Kid did nothing. Warner not that i know of, not to deserve that. Imus deserve it . Something precipitated this violent act by the psycho coach. There has to be an excuse, right. Imus you know, trying to get Willie Nelson paul simon tried to get Willie Nelson to record this and he passed on it. But they finally recorded it together though. Imus in the morning one, two, three seconds. That is an extra 120,000 add today our debt. Yeah. New incredible numbers everyone. Now its ten seconds. 370,000. We knew it was bad, but this bad . Let me spell it out. 37,000 a second. 136 million an hour, 3. 2 billion a day. Thats how much the debt piles up. But the president says if we make a tiny cut planes are delayed, meat not inspected and children not vaccinated and quoting the budget director our ability to forecast Severe Weather is seriously undermined. On friday, the president inflicts that maximum pain. By friday night well be another 10 billion dollars in debt. Since we started this morning, 30 seconds ago, were a million more in debt. Right . Yeah, Varney Company is about to begin. Wednesday, february the 27th. Jam packed with three big stories and three allstar guests. First, the president does the not have to inflict the pain he threatens from spending cuts. He has the power to switch the cuts to nonessential areas, but he wont do it. Armageddon is pure politics. In the next hour senator tom coburn is with us, and ill ask him what he thinks of the president choosing to inflict maximum pain. Now, can we call this the walmart economy . That company struggling because you have less money in your pocket. Youre paying more for gas and now, food prices are going up. Art laffer has more on the walmart economy coming up. This man sounded off and french workers, saying theyre lazy and entitled. What does he think about big labor in the u. S. . The outspoken chief of Titan International, the top of the ten oclock hour, now, listen to this, this may be the exact opposite of the entitled generation, one young man, he walked ten miles in the snow so he could apply for a job that pays 7 an hour, a real good story, you will hear it, hes here on Varney Company. Art laffer coming up next. Weve got another rise in gas prices and weve got the opening bell. How about this, since the program started america is another 25 Million Dollars in debt. [ cows moo ] [ sizzling ] more rain. [ thunder rumbles ] [ male announcer ] when the world moves. Futures move first. Learn futures from experienced pros with dedicated chats and daily live webinars. And trade with papermon to testdrive the market. All on thinkorswim. From td ameritrade. Just announced, the president will meet with congressional leaders friday. So, on the day that the cuts go into effect, that follows the week during which the president has campaigned against the cuts, railing about armageddon, if the cuts go through. But congressional members on friday. From nashville, art laffer, always a favorite guest. All right, art, is it really, really a catastrophe, armageddon if we cut 2 from spending on friday . No, its not. In fact, it will probably help the economy, what would be an armageddon or what would be closer would be if they raised taxes again, thats not the right answer. Okay. But its not armageddon. The skies are the not going to fall on the next week or the week after that, not going to happen . Even though i look like chicken little, theyre not going to. Hold on a second, the the max plank institutes in germany, studying longevity says that 72 is the new 30. How about that . I love it, i love it, i love it, i love it. Stay there, 72yearold, well be back in a second. Now, the opening bell is coming up in just a moment and in the back drop to the bell this morning, weve got more testimony from ben bernanke, likely to be a repeat performance from yesterday, where he said, yes, hes going to keep on printing. We also have a 5 drop in durable goods orders, and that was pretty much expected, its a big drop though compared to what we had in december. If you look at the indications before we start trading, were expecting a pretty flat opening and maybe a slight upside bias and we closed 13,900 so were taking it from there in the early going, down a couple of points, up a couple of points, i mean, this is not a trend by any means, were dead flat thus far, okay, thats where we are. Ive got more big numbers though and theyre from priceline. 6. 5, a billion dollars worth of bookings on its website in the last 13 weeks, now, thats a lot. And now, im guessing nicole that stock is a big winner today . It is, im looking at it here and checking it and its up. 47 . The biggest online. And they did well internationally. When youre booking your trip, you think of priceline and the stock obviously, a stellar performer. Thats a gain and a half, isnt it . 4 on it. All right. Thanks, nicole. Hold on a second. And bring you the big names that are moving. Pure speculation, but said apple up late yesterday and stocks split, talks, went the rounds and Shareholders Meeting today in california and thats 137 billion dollars in cash that theyve got on hand. Thats going to come up at the meeting. Down a buck in the opening bell, opening minutes. Boeing, pension demands off the table in the contract talks and that stock is holding there at 76 a share. I want to talk about coach. You know i call it democratic luxury and that stock this morning is up, lets bring back in nicole. How far. Nicole its up about 3 for coach. So now what theyre doing, theyre hiring a former nike executive to oversee the tran formation, and thats up 3 1 2 , thats a good mover for this morning for the retailers. And the dow is still down, down about 