cnbc's michelle caruso-cabrera joins us from cnbc global headquarters. michelle, what are the monday overseas market openings telling us so far. >> well, lester, 45 minutes ago new zealand opened slightly higher. looks like australia is going to open higher in about 15 minutes. gold is lower. u.s. futures are higher. right now it suggests that at least for now the markets are calmer than they were last week. still, there are a lot of key events coming up next week which could roil the markets. >> and so many concerns about europe. i understand european union officials are going to get together earlier in the week. how might that affect the markets? >> angela merkel, the leader of germany is meeting with the leader of france, nicolas sarkozy in paris. the state of the european union right now, the situation is very grave. there's discussions about whether or not they should kick out greece, the weakest member of the euro. that would be akin to us talking about kicking out one of the states in the u.s. and telling them they couldn't use the dollar anymore.

we begin our coverage tonight with cnbc's maria bartiromo. she's at the new york stock exchange. maria, you won't see many days like this one in your lifetime. >> reporter: it is true, brian. what a day today on wall street after last week's sell-off and the credit downgrade by standard & poor's late friday. anxieties mounted over the weekend and all eyes were on wall street this morning. stocks dropped right at the opening bell on wall street as the selling that started thursday just kept going. not a single stock on the s&p 500 ended in positive territory. >> that's really bringing the market into the red. >> there is concern that the s&p downgrade may do something to consumer confidence and thereby ease us a little closer to the infamous double dip that everybody is worried about. >> good afternoon, everybody. >> reporter: president obama came out to reassure investors. >> this is the united states of america. no matter what some agency may say, we always have been and always will be a aaa country. >> reporter: while the markets sold off another 400 points after the president'

on his cnbc show "street signs." thank you, brian. >>> we are going to continue to monitor a volatile market, and so let's turn to the 2012 race, and in the iowa straw poll, michele bachmann attended a church service with the fateful and working in the economy in the prayers. >> i pray for this nation, lord, that you would bring new jobs into the nation, and we need jobs in this country, and would you bring them lord. >> and nothing too controversial, but the service was another story which incolluded remark s from a par who said that being homosexual was wrong. >> and i was a gay man and then i became a hard-core man for jesus, and i tell you that god has given me natural affection for a woman, and that is a miracle right there. >> and all of that amid reports that escape therapy was being done by her husband and a summary at polls at clear politics put bachmann in the lead in iowa ahead of mitt romney and tim pawlenty and ron paul. and this has also put her on the cover of "newsweek" and this photo has at lot of pe

and host of cnbc's "closing bell," maria bartiromo. >> announcer: from cnbc news in washington, "meet the press" with david gregory. substituting today, savannah guthrie. >>> good morning. the president is on day three of his ten-day vacation in martha's vineyard spending time with family and friends, hitting the links and doing some book shopping. aides say the president is being kept up to date on the situation in libya over the weekend. fighting intensified as rebels battle through the capital city of tripoli. new reports today of gunfire and explosions this morning. >>> also on the president's mind during this vacation, his plans to unveil a new jobs package in a major speech after labor day. and here with us to talk about the president's jobs agenda and his re-election efforts, a familiar face to many from his days as white house press secretary, robert gibbs, now a key adviser to the president's campaign. robert, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me. >> let's start with a number i'm sure you're familiar with. the president's job approval rating on the econom

that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. martin, back to you. >> thank you, hampton. >>> mitt romney received at least $1 million from a so-called mystery company that has since dissolved only months after it was formed. according to a story by msnbc's reporter, records obtained by nbc news reveal the million-dollar donation by w.-span, l.l.c. formed back in march by an attorney in boston who specialized in estate tax planning for, quote, high net worth individuals. on july 129, that same attorney dissolved the company which made the donation to "restore our future," mitt romney's so-called super pack. confused? i am a bit. michael joins us live from washington. mike, how did you learn about this story and what exactly has been going on? >> reporter: well, this is a bit of a detective story, i have to say. what happened is "restore our future," which is the pro-romney super pack, just to be clear. romney doesn't formally run it. it's run by former aides to romney to boost his candidacy and supposedly independent. they report

cnbc's john harwood starts us off. >> reporter: good evening, carl. obama administration officials remain furious about s&p's decision to downgrade u.s. debt, but they also have to worry about minimizing its effects. hoping to calm markets, treasury secretary tim geithner ended uncertainty about his future by announcing he'll remain on the job rather than return to new york. in an exclusive interview with nbc news, geithner said that u.s. treasuries remain safe and sought to reassure americans worried about interest rates while blasting s&p's decision. >> i think s&p has shown really terrible judgment. they have handled themselves very poorly and shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the u.s. >> reporter: but the president faces a huge task as a brewing debt crisis in europe compounds economic jitters around the world. stocks in israel, dubai, and saudi arabia dropped over the weekend. if the same happens in asia, that could rattle american investors tomorrow morning. >> the initial reaction in my judgment is going to be negative. what i think the

