To michelle. She has todays corporate stories. Pfizer abandoned its bid to buy astrazeneca after being rejected by its british rival. The move had been widely expected. Pfizer can return with another offer in six months or three months if astrazeneca invites it back in. Well talk more about this story with a pharma analyst in about ten minutes on squawk box. Top executives from General Electric and siemens had set to appear from the French Parliament today. Francois hollande will meet with ge ceo jeff immelt. Reuters reports that siemens is preparing a formal offer for alstom. That would mean a slightly higher volume on alstoms Energy Activities than the ge bid. But only a little more than half of ges cash component. All those deals. Was it astrazeneca that was resisting or was it political i think it was astrazenecas board. The other deal we didnt talk about, the deal that wouldnt be or hasnt happened yet. Apple and beats, the head phones. How upset apparently apple was about the video with tyrese and dr. Dre with the heinekins. I need not say more. Does that deal not happen . Culturally this is so weird that we cant do business . Who is upset. Apparently the apple people. Tim cook . Potentially. At minimum, the lawyers are. Its more of a cultural issue. One of the reasons theyre hiring these people, they want to hire them and work there. Its not just dr. Dre. Its ivine is that his name . Now theres anxiety about how a little bit . How theyll all mesh. A company that is so siloed and controlled in its media message at all times before with steve jobs and now, and then suddenly this . I would find it unbelievable that this deal happens. Let me say, theres also the possibility, theres a conference that apple does in a week or two, maybe theres speculation that theyre waiting to announce it at that big event. Jimmy. Ivine . Are you up to speed on the elections around europe . Yes, the antiestablishment parties did extremely well except in italy. But nutty antiestablishment. They are drawn together by antieuropean union . Yes, absolutely. Not all of them are fringe and nutty, right . In greece there was the left wing. This antiestablishment. Pretty much antieu. Nigel farage was a guest here. He was great. You can extrapolate to our elections necessarily at this point . No, i dont think so. I was thinking in reference to the alstom bid, whether hollande is recognizes that you better eventually try to create jobs through the private segment. He advocated lowering taxes on businesses, lowering taxes on individuals. Theyre coming around before us. Which is typical. Bank of america faces a deadline to resubmit its capital plan. The firm discovered an accounting error in preparing its 10q and found that it made a 4 billion miscalculation. As a result, b of as plans for a stock buy back and Dividend Increase are in question. This was over the weekend this was explain for the first time. People hadnt appreciated exactly that it was a typo. And it says here, you know who george jettisson is . I heard of him. You did watch it . I used to watch. Apple. Stanley sprockets, i think. Jane his wife. His wife judy, his daughter jane. His boy elroy. I loved how she could change the format of the apartment with just pressing a button. Today it was blue, tomorrow its green. Its going to happen. At least come together on your pronunciation. You know what you just said is what we were talking about here. Im getting blinded by that diamond again. Is that a ge industrial diamond . No. Thats a natural diamond . It is a natural diamond. Did you see that thing. Its hard to miss. Shes leaning like this, almost out of the shot. With the lighting in here it makes it even more thats why they turned these off. Ill just hold it up again. These heights are off. They are supposed to highlight the bags under my eyes. Youre breaking hearts all over. I didnt say she was maybe theres still a chance. No, theres no chance. 50 . She could be back on the market and how do we know . No. They all say that. No. This is a good one. This is what you were talking about. Apple is ready to follow in the footsteps of george jetson. They are preparing a new Software Platform that would turn the iphone into a Remote Control for lights, security systems, and other household appliances. Were currently thats when they might announce beats, too, at that conference. Were working with new alarm stuff when we move. Are you working with nest . No. Adt people at this point. Well see. You dont use nobody uses the key pad. You say the key pad in your house, thats all iphone now . Really . This sounds like google brought this company, nest, which does exactly this kind of thing. You can control your thermostat. Its not clear theyre going to manufacture any of the devices. What they are going to do is effectively license or brand other devices that will interact with your phone. They will effect ofly give you the apple seal of approval and theyll say this is a refrigerator that has this technology. This is a lighting set that has this technology. There are many products in the apple store that are not manufactured by apple. It says on it designed by apple. If its being sold in the store, clearly thats what this is all about. Are you going to get that . Youre not going to get that. So 31,000 scientists this is in the journal. The myth of Climate Change, 97 . I knew what it was. 97 79 climatologists have published research and they went in and 79 of the 3146 responded said they believed humans were causing Climate Change. This other figure, 31,000 signatures, 9,000 ph. D. S, theyre scientists, physicists and chemists, the quote is theres no significant Scientific Evidence that this will cause or will in the foreseeable future cause catastrophic can i ask a question . Im just reading the journal. This is a great we have seen this over and over again. Theres freedom of religion in the country. Im not going to whatever anyone wants to believe is okay. I cant change peoples minds. This article is a great debunking of the head lane. One time New York Times in the, drink eight glasses of water a day. You start to dig into where did that number come from . It