WHEN: Today, Friday, January 23rd
WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk Box"
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of CNBC interviews on CNBC's "Squawk Box" this morning live from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. For a roundup of all the interviews on CNBC's "Squawk Box" today, go to squawkbox.cnbc.com.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
Mary Barra, General Motors CEO
BARRA ON FALLING OIL PRICES
I think in general it is a shift, but I also think they look at it – you know, the average length of ownership of a car is going up so they're going to look at it over the long term. But it also provides a little more disposable income that they may be able to buy a richer vehicle in addition to the fuel economy aspects of it.
BARRA ON STRONG DOLLAR
Our general philosophy is to build where we sell and we're actually looking across the global to make sure with have the right localization. Because with our global footprint, the ups and downs have – there's windfalls and there's challenges for others so we continue to execute that strategy and on balance we'll continue to look at it.
BARRA ON CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
I think over the last couple years, especially as the global influences have become more prevalent in impacting local markets, we've seen people get used to a little higher level of volatility. But if it gets too high, definitely consumers will say hey I'll put this purchase off.
BARRA ON DIVIDENDS
Our vision for the company is to make sure we become the most valued company, which is providing value to our owners, our investors. So we remain on that path. We want to look to have the right reinvestments so we have a long-term strategy. But definitely plan to return excess earnings to our shareholders over the long-term. And that's what we're intent on working on.
BARRA ON UBER
We're definitely seeing trends, especially in the U.S. and other urban areas, where people are putting off that purchase. But I think that's one of the things when we talk about that the industry is changing, and will change more in the next 5-10 years than it has in the last 50. And General Motors is working hard to be – to lead in what will provide true customer value.
BARRA ON SALES
You know of course we look at them and we want to grow but we want to grow profitably. So I think it's a number that you know gets a lot of attention. I think the more important is the quality of earnings and the quality of growth and that's what we're focused on.
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO
BLANKFEIN ON SOURCE OF CAPITAL
We are an investment bank. People come to us to raise capital. Sometimes that capital is in the form of loans, sometimes it is in the form of equity, sometimes it is a hybrid like convertible or preferred. And we do all sorts of the – we do all parts of the capital structure. And sometimes our clients come to us and we invest in equities. I can list a number of companies that would not exist today but for us being the seed equity, just like a number of companies wouldn't survive if we weren't lending them money. To me, equity and debt are all on a continuum.
BLANKFEIN ON EXCESSIVE REGULATION
There is a tradeoff always between safety and risk and kind of the ease of accomplishing your economic purpose, which is to drive growth. And at some point, the costs of excessive regulation, if you will, the word excessive is always applied in a different way, but there is a cost to it. And when that cost becomes part of the consciousness of the users of these markets, they will complain and then and only then, will that pendulum start to swing back a little.
BLANKFEIN ON DRAGHI
I would have done what he did. I hope I would have the courage to do what he has done. Because obviously he does this against the backdrop of a lot of controversy. Obviously, there wasn't unanimity. And he sets himself up obviously for second guessing down the road. But he is all in. At this point, you are not going to necessarily shrink yourself and deflate yourself. At some point, you have to grow and generate revenues.
BLANKFEIN ON GROWTH
All of our businesses, especially our businesses, correlate with growth. So we manage risky assets for people, we advise companies that have the confidence to go out and do deals. We finance those deals. We intermediate change – trades. And so all of those things correlate with confidence and growth. The United States – definitely confidence is picking up, but we know Europe is still in a very slow growth mode.
Bernard Tyson, Kaiser Permanente CEO
TYSON ON HEALTH
If you look at the healthcare system, it's a fix me system. And it's a high intervention system. So people get sick, we provide care. I'm saying, to your question, we now need to work our way upstream to say how do we in fact help people to stay healthy? Diet and exercise are the starting points. So if I can influence one thing, if I can change the eating habits in our country, that will go a long way towards helping people to live a healthier life.
