New French president puts US companies on notice

Threatens financial fallout for firing workers

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NEW WORRIES FOR U.S. JOB CREATORS DESPITE FRENCH THREATS

GARY KALTBAUM: There will be a definite effect. Look, when you have socialist economic dictators over there telling companies what to do and how many employees to have that is nothing but trouble. What if the man drops and it has been dropping in Europe and you don't need that certain amount of employees that is going to directly affect your profits globally and then you are going to start looking at home to do something about it and that means maybe losing some people here, so nothing good comes out of something like this.

DAGEN MCDOWELL: This is what is it like for a foreign company doing business in France. This is actually nothing new. It's tough talk but companies far and wide have had to deal with some of the most restricted labor practices across the whole of Europe and France. You have the high pay roll taxes; you have very big severance packages you have to pay to workers that I've been finding. If you go back through history Molex, which is an auto parts company a few years ago went through something very similar where the French government laid a bunch of people off and it was closing a plant. The French government actually came out and told other companies not to do business with this company. It is par for doing business with the country of France, it only hurts France I don't think if our country can get out of the company, it won't hurt us.

ADAM LASHINSKY: It is an interesting question because the rules there are so restrictive so they might. General Motors is well aware of this, it has been one of GM's biggest problems in Europe cause they have wanted to cut capacity and it's so difficult. To Dagen's point, they knew this it's against the law there to do it the way we would do it here. So, yeah I think they could face those repercussions Neil. I think companies like GM have to decide... do we want to be in Europe or do we not want to be in Europe it would be a perfectly valid decision to get out but it would be a long term decision.

JIM LACAMP: I think he might. I think the president idolizes this guy if you look at how the president operates in a European socialist system. If you can't fire anybody then you aren't going to hire anybody it doesn't make any sense then what does the message send to those workers over there? They can show up late they can do whatever they want too, not be productive and they are not going to get fired. I think GM ought to say (speaking in French) we are out of here. Look, France isn't the only place that they can build cars in Europe anyway so, this is a disastrous policy. It's European style socialism on steroids and it's what got them in trouble in the first place.

GOV. LEPAGE: GET OFF THE COUCH AND GET A JOB

DAGEN MCDOWELL: There is and he's talking to the oath we heard from at the rally last week, the occupy wall street rally that said I want free food, free medical care provided by the community it's like go to work! Go to work and find a job there is no job that is beneath you and to the governor's point there is something really frightening going on in this country in the last 4 months we've had 700k new jobs created but 33k people have gone on the disability so what you're seeing is when people's unemployment benefits run out they go onto disability and almost never return to the workforce after that so there is a lot of truth in the numbers to what this governor is talking about.

GARY KALTBAUM: Look, unfortunately there is enough being offered right now not to work. It's continuous I'm not sure how long the unemployment benefits go right now but it is a very very long time. When I see on any given month that there are 4 million jobs available it tells me that something is not right with this situation here. Look, I think those comments were a little bit incendiary there are people out there who are pounding the pavement to get jobs but I still think there is a good amount out there. I think Dagen used the word that means we just want to take, take, take and that's how we end up in the situation we are in.

ADAM LASHINSKY: Well, I think it does resonate and I think the people at the occupy protest who want free food, free everything are a very small minority in this country I think they are a minority Neil, I don't think most Americans think that I think that most Americans do identify with what the governor said, and in fact president Clinton was successful in trying to lower the welfare rosters but we probably need to do it again.

JIM LACAMP: Look, we've got under employment now at 40 year highs we have a 61 percent participation in the labor force. So, there is a lot of people who have gamed the system. The longer you pay people not to work, the longer they are not going to feel the need to go to work. Historically, every time you cut off unemployment benefits people start getting more aggressive about taking a lower paying job. Guess what you've got to walk before you can run so we are going to have to illustrate some tough love in this country unfortunately our leaders haven't demonstrated any ability or will to do so and now we have 47 percent of Americans who don't pay any taxes at all. We've got a growing ongoing war going on between the people who are working and productive and those that are taking from society.

PRESIDENT OBAMA TRIMS 5 REGULATIONS TO SAVE AN ESTIMATED $6 BILLION

GARY KALTBAUM: The environment is ever changing and more importantly it's ever growing and the cost to implement is ridiculous but the cost to even understand it we need to hire Einstein to do it. Look, this comes under the headline of who are you trying to kid. Obama care has two million words of regulations in it but yet they are trying to tell us look what I am going to do with 6 billion dollars. There is not enough weapons out there to take care of this.

DAGEN MCDOWELL: People always say, dismiss earmarks. They say earmarks don't matter it's a too small amount of money. I say it's 6 billion dollars we have more than 15.5 trillion in national debt. At least it is something.

ADAM LASHINSKY: I'm with Dagen, I won't criticize cutting 6 billion if they are good cuts and the 1.8 trillion some of that is critical regulation and so, sure let's look at our regulations and let's make them more sensible. Taking a machete is the wrong way to do it. These things keep us safe it's a good thing.

JIM LACAMP: Yea, it's a lounge chair off the Titanic. It doesn't mean anything. Last year alone he put in 10 billion of regulations with start up costs of another 6.6 billion. It affected everything, washers and dryers, refrigerators, freezers etc. worse yet everything he has done to the energy industry. This is not near enough it is just a cosmetic move, a smoke screen.

HOT STOCKS RIGHT NOW

JIM LACAMP: Seagate technology (STX)

ADAM LASHINSKY: China Mobil (CHL)

GARY KALTBAUM: Ebay (EBAY)