DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING "Cost of Freedom Recap" CONTAINS STRONG OPINIONS WHICH ARE NOT A REFLECTION OF THE OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON AS INVESTMENT ADVICE WHEN MAKING PERSONAL INVESTMENT DECISIONS. IT IS FOX NEWS' POLICY THAT CONTRIBUTORS DISCLOSE POSITIONS THEY HOLD IN STOCKS THEY DISCUSS, THOUGH POSITIONS MAY CHANGE. READERS OF "Cost of Freedom Recap" MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN INVESTMENT DECISIONS.
PRESIDENT DEMANDS END TO OIL SUBSIDES AS GAS PRICES SURGE
Charles Payne: It is selective outrage, it's maddening. ExxonMobile last year paid $31 billion in taxes. Apple paid $8 billion -- tax rate 42 percent versus 24 percent. Who has more American workers? I've been upset about this for so many years. The oil companies have paid trillions of dollars in taxes. This four billion that the president keeps talking about is a drop in the bucket. By the way it was designed for wildcatters; entrepreneurs. Now if he really wants to be upset about the waste, let's go after all these wasteful clean energy initiatives that are a lot more than $4 billion.
Amilya antonetti: Who gives him the right to start picking winners and losers here when he knows nothing about business? First of all you are talking about two entirely different profit margins here and now he is going to decide who is going to pick up the weight or whatever and we can't figure out what is going to happen with the gas pump? He was told you need to fix this initiative, now he is picking. You see what he does when he picks in business, he picks wrong. He is so off the mark. He is so wrong.
Dagen mcdowell: Politically he's not going to pick on Apple because we like our iPhones, we like our iPads and this is about politics. Steve Jobs looked at him and said, the jobs in China where we make our products, they are coming back here and they still don't pick on Apple. What I'm saying is they aren't going to target, it's ridiculous and it's unfair but they're not going to go after companies with products we like. Like it or not, Americans think we have a right to cheap gas.
Adam lashinsky: Well, first of all, Dagen is on the money when she says this is about politics and so we shouldn't be shocked that the president is picking on the oil companies, but we can go a little deeper than that. Gas is seen as being a non-discretionary item for American consumers; they have to have gas to get to work, to go to church, to go to the baseball game. They don't have to have an iPod or an iPhone and I think Americans understand this. Dagen hit on this too; Americans admire the entrepreneurialism of Apple. They don't admire the entrepreneurialism of the oil company right or wrong. I don't think for the president, by the way, that this is about making money. You know oil companies aren't bad because they make a lot of money. They are bad because they are bad.
$400 billion wasted annually on duplicate government programs
Dagen mcdowell: People who work in government, like big government. I can show you 400 pages of why I hate government. If you dig into this, it's actually much worse than you think. There are what, 53 programs run by 4 federal agencies just for entrepreneurs. There are 15 unmanned aircraft programs; you go through it and it's duplication. It's very clear that all of these people working in government have no idea what all these other people are doing even though they are working on the same exact project. It goes to the point of, we don't know how effective these programs are and we have no idea how much money is being wasted on them.
Charles payne: Pile on, pile on, pile on. And to Dagen's point, once it exists whosever in that office, whosever making that money they don't want it to go away and of course these politicians, the biggest argument they make to get them re-elected is how well they looted Washington, D.C., it gets back to our first point talking about ultimately this one is on the American people. We might as well shut down the GOA if we're not going to pay attention to this at least start there. If we don't want to cut out anything, cut out the GOA. Let's just spend all the money, let's get to the point of no return sooner rather than later because I can't take it anymore, Neil.
Amilya antonetti: You just learn from Business 101. As a business grows and hits the different tiers, what happens is, they review and they cut and clean as they move up to the next level that's all. Send in a group of entrepreneurs here and they will go in for the 118 phantom that Medicare paid for all these buildings that are not actually there. They would go in there and they would redistribute that money. You have to go in there and review it as you hit the next tier. I don't know the last time it's ever been done.
Adam lashinsky: You know Amilya, it's great to have you on the show, but let me give you a little dose of reality about the way business works. Business's, big businesses, are famous for hiring consultants; think Government Accounting Office to produce them a study -- think of this report that says here are the things you should do to streamline your business and what do they do with that report? They put it on a shelf after they pay the consultants and say thank you very much.
Dow closing above 13k this week for first time since 2008
Charles payne: You know, I gotta tell you, we've become a nation that just celebrates mediocrity. First of all, I didn't think I'd see a president brag about 8.3 percent unemployment, but it's across all lines; our kids get As on watered-down school tests. The fact of the matter is 13K right now reflects the love of democracy and capitalism outside of America. If you look at the companies that power, we talked about apple well over 60 percent of revenue ... IBM the list goes on and on the rest of the world is on fire. At least we do have this multinationals to take care of it now.
Dagen mcdowell: We celebrate because it's a nice, big, pretty number; it's nice and round. It's the same way 40 is a way more important birthday than 39 and that's it. Why not celebrate it; 13K in the Dow. The Dow has doubled since 2008. By the way, how many birthday parties have I been too?
Amilya antonetti: 100 percent right, because this is the same philosophy that everybody gets the trophy. Then what you do is you inspire your weakest link. There is a reason why out in the wild, the fittest survive. You don't celebrate things like this because it's a little blip in the radar and again the theory that we are going to say a C is okay and we all want everybody to feel good. We are status quo.
Adam lashinsky: I don't fight the president politically or otherwise for celebrating a decline in the unemployment rate, you shouldn't either, Charles. The Dow at 13k, what I believe is something slightly different from everybody else, which is that investors shouldn't pay any attention to these meaningless numbers ever, because it has nothing what so ever to do with making prudent decisions about your investments.
"all-time high" stocks
Charles payne: Carrizo (CRZO) formally, hot momentum stock, think it has a chance to get back to it's old high.
Adam lashinsky: Airgas, (AGS) because I'm a patriotic American. This is an industrial gas company that makes its money overwhelmingly in the United States. It's already very near that and I'm just betting it's going to continue to do so.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox