Walmart. Unions dont like the fact they havent organized walmart. Rick, these folks are getting paid overtime for working on thursday, rig . Yeah. Lets keep in mind what this is about. Its really a one had day convenient. Its probably fair tore characterize it as a row test, a little bit more than atrike. Not about wages or benefits. About work conditions, mostly in inland califnia area where theyve had big problems with people working in way overheated warehouses, equipment thats not safe. Is is what this is about. Theyve got a problem there. What the unions are doing, and again, walmart is not unionized, but the unions want the workers to walk out, theyre focusing on this extra work that they have to do thanksgiving pay, for which, by the way, theyre paid double time and get all sorts of bonuses. Yeah. Walmart is facing a nmber of protests across the country. Not just for overtime. There has been a push to ionize walmart. The real issue is that walmart hires a lot of people from the grocery industry where they actually get paid less, they get less in the way of health benefits, and thats why you saw pass mark and others go out of business because they were running their Business Models right, emploes were worst served than walmart serves their own employees. Im not advocating for walmart. It will be a pipe dream to unioni walrt because you have to do it from store to store. The point is that times are tough and when times are tough, you have to do things, you have to work overtime. Sometimes you have to work on holidays in order to get that extra pay. Whether youre a worker or the company, right . The truth is the unions wouldnt be there if there wasnt a need for them. Walmart for years has been rife with labor allegations. Recent exampleut in illinois warehouse where workers filed charges on sexual harassment, poor work conditions, unpaid wages. Th is an issue weve heard about, these allegations weve heard about for years. I think this is just a manifestation of that at a time where its going to make a dent. John, a lot of other companies are doing this. Toys r us is opening at the same time on thanksgiving, sears opening same time on thanksgiving. Apm, target is opening a little later, 9 p. M they need to do this in order to bring in the revenue. These are companies that are hurting, right . Yeah. Businesses are in business for profit. Hear morgan and rick, you would think theyre exploiting their employees, but the reality is every time a walmart opens, big, big lines of people wanting to work there. So i think its the opposite of what they say. Theyre getng paid double time. I think this is just an example of unions who are increasingly irrevant in the private sector looking for attention on a day in which theyll get it. Victim tore y what do you want too . Do folks who are against what walmart is doing, do they want to outlaw work on holidays . Id like to. I think it sounds awful. I think shopping on thanksgiving evening is awful. Sometimes you have to do awful things in order to pay the rent, right . Be at home and have some apple pie, you know. [ laughter ] look, the issue here is that we have an awful labor market. So although these workers may be offered bonus times, double pay, there is not a lot of choice in the labor market. So they might not be forced to do this but essentially they are because they cant get job elsewhere. Thats the real shame here. Thats why the unions are getting excited about potentially getting steve, the point is that what do we want to do about this . Do we want to become like france that has all the laws that prohibit what companies can and cannot do with their work force . See how thats turning out in europe. Unless you want to outlaw doing commer on thanksgiving. If a store wants to open early because folks like to get there at 8 instead of midnight, let them do it. Youre serving the needs of other people. Thats how you stay in business. This economy is tight. Its getting tighter. Stores are going to trying it get as much as they can and encourage commerce. So why not let them do it . Hold on. I want to read the walmart statement. They have addressed this. They athis is just another exaggerated Publicity Campaign aimed at generating headlines to mislead our customers and associes. We have more than a million associates working throughout the Holiday Weekend and theyre excited about our black friday plans. This is the super bowl for retailers and we are ready. Again, morgan, we dont like to work on thanksgiving, but sometimes we have to work on thanksgiving. Its not about working on thanksgiving. Thats what the unions say it is. Its about Labor Conditions andment truth is,ll you have to look at is the fact its walmart employees that are walking out. Its not happening at other big box retailers. Hold on of the retail sales were down in october. They have to do something to increase the bottom line here. That is the point. Theyre using the thanksgiving work hours as an excuse to protest. Thats a fact. Listen unions are. Listen, the Grocery Stores were unionized, remember that. Grocery