the dow's drop, we'll be live at cnbc headquarters. cc1: >> 4:43. you are looking at a live picture of the financial district in san francisco. we will be talking about finances all day this morning eyes on wall street to see how the market responds to the dow's wipeout yesterday. makes us glad we have nicole lapin live at cnbc. what's the mood there? >> well, i'm wearing white because i surrender. i don't know. it's a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. futures are also pointing to more red arrows after yesterday's wipeout session. i like you use that word. i haven't heard that yet. a lot of other adjectives coming out of investors' mouth. not all i can say on the air. they are becoming rattled about with the global economic slowdown and fears that the u.s. could slide back in recession. the downdraft by many i'm talking to was caused not only by us but our friends across the pond. we tanked when the european central bank continued the a say they are struggling with widening debt. the bank of new york also spooking markets after saying that it would cha

>> i need your executive director of cnbc. -- i am the executive director of cnbc. i want to welcome you to this truly joyous occasion, commemorating the completion of the rehab of civic center residents. we bought this building 38 years ago, and it has been through a couple of partial rehabs before now, but before now, this had leaky plumbing, inadequate electrical. it was just one, slow elevator, and a dingy community kitchen. you can see what a beautiful space it is now. we raised $30,000,000.20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. -- $30 million and 20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. the department of public health is providing subsidies for the 100-plus homeless households' living here. housing and community development, enterprise. hundreds of staff people coming together to bring this beautiful project to fruition. in that sense, this is our model for preserving affordable housing in san francisco and throughout the country. for another 30 years, this will provide an affordable home for generations of low income people. with tha

we're also joined from cnbc by jim cramer for his thoughts on the day. jim, same question i started with to maria. i want to hear your version, knowing folks are watching right now in all 50 states with a stake in this economy. how would you put what happened today? >> i think this is the market trying to factor in a worldwide slowdown, if not a recession. we were factoring in pretty good times just a couple of months ago, brian, so obviously this is a ratcheting back. but i want to urge people, stay the course. i saw panic today. panic is not a strategy. i'm not saying i can hold your hand and we won't go down more. i think we will. but this is nowhere, nowhere, as bad as 2008. we have to keep that in perspective. >> jim, this debate we've just seen in washington didn't exactly fill the american people with confidence, but it's really scary when you learn that it's factors that's fueling this beyond our borders, beyond our control and overseas. >> yeah, it's this unseen contagion that worries us so much. people can't believe what happens in greece and s

cnbc's steve sedgwick live for us there. what happened yesterday, my friend? >> it was quite incredible. as sue was talking there, the magnitude of these moves was stunning. the s&p, which is a broad brush index of the united states, reversed directions six times. the dow was down within half an hour after the fed announcement. and then, rallied 600 points off its low. the s&p at one stage, was in bare market territory, having growing 400%, in its april high. you are in bear market territory. as far as the markets are concerned today, they're quite calm. they opened up and stayed up. we haven't seen the huge reversals of fortune. the nikkei, that was up 1% today. i'm looking at the big european markets. london is steady, up at 1.5%. the german market, up 2.5%. and the 600-point range we saw yesterday, they're down just 19 points. all very calm. albeit for the moment. back to you. >> we'll take calm for now. steve sedgwick, live for us in london. >>> senate majority leader, harry reid, revealing his choices for the debt supercommittee, the group charged with cu

sue herera joining us live from our cnbc headquarters in new york city. thank you, sue. >> thank you. >>> still ahead at 5:00, a well known face will be noticeably absent in palo alto. who's leaving facebook and why. a hint? the person's last name is zuckerberg. >>> and mothers support breastfeeding. what they're asking employees to do. >>> and we're following a massive food recall linked to one death here in california. >>> and we're here live at lake elizabeth park in fremont. i'm rob. we'll talk about the big festival of the arts coming to town and an unusually cool f you may neesu you may need your windshield wipers tomorrow morning. we'll talk about that when we come back. d >>> there is a big sigh of relief for thousands of people caught in the middle of washington politics. tonight there appears to be a bipartisan deal to end the partial shutdown of the faa. >> a congressional vote is expected tomorrow on a plan to provide stop-gap funding but long-term disagreements won't be settled. the bill will allow laid-off construction workers to resume buil

and host of cnbc's "closing bell," maria bartiromo. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good morning. the president is on day three of his ten-day vacation in martha's vineyard spending time with family and friends, hitting the links and doing some book shopping. aides say the president is being kept up to date on the situation in libya. new reports today of gunfire and explosions this morning. >>> also on the president's mind during this vacation, his plans to unveil a new jobs package in a major speech after labor day. and here with us to talk about the president's jobs agenda and his re-election efforts, a familiar face to many from his days as white house press secretary, robert gibbs, now a key adviser to the president's campaign. robert, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me. >> let's start with a number i'm sure you're familiar with. the president's job approval rating on the economy. gallup has it as 26%. this is the lowest number of the president's entire term. my question to you is simple. ho

you've been talking about this endlessly on cnbc for the last 90s. what surprises -- 90 minutes. who surprises you most about how it shook down? >> in a way nothing surprises me about it. we've known for a while that steve jobs had some health issues, that he's been struggling with them for the past several years. we expected either he would hand over the ceo rein s or step bac from the company one way or another. this is the better way when he says heim going to step back -- says i'm going to step back, remain as chairman, keep being involved as long as i can. but i'm in no position, he's saying, to continue with the ceo title. but still, that doesn't take away the momentous time that this is for the company, for silicon valley. just for american business. there's really no ceo out there who has had the impact in our time that steve jobs has. not only has he rescued apple from the edge of the dust bin, you can't forget about 15 years ago it would be hard to find people who thought that apple would survive, much less be the most valuable public company on the planet. along the wa

and host of cnbc's "closing bell," maria bartiromo. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good morning. the president is on day three of his ten-day vacation in martha's vineyard spending time with family and friends, hitting the links and doing some book shopping. aides say the president is being kept up to date on the situation in libya. new reports today of gunfire and explosions this morning. >>> also on the president's mind during this vacation, his plans to unveil a new jobs package in a major speech after lab day. and here with us to talk about the president's jobs agenda and his re-election efforts, a familiar face to many from his days as white house press secretary, robert gibbs, now a key adviser to the president's campaign. robert, welcome back to "meet the number i'm sure you're familiar with. the president's job approval rating on the economy. gallup has it as 26%. this is the lowest nmber of the president's entire term. my question to you is simple. how can he win re-election with a number like that? >> we've

john harwood with cnbc and writes for the "new york times," and melissa a professor at tulane. thank you both for joining us. john, put it together, the economics the president faces in terms of what he can do about it? >> i'm not sure what we had can do, chris. he face twos problems in dealing with republicans. one, they want to take him down politically, and, two, they have a fundamentally different vision of the role of government, and they have a willingness to try to withstand political pressures most politicians you and i covered aren't willing to do that. they don't care too much about wall street or their leadership, and they are so resistant to tax increases, that they prevented john boehner from having the ability to describing that grand bargain with president obama and eastern this afternoon after the market dropped, eric cantor, house republican leader, put positive a letter, with all the tub beaux lance a lot of pressure on congress to compromise on tax increases on us, the republicans, to compromise on tax increases. i ask you to resist that pressure. that's what

[applause] >> i need your executive director of cnbc. -- i am the executive director of cnbc. i want to welcome you to this truly joyous occasion, commemorating the completion of the rehab of civic center residents. we bought this building 38 years ago, and it has been through a couple of partial rehabs before now, but before now, this had leaky plumbing, inadequate electrical. it was just one, slow elevator, and a dingy community kitchen. you can see what a beautiful space it is now. we raised $30,000,000.20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. -- $30 million and 20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. the department of public health is providing subsidies for the 100-plus homeless households' living here. housing and community development, enterprise. hundreds of staff people coming together to bring this beautiful project to fruition. in that sense, this is our model for preserving affordable housing in san francisco and throughout the country. for another 30 years, this will provide an affordable home for generations of low income people. with tha

. >>> and now we have cnbc's john harwood joining us. keeping the interest rates through 2013 low, and is that what we wanted to hear? the market is responding well up 215 points? >> well, jonathan, the wild gyrations in the market that andy was describing shows that the market are trying to figure out what is going on just like we are. they don't have a better or clearer picture than anybody else. i do think that some in the markets wanted to see the fed act more decisively and go with a quantitative easing of qe-3 to pump more cheap money or long-term money into the economy and the counter pressures you saw to that, and you will see that the dissents, and the planting of the seeds of future inflation and driving down to value of the dollar and all of those things are forces acting on ben bernanke, and signalling that he is going to keep the rates low for an extended period of time through 2013, they are at least signaling the fact that they get the economic outlook has gotten bleaker and left open the possibility they will take more de