11 points. Stuart yeah, its pretty flat. 11 points not a big move on 13,000 index well keep an eye on it. Thanks, nicole. Bring back in art laffer, please. First of all, art, i hope youve recovered from the max plank study of longevity. That was a compliment, i hope you took it the right way. Thank you very much. Stuart just for a second. Listen to what president obama said about taxing the rich during what i call a Campaign Speech yesterday. All were asking is that they close loopholes for the the well off and the well connected for Hedge Fund Managers or Corporate Jet owners who are doing very well and dont need these tax loopholes so we can avoid laying off workers or kicking kids off head start or reducing Financial Aid for college students. Stuart art, weigh in, what do you make of tax increases to avoid armageddon. You know, thats a really not the way to go. What you want to do is create Economic Growth and the way to get the tax revenue increases, if you want more revenues you cannot do it by trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor or unemployed and those people not earning much. You really need prosperity to get your revenues up and not willing to go that route. If he made it that they got rid of the deductions and loopholes and lower rates im all for it, but thats not what hes doing, trying to get he to one side and not the other. Earlier this morning, ive got to say i was shocked he when i saw the debt numbers, how much were piling it up per second per minute. 37,000 a second. 2. 2 million a minute. 136 million per hour, 3. 2 billion a day. And now, it occurs to me to ask, is that hurting our economy right now . Not moving towards a debt crisis in the future, but right now, does it hurt . Of course it does. Its a huge hurt. Its a classic sign, stuart that we are way underperforming our potential and you know, what we need to do is get this economy growing, get people off the welfare roles because they have good, high paying jobs, get people back in the tax roles because theyre making more money, not because they tax them at higher rates. Thats what we need to do. This is the poorest recovery in the u. S. History. It is as far below the next worst as the next worst is below the best and its a tragedy, whats been going on for the last five years and frankly i dont see any way of stopping it not with these policies. Stuart thats my question. Before the election you held out some hope that maybe president obama would see the tax cutting light. Have you abandoned that hope . Of course not, i never abandoned hope, i never, never, never, but he probably wont do it on personal income tax is what im hoping there can be accord and agreement a bipartisan solution to the Corporate Tax where we get rid of the tax and corporate profits which makes no sense. Why would you want to tax Successful Companies that bail out losers, that makes no sense and if we broadened the tax base, we can lower that rate dramatically and get a lot of new revenues and create more prosperity and thats where i think the democrats and republicans have a good area, where they might be able to compromise. Interesting. Art laffer, always good stuff. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure, stuart, thank you. Here is whats new at ten, you dont want to miss this. The american chief executive to refused to open up a tire factory in france because he says french workers are lazy and get paid too much. That man, international chief morrie taylor onset with us ten oclock eastern. Weve already got his take on the french. What does he think about American Workers . That will be top of the hour this morning. And the city of detroit flat broke. The governor of michigan is in the process of assigning detroit an emergency manager to figure out if theres any way to save the city. I want to bring in the lt. Governor of michigan, brian cowan. The way i see it, detroits got two options, basically they are, a state are federal bailout. Money coming in from the state or the feds or bankruptcy. Am i being too harsh . Well, what we really need is a permanent solution and that takes a couple of fundamental changes in the way that the city of detroit operates. Its performing to longterm liabilities and actions that really the local leadership should have been taking for the last couple of decades and failed to do and so now its time for us to get involved and make the changes. Stuart its a bankruptcy judge that can do that isnt it . When youre talking about longterm liability youre talking pensions and Health Benefits for retired city workers the only person who can stop that, stop the rot so to speak is a bankruptcy court, isnt it . In michigan we have an emergency manager statute that allows for the state to go through a process and then either enter into a consent agreement or appoint an emergency manager to carry out actions to improve the Financial Health of the city. Thats a process that were going through right now. The review team has made a recommendation that the financial emergency be declared. We have that recommendation in hand right now and over the course of the next few weeks well make a final determination on that and then decide how to proceed. Youve got to rein in the pensions and the Health Benefits for retired city workers, there really is again, am i being too harsh . Theres no choice, is there . When you look the at where the state of michigan itself was, just a few years ago, our longterm liabilities, including our pension cuts were mounting each year so we instituted a real reform over the last few years to reduce our debt. The state of michigans liabilities are over 20 billion dollars less than they were in 2011 when Governor Snyder and i took office. And that was those are hard decisions, but they have to be made so today we have our financial footing well underneath us and we are the comeback state. The example for the rest of the nation, but we need the same type of reform implemented in our cities as we also need in our federal government. Stuart all right. They would be draconian reforms for the city of detroit, i mean, no question, draconian . I think the most draconian thing you could do is leave the status quo because theyre not theyre losing the ability to offer even basic Public Health and safety functions, and so we have it stand up for the citizens of the city of detroit and really provide a frame work to help to solve this so that we can have Police Services and safe communities and streets and so forth. So, this is, this is a very serious situation. Deficits since 2004, and no real plan of action yet to fix it. This report is very serious and well make a determination shortly on it. Stuart yes, sir, come back and tell us how exactly youre going to do this. Were all interested. Lt. Governor of michigan, thanks, sir. We always want to hear from you and thats very true today. A lot of stuff on the show today and some big time guests. So, email it in please, varney foxbusiness. Com. Wednesday morning, seven early movers, here we go. Tivo post add loss, however, more subscribers and that stock is up. Disappointing results from the vitamin shop, the name of the company, the stock. Vitamin shop. It has the stock down 18 yesterday. Minor leagues bounced back today up just a buck on that. First solar posted a profit, but gave a weak guidance for the future and that means some bad news for the stock, its down 14 . Big five Sporting Goods gave upbeat Earnings Guidance for the future, raised the Quarterly Dividend and the market like that is up. Disappointing profits at papa johns and the Company RestatedFinancial Results for the past few years, its down. Fitch ratings downgraded its credit, rating that is, on avon products, the market doesnt like that, its not a big deal. Down 5 cents. Better than expected at priceline, thats t21 bucks as f right now. To the big board as we said a nat opening this wednesday morning, basically going nowhere. Were up just three points. Now, the price of oil, we were down in the 92 range yesterday and were still there, 92. 48. There was drama on capitol hill when senator Elizabeth Warren started asking ben bernanke about too big to fail. The senator was tough and the chairman did not back down. Our own judge reacts to thfrjis. So far it looks like theyre getting 83 billion dollars for staying big. Thats one study, senator you dont know whether thats an accurate number. announcer at scottrade, our clients trade and inve exactly how they want. With scottrades online banking, i get one view of my bank and brokerage accounts with one login. To easily move my money when i need to. Plus, when i call my local scottrade office, i can talk to someone who knows how i trade. Because i dont trade like everim with scottrade. Me. announcer scottrade. Awarded fivestars from smartmoney magazine. Announcer you never know when, but thieves can steal your identity and turn your life upside down. Hi. Hi. You know, i can save you 15 today if you open up a charge card account with us. You just read my mind. 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Announcer while no one can stop all Identity Theft, if criminals do steal your information, lifelock will help fix it, withur 1 million service guarantee. Dont wait until you become the next victim. You have so much to protect and nothing to lose when you call lifelock now to get two full months of Identity Theft protection risk free. Thats right, 60 days riskfree. Use promo code gethelp. Satisfied, notify felock and you wont pay a cent. Order now and also get this shredder to keep your document out of the wrong hands a 29 dollar value, free. Get protected now. Call the number on your screen or go to lifelock. Com to try lifelock protection risk free for a full 60 days. Use promo code gethelp. Plus get this document shredder free but only if you act right now. Call the number on your screen now you know, this is a stock that could be a new economic indicator. Dollar tree sells things for a buck and things could be strong the second half of the year. Apparent apparently buying things for less and more for gas. Look at the stock up 010 . Two other items in what were cover calling a walmart economy. Moodys sees weakness in the clothing retailer, and that kind after walmart economy story and one big bank has downgraded fedex. Thats another one. Dollar tree up 10 more on that from charles later on. Fed chairman ben bernanke testifies in front of a house panel, and yesterday the highlight was between ben bernanke and Elizabeth Warren. Ms. Warren does not like the banks and asked the chairman if the big banks were still too big to fail of the here is some of the exchange. The benefits of being large are going to be small are going to decline over time and some banks are going to voluntarily begin to reduce their size because theyre not getting the benefits they used to get. I read you on this, i read your predictions on this in your earlier testimony. So far it looks like 83 billion dollars for staying big. Thats one study, senator, you dont know whether thats an accurate number. Well, okay, well go back and look at it again. If you think theres a problem with it, but does it worry you . Of course, i think this is very important. And i think we need to were putting a lot of effort into this. Stuart guess who is here to talk about the big banks . Judge andrew napolitano. Elizabeth warren s