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.
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on Fox | Cashin' In
On Saturday January 9, Brenda Buttner was joined by Gary B. Smith, Tobin Smith, Pat Dorsey, Eric Bolling and Mike Papantonio.
President's New "Green Jobs" Push: Helping or Hurting Job Market?
Eric Bolling, Fox Business Network: No matter how many times the government tries job programs like this, they never work. When the government money funding the job goes away, so does the job. You can't create long-term jobs through stimulus. Supposedly, the stimulus has created or saved about 640,000 jobs, and about $257 billion of the stimulus has been spent. That's $401,000 per job created or saved. Does this make sense?
Mike Papantonio, radio talk show host: We're coming out of the worst recession in recent history. We've lost manufacturing jobs, companies are putting very little money into research and development, corporations aren't spending, and too many college grads don't have disciplines ins science and technology. We have to adjust and become a pioneer for new, modern technologies, and the government should take a role in helping this take place.
Tobin Smith, NBT Media: We've been losing jobs in sectors like manufacturing for years. That's nothing new. The idea that from high, the governments can somehow preordain the creation and success of a green energy sector doesn't work. Spain is a good example of what happens when the government tries to create green jobs—it ended up costing them $750,000 per job. Now, the Spanish government is cutting funding because it's just too expensive. I think we'd see a very similar result in the U.S.
Gary B. Smith, Exemplar Capital: I'm not against innovation in any way. What bothers me is the government operating under the assumption that it can help successfully innovate new industries. Look at Intel, Google, or Microsoft—they got along just fine without taking any government subsidies. And they still managed to build up the internet, Windows operating systems, the iPhone, etc. The government does not drive innovation—the private sector does. When private business or industry gets things wrong, they go out of business, and it doesn't cost taxpayers extraordinary amounts of money. When the government gets things wrong, it doesn't matter because it can keep taking money from taxpayers to fund it.
Pat Dorsey, Morningstar.com: There is a case to be made for subsidies in some case, such as solar power, where you subsidize a technology to get it on good parity and a scale where it becomes cost efficient. But that should take a minimal level of subsidies. You don't want to subsidies a business that's already reasonably cost efficient. Unfortunately, the government has a pretty poor track record of successfully picking which businesses or industries to subsidize.
Did "Underwear Bomber" Instill Fear in U.S. Economy?
Tobin Smith: This attempted airplane bombing is not instilling fear in the economy. In fact, it could even help the economy. I guarantee we're going to spend more money to find the guys that plotted this thing, and of course that'll help create more jobs.
Eric Bolling: I think the guys who tried to pull this off won this little battle. Small businesses have a lot on their plate right now. When something like this takes place, it shakes people's confidence a bit, and makes them wonder what could be coming next. It may make consumers and businesses think twice about spending money. And what we can't do is take our eye of the ball on this stuff, or pretend like it's not a serious, ongoing threat.
Mike Papantonio: After 9/11, Americans' fear tolerance grew tremendously. The day after the attempted Christmas day attack, most Americans said they believed another attempt was going to take place. Nevertheless, they still showed up on their plane, went to visit their families, and really went around their normal business. An event like this isn't going to shake Americans to the point the economy is going to get hurt, and that's what makes this country great.
Gary B. Smith: I think in the short term, this is an out of sight, out of mind issue for most people. After all, it didn't happen on their flight. We spend billions a year on intelligence, and yet one whack job with a bomb in his underwear made it past security. The main problem was our intelligence agencies weren't talking to one another. And that allowed this guy to almost blow up this plane. We got lucky, but if these guys actually pull something off successfully, then our economy will absolutely suffer.
Pat Dorsey: Hurricanes hit Florida and people still live in Florida. It's the same analogy with terrorism. It's something that happens, and it's just something people have to deal with and be prepared for. All we can do is try to reduce the chance of an attack occurring. But people adjust; they don't fundamentally change their lives as a result of terrorism. So I don't see this having any significant effect on the economy.
What Will Dems Give Unions to Support Health Care Reform?
Gary B. Smith: This is going to be a lose-lose situation for everybody. Congress is looking for any kind of revenue to pay off this idiotic health care plan, so they want to go after these "Cadillac plans." In a short time, I think we'll see the definition of a Cadillac plan come to anyone with a company health plan. The middle class and everyone else are going to get killed with new taxes. No one will come out ahead in this.