TYSON ON AUTISM
These are legitimate concerns. I don't want to excuse away responsible parents asking very responsible questions. In some cases we don't have the answer in the healthcare industry. I think we have the latest evidence to show that the connection is very slim, if it all. But I think the questions are very appropriate and we need to continue to figure out how to engage in the right conversations so people are making informed decisions.
TYSON ON IMMUNIZATIONS
We've seen as you know in the country a decline in parents bringing in children for immunization. We make that a big push at Kaiser Permanente. The studies show that it certainly helps and it's the right preventative step. And we have outreach programs to reach parents and their children. And hopefully we'll see this happening much more across the nation.
TYSON ON AFFORDABILITY
There are benefits to our model against the backdrop of the ACA. However, even with the ACA, it's requiring us to continue to change as well. We still have a major issue of affordability in our country. So we're also both under pressure and committed to affordability.
TYSON ON OUTPATIENT CARE
Someone today at Kaiser Permanente will see what the latest treatment protocols, the systems that we have around the patient, the skill level now of the physicians and the IT technology, we can get someone out of the hospital faster. However, they are handed off to the outpatient side of the organization. And so the continuity of care continues, it's just in a very different setting.
Kyle Bass, Hayman Capital Management Managing Partner
BASS ON OIL PRICES
I think in two years we'll be closer to some semblance of balance. Right now we're in a pretty big supply glut. And could it trade at $35 today? It absolutely could, right? We have more than we know what to do with. So on the front end I don't know where it goes. Two years out? I'm fairly confident you'll see $60 to $70.
BASS ON FED RATES
The problem the Fed has now is you have a real kind of deflationary environment because of oil, even though you have close to full employment, or let's say the way they calculate U3. So now, I believe – I was a believer that you'd see lift off in June, and now maybe you won't. Maybe you'll see it in October or November.
BASS ON INTEREST RATE POLICY
The size of this program is going to be pretty impressive. And look – what, there are 11 countries now at zero rates? Think about the absurdity of it all as we look at the world today. You have 11 countries at zero interest rate policy, and probably headed to more now. So there are going to be some interesting things to do in Europe if Draghi is committed to this policy.
BASS ON BREAK UP OF DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS
I think breaking up depository institutions that have more than 10% of the deposits of the country would actually be a good thing. I think the sum of the parts would be greater than the whole.
BASS ON GENERAL MOTORS DIVIDEND
I think that the company has too much capital on its balance sheet. And I think that with 27 billion in cash, and doing 15 billion in EBITDA and maybe 5 or 6 billion in free cash flow, they could afford to – they could literally double their dividend. If they pay another billion six it would add another dollar to a current dividend of a dollar thirty. I think if GM, if she's really going to be shareholder focused, I think you could see a different capital allocation policy by the company.
Mike Fries, Liberty Global CEO
FRIES ON NET NEUTRALITY
At Davos here we've been talking about driverless cars and all these great applications, digitizing industry. Well that's going to be hard to do on a best efforts internet where everybody is competing for bandwidth. So the idea that certain applications and certain services shouldn't have some kind of priority is kind of silly.
FRIES ON CABLE INDUSTRY
In the cable industry, we're competing with Google and Netflix, these hypergiants that have global scale. And we are balkanized in certain cities and certain markets. It's silly. We talk about a digital single market. Well how about a single European market or a single U.S. market or a single German market? We need scale in the cable industry.
FRIES ON EUROPE REGULATIONS
I think regulators just generally in Europe are backing off. If you think about what's happened in the mobile space, that's I think behind them. They feel, and I think they're right, they need healthy telecos in Europe. And those telecos have to invest in infrastructure to be competitive.
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper
HICKENLOOPER ON FEDERAL PARTNER
We thought it was going to very tough and it's been very tough. I mean, and again you don't want to be the first person to do something like this. I was in the craft beer business and Colorado has got I think 285 craft breweries now, federally licensed. But there is a whole regulatory environment run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms that really regulates alcohol. There's nothing. We're starting from scratch and we don't have a federal partner because of course it's still illegal federally.
