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Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on FOX | Cashin' In
On Saturday July 4, 2009 on "Bulls & Bears," Brenda Buttner was joined by Gary B. Smith, Pat Dorsey, Eric Bolling, Tobin Smith and Julia Piscitelli.
Sarah Palin Resigns as Alaska Governor: Great News for U.S. Economy?
Tobin Smith: Our economy and our market is getting more scared to death every day about spending $1 trillion a year that we don't have, about creating a nanny state and about creating a health care plan that we can't afford. The market is saying, ‘wait a minute, how are we going to pay for it?' And if Sarah Palin can get traction to fight back and give a voice to millions of Americans who are now waking up every day to this idea that we can't spend our way to prosperity and stock markets will fail if we do, I say mazel tov, girl! You go!
Eric Bolling: Look at what Sarah Palin represents. She represents individual liberty, smaller government, less spending. A couple of the important issues on the table right now are national health care and cap and trade. These things are going to cost a lot of money that really could torpedo the economy. When I say the economy, you're talking the stock market, labor market and housing market. The stock market is fine right now, but look at the labor market. 14 million people are out of work right now, 9.5 percent unemployment. So there are other parts of the economy that would help with smaller government, smaller taxes and smaller spending.
Julia Piscitelli: If she can become an effective voice, I think that that's a very big "if," but she could have some effect. Being a woman, going through what she has just been through on a very national stage, I think it is possible. But on the other hand we could be overestimating Sarah Palin's effectiveness as a spokesperson and the effectiveness she could have on changing the markets.
Gary B. Smith: Look, let's just stipulate that everything comes true and she becomes this national voice, yes absolutely! You really have a choice here. If you think Obama's policies are good for the economy then her message is the wrong one. If you disagree, then her message is spot on, and the fact of the matter is we're king of leaving it to the Republican congress and there doesn't seem to be any one effective unifying voice. So there is definitely a void and need there and if she can get that point across and turn the tide back then yeah, I'm on her side obviously.
Pat Dorsey: These "ifs" are fairly large here folks, lets not deny that. In terms of the question "what's the effect of the market" I think it's really quite minimal because the market is struggling with the highest structural unemployment in 50 years. We lost 5.5 million jobs in the last six months and there is a very good chance that we just have a structurally higher rate of unemployment, upwards of 9 percent for a while, as we structure from a highly leveraged consumer-led economy to something more appropriate for the next 20 years. That takes time and is difficult, and I think it's a bigger than whichever voice is leading the left or the right.
President Obama: Stimulus Has "Done Its Job"; Time to Give It Back?
Eric Bolling: Yeah, sure, give it back if it's working. The problem is that it's not working! We saw 9.5 percent unemployment, 14 million people out of work. We see states wondering, how are we going to balance this budget? We have to lay off teachers and firemen. The exact people who he said we weren't going to have to lay off, down the line, we're going to have to lay off to balance the budget. It is not working!
Tobin Smith: Stimulus doesn't work! Look if we wanted this to work, we would do a 3 year, maybe a 5 year moratorium on capital gains that people invested in new business and old business. If we did that, we would have so many jobs created. People would then be protesting that there are too many jobs.
Julia Piscitelli: Well first of all, we haven't taken the money yet. We've taken the money from China that we would have to pay back at some point. But only 10 percent of the stimulus money has been sent out to the states at this point. What they have done, is they did use this money to cover their budget shortfalls which is meant that the states and localities have not had to lay off critical workers like 911 operators and firefighters.
Gary B: Well I don't see how you can have any choice to give the money back no matter which way you look at it. If it is working, I would say great then don't spend anymore and stoke the flames of inflation. If it isn't working, and I think by all accounts it's not working, then I would say, well why do you want to throw good money after bad? It started back with Bush and Pelosi, you've spent already billions, and I say well it's not working. So let's spend more?
Pat Dorsey: We tried this sort of send checks directly to people last spring, and as we saw, a fair amount of it got saved. Now think about what's happened with the economy in terms of job losses and the stock market going down and real estate prices going down. People are more scared about their financial future today than they were a year ago. That means that their propensity to save, the odds that they save extra income, is probably even higher today. So if you gave people direct checks, it would just fatten up the saving rate more. Long term, that's a good thing but it doesn't do much to crate jobs or get the economy going.
