and expecting distrust in management just last month with some issues over energy trading in california and also for the issues over consumer collections. now, there's have taken place in the last year. last year that proposal to split the role got 40% of the vote, not enough to need the votes, decision to actually do something there, but say a critical mass of shareholders and it's unclear at this point whether the events of the last 12 months will change that in a direction that's not positive for jpmorgan. andrew. >> kayla, thank you for that. we'll be checking in with you throughout the day to see what happens. joining the conversation now, camp fine and tim bush, the head of governance and pension development research in london. good morning to both of you gentlemen. let's get both sides here. cam, we'll start with you. if you could vote, which way are you voting? >> i'd vote that he keep both titles. i think he has earned it, he deserves it. i think you judge a ceo not on the crises themselves, because i was a ceo of a bank for 25 years and stuff happens. you should judge a ceo on how they handle those crises. and i think jamie dimon has done a good job of handling those crises. his stock shows it, his bank shows it and i think he deserves to hold both titles. >> is there an argument to be made that there's a principal here? it's about the governance at large, it's not about jamie dimon? a lot of this has become a referendum on him permanently, but maybe it shouldn't be. >> there might be something to that, but let's face it, these banks have become too big to manage. but that said, jamie dimon is the best class and just because you separate the chairman from the ceo fund doesn't mean you'll get better governance at the top. in some cases, it can muddle the decision-making process at the top. if it ain't broke, don't fix it. and i think morgan chase is doing a good job and their management is doing a good job. it doesn't mean i don't disagree with them. i dits agree with them all the time. but that doesn't mitigate the fact that i think jamie dimon has done a good job as both chairman and ceo. >> okay. tim busch, take the other side of this. >> yeah, hello. this is not a referendum on jamie dimon's performance on a ceo. this is where he holds the position of chairman and chief executive as a former speaker says. some of these banks are too large to manage and certainly one guy having both jobs creates difficulties. if you look at the broader board, we've had problems not only with the joint chairman/chief executive position but the independence of five of the other directors. our lead independent director who is supposed to safeguard shareholders rights, vis-a-vis the chairman, he's been there since 1987 and five of the directors have been there since the 1980s and through the 1990s. the u.s. president is only allowed to stand for eight years. we have had director who have been on the board for almost 30 years. >> but aren't all the decision makings very political? i thought shareholders want the profits to get better. the arguments you're making are sort of broad political statements as opposed to what's the right thing for the company. >> there's a political dynamic because it's made up of a group of people. the fact is, jamie dimon is a very good chairman, the more you could see concerned about his succession. that is a difficult object to manage when you have the chief executive as the chairman. and we have a lead independent director. i don't think this is helping things. he's now 75. he's been on the board since 1987. and i don't see that as a counterweight to an executive ceo chairman as jamie dimon is. >> longevity as a shareholder, i think you would want to see longevity. >> i agree with them. i agree with that, becky. in the community bank world, we take pride in the fact that our boards are made up of long-term directors that have a sense of the culture, a sense of operations, know the management, have a symbiotic relationship. sure, you need new blood from time to time. but there's nothing wrong with having long-term directors. i think that's a strength for the company, not a weakness. >> i'm not critical of long-term directors per se. i'm saying those that have been on the board for nine, ten years, it's difficult to see how they can be reported as independent. for this company, at least half the board are fitting into that category. the board has a very long tenure. >> are you unhappy with jpmorgan's performance? >> no. as i said earlier, this isn't a referendum on jamie dimon's performance as chief executive. this is a structural issue that has longer issues. this is more about looking forward than looking back. >> cam, you messaged me today we have bob kos on and you are the star of his book, cam. you know that. acts of congress. he he made it sound untoward, like you were a lobbyist, you got together with barney frank, you agreed to give barney frank your approval for dodd frank as long as the guys that you represent had a windfall of something of billions of dollars. what really happened there? you wanted to respond to that. can you explain exactly wa went on? >> well, number one, there were documented 2007 lobbyists working capitol hill. so i don't think that -- >> everybody is doing it? >> everybody was cutting deals right and left. and let me clear the record on something. my conversations with barney frank didn't have anything to do with icba supporting or not supporting dodd frank. it was confined to what kind of deal would we get since there was some kind of consumer agency, what could i do to help our members through that muddle? 2700 wall street lobbyists were doing the same thing on every other session of the bill. so it was a free for all in there. those were two potential years. everybody was doing what they could for the members they represent represented and i did the best i could. >> so you said it had nothing to do -- tell me again at the beginning. because the thrust of the part of the book was that it did have something to do with your bonk. >> we were fighting the change the fdic assessment formula because communities banks were hold ago disproposat share of the premium paid into the fund. >> there was no quid pro quo that you would that you would get for dodd frank if they would have changed the formula? >> there was no quid pro quo for neutrality or not neutrality on what became the dodd-frank act. remember, we're talking september '09. there were a dozen and a half different bills. there was not even a single reform bill at that point. there were a dozen 1/2 different financial bills working there way through the house. >> but you did get them to change that formula and you did not oppose what sthe didn't want you to oppose. >> we did not take a strong position against the inventorial cpfb. but overall on the bill, we did have serious concerns and we did protest on many, many provisions of that act. >> okay. we just -- the guy is trying to give us like this insight into what really goes on wind the scenes and i don't think anyone is that surprised and that's what you're supposed to do and i think lobbying is a right of every organization. >> lobbying is not a science, it's an art. >> maybe like a picasso. no, maybe one of the more realistic ones. >> joust to end this in the jamie note, tim, real quick, if jamie were to leave as a result of this, would you be satisfied? >> absolutely not. i'd be very surprised if he was to leave as a result of this. the bigger part of the job being the chief executive of this company sfot what's at stake. it's the separation of roles. and i'd be very, very surprised if he left as a result of this. it was 40% last year. and illustrate should be interesting to see the results. if you're just waking up, at least 51 people are dead as a result of tornados ripping through oklahoma. more tornados are possible throughout the states today. the latest from the weather channel, next. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that kind of focus... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that's what i have when i trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and the streetsmart edge trading platform from charles schwab... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...helps me keep an eye on what's really important to me. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 it's packed with tools that help me work my strategies, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 spot patterns and find opportunities more easily. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 then, when i'm ready... act decisively. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can even access it from the cloud and trade on any computer. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 with the exact same tools, the exact same way. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and the reality is, with schwab mobile, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can focus on trading anyplace, anytime... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...until i choose to focus on something else. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all this with no trade minimums. and only $8.95 a trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account with a $50,000 deposit, and get 6 months commission-free trades. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-866-516-0492 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and a trading specialist tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 will help you get started today. welcome back to "squawk box." a tornado has killed at least 51 people in oklahoma and at least 20 of those children. >> an incredibly sad situation taking place in southern portions of oklahoma. here is a bit of a recap of this storm system. late afternoon, here is the city of moore. there is a storm and you can clearly pick it out here on the radar. this right here is basically the tornado. what we're looking at is what we call a debris ball. it's basically looking at the debris. clearly seeing that as its kros over the interstate of i-35 and moving east and dispainting at that point. if the town of moore sounds familiar, it's because they've already been hit a couple of times. we'll take you back to 1999. right on through that path in the blue. then just four years later in 2003, this green light they got hit and on monday being hit by this devastating tornado. these have all been very deadly and destructive tornados to move right on through the city. so, again, it's a sad situation that's ongoing. right now as we look at the radar, there's oklahoma city. there's moore right now. showers trying to move on through. hopefully they can stay just to the south. the good news right now, they're staying below fever limits. but you know what? the recovery efforts ongoing, search and recovery efforts, we need no more wet weather to slide into the area. we'll be watching this closely. >> and joining us right now is the oklahoma congressman james langford. sir, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >> we know that there is a lot of chaos and a lot that is unknown at this point, but can you tell us a little bit more about what you know about the situation there? >> right now, we are watching the storms moving in, some of the rescuers having stepped back. there's lightning in some of those storms, as well. people were not allowed into that area last night and a lot of the people had been moved back. people are very attentive as to what is happening inside the elementary. we have 20 children unaccounted for. everyone has been moved away from the spot except for the rescuers that are immediately involved in it. we have a lift, just tons of concrete out of that site. >> obviously, you are aware of what happens in situations like this. this is an area that's very prone to tornados, but this seems like it's different than what we've seen in the past. >> it is, actually. in fact, we've had very few tornados this year. we typically have smaller tornados in the area that we're able to watch. the weather forecasting is excellent. the national weather service is located just a few miles south of moore. but this tornado is different. it's a very, very large tornado that's uniquely different than a lot of other tornados that we see. we see neighbors stepping out and helping neighbors. this is tougher because the neighbors next doorp were wiped out, as well. >> congressman, you're in washington and the question becomes what can washington do for the area and what is it doing immediately? >> yesterday morning i was in shawnee, oklahoma. this is our secretary day of the storm series. i was walking through that area in my district. moore is a couple miles south of my district where tom cole represents. the federal weather service is already involved. the president has declared this as a major disaster area that will give actually individual assistance as well as public assistance, try to help the city of moore and the state of oklahoma with road clearing, reconstruction in some of the areas. st state will pick up the lion's share, the responsibility and insurance company. but there is assistance that's already coming. some of that up front money if someone has that insurance coming, fema will provide the monies up front. this will be neighbors helping neighbors in the hall. >> we are still trying to assess the human toll of all of this, but at the same time, we are looking at damage estimates topping $2 billion. >> i couldn't even begin to guess on it. the 1999 torna$1999 tornado was. this is a wider path, obviously, than what we had at that time. we'll see what the estimates are at that point. >> congressman lankford, thank you very much for joining thus morning. we know you have a lot to do with everything happening in your district. we appreciate your time today. >> thank you. still ahead, we'll head back to oklahoma for the latest on the recovery efforts there. first, we'll talk about the washington stories of the morning, including two key hearings both having to do with taxes. we'll walk the newsmaker of the hour, glenn hubbard when "squawk box" comes right back. 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choice. it's either take cover or die. >> it got louder and the next thing you know, you see the latch coming undone. we couldn't reach for it and it ripped over the door and just glass and debris started spraying. >> you could hear it and feel your ears pop out. you could feel the rumble and you could feel the debris hitting a wall. we could hear every bit of it. it was scary. >> the mile-wide twister at its base stayed on the ground for nearly an hour yesterday as it ripped across the oklahoma city suburb of moore. emergency teams continued to search for survivors overnight. now forecasters are warning that more large and devastating tornados are possible today. includes dallas and ft. worth, austin, san antonio, shreveport, ar can na and little rock. we'll continue to monitor and bring you updates from the ground throughout the morning. if you want to help, here is the information from the red cross. text red cross or call 1-800-red-cross. and in washington news this morning, apple's ceo tim cook is going to be testifying before a senate subcommittee today on offshore taxes. he's expected to propose tax changes that that would encourage firms to bring home more offshore funds. yesterday, a senate investigation said he found apple's employees a group of affiliated companies outside the united states to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. the strategies are all legal. apple denies using tax gimmicks. also on capitol hill today, the senate finance committee will hold a hearing into why the irs targeted special groups. the ap reports that a treasury officials says the department told the white house twice the irs was preparing to make public its targeting of conservative groups. the treasury reportly told the white house in april about a speech in which the irs commissioner would make a public apology. steven miller was expected to be asked about this issue during congressional testimony. why don't we get a look at the markets this morning. yesterday, the markets ended at about the lows of the session. it was a drop of less than 20 points for the dow and a drop of about 1 points for the s&p 500. this morning, the dow looks like it's indicated higher by about 13 points. the s&p futures and the nasdaq are indicated slightly lower. in europe, if you look at the early trade right now, you'll see some barely budging moves in one direction or the other. the cac and the dax are slightly lower. in asia overnight, you did see the nikkei ending slightly higher as the did the shanghai xotit with the hang seng off by about 0.5%. oil prices this morning are a little bit lower, down by about 40 cents. wti trooud crude trading at 96.31. the ten-year notoriety now is yielding 1.954%. the dollar, which has been a key story at this point, is indicated a little bit higher. it's up -- the euro is at 128.59. the dollar/yen at 102.76. and gold prices, examine finally turned around yesterday, are absolutely weaker this morning, down about $5.90. to $1,378.20 an ounce. joining us on set is dean hubbard, the former chairman of the council of economic advisers, a former romney 2012 presidential campaign adviser and coauthor of the new book "balance: the economics of great powers from ancient rome to modern america" by glenn hubbard and tim kane. i know you're all thinking, how nice, two people so diametrically opposed on every issue. different tim kane. >> yes. >> different than the tim kane that we all know so much that has an "i." >> that's right. >> and you removed an "i" so there would be no question. >> yes. >> we have in the past seen so much different parallels drawn between how great empires fallen, you know, there's been others, clench and all kinds of things, but in this case, you have things like ancient rome, you looked at i guess the mingh dynasty in china, the british empire, a lot of our fellow viewers don't like us saying that. but it's different than it was a couple years ago. what's the one thing that seems to be always happened here that faces us today? >> we started with us today. what is it about america that makes people think we're in decline. it is about a political system that hasn't caught up to economic reality. that we use the debt crisis as a great met for for it. and if you look back at great empires, they have all stumbled and politics don't keep up with economics. it's all about understretch. the story was to talk about overstretch and military adventure. that's not what carries great empires. and the good news is, america is not in decline. >> you do think of overstretch. you think rome couldn't possibly have -- they were so far and stretched so thin. it was the british empire. >> but you know why? in rome, it was trying to pull in from the expansion of roman citizenship, of trying to restrict trade more than they had in the past, the basing currency. in britain, look at the american revolution. there was a sense of not including other british, i.e. us and others around the world. so truly inwardness. >> you say enough barbarians at the gate. who said that first, andrew? it was not coined by teddy -- it was already out there. >> it was out there. >> it's internal. >> here is the lesson for us. if we stumble, it will be because our political system was not able to -- >> what about monopoly splits? >> right now, we have a system where the two political parties have a duopoly over the american discourse. the opt must number of policies is probably two in the type of electoral system we have. it's not necessarily these two. and the question is, what are the forces of competition? one of the reasons sympathy and i are more san gu in about citizens united than a lot of people is it unleashes competition in the political process. >> if you look at the understretch, is it a chicken and eggs scenario? are they doing this because they're overstretched over here and so they need to pull back? how do you -- >> no. it's usually one of two things, either misunderstanding economics. in imperial spain there's a view that's server or gold in wealth. wealth is imagination, entrepreneurship, it's a simple mistake. or it's rent seeking. so mingh china, the great outward expirations are pulled in because of a group of people want monies redistributed to themselves. this is an old story in politics and it's a future of u.s. debates today. >> so do you think of our problem as a misunderstanding or a rents issue? >> i think it's not a misunderstanding. one of the points that tim and i make in the book is the current u.s. problems not an economic problem. it's not that you couldn't ask ten economists to come here and give you diagnosis. you would essentially hear the same thing from all ten. it's a political process that finds it easier to make short-term budget changes that refuses to deal with the long-term problems in the country. until we change our political process to deal with that, we risk something. >> so that's the biggest threat facing our nation right now? >> that's the biggest threat. >> we have to change the political process to get there as opposed to suggest that our current structure will ever get us there. >> i don't think our current structure right now is suited for this. i think two things, one is more political competition, people with different ideas coming to bear. and what is changing the rules, the budget rules that force consideration of the entitlements. otherwise, we're not going to be able to defend the country, educate our children, do the research we want to do. it's just that important. >> i just -- you're saying two parties is the opt minimum one and i was -- that's what -- i was hoping you would say that because if we have six, you've got people on the far right banding with people on the far left and they basically have to vote again in six months. >> it's not partisanship that's the problem. america has always been part is an. it's the politicization. >> i know which one i'd like to get rid of, but which one would you like to get rid of? >> how do we get new ideas into political discourse. >> is that a good thing? >> yeah. i'm not a tea party person, but i think it's a good thing when every group brings new ideas to public -- >> to move that party, some would say it moved it much further in one direction than it should have been which caused the polarization that you're seeing. >> i don't think so. i think the polarization happened because we didn't have the response to the competitive political pressures. we had a period from the 70s with citizens united where all political contributions were effectively funneled to two monopoly parties. that is a problem in polarization and political discourse. the more competition we have in politics, the better. >> you can embrace this. a balanced approach, you balance -- who doesn't -- is there anyone that ever said they don't like balance? >> but you think the title -- >> it soes that we're not quite a challenge. >> we're not in balance, but we can be. the difference between this book and many treatment is we don't think decline is inevitable for america. we really can fix this and i think we will. >> you know, glenn, there was another theory which i read a couple of times. i don't remember who it was that said when you get to the point where a majority is on the receiving end of government, that the party that is the patron is going to be elected forever. and that's what causes the decline. and i hate to use your guy, 47%, but when we get to 50% or 51%, that's not going to away problem? well, with but the real problem is what we're doing with all this money. we have principal on entitlements and not on our future. and i think it's less a matter of who is getting the -- >> there's a whole continent that's mantra is based on that, based on entitlements, not opportunity and future innovation. >> this is the discussion we have to change. and neither party has been incredibly virtuous here. >> but i would say that the parties reflect what they have from their constituents. >> i don't think so. i don't think so. the polarization in the congress does not reflect the polarization of the american people. i think there's much more of a centrist approach to fixing these problems. we need rules and budgets that can -- >> but some americans say we're getting exactly what we're paying for. this is a short-term country, meaning we love to talk about how long-term we are, but ultimately this is an add nation and we can't make the long-term decision because the pain is too great on the short-term. >> except you're getting rid of what our children and grandchildren will pay for. this is where great empires has stumbled, but debasing themselves and not to borrow from your future. we have to change the rules. put changes and entitlements on the budget. if we had a genuine spending limit, a real rule, this would be effective. >> and there's other people that think that the american people have a right to vote and if they want these entitlements, this is what we're going to give them and we need to pay for them. >> but that's the point. suppose you had a rule that was like the company every year this would be on the budget and congress will have to raise taxes, cut something else or cut these -- >> but giving the details to the people isn't really what they want to hear. you can make a sale, glenn, that a big inefficient government is the best way to do it where you don't have to think about yourself that much, where everything you do you're kind of taken care of. if you were to design a utopia, i want to have to think about my future, i want someone to take care of me. >> that's not my vision of -- >> i know, but -- >> but you're rifg in the past. >> no, i'm not. i live in america today. >> i agree. i agree. but you can sell that idea of the big entity that takes care of everyone. and if they're smart, you get the smartest people in government controlling how everything works. it's pretty attractive, glenn, and life makes a lot of sense. >> the problem is, we can't afford that version of this country. we can project ourselves around the world and -- >> you're putting a lot on the