turns out to be bs. Im going to save this for posterity. Yes. Is this the Reinhart Rogoff . Yes. Theres the religion, equality, inequality religious. Piketty added it up wrong. He got his sums wrong. They redid all the math. Somebody wrote to me about zandi writing in over the weekend, needing higher inheritance taxes. Theres no upside in doing Climate Change. On piketty, however, clearly he made mistakes. I looked through the stuff. Its pretty amazing. You can see where he made errors and certain assumptions. The excel spreadssheets. If you want to play at home, you can do it online. The question, though, is whether it financedmentally undermines his assertions that inequality exist at all. You can argue in the uk based on his numbers that actually inequality is not as bad as some have suggested. However, you would also argue, even using the ft numbers that directionally it is not good either. Theres no one that is theres no deniers. You use denier there are deniers that theres income inequality . There are. The original article said it debunkd his entire thesis. I would argue that assertion went slightly too far. Its not that people are denying theres income inequality the agree. The degree and its a tradeoff you accept for freedom and growth. Absolutely. You can go back and say. For ameritocracy. And ameritocracy by definition, the people who are lucky or working hard, whatever it is, you know there will be some people that will not be equal. In places where they tried to achieve no income inequality, you know what would happen . Everyone was poor. Everyone was equal. Equally poor but equal. This is a religious conversation. No, no, no. Well continue our sermon in the 7 00 hour. Its about whether or not you believe in Economic Freedom as well as democratic freedom. Look, theres two issues. Economic freedom. Theres equal opportunities. Equal outcomes. Im not sure anybody is suggesting you need equal outcomes. What you are suggesting is that you want everybody to have that equal opportunity. Its unclear whether that exists. Some of the data and conversation, not from piketty but from others is about the opportunity. Since the beginning of time weve been trying to make it youd want the tune opportunity to be as equal as possible. Yes. There are plenty of people on the left who want equality of outcome for zblur there are people who want that. I think when zandi or, frankly, others talk about equal opportunity and talk about the estate tax, that is not thats more actually about equal opportunity than it is about equal outcomes. These are the people that dont necessarily think that ameritocracy, earned success, profit incentive, they dont think that helps everyone. Theres a far direction on the other side. Remember we had the gentleman that he was one of our top 25. He built the billion dollar business in india. He even explained, he goes, i have grudgingly come to accept thats the only way to lift the most people even though its not perfect. Sometimes it seems cut throat or whatever you want to call it. Or darwinian. Thats the way that lifts the most people. It has done so. For 300 or 400 years. Before that there wasnt a lot happening. You want to take us to ukraine . Yes. Yes. Steve sedgwick joins us with the headlines and also a guest, i believe. Steve . Thanks very much indeed. We have come a long way. Weve had an election which a lot of people didnt think wed get to. Someone who has been guiding us through the story, jeffrey piatt, the u. S. Ambassador for ukraine. How significant has getting to the election been, and the president has a clear mandate, mr. Poroshenko. How important is that . Hugely important turning point. Victory for the ukrainian people. President elect poroshenko will come with a clear mandate. He was very public during the election. He wants to move this democracy forward. We were in st. Petersburg friday, it appeared that jeffrey got out of mr. Putin, he will respect the will of the people and will work with the new president. Is that the understanding, that they can Work Together . We hope so. We know mr. Poroshenko wants to have a strong relationship with russia. He speaks for all the ukrainian people. We hope very much moscow will get down to business. You say that, i spoke to politicians who believe we need a third round of sanctions in order to get the russians to the table. Whats your impression, sir . Do we need a third round of sanctions . First of all, there are still russian behaviors question are deeply concerned about. This violence in donetsk, terrible violence seems to be fuelled in part by people coming across the russian border. We believe the pressure needs to be maintained. Were trying to do that jointly with our european partners. Well have to wait and see what russiany concludes. There have been dozens of deaths in the last 24 hours. Dozens of death in and around donetsk airport as the Ukrainian Military tried to clear separatists as well. Mr. Lavrov is saying the government should resist. Mr. Poroshenko is saying against terrorists. How do you see it . To begin with, we certainly acknowledge the requirement and the ride of the Ukrainian Government to restore law and order in donetsk. This latest violence began when you had armed separatists, some of whom appear to have come from across the border in russia who tried to take control of the airport, a hugely symbolic play no doubt. We believe that the Ukrainian Government is acting within its rights. I would note also very importantly, this government has made clear that amnesty is made available. Thats obviously the preferred outcome at this point. When do you think the u. S. Military equipment will start ending here in ukraine, defensive weaponry, 100 million i think has been talked about on slil as well. Is that something that is needed immediately . Right now our assistance envelope was 20 million. That was announced when Vice President biden was here. Weve deliveries of nonlethal equipment. So things like binoculars, radios and heavy equipment to help them build up border defenses. Sure. Congress, we were delighted to have large numbers of members in ukraine over the next couple of days. Senator portman said no boots on ground. But this country, you know better than i do, but this country desperately needs retraining of its military as well. Do you think that thrill be military trainers from the United States . I dont see that at this stage. We certainly are willing to work with this government in terms of helping to accommodate their military to the dramatically changed security environment they operate in. When mr. Putin was interviewed on friday about the situation and the withdrawal of Russian Troops or interests in the country, he turned around and mr. Putin said wheres my money as well . Wheres my 3. 5 billion . The truth is, ukrainians do need to pay their bills as well. They acknowledge that. Prime minister yatsenyuk said that in a public message last week. Their are engagements going on between the european union, ukraine and russia. It has to be based on a marketable price. Ill push you one more time on sanctions. Do you think we need an immediate round of sanctions . We have to wait seen see what happens. Mr. Piatt, thanks so much indeed, jeffrey piatt, the u. S. Ambassador for ukraine. We appreciate that. Watching carefully whats going on over there. I dont know what this means. Is putin going to be nice . I thought of something, andrew, really quickly. Michelle, i agree with you that just a couple of mistakes dont necessarily refutiate with the entire thesis but its the reaction of the left to what theyre saying. Yes. All they were saying is if the debt to gdp gets too high, it can hurt growth. Right. They came up with 090 . The Huffington Post said discredit it. No amount of debt is too much. Discredit it. Yes. In this case piketty is discredited. I havent heard from your friend krugman. Paul wrote about it. Is the v. A. Still held up by him . Given the scandal thats taken place . Yes. Is that something we can look forward to . The many times before he wrote that the internet ill ask him over lunch today. For your indoctrination session . Pfizer confirming its dropped its contentious bid for astrazeneca. I had a lot of different thoughts here. Its bad when a ceo spends about three months doing this and then it doesnt work. How is ian reads position at the company at this point . Was it worth a shot . I think it was certainly worth a shot. There were a lot of benefits if he was going to pull it off. They actually got close. Would he have been able to figure out it wasnt doable . I dont think its not doable. I think theres a good chance in a few months theyll be back at the table. How would it happen . Would astrazeneca welcome them back in . Faster in astrazeneca invites them back in. They got close to the astrazeneca asking price. Theres a good chance to the astrazeneca shareholders might push astrazeneca management to come back to the table. Right now theres a sixmonth break. For pfizer to approach. I think its a formal approach to pfizer. Pfizer has a lot going to keep the bankers happy with their Restructuring Plan anyway. Because in the uk they have stricter rules about m a, et cetera. You talked about the astrazeneca shareholders. The stock is falling as a result of pfizer backing off. Would that be the pressure that brings astrazeneca back to the table . They almost achieved the value they wanted. Now its stipulating back. Doesnt it give them negotiating power . Right now if astrazeneca two months from now calls up pfizer and says, lets go, what price are we talking about any more . I think were back to 58. 5 pounds. If im pfizer i think id say, look, you people are screwed. Unless astrazeneca stock gets hammered in the meantime. Youre back to parliament and the jobs and youre back to arent you back to that anyway . Arent you always going to be back to that . Dont you have to come back with a higher bid . With pfizer . Yes. They set a bid. They raised the bid. They didnt go all the way. Thats where i think they will go, back to they wont do all the way again . I think they would go all the way again. When we first started talking about this and we realized it was an inversion, crossborder pharmaceutical merger seemed out of the question but weve seen how many. They were more to take advantage of r d or new markets. Everybody looked at this with a question, raising an eyebrow. A lot of that, the way the deal was met on both sides of the atlantic sort of scuttled the deal. I wonder if you could have anticipated that in the current environment . Well, i think the tax issue raised a lot of eyebrows back here. Job losses and closing facilities. Thats what happens in a drug Company Acquisition anyway. Right. They are already a combination of two different domiciled companies. Right. Thats a mess. Well see what happens. I cant say ill be counting the days to three months or whatever it is. If something happens, well talk about it when it finally happens. Did you see over the weekend, intercontinental, a British Company had a 10 billion takeover bid from a u. S. Hotel company. To do an inversion. We dont know which one. We can talk during the break. Have you seen what the stanley cup final might be . It might be new york l. A. Wow, two biggest markets in the country. Nbc, hockey, kings. I watched that rangers game. I didnt remember that. Theyre ahead 31 and the king are ahead 31. Im not counseling the rangers aol tonight they could do it. The goalie. This new goalie is hot. He is hot. You know whos hot . Lundqvist is so hot for everybody involved. Do you know lundqvist . Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ive watched hockey recently. Youve never seen him without his mask . Well see you in a couple months. Why candymakers are taking issue with egret business. Its time for todays executive edge. They are using names like thin mint, cinnamon toast crunch. Now theyre fighting back. They want to make sure their brands arent being used to make an addictive drug, as they call it. Are you an ecigarette, antiecigarette . Why would i be antiecigarette. They believe its a gateway drug. Youre talking to somebody who believes anybody should be able to do to their body what they want. Bottom line. I would legalize heroin. Would you . Absolutely.