Lawmakers Taking Lavish Trips as Americans Cut Vacations
Gary B: This is the definition of a boondoggle! Every person in the United States seems to be battening down the hatches, pulling up our shoestrings, and these guys are spending like there's no tomorrow. I tell you what, I'd throw out every one of them and start afresh.
Eric Bolling: These same guys grill CEOs of companies for flying private jets, they grill them for spa treatments on the west coast, but they're doing the exact same thing, only it's not the west coast. It's Jamaica, Caiman Islands, and Galapagos, unbelievable! They are spending your money, tell them to stop! Or, change them in 2010.
Julia Piscitelli: Pelosi was visiting an air force base; that trip was a bipartisan trip, as most of these trips are. It is both sides of the aisle, and since 2005 when the new ban on lobbyist paid trips went into effect, they continued taking the trips but they were paid by the taxpayers, which frankly I'd prefer the taxpayers influencing the lawmakers than the lobbyists.
Tobin Smith: You've got to understand, probably 7 percent of congressmen have their passport stamped outside of Canada and Mexico, yet we're talking about trillions of dollars that they're approving. I want my congress people to have a concept of the world outside of Topeka or outside of Idaho, not that those aren't great places. I want them to understand a little about the world. You've got to travel!
Pat Dorsey: Well I think the statistic that caught my eye was that the spending was up ten-fold over the past decade or so and so that means that either the U.S. has become ten times more integrated in the global economy over the past decade, uh no, we've always been fairly connected with it; or these guys are sort of just spending a bit more and traveling a bit more than probably they need to. Getting that foreign exposure is fine, but again, doing it in a rational fashion, which probably doesn't include turtles, is a better way to do it.
Scoreboard: Best and Worst Calls of 2009
• Video: Click here to see the segment
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on FOX | Cashin' In
This past week, Charles Payne of WStreet.com, was in for Neil Cavuto. Charles was joined by: Matt McCall, Leigh Gallagher, Gary Katbaum, and Adam Lashinsky.
New Proof Tax Cuts Help Create Jobs?
Matt McCall, Penn Financial: We need to take a cue from Europe here for the first time in a long time. What we need to do is take a two step approach here: cut the corporate tax and cut the individual tax. By cutting corporate taxes, which could be as high as 39 percent here, as low as 12 percent in Ireland, it's going to let companies expand more. More hiring, less unemployment. If we cut the individual tax, it's a trickle up because what happens is we start spending more. Again, unemployment solved by cutting taxes.
Adam Lashinsky, Fortune Magazine: Well first of all, obviously we all know we're comparing apples and oranges. There is just no comparing the history of U.S. taxes and European taxes over the past 40-50 years. We've run a few bad plays that have landed us on the sidelines or in the penalty box with our financial crisis. We're trying to get our house in order. I know you know that we have a bit of a budget problem in this country as well. We need to solve that too, so we're going to try to be prudent. I'm not arguing that we should be trying to raise taxes; cutting corporate taxes is a good idea. But what the president wants is equity and personal income taxes and we're on our way to that gradually right now.
Leigh Gallagher, Fortune Magazine: There is a flaw in the logic here. First of all, in Germany there are some accounting reasons why the jobless rate has dropped and they haven't actually done these tax cuts, as you mentioned they are on the table. This is also happening in France by the way, and the restaurant owners there just saw their VAT (value added tax) removed, which is great for them, but even they say ‘we are not going to hire right now, in fact we should be firing.' These tax cuts are not going to create international tourism. They are not going to create business. We're in a hoarding mentality right now. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but there's a seismic shift going on with the American consumer. If you cut taxes on the individual, all of that money is going to go in the bank. It is going to go into your 401(k), which has plummeted. It is not going to make you spend an extravagant amount.
Gary Katbaum, GaryK.com: We wake up and read the newspaper everyday about the next fee, the next potential tax. This administration has had these trial balloons every day about VAT taxes, taxing on healthcare benefits, and people start to feel that psychologically. But for me, I believe in the big picture. You want the big proof? In my hands here is from the 1970s tax schedule. Reagan came in and knocked the heck out of it and then unlocked the potential of this great economy in the 1980's. It seems to me, we are going the opposite way right now and what government has done, is the great scam: spend all the money first, go ahead and tax later in the name of ‘ooh look at these deficits' and they blame it on the prior administration. We're in big trouble here and hopefully someone is going to turn the tide.