individual. you're asking a lot. you're asking a lot of them. >> we can do this. that's the point. >> balance. >> that's in the book. >> yeah. we have to have balance. and fairness. and fairness. >> and fairness. >> definitely. >> glenn, thank you. >> my pleasure. thanks. still to come on squawk this morning, the ceo of european low cost carrier ryan air taxis to the squawk set. we will talk about everything from boeing to airbus. and later this morning, don't miss yahoo!'s ceo marissa mayer and tumblr's ceo david karp. that's coming up at 10:00 eastern. [ female announcer ] what if the next big thing, isn't a thing at all? it's lots of things. all waking up. ♪ becoming part of the global phenomenon we call the internet of everything. ♪ trees will talk to networks will talk to scientists about climate change. cars will talk to road sensors will talk to stoplights about traffic efficiency. the ambulance will talk to patient records will talk to doctors about saving lives. it's going to be amazing. and exciting. and maybe, most remarkably, not that far away. the next big thing? we're going to wake the world up. ♪ and watch, with eyes wide, as it gets to work. ♪ cisco. tomorrow starts here. welcome back, everyone. for viewers just waking up this morning, we want to bring you up po speed on the situation in oklahoma. a tornado killing at least 51 people, including 20 children, officials are warning that the death toll is certain to rise significantly and making the search efforts even more difficult. rescuers are walking through miles and miles of obliterated homes. they're listening for any voices maybe calling out from the wreckage. jane wells is on location and she's going to be joining us for more on oklahoma at the top of the hour. in the meantime, we're keeping an eye on what's happening in the markets. dow futures up by about 13 points. s&p 500 futures and the nasdaq futures are slightly lower. and we're watching shares of home depot and that could be why the dow is higher than the other components at this point. the dow hosting first quarter earnings of 83 cents a share. that was six cents better than they were expecting. the company says it's benefiting from a recovering housing market. coming up, we'll have the ceo of european low cost carrier ryan air. and later, no one knows the bottom line of a company better than its cfo. so we're gathering the financial leaders of five major u.s. businesses to give us the bottom like on the nation's economy, the cfos of ford, u.p.s., wells fargo, ubs, and t.d. ameritrade will join us in studio. bny mellon combines investment management & investment servicing, giving us unique insights which help us attract the industry's brightest minds who create powerful strategies for a country's investments which are used to build new schools to build more bright minds. invested in the world. bny mellon. 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[ static warbles ] ultra low cost airline ryanair. michael o'leary is here, the company ceo. he flew in on a carrier that shall remain nameless. you're in total disguise. nobody likes you, do they, in the airline business? >> passengers love me. competition, not so much. >> it's almost with ryanair you think it's too good to be true. give us details on your latest quarter. >> management. >> management is unbelievable. making money. traffic growing, expanding, buying more planes, expanding internationally. all of these things are happening. >> you're competing with all of europe. it's not hard to outgrow that love. >> could you do this in the u.s.? >> southwest already do it pretty successfully in the u.s.. it would be very difficult for us to come over and try to challenge southwest. but there's no need to. there's so much potential growth for us in europe. last month, we ordered another 175 aircraft from our friends on the boeing. they will deliver over the next five years. that will take us to over 100 million passengers a year. sas are cutting flights. iberia cutting flights. >> all 737s? >> yeah. >> so you don't have to mess around with maintenance. >> all the pilots fly every plane. it was the secret that southwest first invented. keep it simple. the biggest issue we face, which is the same issue europe faces is overregulation coming out of brussels and the crazy protectionism of these carrier airlines. europe is busy trying to reregulate. they are trying to design rules by which airports will compete against each other. so why not let the market decide. >> they think in brussels we have all these employees. you need to protect them. instead of letting the companies innovate they want to keep the status quo. >> absolutely. because it's the unions. the employees are powerful lobbyists. nobody represents consumers. >> they're similar to here. somehow we finally took on a lot of creative destruction. >> you still have a lot that are government owned. spain, a country where there is 50% youth unemployment. tourism creates entry-level jobs for kids. our first job was a bar, restaurant or hotel. and spain tras trebled the airport fees so they can privatize the airport monopoly. they wonder why 50% of kids in spain are unemployed. people are going to italy or greece. greece is a terrific country in which to do business at the moment. tourism is in the toilet. but the government is there trying to open up the airports. they are actively talking to us about getting visitors in there. >> it's safe to say greece learned the hard way. but they learned. >> it's the only way to learn. >> and the rest of europe has that ahead of it. >> there's a lot of opportunities in europe where good companies are doing good things. it's a great time in europe to get competitive. you see a lot of u.s. inward investment in ireland where wage rates have come down in recent years you get highly educated, bright, young kids. a lot easier to employ than five years ago when everybody wanted to be property developers. >> were they less a antagonistic before all the financial pressures hit. >> the original heart of the european market, you have free movement of labor. it morphed into this gorilla. they are trying to have a united foreign policy. brussels has three presidents for god's sake. who are you talking to? three presidents, two councils. >> our pilots, your staff, do they have more experience, less experience than some of the other airlines? >> actually more. because what we do is frequent flights to the same airports. and we also fly more often. by law, you can't fly more than 900 hours a year, 18 a week. so they build up a bank of experience very quickly, same routes. we have them home every night. nobody is running around in hotels, chasing each other, that stupid stuff. our guys will recruit guys and girls. within three to four years they will typically be captains. if you're stpeufrt officer you have to wait for the guy beside you you to die to get promoted. they're not growing. >> you are dealing with a prt of the world where economics hasn't been a tail wind. is it better? >> the great thing about recessions and the difficulties in europe is there's real opportunities there for good companies to grow strongly. if you're taking down your cost, increasing competitiveness. >> like david feherty. >> prettier and no facial hair. >> still to come, a lot more on what's going on in oklahoma and jpmorgan. and don powell will be joining us. 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made a retirement plan, they considered all her assets, even those held elsewhere, giving her the confidence to pursue all her goals. when you want a financial advisor who sees the whole picture, turn to us. wells fargo advisors. good morning, everyone. welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. the futures this morning have been mixed. keeping an eye on the markets. our main story, top story is what's happening in the city of moore, oklahoma. trying to recover after a massive tornado that was a mile wide. devastated a 30-mile stretch. jane? >> reporter: hi, becky. more than 9 million people are under the threat of continuing large and potentially devastating tornados today, according to the weather channel. mostly to the south and east of here. but here at least 51 dead. at least 20 of them children. as the work continued all through the night. the hope is that there are still survivors to be found in here. we are told there could be as many as two dozen children unaccounted for. presumably one elementary school that was flattened. the kindergarten through third grade sheltered in place with teachers and staff, according to our nbc affiliate which reports seven were found drowned at the school. the weather service said this is the second most powerful category of tornados with winds up to 200 miles per hour. but that could be reassessed higher. this is a time lapsed video you're looking at. one local called this a monster which tore up 22 miles over the better part of an hour. moore is used to tornados and mostly in may. while a major storm hit october 1998, may 3rd, 1999 was the big one. 300-mile-per-hour winds. 44 dead. one may 8th, 2003, may 10th, 2010, and now the deadliest. it is nearly to 100% capacity again. it has brought in mobile cell towers. at 10:00 a.m. eastern, the president will make a statement. there has been a state of emergency declared. it is hoped that will make it easier to get loans and federal resources to more. >> i know people have a lot of questions, people who aren't familiar with what happens to tornados like this. this is a situation where they are prepared. the school itself i believe had reinforced walls. some people wondered why they hadn't brought their children home. but a lot of times the school is the safest place to be, correct? >> what i have been told from experts, this is just one of those, if you weren't underground you weren't going to make it. it was just so big, so long and just so devastating that being in a closet or hallway wasn't really going to do it. >> and the details, again, they're searching through. it's very early days. officials expect the death toll will climb significantly. >> yes, they do. we don't know how high. many people are unaccounted for. the hope is they are still alive and can be rescued or they are someone else safe and have just not been found yet by their parents. >> jane, thank you. we will check back in with you soon. jane wells is on the ground in moore, oklahoma. let's get you caught up on this morning's corporate headlines. home depot reporting profit of 83 cents per share, six cents above estimates. and it raised its 2013 outlook for both profits and sales. it is benefiting from the improving housing market. jp more chan chase shareholders are meeting in tampa where they will vote to split jamie dimon's rules. we will hear in just hey moment. and apple's ceo tim cook has a date with congress to talk about tax strategies and to propose a significant overhaul of the tax code. it shows how apple legally avoided billions of dollars in taxes by keeping money overseas. we will talk more in the program. earnings out from best buy. 7 cents above estimates. revenues were short of consensus. comparables down 1.3%. he is unquestionably one of the most powerful bankers. today he will face a shareholder vote whether he should keep ceo and chairman roles. kayla, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, joe. behind me a steady stream of shareholders trickling into the tampa campus, one it has been busy expanding. even though the meeting doesn't start for three hours, they are here to air their grievances. they often become colorful even though the shareholders already voted. the last two weeks they have been distributing results to the proxy. so the company already knows the results of the vote. but they are still here to discuss some of their issues with the company. in the meantime, that proposal to split the chairman and ceo role. last year 40% of them voted in support of that. unclear whether that will tip the majority this year. we know that corporate america and some of the most well-known names have been speaking out in dimon's defense. >> i think jamie dimon is a world-class executive and has done a fabulous job at jpmorgan. >> you think he should maintain the chairman and ceo. >> i think it's fine, sure. >> you're on board not only as an outside observer but shareholder. >> right. >> what is important to note, we believe there is a role for a combination of chairman and ceo. >> if you searched, high, low, for how far much time you wanted to and you landed on jamie dimon. you would do anything to have him take care of your let's call it banking enterprise. >> those results will be read midday not only for the potential to split that role, that nonbinding proposal we should add, but some of the standard fare. we could also see some interesting tallies on the board reelection. a lot of fire. the risk committee specifically has come under in the last year. the board competition should be at stake. joining us now with thoughts on today's shareholder meeting is the former bank of america board member. he was the federal coordinator of the hurricane katrina recovery