. >> i need your executive director of cnbc. -- i am the executive director of cnbc. i want to welcome you to this truly joyous occasion, commemorating the completion of the rehab of civic center residents. we bought this building 38 years ago, and it has been through a couple of partial rehabs before now, but before now, this had leaky plumbing, inadequate electrical. it was just one, slow elevator, and a dingy community kitchen. you can see what a beautiful space it is now. we raised $30,000,000.20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. -- $30 million and 20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. the department of public health is providing subsidies for the 100-plus homeless households' living here. housing and community development, enterprise. hundreds of staff people coming together to bring this beautiful project to fruition. in that sense, this is our model for preserving affordable housing in san francisco and throughout the country. for another 30 years, this will provide an affordable home for generations of low income people. with tha

. >>> now joining me from wall street is jim cramer, "mad money" from cnbc. let's dig deeper into what's happening on wall street today. obviously, a slightly better than expected weekly jobs number, but still, we've got a lot of turmoil to come. we have not bottomed out, have we? or have we? >> no, i don't want to say we bottomed because our problems are two-fold. one, do we have an imminent recession because of all the different problems in washington. i'm not going to say the problems are on wall street. i'm not going to say the problems are with companies. it is washington, and the second thing is the central bank of europe, are they in real crisis and are their banks in france and italy about to fold. these are the concerns and the actual gyrations in the stock market have very little to do with what's really happening when they're up or when they're down. unless we get resolution and know what's going on. >> one of the things we will be talking about throughout the show is the "washington post" poll which showed huge majorities of people do not have any

back to you. >> sue herera live for us at the headquarters of cnbc. and the dow down 520 points and another huge sell-off today. that is going to do it for this monday edition of "newsnation." i will be back tomorrow, and in the meantime, thomas roberts is in for martin bashir. >>> hi, everybody. good afternoon. i'm thomas roberts in for martin bashir on monday, august 8th. manic monday. the market reacts to the new downgraded status. >> no matter what the rating agency say, we always have been and always will be a aaa country. >> and people across the country worrying about the 401(k)s and can anything right the sinking economy. and the fallen -- >> the man i fell in love with was gentle and kind and a wonderful father,

we are going to bring in cnbc's brian sullivan. brian, thanks for being with us. >> sure. >> bring us up to date, what is going on? >> well, a remarkable fed statement here, because the fed laying out a date at which it sees the economy being weak until. and the fed has been using the doublese, and weak for a double-period, and exceptionally low rates, et cetera, but now in the statement that came out in less than an hour ago saying that we expect to keep the rates exceptionally low ie near 0.0 to mid-2013, and looking out to say that the rates will stay low and used words like flattening, and weakening and the housing rates depressed and negative outlook on the u.s. economy from the federal reserve. >> brian, will the traders buy it that they are keeping the interest rates the same? >> well, they are, but no offense to ben bernanke, because they are all smart people on the federal board of governors, but at the same time what we have seen in the stock market is the wisdom of crowds and the idea that the millions of people who coll

cnbc's maria bartiromo at the nyse, what happened today? >> brian you said it, no august slowdown here on wall street. sharp selloff. basically there's a new realization, new worries emerging that we could see the economy heading into recession yet again. we had negative economic data out today on jobs, joblessness continues to persist and we had very negative data on manufacturing. all on top of that, the european debt crisis worsening. there are new worries that the european banks will have to raise capital. and now everyone's worrying that the u.s. banks are exposed to the debt crisis going on in europe. all together, it created massive selling, one issue for this market, no long-term commitments, brian, just a week ago, we were talking about a big rally on wall street, people are looking at this market and using it as a trader rather than an investment for the long-term. >> all right, it was indeed a dark thursday. maria bartiromo from cnbc. >>> and then there's the story of the company we found, in this current economic climate, with s

cnbc's steve liesman joins me live. good morning. is this about what you expected? >> yeah, it's in line. we were down a little bit more in the 250, 260 range. came back a little bit. but we had a poor open and close in asia, europe did not do well. the one asset that's doing well is the asset that was downgraded, u.s. sovereign debt, ten-year notes were right -- we're doing pretty well. that was the opposite of what you might think. but at the end of the day what you have is a flight to safety. the ricochets keep coming. s&p also downgraded some other financial institutions that they say are reliant upon the u.s. sovereign debt. >> they're not backing off on -- they said they would do it again, but treasury secretary tim gooet near over on cnbc, he is absolutely furious with standard & poor's. let me splay a clip of what he had to say. >> i think s&p's shown really terrible judgment. they handled themselves very poorly and showed a stunning lack of knowledge about u.s. fiscal math. i think they drew exactly the wrong conclusion from this budget agreement. >> is tha

of cnbc. -- i am the executive director of cnbc. i want to welcome you to this truly joyous occasion, commemorating the completion of the rehab of civic center residents. we bought this building 38 years ago, and it has been through a couple of partial rehabs before now, but before now, this had leaky plumbing, inadequate electrical. it was just one, slow elevator, and a dingy community kitchen. you can see what a beautiful space it is now. we raised $30,000,000.20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. -- $30 million and 20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. the department of public health is providing subsidies for the 100-plus homeless households' living here. housing and community development, enterprise. hundreds of staff people coming together to bring this beautiful project to fruition. in that sense, this is our model for preserving affordable housing in san francisco and throughout the country. for another 30 years, this will provide an affordable home for ge

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and host of cnbc's "closing bell," maria bartiromo. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good morning. the president is on day three of his ten-day vacation in martha's vineyard spending time with family and friends, hitting the links and doing some book shopping. aides say the president is being kept up to date on the situation in libya. new reports today of gunfire and explosions this morning. >>> also on the president's mind during this vacation, his plans to unveil a new jobs package in a major speech after lab day. and here with us to talk about the president's jobs agenda and his re-election efforts, a familiar face to many from his days as white house press secretary, robert gibbs, now a key adviser to the president's campaign. robert, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me. >> let's start with a number i'm sure you're familiar with. the president's job approval rating on the economy. gallup has it as 26%. this is the lowest nmber of the president's entire term. my question to you is simple. how c

cnbc's michelle caruso-cabrera joins me now from frankfurt. michelle, what is going on over there that is causing so much trouble? >> reporter: well, lester, many americans will remember the terrible financial crisis in the united states in the fall of 2008. what could potentially happen in europe is of the same size and scale. our crisis was caused by too many banks writing too many bad mortgages. here in europe, it is caused by the government's having made way too many promises to their people that they just don't have the money to pay for anymore. the reason it matters to the united states. when you add up all the countries in europe, collectively, this economy is even bigger than the united states. and if it goes into full scale crisis, it is going to have ripple effects all over the world because the global economy is so connected. back to you, lester. >> michelle caruso-cabrera in frankfurt this evening, thank you. >>> before the stock market opened this morning, we got the job numbers for july. there was a lot riding on them and they ca

they have a special on cnbc, by the way. >> really? >> but you will know. if treasuries sell off quickly, rates could go up quickly. the key for americans is how does that affect them. will their mortgage rates go up, credit card rates go up. that is the key. >> getting back to the s&p being irresponsible with its numbers, i'm sure you heard a colorful commentary from barney frank last night. he basically called them all incompetents doing that job there. since it's only one of three, my question is, when the u.s. goes about looking for money to borrow, can it say, look to moody's, look at fitch's. how much does anybody, say, the s&p gave us that one. >> it's about the market reaction. if people are selling these treasury bonds, the rate is going to go up because they need to entice people to buy them. the market will dictate them. it won't be about a conversation, it will be about sentiment and confidence in it. that's where it's a little bit scary. the rating agencies in 2008 and 2009 were blamed for giving aaa ratings to horrible investments. so the cred

reporter scott budman explains how investors in the bay area are reacting but withcc1: herrera from cnbc and whatcc1:t happened we can expect. ue, not even the president'scc: ptimistic words today couldcc1: stop the selloff. >> no. as a matter of fact, right after finished speaking the hile he was speakingcc1: market touched its lows of the trading session losing more than 600 points. the market is disappointed that both republicans and democrats can't seem to get any closer together to what the market used deficit reduction plan. though the president was trying to be reassuring the market interpreted it as the fact that we are probably further apart between the two sides than ever before. the market is worried that two 1:moody's gs agencies,cc and fitch, might follow s&p's lead and downgrade u.s. debt as well. >> well, sue, do you think, is the market thinking we are going recession.1:uble dipcc >> i think there is an increasing number of people out there moving toward the double dip camp. the economic statistics we've been seeing recently are not good and even though we did get a jobs

let's begin tonight with wall street jim cramer, the host of cnbc's "mad money." jim, first, the unemployment dropped from 9.1 positive 9.2. the economy added 117,000 new jobs in july. what are your thoughts? >> okay. i thought this was just plain unadulterated okay news. i didn't say good news. okay news because we were looking for something that was completely un-okay, we were going to actually, a thought maybe there would be no jobs created at all. look, chris, there's a lot of bad news out there, this wasn't one of them. this was actually something that was a relief. >> what do you make the fact the dow ended up 61 of ahead from where we started? not the second fear run. i thought a run on the bank today after yesterday. >> i want to make a point it was really not our fault this time around. the 500 yesterday, down 200 at one point today today after up 176. it's europe. it's europe. it's europe. it's europe. they're falling apart over there. they don't have any leadership. there's nothing coming out of europe that makes any sense. if they don't develop a plan

cnbc's anna edwards is live with thus morning. what happened yesterday? >> we certainly didn't see calm markets. you mentioned the fall on the dow. we saw the s&p turning negative so far so all the gains made up to this point were wiped out. the "wall street journal" headline summing it up, economic fears hit global markets because this selloff we saw spread into world markets. the debt ceiling may have been resolved in the short-term, but that just cleared the decks for people to focus on how weak was the u.s. economy and the global economy beforehand and secondly what impact is this -- are these cuts that we're going to see coming through from washington going to have. >> we mentioned moody's as well, anna. they said the united states will keep for now its aaa rating but assigned a negative outlook to the u.s. economy. what does that tell you? >> well, it means that the aaa rating is safe for now, essentially. moody's saying the u.s. can keep the aaa, but they are giving this negative outlook, which means they will keep it under review, and there is sti

courtney reagan live at cnbc. good morning. >> good morning to you, scott. stock market futures are lower. we have come off of our lows of the day but still it looks as if markets will open to the red as investors get their first chance to react to s&p's downgrade of the u.s. credit rating that happened on friday night when markets were closed. s&p cut the u.s. from aaa to aa plus and warns further cuts could come if the government doesn't take significant steps to cut the deficit. asian markets fell 2% and europe is modestly lower now with a couple hours left to trade. the european central bank is taking steps the to try to keep that region's debt crisis from spreading. oil is sliding below $84 a barrel. gold, one of those safe haven investments, has breached a record $1700 an ounce, trading at around $1708 for $56 gain. many think they have been exp t expecting the downgrade so the impact on the bond market should be small. and it shouldn't force mutual funds to have to sell. people will continue to put money in u.s. treasuries because we're still the safe

we turn to "new york times" columnist, co-anchor of cnbc's squawk box, andrew sorkin. the dow down 634 points yesterday, politicians at home, you heard some of the republican presidential candidates linking it directly to the downgrade. but the problem obviously much bigger than that. what's at the root of this? >> take a deep breath. i had a conversation yesterday with hank paulson, a former treasury secretary, who knows a thing or two about financial crisis and we discussed this. as much as the downgrade seems like the problem, it's not clear that that's it. it's exacerbating the bigger problem, which is what you talked about earlier, which is europe. and the possibility that that creates some form of contagion. as you said, this idea that all of these countries, spain, italy, greece, they're all like banks that are insolvent. and how do you find enough money to put it together to save these banks? and there isn't a hank paulson or a one institution that can almost unilaterally do this. in the case of europe, you need everybody to get together and politically, as we'

that's where you find cnbc's ross westgate. ross, how do the markets look this morning, my friend? >> reporter: it's been a pretty ugly session overnight in asia. those markets closed, japan down nearly 4%. pack to the lows that it hit after the earthquake. hong kong off nearly 4.4%. and europe weather europe opened, the heavy selling continued. both the u.k. and german markets down 3%. bouncing off slightly off the lows. currently down 2%. we have a perfect storm here of fears. global growth slowdown, particularly centered on what's going on in the u.s., combined with a euro zone debt problem that has reignited fears about the stability of the euro zone banking system. >> and you're struck by the con taj an of this as it starts, as it did yesterday in asia. again today and into the european markets. what are you look at for the u.s. markets which open in a few hours? >> reporter: at the moment they've cooled down. much of hinge, of course, on the u.s. employment report that comes out at 8:30 eastern time. the markets have been looking for jobs to be created, around 75,000. that's

. >> i need your executive director of cnbc. -- i am the executive director of cnbc. i want to welcome you to this truly joyous occasion, commemorating the completion of the rehab of civic center residents. we bought this building 38 years ago, and it has been through a couple of partial rehabs before now, but before now, this had leaky plumbing, inadequate electrical. it was just one, slow elevator, and a dingy community kitchen. you can see what a beautiful space it is now. we raised $30,000,000.20% of that came from the mayor's office of housing. -- $30 million and 20% of that -- $30 million and 20% of that came from the mayor's office of