New Energy Bill Creates "Green Police" for Homeowners; Bad News for Housing Market?
Gary Katbaum: We have a housing depression and now they are going to put on more onerous regulations on people that own homes. Imagine, you may have to retrofit your house to sell it, costing you more money to sell it. That means cost of everything goes up and you hurt everything going forward. It is amazing to me that this administration, everything in mind is about more rules, more mandates, more regulations at the most inopportune time. I just don't get it, my friend.
Adam Lashinsky: You made an important point which is that so far, this is not the administration, this is congress and this is the messy ugly way that congress always works. It has to do with lobbyists getting their pet projects added in at the last minute. This is the house bill. It is not the combined bill. It has not been signed by the president. So, for what it's worth, I don't think this retrofitting idea is a good idea to force homeowners to do it. Perfectly good idea if it's good policy to require that all builders of new homes and commercial building incorporate these things. And by the way, the states can give tax incentives for people to retrofit. But I agree that it is a dumb idea to force people to spend money to retrofit their homes.
Matt McCall: That is socialism. I mean, I'm not letting anyone in my house to tell me my windows aren't tight enough. If I want to go home, open the windows, and let the AC out that is my prerogative. I pay my own bills. Until the country starts paying my heating bills, they are not going to tell me how to retrofit my house.
Leigh Gallagher: You already have to comply with certain building codes. I think that this probably isn't going to make it through. Don't forget, this whole bill in general is more aggressive than even what Obama wanted, and it's got to make it through the senate. With the foreclosure right now, the jobless rates we saw this week are going to just go right into the foreclosure problem. We're going to have even more foreclosures going forward and I can't see this going through, given the state of the housing market right now.
Union Blasts Citi for Pay hikes Not Tied to Performance; Hypocrisy Alert?
Matt McCall: It is hypocritical in two major ways. First of all, the unions don't want to have performance based, so Citigroup is going to a base salary which is not performance based, which is exactly what the union does. They don't like that. Plus, the union also came out and said that they don't like short term compensation because that makes you do risky things here in Wall Street. Well, by giving a base salary, that is not short term. Let's let the free market figure this out. If people do not want unknown Citigroup shares they can sell. That union owns 3 percent of Citigroup shares. If they don't like what the pay is, they can sell the shares and move on.
Adam Lashinsky, Fortune Magazine: Well I am not a fan of any government mandated rules on compensation. I just think it leads to too may unintended consequences where I think the union has a point. What I think we are overlooking is that there is a big difference between setting pay for rank and file and setting pay for the senior brass and so we're sort of mixing apples and oranges again here. They are just two different subjects. The rank and file is where the union is on solid ground. The senior brass is where they have the issue.
Gary Katbaum: You have got to deal with market forces. If you are not paying well enough to one company, great talent is going to move to another company. I want the market to bear itself out and wages and commissions will work themselves out over time. Once again, government mandates will screw the whole thing up. As far as these unions, what is it their business anyhow? They have nothing to do with this. Let them stay out of the way and let them make all their big dollars they make on a daily basis.
Leigh Gallagher: You could make the hypocrisy argument, but I will say I think I actually agree with Gary in terms of Citigroup's position. I mean, how is this company going to attract new people, let alone keep its existing employees? We're not talking about the top 100 employees, those are subject to the pay czar regulations, but this is just a matter of maintaining business as usual and keeping the people that you have.
All American Stock Picks
• Video: Click here to watch the segment
Matt McCall: Lincoln Education (LINC )
Adam Lashinsky: American Funds New Economy (ANEFX )
Gary Katbaum: McAfee (MFE )
Leigh Gallagher: McDonalds (MCD )
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on FOX | Cashin' In
Forbes on FOX
On Saturday, July 4, 2009 Stuart Varney was joined by Steve Forbes, Neil Weinberg, Quentin Hardy, Kai Falkenberg, Mike Maiello, Lacey Rose, and Elizabeth MacDonald.
In Focus: Did Walmart Just Squash Push for National Health Care in America?
STUART VARNEY: This week, America's biggest private employer sent President Obama a letter saying it backs the mandate for big companies to provide healthcare to all workers. And Neil, you say that letter helps squash the push for national health care?
NEIL WEINBERG: I think business is seeing a socialist future and it is scary. The last thing they want is a government program so they are saying, "Gee, if the alternative here to a government program is for us to give healthcare to everybody, then I guess we will do that. We will swallow and just have to go on and do it."