effort. and vice president don. i want to ask about jpmorgan. with your experience when it comes to emergency situations right now, can you tell us what you think about what's happening in oklahoma? it's still very early in the recovery efforts. obviously this is a pretty massive scene of destruction. >> it's tragic. these first responders are really heroes. these men and women go in, assess the situation, help those that have been injured, help those that have lost their homes. they are really heroes. the faith based, nonprofits are extraordinary in these type of events. they are not bound by rules. they are not bound by regulations. they just want to go in and help. they are really key to helping these people. >> we have seen the scenes from those on the ground doing anything and everything. >> don, your thoughts on jp morg morgan. in this case, which way would you lean? >> i think it's not important what i think. i think it's important what the shareholders think, and their elected representatives of the board of directors. they're the people that really have a vested interest in this thing. plus, i would say the performance of jpmorgan under the leadership of jp dimon is really extraordinary. their return on equity was 11%. and 1% on assets. so i think they've done a lot of right things under his leadership. having said that, i think it's also important that the heart of leadership is accountability. i think made some changes clearly in their risk management. i think they have acknowledged some of the mistakes and accepted that accountability. going forward it's really the shareholders's view that's important. >> dick, we're going to find out the vote later this afternoon, maybe noon today. what do you think the vote is going to be, first of all, and what do you think it should be? >> well, i think it's going to be 55/45 in favor of jamie dimon and i think it should be 75/25. he went into bank one when it was losing half a million dollars. jpmorgan merge, he was making half a billion a year. it made big bets on the dotcom era and he turns it into a company that makes more money than any other in the world except for three companies in the united states. the stock outperformed the bank stocks. he he doesn't lose money. he takes care of the government in the sense when there's a major crisis he stepped up on washington mutual, bear stearns. we're sitting around discussing some silly thing called corporate governance which no one has proven means anything. in other words, there's no evidence that if you have a split chairman and ceo that your company is going to do better than if one person has both positions. so it's hard to see what's going on here. >> in terms of how this works out, not today but a year or two or three from now, and the reason i ask, even if it's right and jamie dimon wins today, you have to imagine this drum beat for better or worse. probably worse. you have alreadied its worse. but it's going to keep going. what does that mean for jamie dimon and for what do you think it will do around this issue? >> i think there's going to be pretty dramatic changes on this board and the communications on the board and the management team. plus, i think you could probably see a change in the structure of what the lead director does. you might even sew a mission statement coming out of the company in the next six weeks, two months, in which the company recommits itself to its clients and shareholders. i think that, you know this, company has always been extraordinarily responsive. over the last, what is it, year, year and a half, you have lost eight top the people in that company. it's very responsive to what the market wants to what the government wants. this company is one of the very best the united states has ever seen. yet even on this program early this morning you had someone say it's too big to govern. what do they think this company could do in terms of the assisting the united states economy, giving people jobs, that it's not doing. it employs $260,000 people. it protects a trillion dollars in deposits. it does what we want it to do. and it makes money for its shareholders. why are we fooling around this way? it doesn't make sense. >> don, this is a nonbinding vote. if it is a close vote, what does the the company face at that point? >> i think the board of directors will reassess and look at what they want to do, if anything. i agree with dick. i think there is an expectation by the regulators and by the marketplace of board involvement. and i think that the bar is going to be raised as it relates to engagement of board of directors, especially in insured institutions. >> don, thank you very much for joining us on set. great to see you again. >> great to see. >> you dick, thank you. you have comments, questions, anything you see on "squawk", shoot us an e-mail or follow us on twitter. coming up next, we'll have the latest on the devastating week in the nation's midwest. more storms expected today. the latest on the impact of those storms when we return. ♪ ♪ here we are, me and you ♪ on the road ♪ and we know that it goes on and on ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of making memories and keeping promises. ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. ♪ ♪ oh, oh, all the way ♪ oh, oh >> a monstrous tornado at least a half mile wide roared through oklahoma city flattening entire neighborhoods with winds up to 200 miles per hour. 51 killed. officials say the death toll is expected to rise sharply. mary thompson has been living through all of this and joins us now. >> it is part of a severe weather system battering the midwest since last week. thunderstorms and tornados hammering a 1,000 mile is swath of the country from dallas to minneapolis with more severe weather forecast to come. the weather disrupting what's been a relatively benign period for insurance companies with few major catastrophes the last year. the scene changing now and will impact second quarter results. estimates coming in in the future. insurers, including state farm, to go into the area. our hearts go out to the people of moore, shawnee and surrounding areas. we have a large claim force in oklahoma in addition to our national catastrophe team members. as of late monday, the des moines register reporting over 1,000 claims were filed from texas, kansas, iowa. 50 tornados were reported in kansas, illinois, iowa, nebraska, oklahoma. it's been a stormy spring already. through march 6th of this year, 133 tornados touched down compared to 2012 a's total. that's for the full year. the insured damage from those twisters and thunderstorms totaled 14.9 billion. losses estimates at 27.7 billion. the national weather service says conditions right now are not unlike 2011 about tornados and thunderstorms caused 25 billion in losses. the total number of tornados during 2011 were almost 1700. so we could be in for a much more severe spring. >> mary, thank you very much. joining us now with early analysis of the damage, chuck watson, director of research and development. good morning, chuck. what are your estimates now? we have seen in the billions at this point. i haven't seen 2 billion yet. >> no. it is such an important element of this and it does impact a lot of people's lives. we are still trying to piece together what the tract and intensity was. early computer model estimates are 1.2 to 2 million. i would be surprised if it tops 2 billion. we get numb by the numbers numbers. you hear of katrina and sandy in the tens of billions. not too long ago a $2 billion hurricane would have been major news. so we're seeing some of these tornado outbreaks causing as much damage as hurricanes did not too many -- major hurbs not too many years ago. >> right. this one was late, chuck. the cold air stayed in the areas around oklahoma much later this season. and now that it's coming down, is it bigger because there was such a late start? >> yeah. severe weather is all about contrast. and when you have cooler, dryer air next to warmer, moist air. and the reason the midwest is such a hot spot for these things -- of course it's called tornado alley, you have the gulf of mexico acting as a heat pump. it sends the warm, moist arm through the midwest. where the air masses collide, that's what provides the energy for the storms. in a cooler spring when it's a faster transition, the atmosphere hates contrast. what's happening is if you have a slow spring where temperatures change and go from cool to warm. but in years like this where it's cooler late you have this imbalance that has to be addressed somehow. you are seeing where the dryer air masses are colliding with the warm, moist air. i was doing a flight here in the southeast and the humidity down here sky rocketed in the last few days. we haven't had severe weather but we had a lot of thunderstorms down here. and just seeing the moisture move from the gulf to the midwest, we're probably in for a few pretty tough weeks here. >> we appreciate it. thank you for your analysis this morning. and if you want to help, here's the information from the red cross. text redcross or call 1-800-red-cross. coming up, more on the shareholder vote today in tampa that could determine the future of jamie dimon's title. the director of capital strategy at the american federation of state and county municipal employees. that proposed the chairman/ceo split. time for today's aflac trivia question. oh, he's a fighter alright. since aflac is helping with his expenses while he can't work, he can focus on his recovery. he doesn't have to worry so much about his mortgage, groceries, or even gas bills. kick! kick... feel it! feel it! feel it! nice work! ♪ you got it! you got it! yes! aflac's gonna help take care of his expenses. and us...we're gonna get him back in fighting shape. ♪ [ male announcer ] see what's happening behind the scenes at ducktherapy.com. with the innovating and the transforming and the revolutionizing. it's enough to make you forget that you're flying five hundred miles an hour on a chair that just became a bed. you see, we're doing some changing of our own. ah, we can talk about it later. we're putting the wonder back into air travel, one innovation at a time. the new american is arriving. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. ♪ [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know who's coming. the carts keep everyone on the right track. the power tools introduce themselves. all the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. and the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing that's stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everyone goes home happy. now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. which flavor of ice cream was william dryer inspired to create after the stock market crash? the answer, rocky road. >> still to come on "squawk box", the latest on a deadly tornado that ripped through moore, oklahoma yesterday. the unsettled weather expected to continue today with a chance of severe storms. the latest and keep you posted throughout the morning. "squawk" returns right after this. welcome back to "squawk box", everyone. the former head of the irs will be testifying before congress today. he left the post after his five-year term expired in december. lawmakers want to know about the targeting of groups when they apply for tax-exempt status. the irs involved will be the site of protests today. tea party activists are gathering in fountain square. then marching to the nearby federal building that houses the irs offices. and late credit card fell in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to transunion. it notes the drop came in spite of the payroll tax hike and delayed refunds. >> not a very long walk either. it's a small town. we're expecting more today. this time it could be texas. alex joins us with more. >> good morning to you. we'll be watching very, very closely. this multisevere weather outbreak continuing. here's how it looks for us in moore. we have rain around. not what we want to see as search and rescue continue. a few storms develop to the south. you can see that with very heavy rain and a lot of lightning associated with that as well. as we zoom out, want to focus back to the west into parts of new mexico, texas panhandle. that's the next disturbance that could kick off showers and storms. the general path towards the south and east, working towards dallas. storms will develop, potentially southern portions of oklahoma, although we're thinking the severe threat will be south of there. from dallas, shreveport, little rock. look at the ra real estaeal est south texas to the great lakes. another day, andrew, we will be focusing very, very closely on the nasty storms. everyone needs to be prepared and know what they need to do when storms approach. >> thank you for that. we will come back to you, i'm sure, throughout the program. jpmorgan holding its annual shareholder meeting in tampa, florida. splitting the role between chairman and ceo. director of capital strategies. nearly 75,000 shares as of november last year. i should say her fund started the campaign to push for this split. good