that's what the heat map on cnbc looks like on a typical stock market day. we haven't had a typical stock market day in awhile so we had a go awhile back in time to find this example. again, this is a normal day on the heat map. this is what the heat map looked like on what was not a normal day. here's what the heat map looked like today. oh, boy. remember, red means i had a bad day. wait, what -- right over, far corner, what's that up there? quadrant 72 or something, out of the 500 dots, there was one green dot today in the entire s&p 500 on the heat map, one company had one good day, and that was newmont mining corporation of denver, colorado. they were the one company that was doing okay today, one minute before the closing bell, so good job, newmont mining corporation. i should note, however, by the time the market did close, newmont mining corporation of denver, colorado, was also down by 28 cents. so one minute after they were the only green dot on the heat map of 500 dots, their dot went red too. so what's the better visualization tool for how things

cnbc's mandy drury is here with what's moving your money. what's behind this little bit of a rally. >> let's just say so far so good, we're currently up by 200 points on the dow as you mentioned. we had a couple of good economic pieces of news this morning that's helping to restore a little bit of battered sentiment right now. for example, we got fewer americans joining turn employment line last week, and the number of people filing for those unemployment benefits fell below the 400,000 mark. for the first time in four months. that's kind of significant because it may be a sign that the job market is slowly improving after quite a slump. also we saw mortgage rates hitting record lows in the week ending august 11. the fixed rate mortgages fell to 4.3%. low rates haven't really helped the housing market in any significant manner, but hopefully there will be more people applying for a loan as those rates come down. just to give you a quick look at what is driving the rally this morning. we have got tech stocks leading the market higher, partly

our friend carl quintanilla has come over from cnbc headquarters. what happens? what are you going to be looking for? >> clearly the market would love any kind of compromise. if you get that, look for a very sharp rally. the asian plarkts start trading tonight. that will give us an early indication. the data has not been good. the economy has very little cushion. once these spending cuts are laid out, what will the results be on job? fewer firefighters, less local and state spending. we'll get numbers that won't be good this friday probably. the market might be bracing for more of those. >> so starting tonight into tomorrow morning. you and your pals at cnbc will be watching as always. >>> let's take a further step now and look at how this looks. you've covered a lot of politics in washington over the years. she is standing by tonight. an dr andrea, you've seen them come and go. this has hardly been a profile in courage. have you ever seen anything like this? >> i never have. we've had political crises, we've had in our lifetime, 9/11, katrina, other national eme

cnbc chief washington correspondent john harwood is live at the white house with another good morning to you, john. you know, that statistic just put there in terms of all of this since 1917 when we maintained, this credit rating. this is embarrassing, but how so? how much so for the white house and congress? >> reporter: it's a huge embarrassment. congress and the white house have been trying for months to get a deficit reduction deal and raise the debt limit. republicans refused unless they had a major deficit reduction package and they insisted on only spending cuts. that didn't produce a package the size of which standard & poor's said was needed to avoid a downgrade and that's why we got in this situation. it's embarrassing for the president. it's on his watch. it's embarrassing for republicans. now they've acquired co-ownership of the economy, the bad economy, heading into 2012, what mr. mcconnell was worried about, and it's a difficult situation all around. >> so, john, all of what we went through, wasn't it supposed to avoid what has happened? but to help the u.s. not have a d

you can see the heat map here, that's what the heat map on cnbc looks like on a typical stock market day. we haven't had a typical stock market day in awhile so we had a go awhile back in time to find this example. again, this is a normal day on the heat map. this is what the heat map looked like today. oh, boy. remember, red means i had a bad day. wait, what -- right over, far corner, what's that up there? quadrant 72 or something, out of the 500 dots, there was one green dot today in the entire s&p 500 on the heat map, one company had one good day, and that was newmont mining corporation of denver, colorado. they were the one company that was doing okay today, one minute before the closing bell, so good job, newmont mining corporation. i should note, however, by the time the market did close, newmont mining corporation of denver, colorado, was also down by 28 cents. so one minute after they were the only green dot on the heat map of 500 dots, their dot went red too. so what's the better visualization tool for how things went today? the entire s&p 500 heat map turning red like this?

a busy day at cnbc. back to you. >> i love how you look up to the right. obviously monitors almost looks like you're looking to the headlines for economic data. >> a lot the investors will be looking for a little divine intervention. >> thank you very much. tell me if you see the latest lottery winning numbers. >>> voters will not have to decide on a plano to raise taxes this fall. san jose city council was considering placing five sales tax measures on the november ballot. however, a recent survey found might not be support they decided not to move forward. the council voted down the plan yesterday. that's your low tax news for today. 5:17 right now. time to check in with meteorologist rob mayeda. how are the temperatures looking? >> not bad. speaking of san jose, 57 degrees, overcast skies to start, we will see sunshine and a pleasant afternoon around santa clara valley. san francisco patchy low clouds bay bridge golden gate, will find patchy fog in the north bay. oakland 56, light winds. overall we're seeing the sea breeze winning the battle for weather