Mike Papantonio: This is a great hold-out piece for unions in terms of card check legislation. Unions have one goal at the end of the day—to build their numbers up. The number of unionized workers in this country has been on the decline for decades, so card check allows unions to potentially get their numbers up. It's very likely the unions will relent on taxing Cadillac insurance policies, provided Congress gives them card check. This will be a major negotiation.
Eric Bolling: I'd rather have people get off the hook on taxing Cadillac plans. Who cares what unions want? We're all in this together, and everyone is going to have to pay for this. Suddenly, when unions find out their Cadillac plans are getting taxed to pay for health care reform, they're against the legislation and demand this type of taxation gets taken out of it. Typical politics.
Tobin Smith: Taxing Cadillac plans are mainly hitting policies of dominantly rich Americans, who dominantly own, run, and create small businesses, which are what the majority of our economy is made up of. This eventually becomes a job killer. But if health care reform doesn't take place in any form, that could be another job killer.
Pat Dorsey: Cadillac plans apply to union health care plans just as they do to any other business' health care plan. People make choices all the time about choosing a lower paying job that has better health care coverage and vice versa. In the end, this could be a wash. There'll likely be horse trading in Congress. What will the ultimate result be? I couldn't tell you.
Predictions
Gary B. Smith: Why buy when you can rent! Buy "NFLX" for a 50 percent play in '10
Tobin Smith: 3D mania in 2010! "IMAX" pops 50 percent by June
Pat Dorsey: Lower expenses, higher profits! "SWY" bags a 50 percent gain in 2 years
Eric Bolling: Aren't all children love children? "RL" has lovely 30 percent gain in 1 year
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on Fox | Cashin' In
On Saturday, January 9 Neil Cavuto was joined by Ben Stein, Charles Payne, Dagen McDowell and Adam Lashinsky.
America Locked Out From Health Care Negotiations; Why?
Charles Payne, WStreet.com: This is really beyond the pale. It's like there's a coiled snake behind this closed door ready to spring out and bite us if we open it. So many things were promised. I don't get the sense that Congress and the White House are behind this closed door trying to craft a good and honest bill for Americans. They're not really concerned with creating a good bill, they just want to create a bill they can spin well to the American public.
Dagen McDowell, Fox Business Network: This whole process is like making unappetizing sausage. Congress and the White House don't want people to see how they're doing it. They can't answer a lot of questions Americans want answered on this. Nobody in government can really answer what the effect overhauling health care will have on the budget, or our debt levels, or the cost of health care coverage. The majority of Americans oppose health care. But Democrats think they're holier than thou and know better than the average American.
Ben Stein, author, "How to Ruin the U.S.A.": I find this extremely unnerving. Government is supposed to be open, and the governed are required to consent to anything important going on in Washington. Health care reform is incredibly important. Yet it's being done out of sight from citizens and the media. This is unheard of, and a slap in the face to our constitution. Democrats are operating under the assumption that because they won the election, they can do anything they want.
Adam Lashinsky, editor-at-large, Fortune Magazine: The Democratic process in this country is based on representative democracy, not by plebiscite or referendums. We elect representatives to go to Washington, write legislation, and make laws for us. They tell us about it, we comment to them, and choose to re-elect them or not in the next election cycle. The versions of the health care legislation are all out there. You can look at the bills. Congress is going to merge them together, and the final version will be put out there, and Congress will inform people what's in it.
Real Problem Fighting Terror: Too Many Security Heads in White House?
Dagen McDowell: There really is a problem with too many names and bodies within the White House's national security team. This is a classic example of government morass. Read the summary report that came out regarding the attempted attack. The bureaucracy failed. One organization thinks it's responsible for something that another organization is responsible for. And everyone starts asking each other "wait, were you on that?" Nobody knows, and then the system breaks down.
Charles Payne: We had information about Pearl Harbor before it happened; we had information about 9/11 before it happened. We have too many agencies, too many titles involved in national security. Everybody gets concerned about maintaining their jobs and protecting their territory. The result is a lack of communication and coordination. And thus we have situations arise like the attempted plane bombing. I think too many people in the administration are afraid to think and act outside the box.
Ben Stein: Our intelligence agencies are not competing companies. There's no incentive or merit in keeping information to yourself. They're just typical bureaucrats. By nature, they become sluggish and lazy because they have very little incentive to excel. A major private company could get this job done much better because they'd have far greater incentives to do so.