morning to you, lisa. >> good morning. >> here's the question of the morning. you have said repeatedly this is not a referendum on jamie dimon's leadership. and i will take you at face value there. if this vote ultimately, in practical terms hastens his departure from the firm, not tomorrow but the next year or two as a result, will youry think this campaign? >> no, we won't. we think this is about board leadership. it's not a referendum on his role as ceo. our members are counting on us to invest our retirement funds in a way that will will be there when they are ready to retire. we know this in the long run will be ready for shareholders. >> can you hold on? we have breaking news out of oklahoma. we will come back to you in a second. >> sure. the governor of oklahoma standing by. jane? >> hi, becky. i'm with governor mary fallon. what's the latest that you can tell us? >> we're still in the rescue and recovery stage right now. i have instructed everyone make sure first and foremost we are looking under every single piece of debris we find, all the homes and building, the rescue effort in the school itself and the various properties around to find anyone that might still be alive that may be injured. >> 51 is the death toll still, or is that rising? >> that's what i've heard so far. we have had so much going on. it's two miles wide, 20 miles long. tremendous amount of buildings, structures, homes. we're trying to get a head count right now with the health department. right now we're desperately trying to go through everything we can to look for anyone that might have survived this storm. >> what does it mean in terms of resources and money? >> we filed our disaster declaration early because we had tornados on sunday that cuffed a lot of destruction. we lost two lives that day. we had 16 counties that were affected that we filed a disaster declaration. we had another one county yesterday. so i think we're up to 17 total counties right now. the federal government and the president has approved our disaster declaration. that will allow us to get emergency help right away. we can make emergency purchases, get federal funds into these communities. this is a tremendous effort here because the debris field is so huge. we have had power out throughout other areas of the state. not only here, the water system was totally gone. we have a tremendous amount of people on the ground. i would guess there's probably been 1,000 people between law enforcement. i certainly called the national guard. immediately when i saw the tornado was hitting in this area. and a lot of resources with fire, police, various charities. there's a lot of resources needed here. >> any source of the economic impact beyond the human toll? >> it will be billions of dollars, i believe, because of the structures and the interruption of business. it will take a long time to get this all cleaned up, to rebuild the structures. we had five schools that were hit. the hospital was hit. a huge movie theater was hit. many different facilities and buildings. a bank was destroyed. all kinds of businesses. and certainly all the homes that were lost. >> there's still the threat today. do you have any resources left to prepare for today? >> we do have resources. and we actually brought in some resources from out of state yesterday. i had many governors calling me, which i greatly appreciate. governor perry set up search dogs. our main thing is right now we have a great command center. we're making sure we have the right team at the right place at the right time with the right equipment so they can do their jobs. >> where were you when the tornado hit? >> it was interesting. i left early yesterday morning to shawnee and carney, oklahoma to see the devastation in those areas and to visit with the families and the businesses and the fire and the police and first responders at those sites. i was just driving back into oklahoma city with our emergency management director. we were coming into oklahoma city about 1:00 and the tornado hit about 3:00. my emergency director said we need to get back to the city. we don't have any storms right now but we are seeing the clouds building and we think we're going to have a major catastrophe and we need to get back to the command center. we opened our operation center which we bring forth all the different agencies together. so we had it operational on sunday prior to the storms that hit. and so we got back to oklahoma city and i got in my office a little bit after 2:00 and was watching the storms. it got really black really quickly. when i was driving up to the capitol it was cloudy but nothing was happening as far as storms came. i would say it built up within 30 minutes. all of a sudden we could see on tv massive tornado that was coming in. i got a hold of my general and today i want you to get the national guard on stand-by because this is huge and started working with our local officials. >> oklahoma is no stranger to tornadoes. i'm sure you have seen a few. how does this compare? >> my guest is it's the biggest we have ever seen. it is certainly a long path. we have had many different touchdowns the the last couple of days. i'm very, very proud of the response of our people. you hear so many great stories of people who have come to help. our first responders are highly trained. we have been through a lot of disasters. they are the best when it comes to handling tragedies like this. and in oklahoma you won't find better people that will step up to help in a time of need. >> thanks for joining us. wish you the best of luck in recovery. guys, back to you. >> good luck out there. up next, senator john mccain called apple the most auto egregious offender in avoiding taxes. now ceo tim cook will get his chance to defend his company and propose an overhaul of the corporate tax code. and if it's legal, why do you need to change the code? >> plus, david walker with his reaction next. and a programming nice, marissa mayer and david karp will join carl today at 10:00 a.m. eastern. find out what yahoo!'s plan is for the social media website. the ocean gets warmer. the peruvian anchovy harvest suffers. it raises the price of fishmeal, cattle feed and beef. bny mellon turns insights like these into powerful investment strategies. for a university endowment. it funds a marine biologist... who studies the peruvian anchovy. invested in the world. bny mellon. nespresso. where there is an espresso to match my every mood. ♪ where just one touch creates the perfect coffee. where every cappuccino and latte is made at home. and where i can have exactly what i desire. ♪ nespresso. what else? ♪ je t'adore ♪ c'est aujourd'hui ♪ ♪ et toujours ♪ me amour ♪ how about me? [ male announcer ] here's to a life less routine. ♪ and it's un, deux, trois, quatre ♪ ♪ give me some more of that [ male announcer ] the more connected, athletic, seductive lexus rx. ♪ je t'adore, je t'adore, je t'adore ♪ ♪ ♪ s'il vous plait [ male announcer ] this is the pursuit of perfection. a monday, good morning. >> good morning, becky. apple created a new invention. essentially no shore corporate entities, corporate entities not tax residents of any country in the world. carl levin called that the holy grail of tax avoidance. look at what the subcommittee is arguing after an investigation into apple structure. they said apple entities not declared tax residents of any jurisdiction in the world. they were legally registered in ire land but they weren't tax residents there or here in the united states. one is apple operations international. it had net income of $30 billion from 2009 to 2012 but paid no corporate income taxes anywhere in the world from that period, 2009 to 2012. here's what apple says in response to these allegations. they say a lot $6 billion apple is likely the largest corporate income tax payer in the united states and apple does not use tax gimmicks. even the existence of this does not reduce u.s. tax liability for the company. senator john mccain came out yesterday with a number of senators and staffers and blasted apple. talk a listen. >> apple executives like to boast that their company is the highest corporate tax payer in the u.s. what they often leave out is the second part of the story, that apple is one of the largest corporate tax avoiders. it's unacceptable. and they're not the only ones. but they are the most auto egregious offender. >> tim cook will come to the hill to testify about this today. he will make arguments about changing u.s. tax law and said everything apple did was legal within the obscure tbgs system that the united states has right now. so it will be a tough day for apple. >> there haven't been any allegations of illegal activity with any of the senators? >> no. the committee staff yesterday said all this stuff they did was legal. they were creating these entities which had no employees, no offices in ireland legally. but under irish tax law they weren't irish but they were considered to be americans. so they weren't legal tax entities of any country in the world. that's something the subcommittee staff said they have never seen before. >> explain this, though. on one song you have the government saying they have created this stateless, almost homeless subsidiary if you will that's collecting no tax. on the other side apple is say, yes, that is true, except for the fact that it doesn't change our tax liability and we have been paying it anyway. who do you think is right? and are both sides overplaying their hands? >> i would have to be a more highly paid tax lawyer to decide who is right. they are saying this does not reduce their u.s. tax liability because it's an off-shore entity. therefore the existence doesn't reduce u.s. taxes. but having it in ireland and not as a registered tax resident in ireland what it may be doing is reducing their irish tax liability. >> there are profits being made outside the united states. >> that's right. >> so we shouldn't care if we're not paying spain. although spain could use it. tough day for apple. i don't know why it's not a tough day for washington. if it's legal, this is what a company is supposed to do. should be a tough day for washington because they can't get their act together and try to figure out,000 reform the tax code or do something with territori territorial. >> this is a bizarre entity that doesn't exist. >> if it's illegal, change the law. he's a senator. >> he has several proposals, as you can imagine, that would address this issue directly. the question is whether they want to wait for overall tax reform which may or may not be coming later in the year. and mccain and levin are suggesting let's go ahead and reform this right now. it's a loophole and should be stopped. joining us is david walker, tpour founder, president and ceo. this is a mess of a system. >> it is. the fact that use the word avoidance tells me it's not illegal. evasion is illegal. avoidance is not. we need to recognize the modern world. we need to go to a terrible form of taxation with minimum international tax. we need to be able to beef up enforcement because there are legitimate issues here. but it's the congress's job. the congress and the president need to get together to be able to reform our tax system, corporate, and to eventually be able to do it with regard to individual. most are not taxed as c corp.s. it's the multinationals we are dealing with. >> it seems like a situation that smacks of unfairness when you consider they wouldn't be paying taxes anywhere. i do understand this isn't a reason you go after the entire tax code. my guess is they are not the only example. >> they're absolutely not. it's one of the reasons you may want to think about moving to a streamlined broader based lower rate for corporations, as well as individuals. you want to go to territorial form of taxation to be able to deal with circumstances where you have tax havens. >> when i ask the question about who was right he didn't have an answer yet. you looked at me and -- >> i don't have all the facts. but you've got a situation where right now in the united states we tax on a worldwide basis. all right. however, you can defer taxation on certain profits that you earn overseas until you repatriot. defending on transfer pricing, brands, other intangibles, it's a very complicated system. >> they said it would be borrowing money rather than bringing it back from kwroeufr seas because of the tax situation. >> that's right. my guess is that probably even sent off more warning signals in washington. this is another reason they came after them. but there's argument after argument for why the the tax code should be reformed. >> if you look at doing corporate tax reform, we ought to maintain research and development. reasonable depreciatiodepreciat. so you not only eliminate double taxation but encourage boards of directors to invest for growth in jobs and district for growth in jobs. we have to modernize our tax system to recognize we're not an island, improve our competitiveness, generate more job opportunities. by the way, if you do those things, you generate more revenues. >> he said the jobs are going overseas. cisco is a great corporation. apple. just bashing them -- carl levin, he demagogues. >> mccain said the same thing. >> i know. demagogue and politician go hand in hand, right? do something about it. listen to this man. this man is a wonderful american here. you're not going to run for anything? >> well, you can serve the public without being an elected official. >> but you are when you come on here. instead of just -- the easiest thing and the knee jerk thing is to do what we're doing instead -- >> instead of addressing a larger problem. >> people love bashing corporations. then change it. make sure it's a win-win or everyone. >> i'm agreeing with you. >> you always say that but i don't feel it. >> i'm heading to the la-la land of the east, washington, d.c. >> thanks for coming on today. >> pleasure. >> when we come back, new york city controller john liu. and we have a special cnbc cfo council presentation. ups and many other companies will join us at 8:15 eastern to talk business and the global markets. 