All right. Look, its still new years eve here, but people are ringing in 2013 on the other side of the world, my sons included. The party startening new zealand and australia, auckland, sydney, the first cities in the world to celebrate the new year, i guess new zealand is over the cliff. Sydney and japan and australia, and either on the edge of the cliff or just tipped over. All right. Thats new years eveover seas, lets check in on the celebration at home. Lauren simonetti from times square, i have only one observation, unless youre drinking heavily, drunk as a skunk youre going to be cold tonight, isnt that right . Or this morning, ive got my hand warmers over here, my space heater over year, stuart. Really . In 1917. Im so glad i wasnt alive then. Stuart a question for you. Go ahead. Stuart in america we say you have goose bumps when youre very cold. In england we say youre henfleshed. Are you either this morning . I am both, put together. Times a hundred. Stuart excellent. I look like rudolph with my nose. Stuart may i recommend you wear a hat and im losing my hair and i do, i have a hat with me as well as ear warmers just not for this hit. Can i tell you some things going on behind me today . No, dont have time, sorry. Thats the way it is. I was going to tell you about the drunken revellers and their bathroom experiences, i guess you dont want to know. Stuart you should hear what theyre saying, no more drunken revellers, no time. Wrap up, keep warm, young lady, i mean it. Thank you very much happy new year to you. Stuart happy new year to you, lauren. And on thursday, president obama signed an executive order that ends a pay freeze for congress and federal workers that is. As our march this coming here, federal employees will see 1 2 to 1 pay increase and get this, 535 members of congress will also get a raise. So, federal workers, 2 million of them already earn more than the rest of us, they get more. And congress, totally failing to do its job, will also get a raise. About 900 bucks each. Do they deserve it . According to the latest rasmussen poll you say, oh, no, Scott Rasmussen joins us now. All right, scott, ive seen the numbers, 5 think that congress is doing a good or excellent job. Thats it . Thats it. 69 say theyre doing a poor job and stuart, i know this is going to be hard to believe, i think those numbers are going to get worse. Stuart really . Yeah, the reason i say that is we have all of this talk about the fiscal cliff negotiations, that are going to eliminate this middle class tax hike, but the fact is, payroll taxes are going up. If you make 50,000 a year, youre going to pay a thousand more in taxes so when the president and congressional leaders stand up and say we saved the world, we avoided middle class tax hikes and look at your paycheck, youre going to realize they talk in a different language in washington and people get burned. Stuart i know youve got a poll on the blame game. Im going to put it up on the screen now. I think it sails 44 will blame the republicans if we go over the cliff and 36 blame the president , scott, i think thats much more narrow than i thought. I thought republicans would overwhelmingly get trashed on this and get all no, because the Republican Voters say the president is to blame for everything. If their Favorite Football Team lost its the president s fault. A good solid base of republicans that have a different way and republicanleaning independents and 50 say both sides are to blame and the cynicism is unbelievable. They just, you know, right now 57 of americans think their own representative in congress trades votes for cash. Stuart for cash. They just dont trust them. Yeah, they think this whole situation has gotten out of control and the reason these guys get reelected in the public view is because the system is rigged to benefit incumbents. So there is cynicism piled upon cynicism. Last time Government Spending went down was 1954 and people are fed up. Stuart its possible at some point in the future, you can get elected to Public Office in america saying im going to cut that because we cant afford it. But its a long way off, i suspect, really a long way off. Scott, im terribly sorry, im out of time. Got to get to the stock market opening in a couple of seconds. Happy new year. And to you. Stuart thank you. The clock is ticking and no matter the outcome of the debacle, republicans will get at least some the blame. Well cover that in detail and well have the opening belfour you next. There is one issue that dominates stock market trading, cold trading, oil trading, you name it, all kinds of trading, one issue and one issue only, thats the fiscal cliff. You can spend a lot of sound bite trading. Anybody in any authorities says anything about the likelihood or otherwise of a fiscal cliff deal you will see the market react. It happened earlier this morning. There was a report that maybe these talks between Mitch Mcconnell and vicepresident biden were making some progress. On that, up went the futures market to show a gain of 80 points for the dow. Were back to showing a gain of 50 or 70 points. Watch for head lines, for leaks, for any sound bites that might appear on any news program anywhere and you will have some kind of Market Reaction. As we countdown to the end of this fiscal cliff, im going to call it a debacle because thats exactly what it is. Even if we get a very, very narrow deal, whoopdedoo, we have a debt ceiling problem and amt taxes, Government Spending, all of those problems outstanding, nothing done. The Dow Jones Industrial average is not done up for the opening bell, its down, were 42 points, 48 points going down as of right now. 50 points lower. What did you give, what did you get for christmas this year . Chances are, a computer tablet maybe . According to the latest data from cnet, there were 17. 