QUENTIN HARDY: I think it is a red herring. I don't think the government intended to take over healthcare 100 percent. Walmart gets a pretty good deal as it stands; only 53 percent of their workers take Walmart's health plan. That compares to 63 percent of companies in general with 200 or more employees. Walmart has 36,000 employees on Medicaid. If they can hold that kind of program while others have to sign up, they get an advantage.
STEVE FORBES: It is like Neville Chamberlain. It will just buy time. The government will push for a takeover. That is what this independent health insurance company or government owned health insurance company is all about. That is how they hope to do a
takeover and government mandate is part of that because they dictate what you must include. So, one way or the other, backdoor they are going to want a one-pay are system.
MIKE MAIELLO: Going to a complete corporate control over people's welfare
just compounds the problems that we have now. What we need is an option so
that if I don't like what my employer is offering, I can go to my government and get a better deal. It is all about choice. That is it. We don't want total government healthcare or total corporate healthcare. We just want a choice.
KAI FALKENBERG: This will lead to less choice because the companies like Walmart will dump their employees into lower price, the public plan. They will not have access to doctors and doctors can't afford to pay the reimbursement rate. That will dump the cost on to the private plans where those people will get high premiums and ultimately the private plans will be driven out of the market because of the competitive advantages of the public plan.
ELIZABETH MACDONALD: What we are talking about is Walmart. Yes, 52 percent of the workers are covered. They are trying to decimate their rivals who cover fewer employees. So we are talking about lower quality HMO that would come in the mandate where people would have to pay higher taxes for the healthcare rationing. By the way, it should be noted the President as Senator wanted a single-payer system.
Flipside: Report: $787 Billion Stimulus Price Tag Getting Bigger: Great News!
STUART VARNEY: Looks like that $787 billion price tag for the stimulus is not the real price. A new report shows taxpayers may be on the hook for billions more. A little known part of the plan has Uncle Sam helping pay struggling states to borrow big money. And Mike says that is great news for all of us. First of all, Mike, we are talking about this "Build America" program. So, states borrow a lot of money and the interest is partly paid by the federal government.
MIKE MAIELLO: I love it. Bigger, better, spend, spend, spend. Get us out of this mess.
California, the sixth largest economy in the world, is teetering. You can't let it go under. If we have billions for AIG, we can step in and help our absolutely vital states.
STEVE FORBES: One sin doesn't deserve another. The states have been bingeing for years and raising taxes. Now we will subsidize them more? They get a subsidy with tax-fairway bonds. Now we're going to give them more subsidies to behave badly? Why can't they tighten belts like the rest of us? In California, they already have a problem; they should have dealt with years ago.
QUENTIN HARDY: That may be so and I don't see how we have much choice. This week, we report something very interesting. We may finish the year or the decade with 13 million more people in this country and the same number of jobs. I can't imagine a more decisive verdict on the Bush years, but it is Obama's problem now and he has to do something about it. The private sector is on its knees.
ELIZABETH MACDONALD: Just because Bush was reckless with government spending doesn't mean the Obama administration can leap into fiscal deficit. It is not just a golf course. We are talking about the District of Columbia is using taxpayer money to refinance their own reckless spending via more debt. The U.S. taxpayer pays 35 percent on the interest on the bond. It is outrageous. It is so nerve wracking for the fiscally responsible to see what this administration is doing.
NEIL WEINBERG: I was in Japan when they were having their problems. I saw what happens when you pay people to dig holes and fill them back in. What you end up with is a huge amount of debt. It encourages governments to waste money. It is absolutely a bridge to nowhere.
Government Confiscating Gift Cards: Money Grab or Money Saver?
STUART VARNEY: You know those gift cards you have been meaning to use? You may want to use them soon. If you don't, you may lose them to the government. More than half of all states are already grabbing unused cards and now more than a dozen cash-strapped states are looking to do the same thing.
KAI FALKENBERG: What the state governments are doing reminds me of my 3-year-old finding another kid's toy and saying, "I can keep it because I want it!" That is not the way it works. Two weeks ago, a federal judge in Kentucky ruled the state abandonment law was unconstitutional because the objective of the law was to raise revenue and not to reunite property owners with their property.
