peter morici joins us live to answer that question. i want to ask about that fear gauge too, donald trump touting his saxophone plan in ohio slamming nancy pelosi for calling thousands of dollars in savings for middle-class americans crumbs. >> your paychecks are going way up. your taxes are going way down. and right now for the first time in a long time and you have seen it factories are coming back so nancy pelosi again said that his crumbs. she is a rich woman who lives in a big beautiful house in california who wants to give all of your money away and she talked about crumbs. >> the president compared nancy pelosi to hillary clinton's deplorable comments and called the house minority leader, quote, secret weapon in the midterm elections. live look at capitol hill right now, that is where a lot of work is being done or supposed to be. the house votes today on an interim spending bill to avoid another government shutdown in two days but yet again democrats refused to budge on daca. kelly right with what we can expect today. >> report

david: peter morici. melissa. melissa: market mayhem. the market taking a major dive, with the white house reaction to all of this, blake burman. what did they have to say about this? reporter: as this was unfolding i walked into the white house press operation behind me. i didn't even have to ask a question. spokesperson looked at me, we're not commenting on this right now. that is their official position at this very moment. the president though as you know, he is on his way back from ohio from a tax cut event. as he was flying there aboard air force one, the number two in the press shop, raj shah was asking about everything, the market was down 500 at that point. that was his at the same time at that point i stress. markets fluctuate? the short term. we all know that, and they do that for a number of reasons but the fundamentals of the economy are very strong and headed in the right direction for the middle class in the particular. the president hit the ground in ohio. started speaking, related or not, the markets then dropped even fu

peter morici and mark malone join us. good morning, guys. peter common steve mnuchin not overly concerned. are you concerned about what the market is telling us about the economy? >> i'm not particularly concerned. investors with complacency, money managers were concerned in the market to ensure against downside risk. 11, 12 days ago with the market could only go up the sentiment about you. that is the surest sign yet that a correction pretty soon. the question is are we transitioning to a bear market or are we transitioning to a new bull market? the answer is the economy looks very good and if it continues on that track in this correction doesn't feed back into investor sentiment which is unlikely, that the economy will grow, profits will increase the first quarter and we will all be smelling the second, third or fourth weeks of april is the proper reports coming. lauren: arguing they are oriental? >> this baldwin will continue. this started because of strong wages. it was said about a 3% annualized growth. that reflects underlying strength

and here to discuss it, peter morici. we know the economy is on fire. and despite the wild gyrations, the stock market has had a heck of a run. >> i think you can say we are on steady footing. but when we look at some of the numbers, a lot of the momentum has been fostered by temporary support. we see consumers taking on more credit. we see consumers very optimistic about potential policies coming unto place and we see consumers drawing down on savings. i do see a little bit of concern the economy could lose momentum going into 2019. >> what happens is when home equity values reconsider and stocks are up they feel wealthier so they save less. but we are not dealing with the credit bubble we had before the last crisis. what's likely to sustain the economy this year will be new home construction and business investment. new home construction is long overdue and this looks like the year it will happen. the tax cuts, we are seeing tangible results already. the good news about business investment is not only do you get a joald jolt now, but we get more produ

joining us now, university of maryland business professor peter morici. this is an issue we get into more and more now. is amazon getting so big that the dreaded antitrust issue comes to the surface? >> if -- antitrust is applied as has been tradition, that is according to market shares and market size, no. amazon is into a lot of different things, but in no place is it the dominant player. walmart is certainly as big as amazon or at least in the retail space amazon's market share is not large. what amazon is doing is scaring the hell out of people because it has mastered supply chain management on hard goods x there's a lot of inefficiencies in the economy in that regard. for example, the people that retail drugs. ashley: that's true. but, you know, i guess to prove -- to have an antitrust issue, i can't see the harm to the consumer. it's not like they monopolize everything and prices are higher. they're in competition, they do have the volume advantage, but they are offering cheaper prices. so i don't see the problem for the consumer. >> absolutely not.

come on in, peter morici, university of maryland, tenured professor joining us this morning. >> coming to me? stuart: yes i'm coming to you right now. i'm not coming to actually visit but -- >> producer was talking in my ear. stuart: happens all the time. >> yes. stuart: i actually hear voices in my head all the time. that is terrible sign. don't make me cough. now then, jerome powell, a rosy picture of the economy. low and stable inflation. so why is the market up 40 odd points when there is you know, possibly a series of rate hikes coming, if you have got such a rosy economy? >> well the message in the statement was that the rate hikes would continue to be as expected when janet was in the helm. that is basically they would be gradual. i read the statement to mean three increases, not four. the only thing disconcerting in the statement was the last paragraph where he made a bow to the taylor rule. i find rules like that to be very unsettling. they imply a fed not going to be keeping its pulse on the data. i think that was a bow. i don't know why he made it. it is kind of cryptic. stu