End of the obamacare website still not fixed. By the way, moodys downgraded the Insurance Companies today because of this. This mistake could cost taxpayers a fortune. Speaking of taking a hit, check out all the red arrows on wall street today. We had a big selloff and i think the fed fears may be backing the market. Finally a very special guest this evening. Blues traveller front man john popper is going to join us live to talk about shockingly low payments song writers get now for all their work. All these stories and more coming up in the kudlow report right now. Lets start with the big selloff tr if the stocks. Dow down 176 points. What caused the big drop . Lets go to Cnbcs Bob Pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. Good evening, robert. It was not a good day for the markets. It started overnight when chinese manufacturing numbers came in below expectations. The chinese data was weaker than expected for a few weeks. Why cause china matter so much . Emerging marks are an important part of the Global Growth idea. If the markets believe growth is below expectations, investors will lighten up. Thats what they are doing. Not surprisingly chinese stocks were among the weakest performers but other mernling markets were weak. For example the brazilian real got hit on concerns that investors were continuing to pull money out. Brazil stocks down 3 to 5 . The peso of oh argentina got walloped against the dollar. There are concerns the government may default. Argentina stocks down 8 to 10 . U. S. Stocks saw declines in big multinational names, materials and energy and industrials. Sectors like utilities and telecom with little change. The dollar weakened on this, the gold rally. The tenyear yield dropped. Its been a strange year. A lot of divergence. The dow industrials are down but the transports are up over 2 . Nasdaq and russell 2000 are up also. Its been a big cap selloff in 2014, but the rest of the market is holding up fine. Back to you. All right. Many thanks, bob pisani. We appreciate it. Things arent necessarily so bad out there. Lets switch gears. Even as president obama puts the finishing touches on his income and equality theme state of the union address, a new study out today flat out negates the white house claim that inequality is hurting economic mobility. In fact, the study says the odds of americas youth climbing the economic ladder are the same now as they were 50 years ago. Even former obama economic adviser and clinton treasury secretary larry somers says income inequality is a poor policy platform. Take a listen. Most important opportunity for my children, your children is how rapidly we grow this economy. I hope we move to a focus on more rapid growth and the rhetoric of envy and the rhetoric of tearing down, i dont think is the right rhetoric for americas leaders. Boy, i lo that. Larry somers at the top of his game. Yes, growth is the answer. The question is will washington listen, particularly president obama. Here now is tomorrower Obama Campaign aide mark hannah and cnbc contributor jim beth akuka. Social and economic mobility hasnt changed in 50 years. You call that the gatsby curve running up against the laffer curve which is about growth. Expand on that for us. The president has been saying not only has income and equality at the high end, the 1 versus the 99 . Not only has that gotten worse, we should care because its hurting social mobility. There is a linkage between the two. We saw there is no linkage between the two. Not only has economic mobility not gotten worse as the 1 got richer but there is no link between the two. There is a link apparently with family Family Structure and the quality of the neighborhood. Not progressive taxes. The core of the obama economic message just collapsed. Let me come back to this. If the mayor bill de blasio and senator Elizabeth Warren believe people getting wealthy hurt people. You heard larry somers say thats not the case. You heard jimmy run down the results of the report. The question is will the white house listen to this report and go for growth instead of punishing success . Will they read this report . I suspect the white house will read the report and go for growth. They define growth maybe differently than the trickle down policies i know you advocate for. They define growth as more money in the pockets of the middle class people who are able to pump money into the American Economy as opposed to, for example, letting the rich spend more money on investing and overseas stocks or offshore accounts. One thing thats important is what larry said. The rhetoric of tearing down people is just anethema to the American Dream. I dont know the last time you heard the president tear anybody down. Thats what deblasio is saying, what warren is saying. The conclusion i draw from the report is that economic mobility got so bad many this country that it couldnt get worse in the past 40, 50 years. Nothing like that. I said nothing like that. Mobility has not gotten worse or better. If youre looking for the causality here its not carried interest. Not that Capital Gains taxes need to be higher. The causality is family