stores are unionized. Remember that, and they the workers went from there to walmart to get better pay and benefits. Also we saw this with hostess and going bankrupt. The unions protesting there. Whats going to be next . You going on a unionize kohls or target . Thats what the Union Movement wants. Rick, sometimes the unions maybe they say they have the be interesof the workers at heart, but sometimes it leads to closing a company. Look what happened at hostess. Look what happened in American Airlines where the union protests led to the Companies Either shutting down or going into bankruptcy. Lets talk about hostess. This is a misconnection. No Sales Associates at walmart are going out on strike, period, end of story. Youre talking about cashiers theyre not going on strike. Yes, they are, rick. There are a dozen protests the fact hang on. There are a dozen protests across the country and strikes breaking out. Hang on. There have been strikes breaking out theyre warehouse workers. The fact remains that walmart has said to fox business and to forbes magazine, there have been unionized attempts since 1997 going on across the country and they have been were talking about we want to bring it out and go to john. If you want to make it worse for workers, make it more difficult for businesses to do whatsrofitable and that includes working on holidays. That will drive down wages and make us worse off. Let businesses alone. Let them do what they want. Morgan . Its not about wrking on holidays. At the end of the day its not about profits because walmart brings in more than 16 billion a year in profits. This is about Labor Conditions. These strikes have been goi on for several weeks. To you. Morgan makes a good point. Walmart announced great profits, but this looks bad for walmart. It just looks bad. They need to address their Labor Conditions across the board. Theyve got a lot better about it. I know liz, youve written about that. Imay look bad for walmart, victoria, but shoppers love this thing, particularly the sales that theyre having. Theyre having these one hour sales which they practically can give stuff awa shoppers hold on shoppers love this stuff and walmart is competing heavily against the internet. Isnt that wt this is mostly about, victoria . Yeah. Walmart thats a great point. But walmart is also on the internet. So they need to improve their strategy there. Walmart is also in cityies like burlington, vermont, which loves it because it turns in a shopping hub and created Economic Growth in battered regions. Again, its t poor people that usually benefit the most from these sales. Weve got to keep that in mind. Coming up next, taxpayers in the u. S. Hoping lawmakers strike a deal on the fiscal cliff. But were going to tell you why workers overseas are hoping they dont. Dont. Right after r r r r r man, chanting, snapping fingers oh, those boys are much too much those boys are much too much we got the spirit, were hot, we cant be stopped we got the spirit were hot we cant be stopped were gonna beat em and bust em. Announcer the smallest moments can have the biggest impact on a childs life. Both chanting lets. Get. A little bit rowdy. Rowwhoo dy. Announcer take time to be a dad today. One more time. Call or visit fatherhood. Gov to learn more. Getting hit with higher taxes is not the only threat of going over the fiscal cliff. Energy companies and others warning that when their taxes go up, theyre going to have to start shipping their jobs overseas. You say theyre right. The Corporate Tax rate, when you count state, local and federal, is around 6. Whats happening is companies have to compete against companies from germany or sweden, oranada where the corporate rate there is now 15 . What were talking about essentially is even the president s own jobs council led by Jeffrey Immelt and the advisor board and sim so much bowles said lower the corporate rate. The president agreed to that. When you have a high tax rate, that invites all sorts of cronyism where Congress Throws in loopholes to favor their political cronies at companies that donate to them. Morgan, the president has said he wants to lower the Corporate Tax rate down to 28 , but even at 28 , it is above all the others, maybe with the exception ofpain. I dont think taxes alone are the reason that companies are going to offshore or even going to offshore jobs in the next year or t. I think were seeing an interesting trend of companies that are in shoring jobs now. Bringing them back is this. Bringing them back home, including general electric, ford motors, air bus, google. I think were going to see more of this regardless of the tax situation. Boston Consulting Group said overt next decade well see as many as 5 Million Manufacturing jobs come back. Steve, isnt it very simple . Companies will go to where they get paid the most and where they have to pay the least in order to do their siness, right . David, taxes are a cost of doing business. Capital goes where its welcome. Capital stays where its well treated. If the United States becomes seen as hostile to capital, we