NEIL WEINBERG: The analogy is to a child that goes to a playground and leaves his toy and goes home and if he is not responsible enough to take care of it let someone else take it. I think that is reasonable and in this case if you are going to receive a gift card and forget the money, I would rather have the government use it than take what you were going to use to pay your mortgage. I will take that.
LACEY ROSE: It is a money grab. The legality and practicality are beside the point. For the government to impose expiration dates and confiscate what they deem to be property that is abandoned here is ridiculous and it is immoral. What will they say? I haven't ridden my bike in a few years, that's theirs too? I have a leather jacket in my closet that I haven't worn in a while, that's their too?
QUENTIN HARDY: Do you ever get gift certificates from Amazon.com? They have a one-year expiration date. If you don't spend it in one year, Amazon gets to keep the money. The government is not taking Starbucks cards or Barnes and Noble cards. This is government money you were supposed to spend and you don't. If we don't do that, if the government doesn't take the money the way the private companies do these days, they are going to raise taxes. If that is your choice, I say take it from the negligent, what have you.
STEVE FORBES: I would rather have Amazon get the money than the federal government. What do they go after next? Piggy banks? Bottles you put your coins in?
Take our exercise equipment back, unused suits? What is next?
The Best Funds for the Rest of the Year
STUART VARNEY: We are back with the best funds to own in the second half of 2009!
• Video: Click here to see this segment
QUENTIN HARDY: Fidelity International Discovery (FIGRX )
NEIL WEINBERG: Vanguard Total Bond Market Index (VBMFX )
MIKE MAIELLO: Royce Value Fund (RYVFX )
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on FOX | Cashin' In
Tea Party Protesters: Were They Right All Along About Higher Taxes?
John Bradshaw Layfield, www.layfieldenergy.com: They are 100 percent right. I don't know what this guy David Axelrod is talking about and what planet he is living on cutting taxes. Obama has raised taxes on 95 percent of Americans. He's just doing it in different ways. Look at tobacco and alcohol. A 16-ounce loose-leaf went from $1.07 to $25 in taxes overnight. If that is not a tax on lower income and middle class he is wrong.
Wayne Rogers, Wayne Rogers & Co: I will urge everybody to do something the something I did the day before. I read the Declaration of Independence and I advise you all to go back and read it. It is a terrific document. It was as good today as then and the protest against taxes is the same one we should have today. It is not just Obama. It is the congress. Those are the people who are driving me crazy. If they can pass a stimulus bill that spends $700 billion plus without reading it then we've got people who are representing us, we are morons for electing them.
Jonathan Hoenig, CapitalistPig Asset Management: No question taxes are going up. The bigger issue is freedoms are going down. That is what a big part of this tea party movement is about. The right of the individual to live his or her own life. Listen to the president's rhetoric and it is collectivism. The notion we are all here in it and that means more of your money is out there to be redistributed to whether the administration thinks is in his or her best interest.
Tracy Byrnes, Fox Business Network: I think a lot of it is people are feeling they were misled and we are seeing more and more come out about it. We were told from the beginning that he was not going to raise taxes. He still is trying to hold to that and it is not happening. And it will happen across the board and lower income people need to prepare because they are the ones that are going to get hit the hardest. Say what you want about high income people, they will be mad but they will muddle through. Lower income people, small businesses, will be clobbered by this. Losing medical deductions and higher tax will force them to lay off or certainly not hire more.
Jonas Max Ferris, MaxFunds.com: You got what you voted for so far. As far as the tax increases, the proposed ones are more in line with what the tea party said. I don't think people saw the health insurance. You do all this spending without taxes going up. You can't have a spending plan without a matching tax increase. Everyone thought it would be free. Better hope taxes are going up, because the alternative is worse. That would be huge deficits.
Will White House's Green Agenda Bankrupt U.S. Like California?
Jonathan Hoenig: It has bankrupted California and if implemented nationwide it will hurt mankind. Have you ever noticed the "greenies" are against any energy that works? It benefits mankind. They love nature but they hate human beings. That is why their goal is to make energy more expensive. All of this carbon capture, boutique fuels. It makes being productive with energy that much more expensive. That hurts human kind. That's why it's disastrous for this country.
John Bradshaw Layfield: I don't think a bunch of wind mills in Texas hurt human kind. Jonathan is right the cap and trade is horrible. This administration's green agenda is horrible but let's remember… every megawatt you create creates 20 jobs. Wind power is on par with natural gas, coal and everything. We can get off fossil fuels. We don't have to do one or the other. This is a matter of national security not to have to buy oil and gas from bad guys.
Tracy Byrnes: God, no. The president is wrong. And actually, it baffles me that the he could speak to the country and say we should do as California does and then every state should come and ask for a bailout, I suppose. It is ludicrous. John is right. We need to do all of it. Fix the country, we have issues. It is not bad for mankind. I think it will be be good for our children and but it is not so bad.
Wayne Rogers: First of all, California going broke has nothing to do with them being green. They have unfunded pension plans, they have entitlements that go way beyond everything else. California is going broke and spending way in advance of everything else. You can forget green. That is a separate conversation. But the green problem is one of national security and if we don't fix it we will be beholden to Ahmadinejad and the guy in Venezuela the next century and that is nuts. We have to do something about it and we will have to pay a little bit of a price and I think J.B.L. is right. You do wind, you do sun. You do all of those alternative energy programs that can work and that is how you get there. We have to pay that price.
Jonas Max Ferris: Presidents like California for the tax revenue. A lot of people -- people move there because they have got an environmental policy. The air quality has improved over the years so there have been benefits that helped the economy. I will say though I think what is bad about the green policy is they do it the way Obama does. Not through taxes that could help the budget but do it in ways that don't raise money and could scare business. So do it with a profit-seeking way which is taxing the fuels but not subsidizing ethanol. That is an expensive way to solve problems.
People Profiting Off Michael Jackson's Death: Fair or Foul?
Tracy Byrnes: Morally probably not. But it is capitalism. We sit here and want capitalism to succeed and this is what is happening. People are finding a way to make money. good times and bad. It is awful that people that he despised like his dad will probably come out of it, odds he will sell the rights to a book and all of that crap. That is the unfortunate part but at the same time this is what we do. We make money where we can and people are going to do it and probably make a lot.
Jonas Max Ferris: I don't like counterfeiting but this is sort of like Elvis. I went to Graceland. You pay a lot of money to go there and there is legitimate stuff then there are questionable like vaguely Elvis-related items. I don't think Lisa Marie is getting any of it. But it is overall good for Michael Jackson because of the media coverage and yet he is selling more albums. So overall I think they will benefit and I think that he deserves to. I think it is nice all the critics can see he can earn this much money even not performing because everyone is like he is broke, negative value. It is all wrong. He is really more valuable even with the destruction at the end.
John Bradshaw Layfield: He sold more in one 24-hour period on Amazon.Com than the previous 11 years. His music was fantastic but he is an alleged pedophile and eccentric. If people take him the person out of it, take out the spending ways, they will benefit from him not being around.
Wayne Rogers: I find it morally despicable but everybody does it. When anybody passes away who is an icon, all the money that they have royalty income, all the things they did in the past become immediate income. The question is who is going to administer all of this going forward? Is it all going to get blown again? He always had bad advice. He was spending money much more than he made. There was never any end to it. He did projects that were unprofitable. He has a good lawyer, by the way. He is a terrific lawyer and good straight guy. He's one of the co-executors. But they are the others that hang on. You have an entourage. It is terrible.
Jonathan Hoenig: We don't profit off of Thomas Edison over the light bulb or George Washington carver every time we open a can of Skippy. M.J. was a wealth creator and I hope you remember him for the magnificent work he did throughout his life.
What I Need to Know for Next Week?
• Video: Click here to see the segment
Tracy Byrnes: Bernie Madoff got 150 years this week. Beware of the regulation next week. It is coming. Everyone will be clamping down to prevent something like this from happening again.
John Bradshaw Layfield: Michael Dell is fantastic. His company plans on coming out with a pocket P.C. He will do well with it.
Jonas Max Ferris: Forget the flu with the bovine. I'm concerned about the canine flu which has been around since 2004 and Americans love their dogs. I take my dog to the vet. I haven't been to a doctor in years People spend money on their dogs. Schering-plough veterinary division has a drug just came out to cure the canine flu, which might get going just like the bovine flu.
Jonathan Hoenig: I love a burger on the grill. Everyone is grilling today, Fourth of July. I will grill morning, noon and night but the price for beef is going up and you can participate in this which is COW. It's a livestock that tracks the price of beef. All this cap in trade will push them higher.
Wayne Rogers: More government intervention hurts banks. Be selective when buying these stocks. Take a look at QABA.
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