Adam Lashinsky: This is a good opportunity to point out that our intelligence community has foiled or broken up a lot of plots that have kept us safe—some I'm sure we don't know about. They've done a lot of a good work. We talk about instances where they screw-up like with this event. I look to Silicon Valley. Apple and Oracle have top-down leaders who dictate everything. Cisco has a much more leveled management structure with many committees—and it's done very well. So operating by committee isn't necessarily a bad thin—it can work.
Will Deep Freeze Kill "Green" Agenda and Save Money This Year?
Ben Stein: At some point, maybe people in government are going to wake up and say, "Hey, it's colder, not hotter!" Maybe we should rethink this whole global warming thing. It's a fact that 1998 was the hottest year for global temperatures, and temperatures have fallen slightly since then. We know that it was colder centuries ago, long before cars, trucks, and other forms of pollution. We know there's been a conspiracy among climate scientists to silence scientists questioning climate change. I hope this cold weather wakes people up.
Charles Payne: I think back to that old "Twilight Zone episode" where an old and a young woman are together as the Earth is getting closer and closer to the sun and the planet is coming to a boil. Then the young woman is woken up and it turns out she's been dreaming. Then she's told the Earth is in fact moving farther away from the sun and is getting colder. The reality is, a lot of this climate change stuff is based on faulty information, and it's scary what may come of it.
Dagen McDowell: Even if Congress gets scared away from cap-and-trade legislation, the EPA is going to take over regulation of greenhouse gases. The EPA will move ahead and do whatever it wants, with private industry having no say in the process. And it will be based off of information and data that has knowingly been massaged and manipulated.
Adam Lashinsky: I'm no climatologist. Scientists do not look out the window or walk to the corner store and craft ideas about what's happening to the climate. They're actually looking and science and hard data. They're not just pulling figures out of thin air or trying to suppress any information. I don't like Cap and Trade, but a cold winter will not stop it from moving through Congress.
Charles' Best Stocks for 2010
Manitowoc (MTW)
ARM Holdings (ARMH)
Pier 1 Imports (PIR)
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on Fox | Cashin' In
Forbes on Fox
On Saturday, January 9 David Asman was joined by Steve Forbes, Bill Baldwin, Neil Weinberg, Mike Ozanian, Victoria Barret, John Dobosz, and Kai Falkenberg.
In Focus: Time for a New Terror Tax on Air Travelers?
David Asman: President Obama – getting ready to announce yet more plans to keep terrorists off airplanes. More air marshals. More whole-body scanners. And it's all coming with one very big price tag. So who should pay? All Americans? Or air travelers only?
Victoria Barret: I think the travelers should pay. The issue here is we need safer skies. What happened on Christmas was a call that was too darn close for comfort. If we're going to have to levy a tax to get better technology, better screeners, it should target the people using the service. In this case, that's the flyers. We shouldn't let all Americans take the hit for this; this should really be limited to flyers.
Neil Weinberg: That doesn't make sense. It's like saying, "Well, gee. I'll pay the fire department after I have a fire in my house, but I'm not going to pay to have you around until then." Obviously the problem is your house is going to burn down and cause your neighbor's house to burn down. It doesn't make any sense. We all need a fire department. Hopefully we'll never need to use it, but we need it around. Similarly, we need these people to be screeners at our airports, whether we're flying or not.
Bill Baldwin: First of all, I think we should be suspicious of Neil's instinctive tendency to socialize costs.
(LAUGHTER)
Bill Baldwin: There's a more serious point here. If you spend four hours waiting in line at Newark, you've wasted a lot of valuable time. It is worth it to you to pay the extra $10 to make the TSA a little less inept, have a little better technology, and make the line go faster.
Steve Forbes: Any time a crisis comes up, the first reaction by politicians is "let's have a new tax!" This is a government that's proportionately spending 30 percent more than it did a year or two ago and they can't find money to increase our war against terrorism. Air travelers are already very heavily taxed and that money does not go toward improving the air traffic control system or other things to make air travel smoother and better. So this is just another chance for politicians to reach into people's pockets. Yes, we do need to spend more and be smarter about our anti-terrorist activities at airports, but that does not mean an excuse for more taxes. We have enough.