may get some things back, but not near the prosperity we should have. Make it friendly to business and business will respond, including businesses that dont even exist today. Theyll spring up. Rick . Its very interesting. Most of the chatter that im hearing out of washington is really focusing more on reducing the Corporate Tax rates. David, as you pointed out, the president supporting that idea. Look, i only hear one sector really complaining right now about this and thats the eney sector. Theyre not worrying about their taxes going u theyre worrying about their subsidies being cut. Theyre using it as a piece of blackmail to say may, if you cut our subsidy, were going to move jobs. You know what . Enough already. You can afford to do there were other companies. The problem is there are a lot of other companieworried about this. One of which is apple which has about 120 billion, about half of that money is overseas where its not doing us any good. David, i think you just hit the nail on the head. Thats the biggest problem is the repatriation of earnings of u. S. Subsidiaries overseas. Theyre keeping that cash there because were one of the very few countries that does double taxation of profits. First they get taxed overseas and then we tax them again when they get here. Most countries dont do that. That, i think, is a very serious problem and its a job killer here in the United States. So victoria, that just shows once again that our tax code needs to be overhauled. Just tremendous. There are so many problems with it that are keeping our economy down right now. Absolutely. The apple example is fascinating because it shows what has evolved. Really the last decade, this isnt a totally recent phenomenon where you get Large Companies like apple doing these artful, perfectly legal tax dodgesmoving headquarters overseas. Weve seen Something Like 50 of large Multi National companies that were based in the u. S. Ten years ago, no longer based here now. Thats purely a tax move. Yet you get medium and small size businesses, they cant pull off stuff like tat. So were at a twotier system. It hurts jobs, it hurts business creation. So rick you thinker, you would agree, because youre a sensible guy, that we need to overhaul our tax code. It is hopelessly complex right now. Maybe this is aoment when se kind of agreement could be made to make it simpler and better. Because i am a sensible guy, i certainly would agree. I absolutely would. Its how you overhaul it. Is rick sensible . You have to overhaul it in a way thats fair for everybody but you have to overhaul it, steve n a way that gets the economy cooking again. Fairness sometimes is not all as important because it doesnt turn out the way politicians want, it never does as getting the economy moving again. Thats our top priority, is it not . It is the top priority. The way do you it is totally declutter the code. Put in Something Like a flat tax, same thing for business where you make a capital investment, write it off inhe year in which you mak it, low rates to 15 or 17 , thats fair to everybody because one, takes people off the tax rolls of low income and creates more jobs, more opportunity. Whats not to like except politicians whoa, whoa. Morgan, go ahead. I actually think that sounds lovely. Im all for it. Here is the problem, who are we entrust to go reform the tax code . Charlie rangel and harry reid . Its like putting the cat among the pigeons. Its the pork barrel for a reason. Somebody should put e mac in charge. If you think the fiscal cliff tax hikes are bad, wait til you hear about al gres tax plan to tackle what hes calling the climate cliff. Thats at the bottom of the hour on cashin in. First, new government plan letting Voters Decide how to spend their own tax dollars. It sounds good, right . Wrong. Wrong. The flip sididididid no longer beautiful . Every year, millions of young women try to change the skin they were born with and say theyd die for darker skin. Sadly, some actually do. Melanoma is the second most common cancer in teens and young adults, and one person dies from melanoma every hour. Change your thinking, not your skin. Stop tanning. Learn more at spotskincancer. Org. A message from the American Academy of dermatology. The Government Forces you to pay for its services, so shouldnt you have a little more control over how your money is spent . The once bankrupt city of ayaho, california decide to go let its taxpayers vote how to spend 30 of its budget. But victoria says this is a bad idea. This is a flip side. Explain. I know. Its hard because truly we dont trust our politicians to do the right things cause they havent done the right things in the past. However, i think that is their job. We should hold them accountable and there should be transparency. What weve seen in the state o california is really a grand experiment in voter democracy. It has failed we have the highest tax rates in the nation and yet our School Funding is bottom of the barrel and our schools rank bottom in the nation. So this kind of it doesnt work. You have to have accountability