xfdfw IMUS-IN-THE-MORNING-01
<Show: IMUS IN THE MORNING>
<Date: August 30, 2012>
<Time: 06:00:00>
<Tran: 083001cb.220>
<Type: Show>
<Type: SHOW>
<Head: Three Thousand People Were Evacuated Along Lake Pontchartrain Shore;
Barclays Names Antony Jenkins as New CEO; Barclays Investigated Over
Payments to Qatar Holding; Over 700 Thousand People in New Orleans Lost
Power Due to Hurricane Isaac - Part 4>
<Sect: News; Business>
<Byline: Connell McShane, Sandra Smith, Lori Rothman, Nicole Petallides,
Jeff Flock, Craig Boswell, Peter Barnes, Phil Keating, Steve Brown, Rich
Edson>
<Guest: Mark Mancuso, Mike Ingram>
<Spec: Business; Stock Markets; Storms; Politics>
Now, what will that mean for tonight if anything when Mitt Romney, the party's nominee, takes to stage itself as the convention wraps up in Tampa? Steve Brown joins us from the convention site now, with a look ahead to tonight.
And Carlos Gutierrez, the former commerce secretary is also going to be with us in a moment. That's a new way we have of teasing guests, we show them on screen for a moment. Anyway Lori's going to Secretary Gutierrez in a moment.
There's Steve -- how about that -- with a preview of tonight. Hey, how is it going?
STEVE BROWN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No problem. Sticky day. It's going to be a hot one outside and the Republicans are certainly hoping it's going to be a hot time inside the convention. Everything pretty much a long drum roll leading up to Mitt Romney's speech and that includes last night's address by Paul Ryan, nationally televised speech.
There were some questions by some folks about whether or not Ryan would take to the role as agitator or attack dog in chief for the Romney- Ryan ticket. But he seemed to take to it quite well and spent much of his speech chastising the Obama administration. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL RYAN (R-WI), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. Now, all that's left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that's already passed. Like a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Among the other notable addresses from last night's action at the RNC was Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state from the George W. Bush administration. She was talking about how America needs to continue to be strong and be a leader in world affairs, including getting its finances in order, in order to be a leader.
But of course, again, all of this leads up to Mitt Romney's address tonight, arguably the most important speech that he will give in his political life for a couple of different reasons. One, there are some folks within the Republican ranks that are looking for a little bit more reason, not only just to vote for him, but to get active for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and that ticket. And get out there and volunteer in the same way, or perhaps even more than they did.
Also, keep in mind, too, that as much as we pay attention to the presidential contest going back now to two years plus, there are a lot of folks that are just tuning into this particular race and the speech tonight and the speech by president Obama coming up at the DNC. Those will be opportunities for those that haven't solidly made up their minds to start doing that shopping.
And the Mitt Romney campaign knows this. So you really cannot overstate how important this speech is tonight -- Connell.
MCSHANE: All right Steve. Thank you. Steve Brown live in Tampa for us. Now, Lori, we can talk to Mr. Gutierrez.
ROTHMAN: Thank you, Connell, ok. The pressure is on.
My next guest was the commerce secretary under George W. Bush. He's now advising Mitt Romney in his quest for the White House. Carlos Gutierrez joins me now with his take on what we saw at the Republican National Convention last night. Sir, wonderful to see you. Welcome to you.
CARLOS GUTIERREZ, FORMER COMMERCE SECRETARY: Thank you.
ROTHMAN: Which convention speaker impressed you last night or even the night before?
GUTIERREZ: Well, I mean I was totally impressed with Condi Rice. I thought she was breath taking, I thought her speech at one moment she had the whole audience, you know, some were in tears, some had goose bumps. It was just remarkable how she brought that audience to life. And then of course, Paul Ryan who brought energy and electricity to that hall, but he also explained Medicare and Obamacare, in a way that no one can do so in the country.
So he's going to be such an incredible asset to get the truth out, not, you know, half truths or playing with numbers, but he's going to get the truths out so the American people understand what's at stake here.
ROTHMAN: Yet some of the early criticisms from Ryan, about Ryan rather, are that he painted with broad strokes last night; that he was trying so hard to move away from his image as a policy wonk and details- oriented guy; that he didn't give enough details. He spent too much time criticizing Obama.
GUTIERREZ: Well, you know, it's a convention speech and it's not a time to come out with a lot of facts and numbers and you know, that's not what people are there for. But he came out with enough.
ROTHMAN: But here is the thing--
GUTIERREZ: He came out with enough to show that Obamacare and what they want to do with Medicare, the numbers don't add up for taking $700 billion from Medicare --
ROTHMAN: Sure.
GUTIERREZ: -- which is going broke, to start this mammoth new government bureaucracy. It's crazy.
ROTHMAN: But what I would--
GUTIERREZ: And he made that very clear.
(CROSSTALK)
ROTHMAN: -- is to suggest, look, he's talking about smaller government, less spending -- cut, cut, cut -- which all sound great and easy to jump on to that band wagon, but when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is it's a bitter pill to swallow. And I don't know if when faced with the cuts that this country needs to make to get us back in firm financial footing that a lot of people would go along with that. How did he handle that aspect of things?
GUTIERREZ: Lori, that's a very good point. I mean, we are up against a monster, called the deficit and called the debt. That have all risen under President Obama and he has increased five trillion dollars. Our debt is bigger than our economy so this is not going to be easy, but for sure, what we need is leaders. We need leaders who aren't afraid to confront the reality, we need leaders who think of the country first and politics second and that's why it's so important to get Romney and Ryan because you start out with leadership, you start out with executive will, with political will. These two men have it.
These are serious players and they're here to fix problems and not make speeches and get elected and you know, and be a celebrity. This is the real deal.
ROTHMAN: Okay. Carlos Gutierrez, I apologize, I lost your audio there. I hope our viewers were able to hear your final comments. We certainly appreciate your insight, and analysis and look forward to your comments on Mitt Romney at tonights Convention.
GUTIERREZ: Look forward to it, thank you.
MCSHANE: Let's go now, as we continue to cover what is Tropical Storm Isaac to Phil Keating. Phil has been reporting along the coast in Alabama for us yesterday but it was then a hurricane and now a tropical storm. He joins us now from Biloxi, Mississippi.
How did that area get through the night Phil?
KEATING: A hell of a 36 hours, especially overnight. Howling winds and howling rain and tornado warnings for the area. Tough to go to bed last night, but when we got up, finally in between bands of this outer band of rain, these circular rains coming off of the very rich and moist Gulf of Mexico, that's been dumping so much rain water all along the Gulf Coast, now, for two days, and the storm itself is simply moving only about six or seven miles per hour and that's the problem.
That's why the rain continues and we have street flooding and we're on Casino Row and basically standing on a very, very busy highway. The State Highway 90, and it's closed in both directions, no vehicles, no tourists, and here on Casino Row, well, you can look at the sign up there on the Beaurivage, and due to Isaac we're closing the Resort and Casino immediately. Other casino signs mentioned the word indefinitely. The Hard Rock down the road there. In total Biloxi casinos bring into the State of Mississippi about 200 million dollars per month and of course, we all know, we're just two days away from a three-day Federal Holiday weekend, Labor Day weekend. So, the faster they can get this road open and the business flowing, the money flowing, the better.
Rescues have been happening west of us, about two dozen yesterday, and one lady was rescued from like a house overnight. It was flooding and even though it was on 14 foot stilts.
Back to you.
MCSHANE: There's some damage as well, I was told done by tornados that formed around the storm, too, in that area, Phil or --
KEATING: Just west of us, Gulfport, Mississippi had what looked like a tornado and you can see debris flying over the streets and several houses and buildings were damaged and isolated damage and east of us just across the bridge by about a mile and a half, there was also a reported tornado last night confirmed by the Sheriff's Department. The damage again, minimal. So you know how tornados go. Sometimes they rake a whole block or two, sometimes you get lucky and it's just trees and grass.
MCSHANE: All right, Phil, thanks, as always. Phil Keating, Biloxi, Mississippi for us today. Isaac not over yet as you can see from Phil's reporting, but it's already racking up billions of dollars in estimated damages. Something we will talk about, the economic impact of all this, as this Fox Business Special Report continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MCSHANE: Well, Isaac is now a tropical storm, slowly moving out of the Gulf Coast region and it's leaving behind serious damage and some serious flooding. Nearly a million people are without power and the desperate search for survivors in some of the hardest hit areas continues this morning and we continue to cover it on Fox Business and this is a Fox Business Network Special Report. Sandra Smith is here, Nicole Petallides is in this morning, along with Lori Rothman. I'm Connell McShane and Imus will be back on Tuesday, but we'll be working through this morning.
We'll be talking in a moment to Bill Hemmer out at the Convention and also Karl Rove will join us with some analysis, which is interesting ahead of Romney's speech tonight.
And now to the markets.
ROTHMAN: All right, let's go ahead and show you where we're at. It's looking like a lower open, and we've already got a global selloff underway here in Europe and Asia and let's look at the boards here for you. Beginning in Asia, the Nikkei, the Kospi, Hang Seng, Shanghai all lower on some economic concerns.
Similar stories in Europe, German unemployment rising for multi- months, for several months now, at least four or five months. To be exact, the FTSE is down, the CAC Quarante, also about a half a percent in Germany, the DAX is down as well. Europeans of course are returning from vacation and expecting a raft of events to help solve the European debt crisis.
Here in the U.S. we're shaping up toward a lower opening, a little less than two hours away from the opening bell. The DOW Jones is down 40 points and the S&P and Nasdaq also continue to drift lower. We're expecting the initial Jobless Claims Report that everyone is teasing about. I tell you we've seen little bits of improvement on the economic data of late so we'll see if it carries through into the Labor Market, no ones all that optimistic because we're still at historic higher levels historically for the initial jobless claims.
Crude oil is down for a second day although paring earlier losses, down now just six cents and it looks like those rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were spared the worst of what was Hurricane Isaac, now a tropical storm. At $95.41, price of retail gas is up another two pennies a gallon overnight and gold is down three dollars and twenty cents at $1659 on expectations. We won't get a firm announcement on QE3, no surprise really for most, from Ben Bernanke tomorrow in Jackson Hole.
MCSHANE: All right, to the Convention in a moment, both Bill Hemmer and Karl Rove expected to join us. But now, to Tropical Storm Isaac and let's talk about it once again with Jeff Flock. This storm is going to be remembered as being slow moving and bringing a lot of rain and it's still bringing a lot of rain. Look at Jeff right now, how are things?
JEFF FLOCK, FBN REPORTER: WWL Radio, their station down here this morning, one of the fellows on there, Dave Cowan, who is a good News Man, works with CBS, says this thing has more stamina than any other storm I've seen. I've seen a lot of storms and every major hurricane that hit in the U.S. in the last 30 years and yes, it has tremendous stamina. It's a very large storm and yeah, it's just on keep coming here.
We just had reports and this is not unlike Katrina, you know, the morning we woke up, or when we went to bed the night that Katrina hit, New Orleans had been hammered, but not, you know, it was not a disaster. It was only a disaster the next morning when we woke up and we began to see levee failure and the water inundating. That's starting to happen. Not in New Orleans, because I'm up on a levee right here, right now that is part of that 15 billion dollar levee remake for New Orleans, but there are communities that are surrounding New Orleans, both to the south and to the north, particularly the north more focused, that are starting to get that. Failures of levees and water just dumping from the Pontchartrain now with the wind shift, getting water in there. Slidele, a community just off into the distance where Lance is pointing the camera, can't see it because of the squalls, but that's starting to get flooding in there.
I just heard a man on the local radio say, I can't get out. They've asked us to evacuate, but I can't get out. I'd like to get us over there later in the morning and see if we can get a break here and see if we can relocate. It's not far to Slidele and that's characteristic of a number of the communities here that as this rain starts to run off into the rivers and starts to back up, that's what you're going to get.
And you know, to our audience, I think the headline is oil and gas, which is a positive. That's why Lori was just saying, what oil has been doing, that's not a surprise, because to them, it's a non-event. It's an event, but already, already baked into that, into the price. And there's no surprise on oil and gas.
The surprise is going to come to these people that don't typically get flooding, that are going to get it. So, good news for some, but to others, it's not a huge number of people, but maybe, if you're in a community where you can't get out and the water is coming up, that's not a feel-good.
MCSHANE: No, it's not. And the oil price is down again and Jeff Flock still covering the storm, can't say it enough, still hitting hard in that area, thank you Jeff.
Lori.
ROTHMAN: Thank you Jeff.
Bill Hemmer is the host of America's News Room on the Fox News Channel. He's been down in Tampa at the RNC all week.
Bill, good morning to you.
BILL HEMMER, HOST OF AMERICA'S NEWS ROOM, FOX NEWS: Good morning to you back in New York.
ROTHMAN: Give us your impressions. It seems that Condoleezza Rice was compelling, fantastic and Paul Ryan as well? Your thoughts.
HEMMER: Susana Martinez, the Governor for Mexico, sandwiched in between both of them. I was on the floor last night, almost in the front row below the stage and I pick that spot for a reason every night because you can see the crowd, obviously, but you can have a clear line on the speaker. And you can also see the giant teleprompter that's across the room. And for Condoleezza Rice, that teleprompter was blank. She came out and if you noticed the way she spoke, she talked in a way where she looked out directly over the delegates, but most of that speech was done off the top of her head. Memorization, yeah, she had notes in front of her, but apparently this is a speech she's given at least three or four times over the last few months, but last night, the way she delivered that, with the poise and no prompter, was very, very impressive.
ROTHMAN: Is it interesting, Bill, how the teleprompter has become a character in this campaign process in and of itself, go on --
HEMMER: I would say yes, a character to itself, but it's been that way for a long time. Especially in Conventions, Lori, they always use teleprompters, it's the way it's done. In 2008 in St. Paul, Rudy Guilliani was the keynote speaker. The program was running very late, and you could literally watch the teleprompter skip entire paragraphs and Guilliani kept up with it and most impressive.
ROTHMAN: But do you think--
HEMMER: As for Paul Ryan, this is what I want the people at home to understand. The story of Paul Ryan, a kid who came out of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He was a ski bum and went out to Colorado and travelled between Colorado and Utah, with his brothers in a station wagon until he blew out his knee which forced him to go back home to Wisconsin and truly reconsider his life and his direction and his mom was scared to death that she had raised this ski bum. Well, you saw what happened last night.
ROTHMAN: Absolutely.
All right, fast forward to tonight. We've seen all these pictures, Bill, come back, with Mitt Romney surrounded by his grandchildren, obviously, that's been one of the key criticisms of the candidate, is that he's not been approachable, personable enough. Are we seeing a softening image of Romney and what would you look forward to this evening?
HEMMER: I think he will lay out his vision for how he would change the way Washington spends money. That was a clear line of attack on behalf of Paul Ryan last night. And what the Campaign informed us yesterday afternoon, is that if you want clues to what Mitt Romney will say on Thursday night, listen to what Paul Ryan says on Wednesday night. So, that was the best teaser preview we got out of the Campaign.
And another thing on Paul Ryan, when he talked so lovingly about his mother, and when he talked about the death of his father, when he was a younger man, Paul Ryan found his father dead in his own house when he was 16 years old of heart failure. And the tears in the eyes of women and the Wisconsin delegation is something that I have never witnessed in 12 years of covering Conventions for Republicans and Democrats. Including the Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, streaming down the side of his face, and that audience last night was caught up in rapture with Paul Ryan. He had them in the palm of his hands from the moment he walked out there, to the moment he said good night.
And often times, Lori, when you're in the arena, these speeches play one way and when you go back to your hotel room and watch it on the TV monitor, it sounds entirely different.
ROTHMAN: Which is why your take is so captivating Bill. If you had to be at all critical of the evening's events, what would you comment on?
HEMMER: I don't know if criticism is something I would place on the events last night. I thought in terms of the message that the Republican Party wanted to package, I thought they did a great job. Paul Ryan took a lot of sips of water off the podium last night and I noticed during the replay that often times the director cut away during that moment. But, also, at 11:01 p.m. now, remember the major broadcast networks, they take that hour from ten o'clock to eleven o'clock eastern time. At 11:01 Paul Ryan was still talking, he was near the end but he wasn't quite there and he checked the watch on his left wrist.
ROTHMAN: Interesting.
HEMMER: I found that remarkable, situational awareness, Lori.
ROTHMAN: Absolutely, well, I'm envious, all of us Bill, are so envious, you're there on the scene and look forward to reporting that again, thanks again, Sir.
HEMMER: Great to be with you again. Thank you.
Nicole.
NICOLE PETALLIDES: We have breaking news for you here. Dupont is making a deal this morning. Dupont is a DOW Component and the company is selling its Car Paint Unit to the private equity firm, Carlyle Group. The value of this deal is four point nine billion dollars and this is a deal that has been talked about for about a month, but now it's official and there is a look at a bid-ask for Dupont right now. As you can see, the bid is lower than the closing value while the ask is higher. It's difficult to determine at this time which way the stock will go when we hear that opening bell.
Taking a look here at U.S. stock index Futures, they've been lower all morning long. Much of the same now as the S&P and the Nasdaq have improved some, but still down about one third of one percent.
We've had some weakness over in Europe, as far as confidence numbers and we're all waiting of course on Jackson Hole in Wyoming to hear what our Fed Head, Ben Bernanke will say or won't say pertaining to any more quantitative easing and that's something that everybody on Wall Street is waiting for.
Hewlett-Packard, DOW component, that's one to watch and three new consumer notebook PC's that will have the Microsoft Windows Eight, that will be a first for them, their Multi-Touch. That will be something they can compete with Apple and some of their big competitors. This is an innovative move for Hewlett-Packard and so that will be a DOW component to watch.
Pandora, that's been on the move. They've raised their outlook and beat Wall Street through strong revenues, and strong mobile growth. The CEO, by the way, leaving at the end of the year but Pandora doing well and getting some analysts positive comments this morning.
Also keeping a close eye on Wellpoint as there are a slew of folks that we're looking at a possible takeover, that CEO role yesterday, you saw Wellpoint jump about eight percent. One of the biggest shareholders of Wellpoint have expressed some dissatisfaction with the former CEO who was there for about five years, Angela Braly. She's exiting under pressure, so, now, the search begins, but Wellpoint was looking good, again, this morning, after an eight percent jump yesterday.
Now, Sandra Smith has a look at today's top business headlines, Sandra.
SANDRA SMITH, FBN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Nicole.
Well, Barclays has named a new CEO. The British bank says retail boss, Antony Jenkins will replace Bob Diamond, who resigned in July after the bank admitted to libor manipulation. Jenkins, who was long seen as a front runner for the job was brought into the bank six years ago to turn the Credit Card Business around. He says that repairing the damage from the libor scandal will take time.
Meanwhile, Barclays said Britain's Fraud Prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into payments between it and Cutter Holding. Cutters parent company is Barclays biggest shareholder. Those investigators are looking into whether the bank offered sufficient disclosures about the fees it paid in 2008 capital raising.
Well, sales of homes owned by banks or in some stage of foreclosure fell sharply in the second quarter. Realty Track saying that the 22 percent drop from last year reflects a limited supply of properties for sale in many cities and the foreclosure sales still accounted for an increased share of all home purchases rising to 23 percent in the second quarter from 19 percent a year ago. Realty Track says foreclosure sales also puts the biggest annual gain in average sales price since 2006, that was before the housing bubble burst.
Also, shares of Sears holdings fell nearly four percent in extended trading last evening, after Standard & Poor's said the struggling retailer will be removed from the S&P 500 after trading ends next Tuesday. Sears will be replaced by Lyondell Basell which saw its shares jump nearly five percent after hours. S&P says Sears has too few shares available for trading to be included in the widely followed index. Sears was one of the original members of the S&P when the index was created 55 years ago has been aggressively cutting costs due to falling sales and tough competition. The company says the S&P's action does not reflect the valuation or performance of that company.
That's some of the morning's top headlines, Connell.
MCSHANE: All right Sandra. We're going to continue with our coverage of Tropical Storm Isaac here in just a moment as it continues, as you've seen from Jeff Flock's reporting this morning, to drench the state of Louisiana and also, Mississippi and other places.
And we'll take you back live to Tampa. Mitt Romney with his big moment tonight as he, well, I guess you could say reintroduces himself to voters who have not made up their minds.
It's all coming up as this Fox Business Special Report, live from New York continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MCSHANE: Looking at the markets overseas, this morning, down one percent in both Japan and South Korea. Hong Kong down a little more than that. Shanghai Composite in China didn't move as much, but it was a little bit lower. The economic data hasn't been great from Asia or from Europe where German unemployment went up once again and the German DAX index, at the bottom of your screen is down by nine tenths of one percent in today's trading session over there. Moving from the bottom up to the top, the CAC Quarante in Paris down a half of one percent and the FTSE 101 down a quarter of percent.
Let's go now to the European-or U.S. stock index Futures, to see how our trading day is shaping up ahead of the Wall Street open. It's getting worse and the S&P is down by five points and Nasdaq down ten, DOW Futures down 40. We're lower across the board and commodities, we talked a little about this yesterday and maybe oil spiked higher as it had been, but no, down today, just slightly of course, a couple of pennies, but down none the less. Gold, $1660 an ounce nearly but down by three dollars in today's trading. That's where the markets are.
We'll keep you on top of the movements here, Sandra, Nicole, Lori are all with us this morning, as we move towards VARNEY & COMPANY at a quarter after nine eastern time.
We'll go back to Jeff Flock and get the latest on the storm and the Convention last night.
ROTHMAN: I mean, for the week before Labor Day, it's amazing how busy we are here with the news flow. The Convention underway and the hurricane, now a tropical storm thank goodness, and still flooding and damages there and also the Fed. I mean, you can't really go on vacation, I suppose you can and people will and also, but you've got to keep an ear to the pavement because there's a lot you could miss.
MCSHANE: I think it's one of the interesting things about, I think Jeff brought it up earlier, that area of the country where he is, is not paying attention because they have other things to worry about, and not enough power to the Convention, but also, you bring up a good point, this is one of the biggest vacation weeks of the year, the week before a Labor Day, so how tuned in are people tonight to Mitt Romney?