breakdown. Not just in your family. But if you belong the to a twoparent family but there is a lot of family dysfunction this the neighborhood that hurts your mobility. Neighborhood and family, not private equity, none of that. Broken homes. Let me raise a point here. In reading the accounts and i have not read the studies but i read the accounts in the newspapers. Washington post and wall street journal. What sticks out is where you live as well as the twoparent family jimmy talked about. For example in the southeastern part of the United States this surprises me income mobility, economic mobility is worse whereas in the mountain states, in the Mountain West of the country, economic mobility is better. So now weve got two nonsandanista arguments. One is where you live and the other is the twoparent family. Why cant the president address those issues . The president will say that where you live matters. If you live in the United States the American Dream isnt as alive as it is in germany or france or other countries that have japan with more economic mobility than we do. Kwo think your guests will dispute that. From the bottom 20 they have more economic mobility. Not from the rest of the income distribution. Plus we had faster growth and bigger income gains. Among whom . I dont want to get hung up on foreign countries, but look, College Attendance means better incomes. Its correlated with higher earnings. This is important. We are trying to put our finger on how to get the lower fifth up there. We talked about this before. I continue to believe one of the dictums here when i had Maria Shriver on we talked about stay in school, finish your education. Then go out and get a steady job, show up on time for the job. Then go ahead and get married. After you have been married for a while and the marriage is stable, then go on ahead and have kids. Thats the prescription for upward mobility. Thats what i want obama to say. I happen to think president obama is uniquely qualified because of his own personal family life which looks terrific to me, to make that case instead of blaming rich people the way mark hannah just did. Well, what you have outlined is the sequence for success. Unfortunately when i talk about that, what a lot of folks on the left say there is nothing government all of the sudden there is nothing government can do. Families will break down. Thats the way it is. We need a bigger welfare state to take care of people. I would like to see more effort on dealing with problems piece by piece than saying, you know, we have to have i dont know a massively expanded social safety net. Everybody tells us, mark hannah, that the president will stay with income inequality and, yes, link it to social mobility. Say he doesnt link it to mobility. Say he stays withing in inequality. Where does that lead . It doesnt lead where larry somers said toward better economic growth. That sounds like it will lead to punishing success and punishing businesses. I dont think thats a very productive message for mr. Obama with 92 Million People out of the work force and only 58 of the population working. I think it goes to one place. Thats economic inequality goes to Economic Opportunity. This is a classic question of whether economic variables determine cultural variables like a broken home. We know scholastic aptitude and broken homes are correlated. There is no disputing however that once you mitigate economic inequality poor kids have higher Economic Opportunity and have the ability to raise themselves up out of poverty. I think the president will go to a place that is focused on the minimum wage. We have seen productivity in this country double while wages in the past 20, 30 years, have gone down 7 . Why arent the workers responsible largely for productivity being compensated. Jimmy, you dont agree, do you . I dont agree with think of the numbers. By those talking points i heard it is clear that the president is of the same mind facts are stubborn but hell ignore them. This is to be a data driven analytical presidency. Well ignore that and say high levels at 1 inequality and they will keep on oh saying it. The minimum wanl is as low as its been since the 1960s. Those numbers have been disproven so many times. Thats silly. Boring old talking points. Your viewergo to the internet and verify them. I tweeted before the show you would decide between the gatsby and the laffer curve. You get the last word. Two economic constructs. One was blown out of the water today. The other holds. You want to help people, keep taxes low. Growth, growth, growth. The laffer curve wins. Thank you, mark. Jim will rejoin me in a few minutes for our look at the cnbc 25, the search for the 25 most influential people in business and finance in the last 25 years of our networks history. Vote for your own favorites right now at cnbc. Com. Now we have to get back to the markets and the big selloff, whats behind the jitters on wall street. I say the fed has a pretty big hand in the story. Later, if you forgot the obamacare website is still not fixed. Info going to the Insurance Companies about enrollment and subsidies. That coverage