lower but to put that into context it was at zero in europe this time last year. and in the world s largest economy the us, the cost of borrowing is at 5% to 5.25%. but critics point out rising interest rates is a blunt tool that comes with its own set of dangers that can pose further risks to the economy. so what else can be done? well, central bankers are getting together today in portugal to chew over this challenge. joining me now isjennifer mckeown chief global economist at capital economics. good morning to you, jennifer. so it s a lovely location, portugal, you got christine lagarde there, andrew bailey, jerome powell among others, what do you think they will chew on? of course they re all increasing the cost of borrowering and in some places like the uk, so far it s having little effect. little effect. yeah, you re ri . ht. little effect. yeah, you re right. beautiful little effect. yeah, you re right. beautiful location, | little effect. yeah, you rel right. be
boost manufacturing, he s talked about expanding high speed internet access for as many as possible. i mean, he really is pushing the fact that people will be better off as a reason to keep him in office he is. but reason to keep him in office ye: is. but again he s reason to keep him in office i2 is. but again he s kind of banking on things falling in place. maybe he and his team are very confident that s going to ham. inflation is very much still not defeated. they re making good progress and making better progress than we re seeing elsewhere but it s very much far from defeated and still see another interest rate hike or two, and that point families may feel less well off than they currently do. especially if the economy is then tipped into recession. but he does have still big growth agendas and most of that is going to be backed by heavy spending. the question is and i m sure his team of researchers will be looking into this is going to be is more deficit spending and is more
days. they all show the movement 2re7 trending away from mitt romney, toward barack obama. is there something an internal polling in the romney that s telling them something different, are they kidding themselves? well, i think that s internal to the romney campaign, i don t even know those numbers but i can tell you the two ads we just saw are engaging on the right topic for the american t voters. a business round-table last week had a meeting. our ceo said it privately and then publicly yesterday, we released a big drop, third sharpest drop in expect i guess so as of ceos on sales and hiring than we ve seen in ten years. the economy is not good and for the candidates for the presidency to be talking about competing growth agendas, that ought to be good ground for romney. why is that message not getting out? what has he done that s not been effective? i don t know. maybe taxes, tapes, conventions. 47%, yeah? no, i think what he is, this is a long time in this campaign. i bel
growth agenda in europe when the g-8 finish those lovely photographs west of maryland. look like a pretty happy bunch. they did. all waving, a congenial group there. speaking of growth agendas, i know with the one organization, your company, michael, the dealing with the problems of aids and poverty in africa has been something you ve tried to tackle. where does that stand and what are you doing about it? there was a major event here yesterday in washington, d.c. where president obama spoke at a summit, a pre-g-8 summit. made a major speech in which he committed to the u.s. and the g-8 to a whole new approach of a partnership with african nations to make sure that people, first of all, have the food that they need and secondly food to feed the whole of the rest of the world because we re moving to a population of 9 billion people.
lowering individual rates, lowering corporate rates, but closed off a lot of tax expenditures right now. i don t think most americans realize that we actually spend more on tax expenditures or tax breaks than we collect in personal income taxes each year, so that has to be on the tail as well. jon: so simplifying the tax code would be part of what you would want to do? yes, sir. it s three legs. what we often times up here is we think we can either cut our way out of this problem or raise taxes out of this problem or simply have a growth agenda and grow our way out of this problem. my belief is it s going to take all three, and if you talk to anybody in the business community, who is actually about creating jobs, they realize as well, it s going to take all three, a growth agendas well. jon: well, everybody talks about cutting spending but when the rubber meets the road nobody wants to actually cut some of these programs that are so popular and i know you re already getting pushback