krc cnbc, first in big worldwide. now back to "hardball." >>> with the economy in trouble, communities in crisis and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need god's help. that's why i'm calling on americans to pray and fast like jesus did, and as god called the israelites to do, i sincerely hope you'll join mean in houston on august 6th with praying people asking god's forgiveness, his wisdom and provision for our state and nation. >> hmm. welcome back to "hardball." that was, of course, govern every rick perry we're getting to know, inviting america to participate in the response, a day of prayer and fasting in texas. in houston, in fact. civil liberties groups are in texas protesting the event saying perry's religious revival blurs the line between church and state and some of the groups hold extreme right wing positions on gay rights and other issues. tony perkins and barry lynn, executive director of americans united for separation of church and state. what do you make of the participants in this, tony?

back to you. >> simon hobbs, from cnbc, thank you. >>> thanks for watching. matt miller is in for dylan ratigan. he picks things up from here. >>> hey there, jonathan. we're going to try to make sense of this scary stock market plunge and what it all means. dylan himself is coming back for some follow-up on the amazing rant he gave yesterday, which really struck a nerve in the blag osphere. we have a comedian coming by, because at this point we could all use a laugh, and there's more of jonathan on the dill evan ratigan panel. the show starts right now.

joining me now cnbc senior analyst ron ensigna. try to make some sense of this. where does it end? >> it's getting increasingly harder to answer questions like this. there were rumors going around about the potential insolvency of one or more french banks who own a lot of debt of europe's periphery, greece, spain, italy ireland or portugal. there's that concern. a lot of these frnch banks bought a lot of our toxic assets earlier in the decade. i suspect they haven't marked those down fully either. all the rumors are denied. it led to this sell off this morning that should have been greeted with some follow through after the big rally yesterday on word that the fed is going to hold rates low for at least two more years. >> ron, at this point are there any new york banks that still have exposure? they were recapitalized from tarp. there was a sense at least that our financial sector was in better shape, but they seem to be pulling the markets down. >> from a perspective comparing american banks to europe ban banks right now would be a mistake. we did raise extraordinary amount of cap

joining me is cnbc contributor ron ansana. what are they saying? >> they are saying in the first year, the savings are about $21 billion. to a certain extent, some may find it reassuring that it won't be heavy spending cuts at a time when the economy might be weakening. we have gone to concern about the deficit and now the recession. the dow is at a 200-point turn around because the manufacturing data shows that the manufacturing sector of the economy is close to contracting again. the lowest level we have seen this index at in two years. a very difficult balancing act. as long as the cuts are in the out years, at least that takes a little pressure off the economy. >> ron, when we talk about the fact of the credit rating for the country being downgraded, the potential of that still moving forward or do you think we will get through unscathed. >> the debt-rating agencies will have to back away. it is at least a semi serious effort to move forward and cut spending and reduce the deficit over time i think there will be no down great of the u.s. aaa cr

that's cnbc first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball." >>> welcome back to "hardball." okay. admit it. when you hear rick perry, you think george w. bush. that may be fine if you're a texas republican. but for a lot of people, it's causing a case of bush post-traumatic stress disorder. or bush ptsd. here's former bush strategist matthew dowd talking to george stephanopoulos earlier this month on the similarities between the two texas governors. >> now, part of his problem is he sounds a lot like george bush. he looks like the president, though, if you look at the picture. but he sounds and has similar mannerisms to george bush. i don't think that's as much of a problem in the republican primary. it could be a problem in the general election. >> is the public ready for more bush-style texas swagger? joining me are wayne slater of the dallas morning news and msnbc political analyst richard wolffe. welcome to you both. wayne, so they walk alike. they talk alike. but are george w. bush and rick perry really that much alike? >> no. they're actually very different people. tha

. >>> now joining me is mandy drury, cnbc's correspondent. what are we looking that's driving the markets on this day, midday through the trading day? >> you know what, contessa, you were saying it earlier. who can believe all the wild ups and downs we've seen this week. today, of course, it's up but you know what, i really do have to say this just shows how high emotions are right now. not necessarily being driven by fundamentals, but to your question about what is driving today's market to the upside, we have a couple things. we have, for example, a rare dose of encouraging data on the labor front and we also got cisco systems which is very much a bellwether for the weather space and it's currently the best performing blue chip stock, surging 17% at one point after posting better than expected revenues. the ceo, john chambers, also a regular on cnbc, says cisco is making solid progress on its turnaround effort. that's what people want to hear. also, europe, this is a very important driver for our market as well. very big influence on our fi