8:30, the cfos of ubs, td amer trade. ♪ [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ♪ [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. a look at stocks this morning. best buy recorded 32 cents per share. estimate was for 125 cents. what happened there, sorkin? why didn't you tell me at bought that. >> my mistake. >> revenue 9.3 million was a little bit below. something happened there greatly exaggerated. >> and medtronic, 2.20. sales growth in the companies endovascular structural heart units were particularly strong, which is another one i never, ever remember you saying medtronic was something to look at from 35. >> no. it was a real mistake. >> this is not what with he do. and we don't invest either. did you see where home depot was? >> doing really well. >> strongly on the numbers this morning. dow component. yeah. >> samsung did what? >> pop up stores. >> pop up stores and best buy. i don't know if that was the ultimate rope -- >> andrew doesn't think that's it. >> i think it might have helped a little bit. >> if home depot opens 79, that's an all time high. why. back to 115 billion in market cap. coming up, the latest on the devastating week in the midwest. more storms expected today. the latest on the impact of those storms when we return. plus comptroller john liu will be sounding off on jpmorgan. with the spark cash card from capital one... boris earns unlimited rewards for his small business. can i get the smith contract, please? thank you. that's three new paper shredders. 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[ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase every day. told you i'd get half. what's in your wallet? at bny mellon, our business is investments. told you i'd get half. managing them, moving them, making them work. we oversee 20% of the world's financial assets. and that gives us scale and insight no one else has. investment management combined with investment servicing. bringing the power of investments to people's lives. invested in the world. bny mellon. >> devastation in oklahoma. our jane wells is reporting live from one of the hardest hit areas. decision day for jp dimon shareholders whether to split the chairman/ceo roles. ceos report to "squawk box". a read on global business from the chief financial officers of ford, u.p.s., ubs, tb amer trade, as the third hour of "squawk box" starts right now. >> welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. first in business worldwide. we're going to get to new york city controller john liu in a minute. first, becky has more on our top story. >> oklahoma is still reeling from one of the deadly tornados in u.s. history. this is a twister that was a mile wide at its base. it stayed on the ground for an hour as it ripped across the suburb of moore. jane wells is on the ground and joins us with the latest. the biggest question remains what is happening with the human toll? >> reporter: well, becky, at this point the death toll still officially stands at 51. we just spoke with the governor live on "squawk box" a short time ago. she says she's trying to get updated numbers from the medical examiners. for the moment it is 51. at least 20 children dead. we have video shot just a short time ago, shot by our sister network telemundo in the predawn hours. you go around the town and you see it everywhere. we spoke a short time ago with two boys, an 11-year-old and 13-year-old who were at the plaza towers elementary school, which was flattened yesterday where at least seven children have been found dead, drowned and where they are still searching. they were with their mother brandy as they spoke to us a short time ago. we do not have that sound right now. both boys managed to survive, obviously. they were rushed into bathrooms. one of the young men -- young men. 11-year-old boy said the teacher saved his life, that she threw herself over many of them and they waited until it was over. they could see much of the school devastated and he knew some of the children who had yet to be found or accounted for. and the other boy, a 13-year-old, bobby, said that he was afraid most of all that he would never see his mother again. but he did. they are united. and brandy said their house is partially destroyed but some walls are still standing. and she has never been so happy to see her children as they did yesterday. again, the tornado threat still exists today, becky. more than 9 million people potentially at risk mostly south and east of here. back to you. >> we heard how storms there might disrupt some of the rescue mission that is taking place right now. those storms still moving through the area, has it made it more difficult to try to get things done there? >> in this particular area, no. we have had some rain this morning. but it's clear right now. this is the area where they will do most of their work. the governor was with us. she will take an aerial tour with fema and the national guard. she will be briefed by her cabinet members and the emergency -- first responders here. she will update us here later today. we will take a short trip after this and take a peek around and how far the police will let us get into what's going on. >> by the way, folks, if you would like to help with the recovery effort text redcross to 90999. that will allow you to give $10 or call directly 1-800-red-cross. in corporate headlines, we have earnings to tell you about. best buy reporting first quarter profit 32 cents a share, stripping out certain items, seven cents better than they were expecting. revenue fell short. electronics chain is in the midth of revamping, instituting a price matching program to prevent showrooming. they go look in the showroom and then buy online. home depot out with its earnings. 83 cents a share, six cents better than it was expecting. $19 billion, also above consensus. it is, by the way, raising guidance to $3.52 from $3.37. although that is shiitely below where the street is at 3.54. the company is benefitting from a recovering housing market. this is a dow component. this is why you have seen dow higher. up over 3.5%. this is a new high. >> all-time high. >> if it opens where it's been trading in the premarket. u.s. equity futures are indicated to open 20 points. s&p and nasdaq turned around, looking slightly positive after being negative through much of the morning. jpmorgan, as you know by now, is holding its annual shareholder morning in tampa, florida. biggest topic of discussion is splitting the role of chairman and ceo. john liu serves as trustee and investment adviser, which has roughly $550 million worth of jpm. just get right to it. if it ended up and went against jamie dimon he said, fine, i'm going to take my ball and go home. would that be worth it if he lost jamie dimon. >> let me be clear, this is not about jamie dimon or any particular person. we believe it is important to have independent board leadership. not just as jpmorgan chase but other firms as well. we believe when you have the chief executive officers, very important person in any company, but essentially an employee of the board, running the board itself just leads to an i resolvable inherent conflict of interest. >> what about a lead director. that works too. you can look at it on a case-by-case basis. if he leaves, would it be worth it to cut off your nose to spite your face to, you know, make it look good for corporate governance. would it be worth it if he left,. it's a simple question. yes or no? >> the chairperson still runs the board. and everybody reports to the board chair. so the lead director is not the board chairperson. if in fact, the they are acting as a board chair, the public should know about that. on the other hand, this isn't about jamie dimon. >> but, john, in practice, if he loses, whether you want to believe it or not, a no confidence vote on jamie dimon. whether he leaves tomorrow or a year or two, no question it ultimately will hasten his departure from the firm. is that something you're willing to live with? >> this was never a no confidence vote on the part of any individual person. the fact of the matter is, as you mentioned, jamie dimon is a super store chief executive officer who we believe would be an even better performer if he didn't have to run the board himself that he supposedly reports to. look at all-star baseball players. jamie has tremendous talent. but he wouldn't have extreme management themselves. the independent board leadership is absolutely essential. >> if they kept winning the world series you might. if the research at this point doesn't show there's a positive effect on companies that have the split positions in europe, what we have seen historically and the performance of some of the companies in england. it hasn't shown any rif performance. >> no. on the other hand, there are studies that show that there is some correlation. it's not necessarily exactive. obviously more studies are needed. forget the studies. talk about common sense here. >> why push this as far as you have? >> listen, all -- because the financial industry and corporate governance in general has become much more of a concern in the public realm in the last decade perhaps. and we have seen what happened with the financial industry meltdown a few years ago. the public is demanding a great deal -- >> john, in this particular case, who do you represent? who is your fiduciary responsibility to? is it the public at large, the tax payer who may not have a stake or the pension funds and therefore the share proeus of the company? >> it's the pension funds that we represent 700,000. >> you believe there's more value in the company if it is set up this way? >> absolutely. we're not talking quarterly or annual results. we're talking long-term shareholder value. it's on behalf of the 700,000 pensioners and retirees we have in the system and on behalf of new york city tax payers. >> john -- >> we are looking for enhanced long term shareholder value. >> should we expect you to pursue similar campaigns in every single publicly traded company that your pension funds have investments in. >> we do per sue this at many of the major forms. we think there are problems. if you look at this company, look, i don't doubt -- just in recent years there has been $16 billion, $16 billion of regulatory sanctions against jpmorgan chase. now, look, i agree with you that this company has performed better than many of its peers. who is to say they might not have performed better if there were stronger checks and balances in place. >> do you believe their chairman would have -- >> well, it's not just the chairman and it's not just this particular incident. there have been a series of incidents that have led to a series of regulatory sanctions. there are eight federal agencies looking at jpmorgan chase and have them under investigation. what we're saying is we're not talking about quarterly or annual results. we're talking long-term shareholder value. studies are not -- it just doesn't make common sense to say that somebody should run the board that he or she reports to. >> yeah. i don't know. that's the way it is in most companies, john. and if you have two people, there's nothing worse than having two people trying to run the same company, agreeing on things. it reminds me of washington. so we only have one president, john. i don't think we have a chairman that's looking over every move that the president makes. >> so do you suggest we don't needs any boards of directors? we should just have management? >> i'm suggesting it has done well. it's not a slam dunk that we need to split every company. >> maybe a lead director works very well. might work better than splitting them. >> it's not just that it looks good on paper. it makes great common sense. >> everybody has different common sense. >> a lot more common concern -- >> people that disagree with you must have no common sense, john. >> listen, in the interest of transparency, this is something that has been more of a concern in government as well as that important complex financial institutions like jpmorgan chase. look, jamie dimon has a huge amount of talent. who isn't to say he wouldn't