4 million tablet activations on Christmas Day alone, more than double than last year. Look at the two leading tablet makers, names that you know, lets start with apple with all of those activations and probably a lot of ipads. Well, apple is languishing just about 500 a share. Pnd amazon with a kindle activations there as well. 243 a share, relatively high level and 260s were the high, down two bucks as of now. Hours to go, no deal as of now. The fiscal cliff, now, restrain your emotions, please, kelly jane from the Weekly Standard is here. Welcome back. Conventional wisdom says that republicans get all the blame for this mess whether we go over the cliff or not, they get the blame. Do you agree with that . I agree that seems to be the conventional wisdom. Im not sure that should be though. People forget that its not as if we didnt see this coming. Nobody is blaming the deficit reduction supercommittee and the fact of their failure to have a bipartisan agreement is really what triggered this fiscal cliff in the the first place. Stuart is it a failure of president obama to lead . I mean, elses the president of the United States of america. We are facing a fiscal crisis right now, an economic crisis, for heavens sake. Shouldnt we expect the president to go a long way towards dealing with this and leading us out of it . And i dont see it, frankly. I dont either. And i think his view, honest he isly, he just won an election and so he calls the shots and republicans should just follow along, even though republicans kept their majority in the house and theres a great deal of the country that does not support the way that obama would like to deal with this problem. Stuart look how its been presented in the establishment media. President obama cutting short his holiday vacation, returning to washington trying to fix the fiscal mess. Thank you very much, mr. President. Mr. Boehner, speaker boehner, oh, he finally gets the house back in session on sunday night. And then we have some democrats saying, why dont these republicans quit defending their millionaire pals. The way its presented in the establishment media is highly pejorative against republicans and yet, republicans, as we heard from the rasmussen poll, theyre not getting all of the blame. Its 4436 thats where it is, again, that surprises me. Those headlines are great. The next time im on deadline and i have a story to write. Because ive left it to the last minute and i have to cancel a movie i think im going to, you know, complain about it and say, oh, finally, im getting back into the work session here. No, i mean, its ridiculous. Now, the republicans, i think, are doing one thing wrong though and that is focusing so much on the tax increases on higher earners, i do think that thats one area where obama can claim to have a bit of an upper hand because he made it very clear in his campaign for reelection, that he was going to tax the wealthy, socalled wealthy more. So, i think he has a good argument that he might have a mandate there. But, everything else, i mean, as you just mentioned if theres going to be a deal, theres going to be a narrow one and pretty much everything in that narrow deal is going to be in the democrats favor. Its going to be things they want. Thats all it is, i mean, the way things are shaping up, and from what we are hearing is simply a deal theyre discussing a deal which would raise taxes on people making more than a million, or 500,000 or the latest number, 400,000, thats it. I dont know anything else to include. Im sorry, go ahead. No, exactly. Were calling this a fiscal cliff. But really, if there is a deal, its not going to avert a much bigger one later because any deal that were talking about here is not going to include its going to include almost nothing on getting spending under control. Its going to have tax hikes and maybe a little bit here or there, but its not going to address the big issue. Any last minute deal is really fw goi is going to kick the can down the road and the democrats with spending. Something has to be done. Forget the fiscal cliff stuff and forget the debt ceiling stuff. The fact is that tomorrow morning, the tax rate, the Social Security tax rate on every american who works is going up. The medicare tax rate on high income people is going up. The tax on medical devices tomorrow morning, is going up. Forget fiscal cliff. Taxes are going up almost across the board. Give me a quick comment on that. Well, you know what . This has got to be the First Time Ever that its december 31st and i have no idea what im going to be making tomorrow in terms of take home pay. You know, if youre a businessman, how do you decide what youre going to do with your business this year, you dont know how much youre going to be paying in taxes. If youre a consumer, how do you decide what youre spending your money on in the upcoming year. The level of uncertainty, i think, is unprecedented, and the fact that its gone on this long is i mean, its insane, its really crazy. Outrageous, thats what it is. Kelly jane, just stay there for a second, please, ive got to do more business, but im going to bring you back. Great. Stuart say it isnt so. Piers morgan threatens to leave the United States over gun control and i have offered to pay for his ticket. Economy class of course, and i will even throw in a stopover in tax happy france. Here is how piers morgan puts his threat to leave, quote, i can spare those americans who want me deported a lot of effort by saying this, if you dont change your gun laws to at least try to stop these relentless tidal waves of murderous carnage then you dont have to worry about deporting me. Ill have my take on piers morgan in our next hour or so. Clearly, ive got a dog in this hunt, i am english, im an immigrant, et cetera, et cetera, and ive got a strong opinion on pierce morgan. Lets go back to kelly jane, what do you think of piers, my good fellow. Is anybody crying about this, is anybody worried that piers morgan is it going to leave . You know, i hate to be i hate to be snarky, but i think that people were very surprised when he got that slot after larry king in the first place and his show has been most successful in giving people things to laugh at the day after. Stuart ooh, that was good, kelly jane. That was really nasty. [laughter] thank you very much indeed. I love the english, i love the english so im happy to have more of them in the states, i just think that they might want to read a little about the