is incomplete. Time is running out. One major Ratings Agency has downgraded the entire sector. That being moodys. Well have the story. Dont forget. Free market capitalism is the best path. I will take the laffer curve every time. Simplify tax ratesment get rid of the Corporate Tax and provide growth and Job Opportunities for everybody. Im kudlow. Well be right back. Stacys mom has got it goin on stacys mom has got it goin on stacys mom has got it goin on [ male announcer ] the beautifully practical and practically beautiful cadillac srx. Lease this 2014 cadillac srx for around 319 a month with premium Care Maintenance included. At a company thats bringing media and technology together. Next is every second of nbcuniversals coverage 0f the 2014 olympic winter games. Its connecting over one million lowincome americans to Broadband Internet at home. Its a place named one americas most veteran friendly employers. Next is information and entertainment in ways you never thought possible. Welcome to whats next. Comcastnbcuniversal. Welcome back to the kudlow report. Two of seattle, washingtons Largest Companies reported earnings after the bell. Microsoft to the upside beating the consensus on both the top and bottom lines. It wasnt the Core Products that made the quarter a success. Microsoft sold more than 7 million xbox consoles and noted revenue from the surface tablet doubled. However windows revenue did decline and p. C. Sales are weak. Shares are up nearly 4 in after hours trade. Starbucks First Quarter earnings disappointed investors. They came in two cents above estimates but revenue grew to 2. 4 billion from 3. 8 billion last year still below estimates. Stores open at least a year rose a disappointing. 5 . Slower growth meant fewer shoppers out and about looking for a caffeine jolt. Shares duaned around 1 after hours before retreating to the flat line. They are up now. Larry . I dont know, all right. Microsoft they beat. Yesterday, they beat netflix. A lot of banks. Youre at 16 , 17 for the reporting companies. Its all about the expectations. When you fall wall street boos. I think people are buying too much double cap or whatever. Ill take one now. Thanks. As you can imagine im cautiously optimistic. Today is not a calamity. Investors definitely should not panic. I have said it. I do think the fed is having an impact on the market. Maybe a bigger impact than people think. I want to test the hypothesis once again. I cant get anybody to talk about it. Welcome back jason transcript renert sfr strategus and jim eueria. Jason, look, the fed is putting in less cash. All qe will be finished this summer or early fall. Thats a change in policy. Even before they start taking money out. Thats got to be factored in the stock market expectations. Too many people are telling me its not. Maybe they woke up to it today. It is having an impact. When you see the taper last may you started to see income oriented sectors like telecom, utilities staples. You see emerging markets underperform. Its not surprising that it would have some impact. I dont think though that this is the death knell for the bull market or there is a bull market top. The feds Balance Sheet is still over 4 trillion and counting. I think janet yellen would be a wild card. Its safe to assume she might be more bernanke than bernanke in terms of willingness to keep li liquidity flowing. I think the economy is improving. I have every confidence. Shes got stanley fisher, a hard money guy, behind her as the vice chair. That will be important. Im going to tell you all my sources tell me each month the fed will continue to taper. Qe will be gone by the summer or the early fall. Things have changed a bit. Probably you cant rely on the fed. Youve got to rely on profits, growth. Why is everybody belly aching about profits. Seems like its coming in good. They werent great. The market was at a spot where it was looking for a reason to go to follow through. None of the news was good enough. Think about this. We put in a high in january and consolidated waiting for something to take us higher. There is an Expiration Date on how long it will take. A market gets restless and if it cant go higher it will find a reason to go in oo direction. The other direction is down. Thats whats happening now. If you want to know if its taper that pushed it down, if that was the case why would people have flocked to the Interest Rate curve and bought that. The knee jerk reaction. It was not a panic in the stock. It was the kbibeginning of a meaningful reaction. A market occasionally need as 5 to 10 correction. This is fine. It could be happening now. Corrections ko s come and go. This chinese report and this drives me crazy. It went from 50. 5 last month to 49. 6. Thats a minuscule change. Everybody is blowing that up. All the other indicators from china are coming in decent, as expected. I cant believe thats the reason. I will say this. Emerging markets in genre lied on the feds easy money. I want to single out two in particular. Argentina, number one. This place is about to collapse. Its about to collapse. Cant pay their debt. The currency is crashing. Argentina just awful. Brazil also moving to the left, closing down their free trade and other market reforms. In fact, people say brazil is turning into argentina and argentina is turning into venezuela. That stuff is bothersome. Whats your take is this. Larry, i couldnt be in more agreement. There is a lot of nashi im no g suring gnashing of teeth. People forget in china treasury is 7. 