Caught on, the rate steadily rose to 8 . Then 10 . Then 15 . And finally 20 . With a proviso under some conditions, it can be ratcheted up to 25 . Another example of politicians far more creative at finding ways to get more money than save money. Be careful what you wish for you tax reformers out there. Sometimes the fix puts you in a bigger fix. To michael. Dan mitchell. And julie. Ou argue this consumption tax isnt a good idea, but for other reasons. Its horrible. Its a completely regressive tax. Excuse me. That on top of a sales tax, you also have a consumption tax. Forget the income tax. Youre taxing people with sales tax. Then a fat tax. It hits lower income people. It hits lower income people and its not the way to go. Even though france does this. Despite my love for the french. Ill say hello to them. Talk to them. Talk to them and tell them theyre wrong about that. I wouldnt mind the idea of a vat. Its a pileon. Absolutely. Your whole preamble with that with the income tax. The whole idea of simplifying the tax code and taking a plat a flat tax and sales tax, is that so you can avoid double taxation. This does the exact opposite. When italy was toying with that to follow the rest of europe at the time. We didnt have a European Union at the time. The argument was that it would be low. It would eventually go away. And in the flip side would be that income tax rates would go a lot lower. None of that happened. None of it. Its just like with our income tax. When we got the income tax in 1914. The top was 7 . Look where its now. Any time you give politicians a new source of revenue youre opening up pandoras box. You know theyll spend it. Push the rates higher. We need to build fences around the tax system not to open the gates wide so politicians can spend more money. See thats what concerns me. Theres a point to that. I worry more about the fact, well provide a lot more revenue for washington to do whatever. Well youre not wrong. Essentially you have a state lets look at the state income tax. You have a state income tax. A federal income tax. In new york city, you have a you say lucky . Youre screwed three different ways. Here, you have a sales tax in new york state. A sales tax in new york city. And also a federal vat tax. Im not for that. You would be shocked to hear, i have a limit. Youre much more pragmatic than i thought. If you think about it right now both sides are closer to this because its a little bit easier to sell than higher tax rates or removing a lot of allowances and special things to various groups. I think its harder. If you have a sales tax and you dont want to have an income tax youre talking about the 16th amendment. Getting rid of that im not sure will be so easy. The goal we need to achieve is simplification along with better use of our resources. Right now Small Businesses in particular are crushed with having to get lawyers and figure out the whole maze of tax rules and stuff. We need to be able to simplify the code so we can increase productivity. Thats a way to get more economic growth. You know everybody has been saying this, and ted cruz mentioned this in his president ial announcement. His goal is to get your entire tax to fill out an index card. I remember Ronald Reagan saying that. Will we ever get to that point, or is it Wishful Thinking . It will be an uphill battle. A consumptionbased tax is good in theory. It simply means you dont have double taxation. The flat tax is a consumptionbased tax. The National Sales tax is a consumptionbased tax. As is the vat. Where do we like a flat tax, but not the vat. The flat tax is talked about in the context of getting rid of the pages of the right. Their charm or their draw is that you get rid of our present tax code. Yeah. Whereas the vat the politicians in washington theyre salivating theyre drooling over the possibility of the vat as an addon tax. Do it through a flat tax. The worst thing that happens, you degenerate back to the current system. The worst thing what happens with the vat becomes france. I dont think its that bad. The food is good. Tell them to stop with the egg on everything. I love the egg on everything. Youre so healthy and all. The argue for a consumption tax whatever they want to call it, is that were one of the few conditions oncountriesthat doesnt have one. The last thing the us should be doing is taking tax cues from france actually for any of these countries who it has not been working like a charm for. It worries me that were taking these cues from europe. What do you think . Well these are excuses by politicians to just raise on more taxes. Look, i dont care if youre democrat or liberal or republican it doesnt matter. They love taxes and theyre searching for more taxes. In france and in europe youre looking at gdp. Think about this. The government is eating up 50 of gdp every single year. Were about 40 relative to that. We dont want to go down the road to socialism. We want to go down the road to freedom. We should be leaders not, i mean, imitators. Low taxation. Growth. They believe in entrepreneurs and freedom. Not taxes. All right, mark, thank you very much. I apologize we had problems with your audio. Thank you. In the meantime, very powerful. This chart pretty much says it all. American savings rate is descryskyrocketing as gas prices are tumbling. Theyre not spending. Theyre saving. Billionaire businessman john says people hunkering down might be a good thing. Why do you think . Well, eight years ago, when the biggest problems that was known to all business magazines was us savings accounts were at an alltime low. People were hardly saving money. Got into mortgage problems. Couldnt pay their bills. People are saving money. Theyre becoming more responsible appear a. A lot of reasons for it. When you throw out extra taxes people say wait a minute. Extra taxes. I better start saving now. If not well have real problems. I want to be able to go through it okay. If everyone were to do it at the same time, then it would be damaging to the economy. Right . At least nearterm because nobody is spending. I think whats happening because of the weather and everything thats happened in the past few months, a little bit of