history of the country to which theyre going to, which you obviously have made yourself very aware of it and piers morgan is not. Stuart if you come over here with your hoytty toity accent, like the place, dont talk down to the natives, its really bad form. Love that last comment. See you later. Thanks, stuart. Stuart president obama says he wants to protect the middle class. Come tax time in april those families could owe more. This year. Will anything be done to stop this from happening, a new story. Lets go to diane macedo at the new york stock exchange, facebook higher why . Thats right, stuart, so the fiscal cliff concerns continue. Here at the nyse, spirits are high. One of the traders gave me the snazzy glasses and one of the reasons could be facebook. And bmo capital upgraded facebook from underperform to outperform and raised its price target to 32, up from 15. And steeple nicholas raised the price market to 31 up from 26 and looking at facebook shares up 2 this morning and seems like it could be a happy new year for facebook and either way, stuart get these on here, a happy new year to you. Stuart they look pretty good, got to say. Match the dress. Stuart i heard a comment from the gentleman to your left. The gentleman who gave me the glasses, very happy with his donation here. Stuart is he selling those . No, free of charge, actually. Hey, diane, thank you for being here. Thank you, stuart. Stuart secretary of state Hillary Clinton remains hospitalized this morning and has a blood clot related to concussion she suffered earlier this month. That concussion prevented her from testifying at the scheduled benghazi hearings, secretary cliiton is expect today remain in the hospital, its in new york city, shes going to stay there for probably the next 48 hours and check out the clot. Time is money, 30 seconds, here is what else weve got for you today. Rich people voted for president obama, yes, they did and now their taxes are going up. Are they happy now . Our voice from the rich has the answer coming up. Speaking of the president , where is the leadership . Kirsten powers is democrat who i think is drifting away from the obama camp. She will be joining us a little later. And a new year brings new hope for the formerly golden state of california, the chairman of the states Republican Party, yes, there is such a thing, as a Republican Party in california, i think. Join us. Remember, we want to hear from you please, send your emails right now varney foxbusiness. Com, well read some of them on the air as we go through this new years eve. 7 early movers, where are we to start with. Amazon, that stock is up 41 this year. The company says one of its directors is resigning and its down 19 cents, thats it. 2. 44 on amazon. Electronics firm Brady Corporation acquired precision dynamics from the private equity owner, 300 million in cash, little change. Private equity to buy Financial Advisory firm dustin phelps, 665 million bucks and phelps is not surprisingly up a lot. And netflix chief hastings gets his pay doubled, but half is died to the companys stock performance, netflix up 28 this year up a little more right now. Fda approval made by, for a bill. Made by bristolmyers and pfizer to prevents strokes. Here is a look at shares of bristolmyers, a good looking drug for them and the stock is up. Now look at pfizer, please, and they, too, are i think no, down a little bit. On change. And s p cuts conagra to near junk status on a deal. Its down. Dow industrials now dead flat. Here we go again. Dead flat, that is sound bite trading. Any word of these fiscal cliff discussions, the market will move. Housing, a bit of a bright spot in the economy, but if we fall off the cliff, that could end. If lawmakers cant reach a deal nearly every working american will face higher tax rates and well deal with both issues next. Well, were flat. Down four points, all weve got. Were below 13,000 all waiting for any news on fiscal cliff developments. Well keep you uptodate. Venezuelas president , hugo chavez is suffering new complications from a respiratory infection that just three weeks after undergoing surgery for cancer in cuba. Chavez has not been seen or heard from since his fourth cancer related surgery which took place earlier this month. Government Officials Say chavez might not return in time for the inauguration of his new sixyear term on january the 10th. Okay. Check the price of oil, theyre not related. The situation concerning hugo chavez is not related to the overall price of oil which this morning is at 90 a barrel, its down 28 cents. Now, one of the bright spots in this economy is the housing market. There has been a modest recovery in prices and the number of homes sold. However, if we go over the fiscal cliff, or if we completely fail to reach a broad ranging agreement, this is what our guest from forbes magazine, morgan brennan, said would happen to the housing market, again, if we go over the cliff. Listen to this. I do think that will create a prolonged bounce along the bottom. I think we could see downward pressure on price, i think we could see tax cuts that are going to expire as the mortgage forgiveness relief act is the big one im worried about. To summarize, shes sailing, look, the situation in house something a nice recovery buff if we dont in the end get a broad ranging agreement. And gilmo morales. And you dont and ive been saying for a while here, a Single Family home in a good neighborhood is probably one of the best investments you can make, you can live in this thing and tax advantages. Would you apply your trading skills and the analysis to the Single Family home market assuming we go over the cliff . Go. I think weve been seeing lately is some housing stocks, funnies ryland group, for examples has acted well and you see them rallying, a lot of this has been a dead cat bounce, while i think owning a home and everybody should own their home and seek to pay it off to have that asset, i dont necessarily believe that were going to return to the bubble era that we saw back in mid 2000 from the housing sector although youre seeing some of the stocks, but i think this is mostly a dead cat bo