5. In brazil you have an inflation problem. Im a dollar bull for this year. I think generally speaking, strong dollar is not a particularly Good Development for emerging market equities. I would be cautious. I would also mention if you look at the flows into mutual funds, equity mutual funds even last year when the market was up 30 , the flow in International Funds outpaced domestic inflows by 71. Theres been a big love atear with emerging markets. People are going for growth. They think it is easy. Its complicated and the quality of earnings and management is much better here at home. I would be careful. You are right about that. I wouldnt own a bond. I think youre right. I dont want to own the emerging markets. Maybe china. I think china is in better shape than you think. I dont want to own brazil or argentina or india. I dont want to own commodity stocks, australia, jim. I dont want to own canada. Do you know why . As the fed takes the punch bowl away in the next couple of years we dont want to own commodities. The oil, silver. Jason is right. The dollar is going up. That makes americas stock market a good haven. There is no doubt about it. The story shifted from emerging markets to a domestic story. Thats been called slightly into question. I dont think its over. All of us agree they want a tapering. Jason said taper isnt tightening. Yeah, but its moving toward a tighter policy. The market interprets it as tightening. Dont let the facts get in the way of a good story for the market. If they taper and there is less hot money, less escape velocity its a poor play now. Unemployment claims, weekly, 325,000. That number correlates with the economy and the stock market. The report from the Labor Department showed that jop openings are rising. The quit rate is rising. Those are positive signals. Our economy should be growing at 5 or 6 . Ill take 3 with no inflation. I dont think you will get it. America is the safe haven. Thats what im saying. Be aware of the fed. You cant panic over it. I agree. The big question this year, the dog that hasnt barked in the recovery is capital spending. The irony is you have seen companies more willing to hire workers before they spend the capital. If you get Business Confidence going certainly companies are flush with cash. They spend more on capx. You will get the 3 . There is pentup demand for capital spending. You will have another good year for stocks. Not as good as last year. Youre right. I think the scenario is right. We need to abolish the Corporate Income tax so they bring the offshore cash back home. That will make it a lot easier for them to make longterm investments and hire another couple hundred thousand workers per month. Well continue another time. Jason, thank you very much. Jim iurio, thank you, buddy. A new report say it is white house is in crisis mode because the health care. Gov website is still not fixed. Some is people inside team obama are worried about a melt down for the Insurance Companies. That its given me time toabout reflect on some of lifeseen biggest questions. Like, if you could save hundreds on Car Insurance by making one simple call, why wouldnt you make that call . See, the only thing i can think of is that you cant get any. Bars. Ah, thats better. Its a beautiful view. I wonder if i can see mt. Rushmore from here. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. [ car alarm chirps ] [ male announcer ] we dont just certify our preowned vehicles. We inspect, analyze, and recondition each one, until its nothing short of a genuine certified preowned mercedesbenz for the next new owner. [ car alarm chirps ] hurry in to your authorized mercedesbenz dealer for 1. 99 financing during our certified preowned sales event through february 28th. Welcome back. Today, somebody finally admitted Health Insurance could be in big trouble. Moodys lowered them to a negative because of obamacare. The young invincibles arent signing up. The previously uninsured are earn enrolling in small numbers. The website still doesnt work. The question is will obamacare end up bankrupting the private insurance. People are asking the question. This evening we are narrowing down 200 of the brightest minds of the last 25 years to the top 25 most influential leaders and icons. Tonight i will pick top business leaders. Of course i will have steve jobs on the list. Thats easy. I have other names that might surprise you. Listen to this. Our Great Security guard Eddie Rodriguez is playing run around by blues traveller. Every time thats played on Internet Radio the guy who wrote it gets less than a tenth of a penny. Part of free market capitalism is paying people for their work. Well be joined live by john popper of blues traveller. Thats later on. Please stay with us on the kudlow report. Tte or au lait . Cozy or cool . Meow or woof . Everything the way you want it. Until boom, its bedtime and your mattress a battleground of thwarted desire. Enter the sleep number bed. Designed to let couples sleep together in individualized comfort. Hes a softy. His sleep number setting is 35. Youre the rock, at 60. 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Comcast nbcuniversal new troubling signs for obamacare. Moodys has downgraded the outlook for Health Insurancers to negative due to enrollment demographic uncertainty. In other words, so far 24 of enrollees are between the ages of 18 and 34. Thats the group most needed to prevent premiums from rising in the future. Moodys projects that insurers will earn 2 less than forecasted in 2014. And the botched health care. Gov website still far from fixed. Isnt it time for the white house to admit that now is the time to just end the individual mandate. I still think thats the root of all evil. Joining me now, former omb associate director for health programs. Good evening, jim. Whats your take on moodys . They seem to have the story right. I think they do, absolutely. Certainly theres been a great deal of unsarnt created for the insurance business. The rollout was a mess. The number of people showing up in the exchanges are obviously tilted toward older people and less healthy people. The metrics from the insurers all indicate that. There is no choice here that the outlook for any of the companies has gotten worse in the last couple of months. They are counting, frankly on a taxpayer bailout. Some are counting on taxpayers bailing out losses. Small as they are relative to business. I will get to that. I will get to that in a little bit. Companies got blindsided. Set out the cancellation slips. The president flips and says, go ahead, have the programs i said were lousy. Isnt that costing the insurers a pretty penny as they attempt that . This was foisted on the Insurance Companies. They had to rework the systems to make obamacare work. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars. They had to turn on a dime and undo the cancellations. That cost them a lot of system work expenses as well. Huge expenses on the insurers by the law. They have had to eat all of it. Thats come out of their operational margins. Im reading stuff i cant believe. At the back end of the website, the stuff where you hook in with the Insurance Companies on enrollment and payment and various other important pieces of information and personal security. Am a i reading right that the back end or oh at least part of it has not yet been built . No, it has not. Remember they spent all of november and december saying things are getting better. They did it with a contract for cgi they then turned around and fired on a Late Afternoon friday in january and didnt announce. They pushed out the contractor that was doing the work. They hired accenture to clean it up. Its clear that the back end still isnt built. They are relying on the honor system from Insurance Companies. Based on the data thats collected and used on the website. They are asking the insurers and well fix it later. Its the honor system again. Okay. So they cant verify. They dont know about enrollees or payments. They dont know about subsidies. Now i will go where you were going before. This could wind up costing the taxpayers a fortune because in obamacare with risk quarters and so forth they will bail out the Insurance Companies. There are provisions written into the law. Standard practice for insurance programs. In this particular case whats happening is they are saying any losses by the insurers above a certain threshold are picked up by the taxpayers at an 80 rate. That was supposed to be with neutral. Off set by the fact some insurers make big profits. Now its clear because the risk profile of the enroll yankees the exchanges is less healthy than the insurers thought it would be they will all lose money. Instead of being off set with profits, it will be off a set with taxpayer funds at the expense of the larger deficits than was projected at the time it was enacted. Unbelievable. You have a piece out, unwi unwinding. We dont have time to go through the piece but i want to. Maybe i can get you on the radio. Sure. Where do you want to start . Whats the absolute keystone in your opinion to unwind obamacare if you had the opportunity. No individual mandate. Thats where we need to go. Its unbelievable at this point with a program thats so unpopular thats been mismanaged in the rollout that there is a provision on the books saying americans have to participate in it. It obviously shouldnt be the case that americans have to participate in a program with so many questions associated with it, forced into insurance plans they dont find attractive. Its very unpopular. This is a politicaler rand. Conservatives who oppose the laws should be pushing for a delay or jetisoning the individual man day. Its difficult for the administration to defend continuing it. As a practical matter you have millions of people look at the exchanges saying the insurance plans are expensive, i cant afford it. They are going to presumably tax them if they dont participate. Right. Its a big deal. This is the in efficieeffici unwise, unwieldy, politically unpopular part. I have to tell you. Last summer jim, we have to get out of here when there was a brouhaha about defunding obamacare i said, no, no, no. Go after the individual mandate. I agree. Thats the heart of the matter. Jim, youre great. Thanks for taking us through it. Youre welcome. Cnbc continues to ask you to help us name the 25 most influential business and finance leaders of the past 25 years. The the kudlow report continues its quest as well. Well talk about a nobrainer business icon. We have two names who should be on the list of final ists but arent. Vote now at cnbc. Com 25. Wait until you hear how little songwriters get paid when Internet Radio and streaming channels play their music. Blues traveller front man john popper joins us soon to talk about fair play for fair play fair pay for fair play. Well be right back with the kudlow report. Stay with us for popper. 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I have never seen it. I did see it. Its a good movie. I will get it for you on netflix. Thanks. Many thanks. Now, cnbc celebrating its 25th anniversary. Toefr past 25 years. You can vote at cnbc. Com 25. Steve jobs is my pick tonight. This is an easy one. Hes leading the poll. Hes my pick tonight. I will come in with jimmy to hear this. I dont think anybody will deal with this. Two things i really like about steve jobs. Number one, he made people want to buy things they didnt know they wanted to buy. Iphones, ipads. Ipods. People didnt know about this. He made people feel they needed it. I think thats a true visionary. Secondly, one thing i love, he failed. Failure with the early apple computer. Then he picked himself up and succeeded beyond anybodys wildest dreams. Jimmy, you cant deny jobs. You have to have jobs, right . I think you have to have him high on the list as a great capitalist. I have found a greater capitalist. Who is that . That would be dun xao pang. Should i explain . Yes. I want to hear it. Not just because he opened up china to capitalism, the get rich is glorious in 1979. In the early 90s after a Tiananmen Square there was a chance of china backsliding from capitalism. He prevented that. Not only did it result in hundreds of millions of people escaping poverty. It had an impact on the global economy. Continues to. Youre right. We dont have heads of state in the survey. You and i can talk about any bloody person we want. Thats an interesting point. I want to come back to something i said last night. I will add another head of state. Last night i took four people, put hank paulson, sheila behr, tim geithner and ben bernanke and said together in the crisis period which was september 2008, october, november, right in that period these four, working together, injecting liquidity and guaranteeing all the debt in our Banking System prevented a terrible global catastrophe. What they did before then and what they have done afterwards i may not endorse. At that moment, those four people absolutely saved us from something that could have been worse than the great depression. Jimmy, heres my point. I want to make a quick point, then you comment. There is a guy who never gets credit for giving them the green light to do it. His name is george w. Bush. He said, go on ahead. It may not be free market but we need it to save the world. All right, jimmy. Im adding bush tonight. I will probably get killed on the twitter universe. Youre right. Really . Listen, people rarely get credit for preventing a bad thing from happening. You have to look at the counter factual. If bush does nothing, follow it is advice some people would have given which is, listen, lets just let the banks fail. Lets see what happens. Maybe it will be a deflationary depression but well shake it off. Thats what we would have had. A terrible deflationary depression with a d. Recession is bad enough. Definitely bush played a role in making sure it didnt happen. Perhaps a pivotal role. Thats my take. Thank you. I know youre an independent thinker. The guy never gets credit. His polls are rising so its interesting. Jimmy, thank you very much. We appreciate that. This discussion and the voting process far from over. Please go to cnbc. Com 25. Vote for your favorites. I will keep doing this. I have a bunch of other people, particularly in the Business Community that i want to get into in the coming days. Forget about the minimum wage debate. Wait until you find out how low even the most famous song writers get when Internet Radio and Music Streaming Services play their music. Blues travellers john popper is about to join us live. Hell talk about this whole story. You dont want to miss it. Im kudlow. Theres popper. Well be right back. All right. A new oped for the wall street journal today, legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach says how the new era of internet streaming music gives little pay to those who write the songs. They get eight cents for every 1 is,000 times it is played on pandora. Is it time to update the rules so song writers can get their fair share even with modern technology. Here now is john popper, lead singer of the band blues traveller. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that very much. Thanks for having me. I want to hear you more on the harp. Yes, sir. Let me get your take on what burt said today. Eight cents for a thousand . H how does a starving song writer make a buck . Thanks for playing me in the teases. Thats a portion of a cent i can pocket in there. Right. I think throughout history musicians never counted on intellectual property getting them rich. John phillips sousa was upset when recording devices came out because nobody would hire his band to play their birthday party. They could buy a record. They didnt understand about oil tis and even then they had to work themselves out. The recording business got to a place where you could make money doing it. Even so, thats a tiny fraction of people making a lot of money with records in the old way. Dont get me wrong. I like the valuation of what we do. To matter and i look at hulu, spotify or whats the other netflix . Film makers intellectual property where you can pay a small fee to get all the movies you want to watch, were a part of that. John, as i understand it, basically youre saying the money is in the concerts. Youve got to travel. Ultimately, thats where you make your living as a musician. I certainly want in terms of online radio playing your music, it gives you exposu exposure, eight . You could argue that if pandora wasnt so cheap and easy to get they would not have bothered to buy your particular album, you wouldnt have gotten the money. They are getting pandora to get you, vivaldi, Dave Matthews band, pete seger, everything at once. Believe me, i want to get as much money as i can for what i write. Eight cents for a thousand plays sounds cheap. You have to consider that they never would have listened to you in the first place. Youre getting a new audience and its a way to promote yous. We used to allow people to record our concerts with a tape recorder. It was great exposure. You are kicking yourself as you do it, but how do you stop the technology . You cant. Youre right. It sounds worse. My advice to musicians you know, Burt Bacharach had a lucky career. He was able to capitalize on the songs he was writing at a time when you could hire a songwriter. My advice to musicians is never count on royalty checks. Try to own your material. Believe me. You want to own the songs you write. You could get lucky. Ultimately you have to perform your own songs. You have to figure out a way to take care of yourself. There is always a way to do it. You know, i dont think you have to count on the social media to be your food money. Its like what kind of money do you have to have for a successful Youtube Video . You get to promote something. I feel the same way. Let me ask you about another story. Sure. Youre a libertarian capitalist. Definitely. I love that. Oh, yeah. There is a headline story on the web tonight. The irs is targeting this Hollywood Group called friends of abe. Its a Republican Group in hollywood which is difficult. Guys in the group, pat boone, kelsey grammer, jon voight. And others. I know youre not in the group. What do you think . The irs picking on hollywood conservatives just because they are conservative . I think the irs targeting anybody is a travesty. Thats not what we have the irs for. The idea of the irs is so that we pay our taxes in order to subsidize the world we are living in. The fact that they are remotely even the implication that it is a politically motivated targeting is abhorrent. It should be the to anyone no matter what Political Group you belong to. Doesnt it piss you off . Utterly, absolutely. It does except i dont want the irs angry at me. Thats how it startsment you want to complain until then the irs says, well, whats his story . I promise you this. If you dont like that Republican Group and you want to bask in their problems, i promise you some day the irs will come for you. I cant wait. They have already knocked on my door a couple of times for different reasons. John popper, first of all, thank you for coming on. Youre great. Not at all. Keep up the fight. Lets hear this harmonica. Give us some more. Youre the best. That will be eight cents. Great stuff. Thats it for tonights show. Thanks for watching. Im larry kudlow. Tomorrow morning, squawk box, another music legend, bono will be joined by Brian Moynahan tomorrow at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Narrator in this episode of american greed, patients of a florida doctor endure skincancer surgery dozens of times. I started noticing the same people over and over and over. To dr. Michael rosin, surgery isnt just a cancer treatment. Its a gold mine. To the tune of 3. 7 million. It didnt make any difference how much blood he had to scrub up off the floor, he was gonna get that money. Narrator and later, he promises to protect his clients money offshore, out of the reach of the irs. Marc harris sells himself as a financial revolutionary. It wasnt revolutionary. I mean, he didnt invent stealing money from people