be able to do that much better if he could focus as chief financial officer. >> maybe an inferior chairman would preclude him from doing things, make him do things that weren't in the best interest. >> you're suggesting we don't need boards of directors. >> i never said that. i said you can have a lead director. >> john, if you had a strong lead director or stronger lead director, are you happy with lee raymond, who is the lead director who ultimately i imagine would be the chairman? is that a fair outcome for you? >> this is not an attack against lee or against jamie or anybody. >> but isn't that what it is in extra pra? i understand the principal of it. >> i think jpmorgan chase has mounted a strong campaign. they have made it about the personalities involved. we have always talked about the fact that we do need stronger corporate governance. this is an issue that's becoming more and more in the public's eye. therefore our pensioners and in turn our tax payers. so look, again, the sanctions imposed by regulatory agencies. i think this is a cause for concern. it's only right we talk about these issues. now, whether or not the resolution passes today. >> the issue is that this decision is not going away. in the coming years, i believe this is an issue that will become more and more publicly discussed not just jpmorgan chase. >> many more corporations that still have the split title or the same title. chairman, ceo. a lot of people with no common sense. >> people want checks and balances. >> right. we appreciate your time today. thank you. >> thank you. coming up, we're going to get a live report from the jp shareholder meeting in tampa. next, global cfo council are joining us on the set, making their way to the table. when we return, we'll talk to the chief financial officers of ford and u.p.s. on the economy, the economy, their companies and much, much more. with fidelity's new options platform, we've completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies... to get a list of equity options... evaluate them with our p&l calculator... and execute faster with our more intuitive trade ticket. i'm greg stevens and i helped create fidelity's options platform. it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. we didn't have u-verse back in my day. you couldn't just... guys... there you are. you know you couldn't just pause a show in one room, then... where was i... you couldn't pause a show in one room then start playing it in another. and...i'm talking to myself... [ male announcer ] call to get u-verse tv for just $19 a month for 2 years with qualifying bundles. rethink possible. this morning we're joined on set by bob shanks from ford motor county and cfo at u.p.s. thank you both very much for being here. >> thank you. >> so you both have operations around the globe and a great idea about what's happening. we know there was a little bit of spring swoon. did that continue or did you see improvement? >> well, a little bit of a swoon. perhaps it was in response to the payroll tax rate. also, i think we're starting to see impact from the fiscal issues in washington. we still see growth about 2, 2.5%, towards the lower end. and global growth also of about the same amount. i think we're seeing growth in most areas of the world with the exception of europe actually. >> how about you, curt? >> similar story on our front. a big part of what's been driving u.p.s. is this whole direct to consumer e percent so it remains strong. increased wealth from housing and stock market. it's moving along pretty well. and asia, although not booming in the way it was a few years ago, is showing good stability. >> bob, you mentioned some of the things that had been happening in washington that tripped up things this time around. first of all, just some of the regulation that's gone on there. and what you mentioned with payroll taxes. what's the biggest issue do you think of facing the u.s. economy? >> well, i think the biggest issue is growth. we need to continue to grow the economy and grow jobs. ford is in the process of doing that. first quarter we were up 10%, 11% in terms of revenue and our wholesale sales. we have added about 3/4 of 12,000 jobs we said we would bring in by 2015. so we're most of the way there already. we're seeing a lot of pinned up demand in our part of the economy that's coming through in strong sales and benefiting through the housing recovery and also the energy boom as well. >> the housing recovery, we have talked with mike jackson who runs auto nation. he said you can quickly see it in sales of trucks. >> they're very highly correlated. what have you seen, say, the last two months. >> we have seen strong sales of our f series, light duty, super duty. double digit increases compared with a year ago period. traction prices are very strong. so we're struggling to keep up with demand. >> you two both joins your companies in 1977. kurt, you started as a driver? >> in college as a part-time job. finally turned into a career. >> the world has changed a lot in that period. so has u.p.s. what are the biggest issues you struggle with today and the places you're getting the most growth? >> well, clearly, you know, the big difference between the u.p.s. when i was a driver and the u.p.s. of today is the global footprint that we have. clearly trade has become global. in 1977, the vast majority of our customers thought about the u.s. only as a market. you know, one of the big priorities we have is helping u.s. businesses realize that 95% of the world's consumers are outside our borders. so it's a big issue as a business and one of the critical things they have got to do is to become more effective at exporting and to have only 1% of the businesses today actually ex par parte export. >> one of the issues we have been talking about is the tax policy and what it means for a company like apple. tim cook is talking about their tax structure. people say it's really a reason that you need to see the tax code overhaul. how would you two weigh in on in situation? what does it mean for your companies? >> both ford and u.p.s. pay a significant amount of taxes. i think, you know, a lot of rock throwing and accusations. ultimately the problem is the current code distorts business behavior. today with rates in the u.s. so high above the rest of the world it forces a distortion in behavior. you don't want your tax executive at every meeting you have. >> right. >> when the rates are so different it forces business toss think of these arcane structures. >> well, if you two are both paying above 30% you haven't been able to take advantage of some of the other things other companies have. >> we build where we sell. and so as a result most of our profits will be wherever we're building and selling the products. so particularly right now a lot of our profitability, in fact, all of it is coming from the u.s. so we're incurring that 30% to 35% tax rate. not so much on the cash side because we have a lot to work off. ultimately we'll have to pay it. >> doing it with lincoln, i think it's working. >> it's cool. >> it's a four door. >> yes. >> me and you can talk about this? >> we can talk about lincolns. >> not the town car with the station wagon. the coupe with a sunroof. >> because of that i studied the other lincolns. i like the way they look. >> there are no stick shifts, thank god. jeeps. >> jeep schmeep. stylistically things are happening. >> things are happening. >> g.m. too. >> customers are responding. our shares are growing. particularly on the coastal areas, which is where we under index. they are really responding to the new products. lincoln is off to an early start. >> it's hard to make lincoln cool again. >> but we will do that. just a bit of a journey. >> john, kurt, thank you for joining us. we'll tackle the banking sector with the chief financial officers of ubs, wells fargo and td ameritrade. they will join us on set 8:30 eastern. 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"squawk" will be right back. flying is old hat for business travelers. the act of soaring across an ocean in a three-hundred-ton rocket doesn't raise as much as an eyebrow for these veterans of the sky. however, seeing this little beauty over international waters is enough to bring a traveler to tears. we're putting the wonder back into air travel, one innovation at a time. the new american is arriving. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. welcome back, everyone. we are continue to go monitor the destruction in the midwest. a massive tornado has killed at least 51 people in oklahoma, including 20 children. that death toll is expected to rise very likely rise very considerably. earlier jane wells tpospoke to governor mary fallin. >> i have instructed everyone to make sure first and foremost that we are looking under every single piece of debris we find. all the homes, buildings. the rescue effort in the various property toss find nip that might still be alive that might be injured. >> the twister was a mile wide. it stayed on the ground for almost an hour yesterday as it ripped across the oklahoma city suburb of moore. more large and devastating tornado are possible in texas, arkansas and louisiana. we will continue to bring you the latest from the ground throughout the morning. by the the way, if you want to help, here is the information from the red cross. you can text redcross to 90999. that will donate $10. or call them directly at 1-800-red-cross. among the business stories we're following this morning, jamie dimon facing a share holder vote on whether or not he should keep both chairman and ceo roles. kayla, tauschy, it's nice in tampa, isn't it? not too bad joining us with the special guest. >> it's 88 but we are expecting thunderstorms later this afternoon. that's literal not figurative in this case. we will see how that nonbinding proposal to potentially split the chairman and ceo roles at jpmorgan chance pans out today. one of the most outspoken advocates. the public opinion seems to embrace dimon. sources say there is strong support but it likely won't be strong enough. what is your gut at this point? >> i think jpmorgan gets a strong message. they are likely to take actions on their own even if all the votes go in the direction of jpmorgan. >> i know there's been a lot of talk about restructuring, adding new board members, expertise and risk policy. what do you think needs to change if not splitting the roles? >> jpmorgan has not been shy about changing its own management team around. you know there's been many changes. why not be more aggressive with changing the risk oversight committee. maybe some come and some go. don't miss the forest for the frees. this is about shareholder rights. this is one step of many likely to happen in the next few years in terms of investors influences board composition, sometimes strategy and other actions. >> a lot of arrows have dealt with the company's performance. best in class stock, manager. the numbers speak for themselves. concerns rogegulatory issues. >> you saw that in the annual report. they say they're spending a lot of time on dealing with regulators. there's at least eight. as you pointed out, he has the largest under any ceo. the next seven years, are they going to resolve the regulatory issues? i think they will be more incentivized to do so. >> in the recent weeks you polled investors. when you asked what would happen, should dimon leave the company if the vote was to split the roles. they on average said stock would fall 10% or $20 billion. what is the best case scenario and what does that do for jpmorgan stock at this point? >> there's a bigger issue than the ceo chairman split. it's not clear that jamie dimon has someone to step in immediately. business as usual goes to the vote today. and jpmorgan takes aggressive actions on its own terms. >> there's some people who think this could expedite a potential succession plan because the tide that is starting to turn against dimon. do you think that's problematic for the company? >> i don't think jamie dimon is going anywhere any time soon. but can someone step in his shoes today? is the board a rubber stamp for jamie dimon or do they hold his feet to the fire? >> no doubt that will be a colorful q and a session. more from the meetings today. for now back to you guys at headquarters. >> all right. kayla, thanks. we continue to check in with you throughout the day. sorry about the weather. rain down there even though you're in tampa. we are continuing our global cfo council series with a focus on the financials. with us on set is cfo of td ameritrade and wells fargo timothy sloan. welcome, guys. we were talking about jamie dimon. two people on the set who have a split chairman and ceo. >> right. >> you and you. wells fargo did not. but it did at one point. >> i think the decision will become company specific. we had the roles split during a succession period between our current chairman and ceo. and when we put together wells fargo and wachovia it made sense to stay on as chairman. that made sense for wells fargo at the time. the decision really needs to be company specific. >> from a management perspective, living