A few minutes for an interview. Rublessian leader and the as the fed rats at its meetings today. Is it time to say time to say goodbye to opec . If the oil cartel cannot affect price anymore, what is the . On assignment. Is he may be back in a few minutes, but in the meantime, a very special cohost today. Of weisenthal is the editor bloomberg markets, but that is not why hes on. Your hair looks so good. To matt miller, obviously fantastic. But standalone, it still looks good. Its time to start the top business stories of the morning. We have seen some very big swings in the ruble today, but nothing like yesterday. The ruble soared more than 8 at the open, fell back, and now again it is strengthening against the u. S. Dollar. Russia intervened for the second day in a row, buying rubles out in the open market. Meanwhile, russia said it will keep well production steady over the next year. That sent oil prices down as much as 3 . West texas intermediate has been trading below 55 per barrel. Brent crude is around 59. And now, it is payback time for the world airlines. After years of rising fuel prices, airlines are positioned for a 12 billion windfall from the collapse of oil. Int means higher profits and the u. S. Rewards for shareholders. Do not expect that to help you or me. So far, most airlines have not cut ticket prices. Over ating revenue citigroup fell 9 in the first three quarters, but the traders will not have to pay the price. According to a person briefed on the matter, the bonus full for citigroups trading unit will be unchanged from a year ago. At the same, Investment Bankers might feel shortchanged. They revenues increased, but their bonus pool will not rise proportionately. And breaking news on a scam ive been following closely. Jeffrey group banker bad boy, i like to say, sage kelly is officially resigning to focus on his family. You remember his divorce became tabloid gold here in new york city. His wife accused him of setting up hidden cameras to catch her using drugs. While not disclosing his own drug use, she demanded 7 million in damages. Most recently, she said weve made amends and its all about the kids, but as far as stage not so much. Work, and the currency crisis in russia, moving on to a little more serious topic, it is sure to be a topic at todays fed meeting in washington. We are asking whether it will affect the policy statement and will janet yellen talk about the economy at the News Conference . Who better to ask than alan blinder. Greenspanunder alan and is now a professor at princeton university. And neil dutta is here, too. Gentlemen, this has been a now full for me. I will let you lead. What will happen today . Either one of you, are they going to get rid of the considerable time language today . Class i think it is a 5050 that. 5050 bet. Nk it is a side,down on the no but i think they will keep it. And it will be a considerable time still before they are thinking of raising Interest Rates. There, i would think about throwing a firecracker into whatever this is. Was on the f1 scene now, i think that would nudge me towards waiting. Now, if i was on the fomc i think that would nudge me towards waiting. What do you think would cause them to not rush to change the language . Is the strength of the u. S. Economy, which is what is pushing people to think sooner to drop it, and the behavior of inflation. Inflation has gone down, and expected inflation has gone down a lot. The 2 been well below target, and the fed does not like it. They have been trying to convince the public and the investing markets that they are symmetric at about 2 . They dont want it higher or lower, and it is lower now. Do you have the same call . Or do you think they will get rid of it . Meal is making a face. I think he is not. I think that they will drop it, but i think they will probably soften it once they do. Maybe stress patience in raising rates. Really, i dont think the events of the last few weeks are changing the baseline outlook for the u. S. Economy. For the last five quarters, growth has been at or about 3 . Growing att jobs are a fairly respectable pace. Most of the decline in unemployment is year has been because of a longterm unemployment. The market is not tight, but it is tightening. Financial scheme of markets, three months, six month, is like an intern at sea. Three to six months from now, we will be talking it is like an intern the. Three to six months from, we will be talking about more jobs and probably some wage growth. The headlines that stephanie just read about airlines not passing on Lower Oil Prices, to me, this brings into question pass into corell prices. I think underlying inflation is probably stable. Maybe i knew them in my heart, neil. How high is russia today in terms of topics they need to cover . Not that high. Really . I think there will be some discussion in context i just raised. That is, you have this financial turmoil, so is this a great time for us to throw another monkey i hand mixing my metaphors. Throw another match into the fire. It will come to that, im sure. Fomcocus is always at the meetings, and when i say focus, attention, onthe what neil was just mentioning, how good the economy looks. I think i agree with the outlook that he was just saying. And i think the fomc that neil was just saying. And i think the fomc agrees. The question is whether that phrase and today or hangs on for another meeting or two. If you come into the meeting feeling 5050, or if you came in three days ago feeling 5050 and you look at what is going on in the markets, you might say, maybe we should just wait. Everybody agrees that the time is basically dead. Lets get to the fun part of when they finally hiked rates. What is your outlook . Lean on the more often and stick side of the consensus. Because my Economic Outlook drives my excitations for monetary policy, i think they go a little sooner. My expectations for monetary policy, i think they go a little sooner. I do think there is an argument for a 2015 baseline. The question is how quickly they go once they start. The market right now, if you look at it, it is trading more dovishly thanmore the members of the fomc. And you could