fear out there. There will be a certain point where they put enough away theyll spend again. I think its fabulous for america and the economy and everybody. Now they feel secure, they can go out and spend money on luxury goods maybe they wouldnt normally buy. Vodka comes to mind. Oh yeah. Patron. We talk about highend, lowend. The highend is doing just fine. Continuing to spend. Not so a lot of other folks. Does that worry you that this chasm can widen . Once they reach a certain point of personal security, then theyll go out and spend and be able to treat themselves to something nice. How soon do you think they do that . In a matter of months. It wont be long. Unless they continue talking about these extra taxes people will freak out and really holding back. What will it mean like businesses like yours. Youre everywhere. Personal products. Im wondering if a consumption tax a simple consumption tax with a simple income tax code not a removed income tax code will actually help. What do you think . It would depend on what that flat tax simplified tax would be. What if it was 20 . If it was 20 acrosstheboard with no deductions. They wouldnt need other taxes. Look what hong kong did with 10 taxes and became stable. Did hong kong switch other taxes for that tax . Just added it on . It was a flat tax. Like 10 . No deductions, no matter what your income was. If they did a 20 for everybody. There would be no more taxes. A lot more money theyre making right now. The argument is that it would be regressive. Guys like yourself would be nice, investmentrelated taxes. And the poorer would be stuck footing the bill. If you go with the flat tax especially 20 , its on all money you make. All dividends. Personal income. That would be so much money generated. If we made extra money you put 20 in all that investmentrelated stuff, people wouldnt invest. No. If it was over and above. That would be crucial. For a guy like you its either or. Dont pile on. Yeah. And people like me will take that money and reinvest it. The few companies ive started the last couple of years. Because ive been graced with nice income here. Creates thousands of more jobs for other countries. A lot of this extra money people are using to create more jobs and good stuff for people. You know whats interesting about your background. Like ken. Home depot. Michael dell. They started their businesses in the worst environments. If theres a will, theres a way. Theres a genius to you guys. I wonder if this makes it tough for the next geniuses if this is the environment they have to succeed in. I dont think so. In 80 81, 700 inflation. Ten and a half interest rates. 17 was prime. You had to wait in line for gasoline. Terrible conditions. But america im a Firm Believer in can work. So the Business Model is sound. The approach is sound. It doesnt matter what the outside environment is. Bernie marcus said, i cant do home depot. If i could start Paul Mitchell today, it was easier when things were worse several years back. Inflation is different. A lot of things are different. Today, oh, my god, you have the internet. No 49 for an answering machine. You have the internet. I wouldnt have to give you the local printer 5 to give me a business card. Things are better today. I feel better talking to you. And then i come home and realize, oh, my life is miserable. Always a pleasure. We finally found something dorkier than googles smart glasses. Sonys. Guys. Really . Neil all right. Forget what the tack. Maybe we should call it get a clue. Sony unveiling new smart glasses that are even dorkier than google glasses. Tech expert jeff kimball on why sony would want to copy something that wasnt a success. What do air glasses do that the google ones dont . Absolutely nothing. Im normally the biggest proponent of the future, but these are an unmitigated disaster. Theyre hideously ugly. These are worst than googles. They look like a murderer on vacation wearing dark sunglasses. There isnt any interesting new hardware to it. Its a misstep. Its a public misstep. Neil a lot of people say that theyre they look more like regular glasses than googles. I didnt notice that. I dont think those people have eyes. Do you think this whole technology, these smart glass, whatever you want to call them, have a future . Absolutely. They have a future. There are a couple of Japanese Companies that are building things that are beautiful looking. They have to look completely regular. And it will happen. Remember the ten years before the ipod was finally event. You had the rio and all these other technologies. Were in the nascence see before somebody nails it . plenty of time to play with the sony glasses as youre driving because believe it or not tesla is working on a Software Update that will let you do that kind of stuff while youre driving. The car is driving. This Software Update will enable handsfree driving now. Forget about this being safe, is it legal . Its three months out. They announced the next Software Update will offer some level of car selfderiving. Itsselfdriving. Its like Cruise Control. You cant take a nap and go down main street. Its very specific. Its been heavily heavily tested. Yes, regulations are working to catch up with technology. We have cars that can parallel park. And with Cruise Control that do a lot. It was just a matter of time. Its just a matter of time. And tesla is being intelligent. Theyre introducing it incrementally. Theyre not suddenly coming out with this crazy space car with things people dont understand. Its bit by bit the new components get added. It becomes regular. And everybody cant imagine their life without them. Be aware of technologies flying high. Sometimes they stop flying at all. Jetblue suffering an outage that grounded all traffic at jfks international airport. Things got so bad. They had to manually check in passengers. And get this, talk to them. [laughter] what do you think . Yeah that i mean, new york city airports are awful. That really was the icing on the cake. Neil what was the problem . The software, glitch . Its software. This is old software. Weve been checking people into airports with computers without much incidence. It spread. Yes. I dont