with a company that has two of these roles, do you see a distinction? do you see a difference? do you see debates going on? whether it's better or worse to have one person in charge or two people in charge. >> i completely agree. it is company specific. for us we think the corporate governance is slightly better to have the split between the ceo and the chairman. so we'll continue down that path. but i don't think there's a 70/30, that there's one way that's better than another. from a pure corporate governance perspective you want the ceo to be split. >> and this is the european way? >> this for us is required under swiss corporate law and banking law in switzerland. it works for us. we have a separate management and supervisory board. it's a good check and balance overall for us. >> can i just push back to suggest maybe it doesn't work? the reason i suggest it, there are times, including in ubs's history, where things have gone wrong. there were teams of people with all sorts of checks and balances. it doesn't always make the situation better. do you disagree? >> i would. i think if you go back and look at 2008 in particular, 2007 and 2008, we have maiden handsments to the separation of the board as well as increasing the strength of the senior independent director and the risk committee. i think there have been enhance.s most crisis that make it more effective. >> you don't know until the next crisis. you think. >> we hope so. >> let's talk about the economy. give us the wells fargo view of the u.s. economy right now given your perspective over all of the housing and everything else going on. >> we're in a slow but steady recovery. it's not as robust as anybody would like. we would like to create more jobs. if you look at the last few years, we have been plus or minus growing gdp. the economy has been resilient when you think about the number of head winds, whether it's sequester, changes in tax policy, problems in europe, problems in asia. it feels we're growing at 2%. that's what we're seeing. >> is housing slower than you thought it would be? >> no. it's much stronger than i think most folks thought a year ago. we started to see housing recovery, sustainable housing recovery begin in the second quarter of last year. now you see every stat being strong, loan to value, valuation. >> so the bernanke helicopter is working? >> i think the fed's policies have been very helpful. i think the big question now that the markets facing is how are they going to exit the amount of purchases they have had. >> yeah. i was going to say. individual investor. >> what's wrong with them? >> they're doing very well. they continue to get more and more engaged the last few quarters we have seen trading teuftd pick up. >> you would hope so. you get a new high every two days it seems like. >> it is the individual investor who is more engaged. >> can you identify a whole group of people that will never be back because of the three -- there was a financial crisis, the tech bust. i don't know. a bunch of things. we have a bunch of them. some parents or grandparents never went back. >> i'm not sure we can identify anything that specific quite yet. most of our clients are engaged. we see their engagement not only in calls, trading and their accounts. we can see they're active live watching. >> you can tell every time they log in just to look at their accounts. >> yes. it's their own companies. >> but you can check that out. how quickly did that pick up? was that the beginning of the year when the markets really started hitting new highs in. >> no. it's actually been going on quite some time. people are continually looking at their acts. >> gentlemen, stay where you are. three cfos will stay with us. we will continue after a quick break. we can tell you marissa mayer and tumblr founder david karp. how much is he worth now? he's a lot weightier. he will join carl. bny mellon combines investment management & investment servicing, giving us unique insights which help us attract the industry's brightest minds who create powerful strategies for a country's investments which are used to build new schools to build more bright minds. invested in the world. bny mellon. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed: the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪ back to our discussion on a lot of different things. financials. cfo council bill berber, cfo of td ameritrade. never mind. he's alone. it's just one of our most valued sponsors. no, that's not why you and the other guys are in the box. i said i wasn't going to do this. that's really not why. ubs ag. >> that's why he is next to me. >> you can talk about ubs and specifics. over and over again we talk about how flush corporations are, how well they're doing and how much money the fed has put into the economy. a lot of it is still not moving. way we would like it to move. we had richard fisher on yesterday just talking about -- it has to do with uncertainty in regulations. are the regulations, are we too regulation minded right now? we still have a chance in this part of the world. i don't know -- >> all set. >> yeah. ubs, it's never going to get any better. the regulations -- you're in europe. so they're going to stay forever. this is our future. this man right here. what would you change about taxation and regulation right now? >> wow. how much time do we have? >> right. >> yeah, it's a difficult one. we're domestic so we don't have any international operations. your previous guest talked about its the responsibility of cfos and the whole math team for avoiding taxes not evading taxes. >> right. avoiding not evading. >> let everybody play by the rules. >> they'll never do that. >> the demagoguing, that's the hard part. i would prefer to see everyone revamp the code, whatever you want to. after we set the rules -- >> does that mean kpepl phi? because it's complicated. >> it is so simplify. >> going through a lot of regulatory change. one of the frustrating things is there is a desire to make more changes. why don't we finalize what is already in process and see if it's going to work. >> not just you. what are your clients telling you? what is your problem with the environment they're in right now. >> to your point it creates uncertainty. we do is a small business survey with gallup. we find small businesses are more optimistic. owners are more optimistic than they were in the prior quarter. one of the big concerns is the uncertainty over regulatory change, tax policy and the new obama care. >> you have a lot of money at the bank. >> me personally? >> no. banks in general do because that's where the money has been sitting and tied up. is it a problem that small business owners have not wanted loans? you can't find qualified people. >> it's clearly been more of a demand problem than a supply problem, to your point. we have over $100 billion on deposit at the fed. we would love to lend that out. we get better rates from our customers than we do the fed. so it's a demand problem not a supply problem. >> what did you want to ask? >> don't you know it's not private anymore, swiss bank. >> it's doesn't matter. just to say you have one. >> when you look why people hire to us manage their money, it's how we do advisement. >> give us your take on europe. >> one of the things if you look at our client base overall globally, there's a huge difference in optimism. when you span from asia to europe. asia is clearly the most optimistic for the obvious reasons in terms of growth and potential. the u.s. is second. you then end up with switzerland and europe. it is very difficult to get optimistic with some of the things that are structurally wrong in the economy. >> it's not a signal of great opportunity? >> at this point in time i think what we can learn, and i think some of that patterns tells you we can learn a lot from the way the u.s. handled the crisis. one of the most effective was recapitalization of the banking system early. and europe has been slow to deal with that outside of switzerland. but as we keep making steps and moving towards that, ultimately we'll be in better position overall. >> wasn't that in switzerland? did you see that? >> he was swiss, yes. >> did you see that? >> no. >> took a wrong turn and fell 5,000 feet. i think it was foggy. anyway -- you're not even from there. you just happen to be the cfo of the operations. that probably wasn't a very appropriate question was it? it got us nowhere. we only had ten seconds anyway. >> we're all glad we're not him, that's for sure. >> when we come back we'll get jim cramer's take on the stocks to watch ahead of the opening bell. stick around. >> tomorrow on "squawk box" lazard vice chairman gary paar will be our guest host, we'll ask him about the economy and jamie dimon's future, plus quarterly results from retailer, target and lowe's report before the bell. "squawk box" tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. eastern. ♪music plays continually music plays continually♪ for over 125 years, we've been bringing people together. today, we'd like people to come together on something that concerns all of us... obesity. and as the nation's leading beverage company, we can play an important role. that includes continually providing more options. giving people easy ways to help make informed choices. and offering portion controlled versions of our most popular drinks. it also means working with our industry to voluntarily change what's offered in schools. but beating obesity will take continued action by all of us, based on one simple common sense fact: all calories count. and if you eat and drink more calories than you burn off, you'll gain weight. that goes for coca cola, and everything else with calories. finding a solution will take all of us, but at coca cola, we know when people come together, good things happen. to learn more, visit coke.com/comingtogether take a look. the futures are indicated higher. the s&p futures and nasdaq are barely in positive territory. this comes after the markets ended near the low of the session yesterday. it was a drop by only 20 points yesterday. why don't we get to the new york stock exchange. jim cramer joins us now, and some of the stocks we paid attention to and not snuff, is home depot after the incredibly strong earnings. it looks like it will be opening at a new high. >> frank is amazing. he dove tails with wells fargo. the housing market punches across its way and home depot is getting an increasing amount of the share of the money that's being spent. this is the sector in america that is working. it's really incredible that frank blake has been able, after all these moves to continue to propel the stock buyer and huge dividend and stock buyback. what is not to like. we've heard it from several guests this morning. the cfo from ford and a lot of people are saying how the economy is incredibly strong. is this a situation where it floats all bets? anybody who is -- or do you have to be careful in this sector. >> any time you say careful, it is reckless. we have williams-sonoma, best buy, you can argue its execution, but they may have more of a tailor wind of housing and the homebuilders, they're few, far between and good ones. in the end, wells fargo controls and they're 30% of the market. there is going to be a success wind to this housing market and we'll build 1.5 million homes and i continue to believe that this is a real trend and that people want to fight it and they're being run over by fighting it. >> i know you don't normally pay attention to little things like, oh, i don't know. some of the silly records we've been tracking. tuesdays now, what has it been? 18, 19 in a row? >> 19. these are froth indicators. i wrote a piece and i said i wish these numbers would go away because they're indicators where people say it can't be trusted and the federal reserve is going to start tightening. these are the people that have kept people out of the market, not in. i remain concerned that when you see an up tuesday, people say it's phony. there are pockets of a tesla solar city where people are short and they won't stop going higher. >> okay. jim, thank you. >> we'll see you in just a couple of minutes. >> several stocks on the move this morning, but only one can be stock of the day. is it in your portfolio? 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>> welcome back to "squawk box." we have some breaking news. "the new york times" reports jamie dimon is set to hold on to his title as both chairman and ceo of the company and we'll see how things play out later today. that is a new report on this issue we've been talking about all morning. >> that does it for us today. right now it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ ♪ >> good morning and welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber with jim cramer. >> we'll begin with a tragedy in oklahoma where a massive tornado has resulted in many, many deaths. president obama has declared a major disaster in the state and is set to deliver a statement an hour from now. jane moore is in oklahoma and she has more on the recovery

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