see a drop in the yield curve. Market, potentially if the economy continues to strengthen at this rate, may be in for a more hawkish fed than many appreciate at the moment. Alan . Collects in terms of rooftop, i inn the juneseptember terms of lift off, i am in the juneseptember. They will have to have a press conference, and that is not to say they will not have a press conference anyway, but it is somewhat of a deterrent. That is the main argument for june as opposed to september. A very important determinant will be the behavior of inflation between now and then. People are still not blonde on to how much this will fully information down. Mmedeople are not still glo pull themuch this information down. It will almost certainly lead into core. And you will have when june rolls around, probably a sixmonth history of very low inflation, well below 2 . Will they do it in june . Be a lot ofe will second thoughts about that. But i do think it will be slow once it starts. In besides the time question, what else should we be looking for from the fed press conference . I think we should be looking for how the fed will characterize the state of the economy. Opty doo be wo technically speaking with a quick yes, the term will not be technically speaking. Yes, the technical term will not be in there, but they will upgrade the assessment. The crucial thing will be what they say about inflation. They could come back and say very little about inflation, or they could well more on the behavior of inflation. If i were to pick one thing to watch in terms of the pros prose the economy around the economy, it would be that. What do you think of the press conference after class i dont think the press conference i dont think we will see much of a change. Whetherwhen question is the fed is making a policy mistake. I would like to see some in the press corps asked whether janet yellen believes in stagnation. That would be an interesting question to ask. I think she probably doesnt. Believe in it at all . Yes, i think she knows there are risks at there, but it would be interesting to set see that aired out there for the public to see. What is another question you would like to see asked at the press conference . About should be asked time and when the fed will move. And she will dodge those. Isnt that her job to dodge those . Is, but whatt people dont understand so much is that yes, it is, but if she doesnt what people dont understand so much is that if she doesnt know, she doesnt know. She might have it in her head about june, july, september, but there will be a lot of information coming in. Neither one of us think that this russian whatever you want to call it will bend the u. S. Economy in a serious way. But what if we are wrong you go sixmonth what if we are wrong . We will know now whether we are wrong. I dont think she thinks it will affect the u. S. Economy. But she cannot know those things now. Professor, get your red pen out. Give janet yellen a great. I think she has done well so far. An a give her and a for what she has done so far. But give her give her a grade. Who am i to judge . What weve seen so far is basically a negative. That means the treasury sees the market as there is certain, and janet yellen is talking about uncertain. There is a disconnect between defense guidance and away the markets are currently trading. That will be an important topic for 2015. Gentlemen, thank you so much. It linder and neil. Neil dutta. The in for full coverage of fed meeting and Janet YellensNews Conference for bottom line here with mark trenton. We have a lot more to cover. Line here with mark crumpton. We have a lot more to cover. Bill ackman will be here in just a few minutes. Greg will come back welcome back. Im here with joe weisenthal. President obama will announce a major shift in u. S. Cuba relations today. It can be that he is ending the decadesold embargo on the communist island nation. Phil mattingly is here in new york city today. You came just to see us for christmas, i hope. [indiscernible] we will be ending this segment early. Seriously, the reason this is happening is the release of alan gross, a u. S. Contractor that has been held in cuba for five years. There have been back channel negotiations going on between Obama Administration officials and the cubans for a long time. They have heated up in the last couple of months. Why this is important, the u. S. Has made clear that as long as he is held down there, there would be no change in major relations between the u. S. And to buy. Even though there has been a big push and cuba even though there has been a big push on that front. What the president will announce at noon is the start of normalization of relations with cuba. This is huge. Think about five decades, cold war, major changes in trade, bank policy. This is a big step for the administration. The embargo began under eisenhower. Just to put that into perspective, people thought that cuba was never going to be in our lifetime. What does this mean for president obama . Does he want this to be part of his legacy . No question. He came into Office Eastern easing travel restrictions he started easing travel research is on people going to cuba. Country this just was not a country that lawmakers were ever going to allow because the way they operated under castro. Houseere are some in the that are not going to be thrilled with this, robert menendez, mark ok marco rubio. What does this mean for 2016 . Forhen Hillary Clinton ran president in 2008, she was for maintaining the van the ban. Which based on the cuban population in florida, that was always the assumed position of anyone trying to win in that state. She has shifted. Who hasnt . Jeb bush, marco rubio. On the democratic side, hopefully there is a new population of cubanamericans coming up that want to normalize relations. Is that right yet . Ripe yet . Goston could this happen you how soon would this happen . Initially heard was that this would be a symbolic announcement. Now im being told that there are concrete things being put into place starting today as part of that normalization, both on the cubans time and our site. Our side. Stay with us. We have to turn our attention to russia. Putin is pulling out all the stops to halt the glass in the ruble. I want to bring in Ryan Chilcote joining us from london. We started this conversation yesterday, talking about where you were 10 years ago when this happened. Fast forward. What is going on today . It fascinating how much one day, how much a difference makes. How much a difference it makes. The story today is russia going on the counteroffensive. The finance ministry and the deputy finance minister are finally are kind of channeling mario draghi in saying that they will use as much of their hard currency reserves as necessary to prop up the ruble. They have 7 billion to that. The bank of russia has 14 billion and a lot of gold. Market it put into the to the tune of 2 billion yesterday. The ruble is not where it was last week, but it has gotten back some of it losses. Which the russians will find to be welcome news. And the game changer came yesterday when we heard from the economy minister saying that russia would not impose any capital controls. Not that we believe in just check, but that was also very supportive of the ruble believe him just yet, but that was also very supportive of the ruble. Looking at the russian ruble ticker on the screen, it looks like it is down 10 , but it is the dollar against the ruble. That is quite a significant ruble strengthening today. That is all the time we have. We would love for you to stay forever. But weve got reporting to do. Ryan chilcote joining us from london. It has taken two years, but bill ackman half steps against herbalife is in the money. We will be digging in with him in just a moment. Coming up, it is a first on bloomberg tv, bill ackman on his second anniversary of his billion dollars short against her life. He will be here to discuss that and a lot more. Stay with us. Live from bloomberg headquarters in new york, this is Market Makers with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. Welcome back to Market Makers. I am Stephanie Ruhle. Who is back with us. My partner in crime could not miss this next interview even though he has been on assignment. Erik, glad to have you back. Good to be here. Guess who is . He is called a true insider who took the other side of the trade, but at least for now, mr. Ackerman is having the last laugh. Shares have fallen by 50 and it appears that bill is in the money. Thanks for being on Market Makers. Thank you. You speak about herbalife, the stock goes up. This summer it has been going down. What has changed is a lot of the former herbalife employees, top distributors are turning state evidence. So we have very interesting eo from herbalife film by herbalife . That is from october it you will say that it was 10 years ago, but wait until you see the video. It is one of the top distributors, i think he is in the top 10, talking to other readers,op to strip members of the company, Senior Vice President of herbalife and he is talking about how herbalife is basically a pyramid scheme. As soon as you set down and started speaking herbalife, shares began to tumble. Lets look at this video right now, shot in 2005, an internal video. It is an herbalife video. Lets take a look. Herbalife get these people to put up their own money runofthemill products. In a word deception. This is a great business opportunity. Herbalife is a recipe for success. Make 120 thousand dollars in a year or 240,000 a year. Anywhere up to 3. 6 million. Herbalife is proud of the fact we have an unrivaled business opportunity. Herbalifes Financial Success is a most inevitable. But in this traitor session, the telly different story. Sell people a dream that they can make it. Deep down inside, what do we really know . Yeah, we know the reality is most are not going to make it. The reality is most herbalife distributors earn less than 1. 50 per week with hundreds of thousands suffering significant losses. The model is not based on customer purchasing. It is based on distributors purchasing volume. That is the herbalife business model. That is the way it works. I. E. To make a correction. That overall video was put together by Pershing Square, but in there that video was taken by an herbalife distributor and an internal meeting and the person standing in the front of the room was a senior herbalife staff member talking about the fact that people who enter the herbalife community do not actually use the product. We just put up on our website the entire threehour video. Not going to make you watch all of that. We also have a white paper that walks you through the video. That will take you a lot less time. And we have a segment that highlights takes pieces of the highlights. People complained about our Nutrition Club presentation. Bill, where is your smoking gun . The answer is, we have a guy, shy of the is just founder circle, the top 15 chairman and the company. Herbalife recorded the video. And he is walking through how this is a deception, his words. He is talking about how the business is kind of struggling in 2005, how they are going to fix it. I for julie, things are much worse unfortunately, things are much worse now. The scam is even greater. The bad thing is we did not get it first. The government got it 30 days ago. How did you get possession of it . An intermediary. Lets put it this way we are who thewed to disclose person was. The excerpts of the video are short and good, but it is important to watch the whole thing. I think it will be important evidence. But ackerman detractors will werehe finds people who not making money and he puts them on the payroll. There are a lot of seeributors now and they their paychecks declining as they are realizing herbalife is likely to be shut down. They are going to the government or coming to us and saying, look, i have information that could be helpful to you. In this case, we had someone come to us with a copy of this video and it was a very valuable document. They give it to the government, and then they gave it to us, but none of the people in the video i have not met any of them. These are Chairmans Club members, board members, several Senior Executives featured in the video. It is a recording. It is no