HICKENLOOPER ON MARIJUANA CASH BUSINESS
We do have a credit union that's trying to work its way through. It's got approval of the state. We think it might get federal approval on that same basis that, you know, we'll let it go through. I mean, no one wants it to be a cash business. If you wanted to guarantee corruption and organized crime involvement, what better way than to make it a cash business.
HICKENLOOPER ON WAITING
I tell the other governors that they probably should wait a couple years because I think the jury is still out and we don't know what the unintended consequences are.
David Cheesewright, Wal-Mart International CEO
CHEESEWRIGHT ON ECONOMY
Pretty much everywhere around the globe we're seeing fairly depressed economies still. We're seeing similar issues around pretty high levels of unemployment, particularly with youth. And pretty low growth rates versus what we would have expected historically. And we're seeing consumers who are stressed. So for us at Wal-Mart our role is to save people money, it's a pretty good time for us. So we're not too upset about that.
CHEESEWRIGHT ON CURRENCY
It's difficult but it's a quite diverse portfolio, so luckily you find some things going up and some things going down. The China point, we do import a reasonable amount from China, but it's a relatively small part of the mix. And so there's a lot of other reasons that we're able to sell at low prices. We're a very efficient business, we use scale whenever we can, and we try to keep costs low pretty much everywhere.
CHEESEWRIGHT ON SUPPLY CHAIN
We just completed over the last few months a network in China which gives us full capacity both for our ambient goods and also most importantly our fresh supply chain. And that gives us a lot of control about how we move products through the supply chain.
CHEESEWRIGHT ON WAGES
The way we look at our business is there's a continuum there, it's a meritocracy and we try to pay a fair wage. But I think the most important thing about Wal-Mart, and I think Doug talked about this when he was with you recently, is it's the opportunity we provide.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia
WALES ON DAVID CAMERON VS. WIKIPEDIA
David Cameron came out and said it's very problematic that people have private conversations that we can't, even in principal, listen in on and that we should ban services that allow that. It sounds plausible in the face of it, but to a technologist it's complete total nonsense. Encryption is mathematics, you can't ban encryption. Indeed, the trend on the web is towards increasing encryption and security because people are very worried about cyber theft and things like that. We recently moved to having all secure connections to Wikipedia in the UK and many countries.
WALES ON MOBILE GROWTH
We're seeing really fast growth in mobile as everybody is, but Wikipedia is a natural match for mobile because if you're out and about and you want to know something you just go on Wikipedia and a lot of growth in the developing world. That's what I'm personally really excited about is the languages of the developing world. Some of them, in particular, are really booming and doing very well.
Darrell Issa, U.S. Representative for California's 49th congressional district
ISSA ON OBAMA CHALLENGES
The reality is that he's trying to figure out how he's going to address a House and Senate who are going to send him bipartisan bills over 100 that left the House that died in the Senate that had broad support by Republicans and Democrats. And so far he hasn't had to face those. I think that's what he didn't address in the State of the Union.
ISSA ON PAID LEAVE
Paid leave for government employees sounds like a great idea, but remember that will reduce the number of full-time employees. The reality is that although you may think that's a great idea what he was really saying is I'm going to make sure you're going to have less people to do jobs. The same amount of dollars will go less far at the IRS, it will go less far at other agencies. So he's made a decision. It doesn't happen to be a decision that is necessarily cost effective.
ISSA ON PELOSI AND REID
If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had their choice they'd sit on their hands like they have for this President in the past, but they don't have a choice. I believe they're going to start moving the free trade agenda again. Yes, XL Pipeline is important and it's going to be sent to the President's desk and he hasn't said he will veto it so we're cautiously optimistic that he's decided to move on, but there are so many other issues that are not insignificant. For the technology community and for that matter, the companies that are here at the World Economic Forum they'd like to see advances in, if you will, patent reform and in copyright.
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