Don't count out eBay; Fortune says the site is back and it's hot

>>> a live look at capitol hill as the sun has yet to come up over washington. looks like it's going to be a pretty morning. we have a storm coming. at 47 past the hour. speaking of a storm coming, with us now, the managing editor of "fortune" magazine --

>> i love that.

>> -- andy serwer. "fortune's" latest issue is on ebay's big comeback. we'll get to that in just a moment. first, we'll get one "must-read opinion page" in, this is from "the wall street journal ." the most disinvenwith us white house claim is that the sequester will hurt the economy, reality check . the cuts amount to about 0.5% of gdp . the theory that any and all government spending is stimulus has been put to the test over the last five years, and the result has been the weakest recovery in 75 years and trillion-dollar annual deficits. the sequester will help the economy by leaving more capital for private investment. the sequester will surely require worker furloughs and cutbacks in certain nonpriority services. but most of those layoffs will happen in the washington, d.c., area. the recession-free region that has boomed during the obama era.

>> wow. not a lot of republicans would agree with that because the sequester would hurt the pentagon. that's why they're talking about the d.c. area.

>> can you raise my hand and say i'm one republican that would agree with that? we've got to cut defense spending .

>> we have to.

>> we've got to, and we've got to cut spending.

>> willy-nilly, though. so the sequester is willy-nilly, isn't it? you wouldn't want to cut having the sequester do it?

>> didn't congress make the sequester?

>> that was a carrot and stick situation. the sequester is the stick.

>> the problem is you can't get the president of the united states to put alternative cuts on the board. he'll talk in generalities. and the republicans and the democrats don't trust each other. so yes, i don't like the ad hoc approach, but given the choice between an ad hoc approach and no approach at all with trillion-dollar deficits every year, i choose cuts. but let's talk about this. how badly do you think it will hurt the economy? you think "the wall street journal 's" underselling it?

>> i do think they're underselling it. first, half a percentage point of gdp is very significant. if you're talking about government, the business of government being a part of gdp and you're saying -- you're discounting that, okay, fair enough. but these are real jobs. these are people who get pay and then go to safeway and buy things. i mean, why are you not saying that's a real part of the economy? i really don't understand it. and by the way, there's a lot of links. i agree with you, the defense department needs to be trimmed big time . there's a linkage between the defense department and technology.

>> streamlined.

>> it's not a simple thing.

>> i will say this, is just absolutely --

>> bloated.

>> -- exploded.

>> i don't know what you mean.

>> it is bloated. you can't even -- and you have dave walker who comes on here all the time.

>> yeah.

>> and says you can't even audit the pentagon because it's so bloated. and yet you've got people on capitol hill saying at this point we're not cutting the fat anymore. we're cutting the bone. that's laughable. we spend so much.

>> if you don't go after -- very simple business -- if you don't go after defense and entitlements, you don't solve the problem. everything else is discussion.

>> okay. "fortune" magazine. ebay is back.

>> yes. we all know about ebay in the dotcom era auctions, buying snowglobes and pez dispensers.

>> don't mock what joe does.

>> people collect them. it sort of had their moment, it seemed, and then went away to many people in the middle of the last decade. john donahoe has brought the company back. they're supercharged by paypal. it's a juggernaut. that's a way of paying for things not only on ebay but thousands of other sites. they also own stubhub which is a nice little business. they got rid of skype. and right now you can use their mobile payments system to say you're looking for a nintendo wii , and you can look on ebay's app and see if it's at a home dep depot, if it's at another store, if it's at target you can buy it at ebay or anywhere. most people in the united states have probably used ebay sometime during the past week and not even known it.

>> it's absolutely amazing. here's my iphone. if we can go to the shot. i tapped the wrong one here. hold on. amazon and ebay right there.

>> yeah.

>> i seriously can buy anything in the world while i'm rushing into work. i can -- and next to it is bank of america . i can do all of my banking online. these three buttons, i can transfer money to my kids. i can do anything. it seriously is so easy.

>> it's one click. paypal is huge. it would be its own fortune 500 company now, and it's growing like crazy. and the other thing about ebay, unlike amazon, amazon has alienated a lot of other stores. traditional retailers scared to death of amazon. meanwhile ebay is working with other retailers. you think of amazon being this juggernaut of retailing online. ebay is quietly not only a big presence online but also integrating offline which is traditional stores and online as well.

>> do you shop online?

>> a little bit, yeah.

>> i want to ask you a question that's interesting for the economy. would you say you spend more or less shopping because you can buy online now versus --

>> you know what? i never shop. i never shop. i hate going to stores. if i have extra time , i'm with my kids. but guess what?

>> this is additional spending.

>> i shop so much more here. i need this. and i go on it, i press it, and it takes me three minutes to buy it. it shows up at my house the next day. i never shop. i spend more money.

>> think about if you have little kids, there's something called diapers.com which has changed the way mothers do business. you go on a website, in the span of five minutes, you can order everything you need for a month, diapers, formula. and it shows up sometimes later that day at your front door. it's a totally different world. you don't have to go out into the world.

>> it's the kids.

>> it's changed everything and it makes things so much easier.

>> andy, stay with us. by the way, all of our must-read opinion pages are on our website, mojo.msnbc.com. check out my latest "women of value" blog post .

>> who are you looking at today?

>> danielle gray. she's a basketball junkie.

>> what does she do at the white house ?

>> oh, she's a -- well, she just got promoted as a liaison to the president between the president and the cabinet. and she's working on all the big issues on the front lines with the president including immigration and the economy. she's amazing. she's 34.

>> does that still separate us? i know the whole purpose is to recognize and elevate, but in a strange way, the more we designate top 50 women in business, we're still doing a second-class citizen-type thing.

>> no.

>>> coming up, we go behind the scenes of -- you know what?

>> i love barry manilow .

>> a rock snob. we go behind the scenes of his opening night on broadway with theater owner jordan roth. we are back in just a