Kai Falkenberg: As the president said, this is a systemic failure. And this requires a systemic fix. Terrorists kill all Americans, not just Americans who fly. If you think about who died on 9/11, it wasn't just people on the planes; there were thousands of people on the ground who died. The same thing could have happened with this Christmas Day flight; a lot of people could have been killed on the ground. It's not just technology that's going to save us. We need to invest in interrogation techniques.
Flipside: Cut the Minimum Wage to Create Jobs
David Asman: Another 85,000 Americans lost their jobs last month and the unemployment rate is still stuck at 10 percent. BUT! The Forbes team has a plan to get Americans working again. Cut the minimum wage!? This week, Colorado became the first state ever to cut its minimum wage. Neil, you say do it across America to create jobs across America?
Neil Weinberg: David, this is such basic economics you'd think even Nancy Pelosi could grasp it. If you increase the price of something, less of it gets sold. If you increase the price of labor, fewer people are going to get hired. There's been a lot of debate about this, but the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-partisan group, said if you look at all the research over the years, it shows that if you increase the minimum wage, it lowers the demand for labor.
Victoria Barret: I did a little research on my own and looked at states that have no minimum wage or the same as the federal minimum wage. Those states should have a lower unemployment rate, right? They don't. They have the same as the national average or higher. And conversely, states that have high minimum wages like California are pretty much in line with the average or lower. So I think this is an interesting situation where the minimum wage is low enough as it is that it wouldn't make a difference to employment if you lowered it or got rid of it.
Steve Forbes: Decades ago, when they started to substantially increase the minimum wage, you had single digit unemployment among teenagers. Now, among African American teenagers, it's gone up to 50 percent, among other teens, the unemployment rate is way high in the double digits. It's priced people right out of the market. People need entry level jobs to learn those basic skills so they can start to move up the economic ladder. If states can't lower the minimum wage to below the federal minimum, they can get hurt very badly.
Mike Ozanian: Lowering the minimum wage will help a little bit, but not as much as it should. The reason is a lot of local governments require the companies they hire to do work for the town, like landscaping, to pay union wages. The benefits of lowering minimum wages are offset by higher taxes to cover the additional expense, so the benefits aren't what they should be.
Bill Baldwin: I think we have to do two things for people with low job skills. Number one: Repeal the minimum wage outright. It shouldn't be against the law to get employment if your economic value is $6 an hour.
David Asman: So you should be allowed to pay $0.10 an hour??
Bill Baldwin: If you can get people to work for that… The point is we shouldn't be outlawing employment of people if their economic productivity is $6 an hour and want to move up the ladder. Here's another point: I think we ought to make their taxes a lot easier. Right now, we try to help these people by basically rebating their Social Security tax through complicated credits; the earned income credit, the making work pay credit. You need a PhD to figure these out. Make it simpler.
Census Spending $340 Million in Advertising: Good or Bad Use of Taxpayer Money?
David Asman: $340 million in taxpayer money. That's how much our government is spending on an all-out ad blitz for the new Census form. Here's how it breaks down:
$140 million on TV and radio ads – including three Super Bowl commercials.
$80 million on something called "ethnic advertising." Plus, millions more on a 46-foot long trailer and 12 cargo vans making a big carbon footprint on a nationwide road trip.
Steve, good use of taxpayer money?
Steve Forbes: No, of course not, unless it was going to Forbes magazine or Forbes.com.
(LAUGHTER)
Steve Forbes: This is just another ham-handed, government way of doling out pork. Yeah, you might have an ad or two in the Super Bowl, but then do what we used to do in politics… called "earn media." You could have Census people go on Fox and Friends, other morning shows, and radio shows to get the word out about the Census and interesting things we already know about our changing population. You don't need to spend close to have a billion dollars to do that. People will do it for free.
Neil Weinberg: I think it's good money. Obviously some very savvy, profit-oriented companies in this country spend a lot of money on advertising. And if they think it's a good bang for the buck, they why shouldn't the government?
Kai Falkenberg: I have a better way to do it for free. Twitter. Send out one tweet: The government will enforce the $100 fine for not completing the Census. That'll get ya a lot of people [to fill out the Census].
John Dobosz: Sure, use [technology] to help it out. But, there should be no real outcry over how we're spending this. We've been anesthetized with the Bs and Ts… the billions and trillions over the past year. This is $340 million? There's a lot more to get angry about right now. And whether or not you think it's a good idea to spend money on the Census to promote it might depend on if you're a Democrat or a Republican.