understand the whole software mechanics between how and spread. But jetblue did interesting things in that they used twitter to help people as much as they could. They were using technology to their own betterment. Yes, the Software Problem did people tweet back to them . I imagine it wasnt always pretty. Tech trends watcher. Did apples tim cook say that indiana is rotten to the core. What he blasted that could take a bigger bite out of apple than he knows right now. Neil much ado about nothing. That is how indiana governor mike pence pretty much describes new religious freedom measure he just signed into law that is getting a lot of flak everywhere. Some say religious freedom is code for antigay. Among them apple ceo tim cook the openly gay executive, blasting him in an oped. Writing, apple is open to everyone regardless of where they come from, what they look like what they worship, regardless what the law will allow in indiana and arkansas, we will never tolerate discrimination. What exactly is cook threatening here and whom . Indiana customers who might not even care about this issue but might have a bigger issue with a california ceo making their state the issue . Regardless of what you think about this indiana law, whether its a measure aimed to protect religious freedoms or actually code for being antigay, is it a slippery slope for a ceo of any company to lecture a state on such matters . Remember cooks own state of california takes a dim view of jobs that are shipped overseas. Yet not a word from cook about the millions of iphones apple makes in asia. And Southern States like texas and arizona are cracking down on illegal immigration should he weigh in on those matters that a lot of liberal groups find particularly obsessive. Be careful getting on a high horse. Sometimes regardless of peoples point of view, they dont take kindly to all of you calling them horses asses. Thats my spiel. To Katrina Pearson with hers. What do you make of it . This is classic liberal hypocrisy. You mentioned several things going on across the country that hes not talking about. For example, outsourcing jobs. You have these ceos that are finding their political voice at the expense of their company, not realizing that a lot of americans who may not be politically active are in fact, active in their consumerism and just might use that power moving forward. Im just wondering whether youll have a beef on gays, for example. Right. Neil you leave yourself open to, all right, he spoke out on this but he didnt speak out about outsourcing or about illegal immigration and people start saying, oh, you pick and choose your battles. Right . Right. And he took this personally being gay himself. And thats understandable. But you dont emotionally, you know, flashback at people, particularly in a state that has nothing really to do with you as an individual. You know, he didnt mention the fact that it was bill clinton that signed a religious freedom act way back when. Thats right. Here we are today in the situation where you have Business Owners being attacked by the left for antigay measures. But bill clinton later went on to say he regretted that. Youre quite right. It started there. Regardless of your point of view on this subject if gays or what have you that, that if youre in indiana or in one of these states and you dont like a ceo just pontificating or should we hold them to the same standard a lot of people say about actors and actresses you know, just act other than that, shut up . I mean, yes, we should. They are ceos. If theyre speaking out against one thing theres likely somebody who works for them that is on the opposite side. How does that person feel . They should be cognizant of the issues. Somebody they employ falls into the bracket they dont support. At the Bigger Picture at the end of the day were looking at a country who for the most part is socially traditional. Now were falling back into well im right. What youre doing is wrong. But his season own state shot down gay marriage. Then hes criticizing another state from protecting Business Owners from being attacked. Well watch closely. He might have set himself up for hits in other places. Im an apple shareholder here. I should disclose. Forget if we dont get a new deal with iran by tomorrow. Charles payne says, worry far more for our stock market if we do. Neil no payne no gain. Charles payne says, we let iran keep that Nuclear Stockpile they want to keep, well, its not going to be good for stocks period. Youre worried about this . Charles oh, absolutely. Everyone has to be worried about this. We rapidly approach this deadline that president obama will be so desperate to craft any kind of deal. You know, for whatever reasons, you know, i think his legacy, maybe just sort sort of ornery in that kind of matter. Or justify the nobel peace prize. Give him another one. Youll be a great president. Take the prize now. Everyone must be worried. This is not just about the middle east. This is about the entire world. Listen no one trusts iran. I mean, who does . They have the tentacles in four other countries. Their intentions are known. Their attitude towards israel has been welladvertised. This is a country i would do Anything Possible to make sure they never have a nuke. Neil whats scary is were scrambling to get a deal done. Iran not so much. I dont know if theyre playing good defense. The normal history of markets even when you get a greek debt deal or something, the first reaction is to buy. In other words people are relieved. Okay greece avoid a fall, what have you. Cooler heads prevail and think, no its a lousy deal. When do we get to that reality if we get a deal . If we get a deal, that casts a giant shadow. Neil my own prediction would be the market moves up on it. I dont think its justified. I think afterwards they would sell off. Charles im not sure. That one im really not sure. If its the deal that netanyahu describes because we dont really know. Its been president obama in the un doing the negotiating. Then i think that would be news for the markets. It would be sort of a little bit of an anchor in the market. In the meantime, you pick and choose your fights in this market. Y