somewhere and it should be in ou elected officials. Rick used to live in calirnia. Now he lives in new york. Is it because of this, rick . Actually no. Its because of you, david. [ laughter ] right. I actually agree with victoria on the point that voter democracy has not paid off very well in california. But this is a bit difference. Were taking a very small part of the city budget. The people arent going to be making decisions on where to buy their water and things like that. Theyre taking a small part of the budget and saying okay. Voters, you decide what we should do with this, if off community project. I think its good experiment. I like the idea of people getting together and doing something. Michael saying its our money for goodness sakes. Shouldnt we have more control over how its spent . First of all, w should give them much less of our money. Thats number one. True. Agreed. I agree with victoria. I think it would be far too chaotic. Sort of like in football, everybody in the huddle trying call the play. You need one person to call it, the person who is elected to be in charge. If you dont like the job that person is doing, replace him and look, there are council meetings, all sorts of meetings during the course of the month where people can voice their opinion and speak directly to the local politicians. Thats where i think this should be done. Steve, i know were representative government, i get that part. But the representatives havent been doing a great job of spending our money, have they . No. And if the citizens want to show they can do a worse job, they should be allowed to do so on a local basis. But david, i think the real referendum should take place in real voting should takes place on big projects like crony capitalism projects, or stadium projects that no one would approve of was put on the ballot. John . I used to live in california, too, although not near rick. Ill say here, you want the chaos. You want it to be local because if individuals dont like how money is being spent locally, they can move next door. The problem now is so much money spent on a federal level, which essentially imprisons us all under a major spending regime, bring it backo the states and cities so people can make choices. Rick, maybe if we did that, we wouldnt have the soldras. What in the world does solyndra have to do with people in vallejo, california . Misspending our money boy oh, boy, we can bring this around. Im fascinate that you could do that. This is about people coming together to decide on some community projects, with a tiny piece of the citys budget. Lets not make it more than it is. Its an interesting experiment. Let them try it. If it turns into a mess, they would not do it again. The point is when local people have control of the way their money is spent locally, theyrmuch better at administratorring it than the people in the state house or in washington. Yeah. But thats not what were talking about really. The issue in vallejo is should a community be in charge of a portion of the budget . And my answer is no. This is a city thats emerging out of bankrupt. They need to make very practical decisions. I think when you get a group of people in the room, theyre not necessarily going to make the most practical, longterm decisions. Theyre going to think about what they want for their neighborhood, which isnt what vallejo should be doing, this one of those times when i think im more in agreement with rick. Thank you. Coming up, stocks falling since election day, in part over fears that dc is going to let us fall off the fiscal cliff. Our informers say they have the names that wont get hit by the cliff. Get your pen john is 42. Mortgage. Married. Two great kids. He wants to protect his family with a 500,000 term Life Insurance policy. What do you think itll cost him . A hundred dollars a month . Sixty . Forty . Actually none of the above. John can get a 500,000 policy from a highly rated insurer for under 25 a month. His secret . Selectquote. Selectquote is impartial. Theyll search the pick of insurers like these to give you a choice of your best prices. Selectquote has great savings on term life for women, too. Johns wife carrie, can get a 500,000 policy for under 16 a month. Selectquote has helped make term Life Insurance affordable for hundreds of thousands of people since 1985. How about you . Just call this number or visit selectquote dot com. [poignant country music] remember when we vowed the vows and walked the walk and gave our hearts made a start and it was hard we lived and learned life threw curves there was joy, there was hurt remember when remember when we said when we turned gray when the children grow up and move away we wont be sad well be glad for all the life weve had and well remember when remember when were back with the stocks are. They say they wont go over the fiscal cliff. E mac real estate. Great tenants like cvs, walgreens and fedex. Morgan . With divind taxes, id be wary. You like apple, but its way down. I do. Im going against the bears right now. Im saying buy on the dip for a long