Mike Ozanian: [$340 million] is just the cost of advertising. It's not the cost of doing the Census. I think we should out-source it to keep the politics out of the Census. The United Kingdom did it with its 2001 census. The entire cost was less than what it's going to cost us just for advertising. And they did it very effectively.
Informer: "Safe Stocks"
David Asman: We're back with the stocks that will keep your money safe – no matter what happens:
Victoria Barret: Intuit (INTU)
John Dobosz: DuPont (DD)
Bill Baldwin: Lab Corp. (LH)
Mike Ozanian: Bars of Gold
Bulls & Bears | Cavuto on Business | Forbes on Fox | Cashin' In
Is the President Failing to "Connect the Dots" When It Comes to Proof Cutting Taxes Creates Jobs?
Tracy Byrnes, Fox Business Network: We are not talking cutting taxes. He can talk about tax cut all I want you need to cut taxes so small businesses can hire. They are in limbo they are not hiring because they don't though what is happening. If they knew their taxes were going down they would be eager to get out and offer jobs and spur the economy.
Jonas Max Ferris, MaxFunds.com: Putting money in taxpayer's hands when you are not paying for it with cuts in business is stimulating the economy and recession however it gets dolled out is the same effect. Consumers are wary to spend and when they give you incentives to do something to a credit or a "cash for clunkers" thing you do it with your own money and get matching funds from the government.
Jonathan Hoenig, CapitalistPig Asset Management: The president doesn't understand. The President has, I think if you listen to what he says, a hatred for capitalism. Where do jobs come from? They don't come from the government. They come from the profit-seeking self interest from what I hear and see the President never miss as opportunity to smear and bitch-slap.
Wayne Rogers, Wayne Rogers & Co: If you listen to Christina Roamer when she was talking yesterday about why this has happen. The bureaucracy. You started by saying the connecting of the dots in the terrorist situation. It's comparable. The burr recognize — it is comparable. The bureaucracy is so slow, inefficient, so dumb, if you will. They can't do anything. Even if they grant this money half haven't spent. Of course private industry because there's an incentive in private industry to create a job and do something that is going to bring, as Jonathan says, wealth back to the when. If you are in the government thing, you don't have incentives to do that.
Christian Dorsey, Economic Policy Institute: You are talking about connecting dots. Do the number one we had expansive — dot number one we had expansive semi-tax cuts in 2000, so President Obama is connecting the dots and realizing if you want to create jobs now, you incentivize small businesses by giving tax credits for doing what? Creating jobs. Not general tax cuts which we hope will create jobs but have the actual effect of going more into savings than into spending. So, when you are talking about connecting dots Obama is looking at past history, and designing a way forward that makes sense.
John Layfield, www.nutritionmarket.com: The thing that Obama is helping out small businesses while he might want to, that is absolutely not happening. Talking about history, yes, he's looking at history, 1938 to be specific that brought us into another depression. The exactly is what is happening - big government spending. We've spent two trillion, now one out of every five Americans by the government's numbers aren't employed. That is nothing I don't think to brag about. He has gone after big banks given them free money, automakers, unions taken care of them, free money. Credit tightened whatever ½ trillion out of market for — 1 1/2 out of market for big business. Nothing for small business.
Chuck Schumer Tells Airlines Not to Fly to Certain Airports Over Terror Worries: Is He Right or Wrong?
John Layfield: Absolutely. We are attacking the tail not the dog. Not attacking the animal that is the root of the problem. Security in airports in the future are going to have noninvasive screens, where you can hop in, one 10 seconds, bomb sniffing machines for your bags. Until we get there, there are going to be inaccuracies, redundancies, inefficiencies. We don't need to stop flying, we need some set form of security to make sure airports are safe.
Christian Dorsey: Messenger play be flawed but the message is sound. He also said we need to have TSA agents go and do a better job of having a presence in airports. But his responsibility for the airports, I think is very prudent. If they know of security concerns in foreign airports they need to threaten to stop flying there. If safety is their number one concern, if passenger safety is their chief issue that's a very prudent thing they ought to do.
Wayne Rogers: it is the responsibility of the TSA and of the homeland security. It is not the responsibility of the airlines. The airlines are there to make a buck. By the way, nobody is telling you, you have to fly. For safety purposes you can say I'm not going there. The Israelis do it right. It should not be a concentration on instruments and devices it should be a concentration on the people and they interview you and that's the way to do it.
Tracy Byrnes: This is clobbering capitalism as opposed to fixing the problem. Two-thirds of all international flights come into five places: The EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Australia. We need to work with these countries and figure this out! The answer is not cut that part of the world off and stay in your own living room. It is to figure it out. Chopping capitalism at the knees is not the answer.
Jonas Max Ferris: We have the body scanners that some senators in Congress think it is too Victorian and don't want their bodies seen by these sensors so in Amsterdam they couldn't have these. But that's another story. I agree with Schumer on this. I'll be Jonathan for a second. This is putting some of the security back in the hands of airlines where a lot of it belongs. It was taken away in private industry in 9/11, given to the government. Ultimately you have to punish airports for not doing a good job. Maybe Americans will say we are not going to Amsterdam. Or we have to do a better job with security, because we took away their liability also with 9/11.
Jonathan Hoenig: The greatest threat to airline security is militant Islam. That's why the focus is an unbelievable distraction. Since 9/11 we've banned liquids. Now you have to take your shoes off. You are fighting a war the businessman, against productive individuals who might want to travel internationally to make money. You are fighting a war against folks who have to travel for their business who won't get on a plane if they can't bring a laptop and be productive.
Can Lawyers and the Courts Save Americans From Government-Run Health Care?
Jonathan Hoenig: Health reform has disintegrated into mob rule. This country is "anything goes" as long as you can get votes. Powers of government are supposed to be limited. By the fact they are requiring to you buy health insurance not because you are getting a car, this is a requirement to buy a product because you are alive. I can't imagine in a country based on individual rights how that could be constitutional. I hope it gets challenged.
Christian Dorsey: It doesn't seem fair to me either. I think that is going to get struck down in the final bill when the house and senate reconcile. The larger issue is whether or nor not there should be legal challenges to the idea of requiring individuals to pay for health care. Anybody who thinks there is a valid legal challenge is being shameful, desperate and hypocritical. I can't say that strongly enough. There's every believe that congress has the ability to tax and spend to provide for the general welfare of which health care is one. Certainly, this will survive any constitutional challenge and for all those people who talk about frivolous lawsuits they ought to let this go. It is sour grapes for having the bill become law.
John Layfield: Absolutely Christian is a very smart man we disagree on this point. I believe there's a constitutional violation of the freedom and fairness among all states. What has happened to our America? You to understand with health care, automakers, Fannie and Freddie almost a third of our country has been socialized. I disagree Americans aren't smart enough to run their own business that the government has to do it. I don't care if it lawyers stand up and stop them.
Wayne Rogers: John, it is true but it is not going to happen. Christian, you are wrong it is not under the general welfare. We need to go back and read Madison. This is under the interstate commerce clause. The court is not going to turn it over. It is not going to work. It is fortunate because – the constitution has been eviscerated, it is whatever the court says it is. It's no longer a principle.
Jonas Max Ferris: There are a million things that we've done in the last hundred years that the founding fathers would freak out about. If you think the courts are going to let this be a constitutional challenge on 10th Amendment — it is not going to happen. You can't grow marijuana and though states allow that medically. They make you pay social security tax. Forget it!
Tracy Byrnes: The fact that you call these frivolous lawsuits is garbage. If my taxes go up because of the "Cornhusker bill" right now because these guys are getting a kickback that is unconstitutional.
What Do I Need to Know?
Jonathan Hoenig: It's cold out there! I'm freezing my keister off here in the Midwest. If you're looking at commodities and think energy price are going up because it's so cold, check out UHN. It's a fund that tracks the price of heating oil, much smaller and less liquid market than crude oil.
Tracy Byrnes: All the years of people telling us the cell phone is killing your brain, proven wrong. We're now doing tests on little mice. The radiation from cell phones is actually pushing off Alzheimer's.
John Layfield: 60-day delinquencies for mortgages doubled. If you believe there's going to be more foreclosures this year like I do, Lender Processing Services (LPS) is a good play off this.
Wayne Rogers: Chinese stocks going up. I like (ADY), American Dairy. The Chinese are lactose intolerant and make a product that's works for that.
Jonas Max Ferris: Buy government bonds, I like (TLT). I hate the government, but I'm starting to think this is overplayed. Interest rates have been going up all year, 4.5, 5 percent on long-term government bond, that's a good return today.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox