this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour straight after this programme. hello everybody. warm welcome to talking business with meet aaron heslehurst. let's take a look at what's on the show. they are the most powerful group of shoppers in the world, but can the american consumer save the world from recession? as gas rises, food prices and interest rates rise, i will be taking the temperature of the american shopper and ask if it is still true that when america sneezes, the world catches a

cold. i will be discussing all of that with these two, there they are. the boss of the american conference board which elects official data on american consumer confidence and one of the advisers who advised the father white house. also the show, its august peak holiday season. but with luyken�*s cancellations and holiday makers concerned about the bottom line, what is happening on the travel season. i will find out in the big boss of the company that owns the online travel giants, booking.com. wherever you are watching from around the world, once again a big hello and warm welcome to

the show. you know, while the emergence of a new middle class of millions of consumers across asia and africa will change how companies operate this century, the american shopper, for now, remembers the most powerful on the planet. the most recent numbers from the world bag shows the american consumer spent a massive $14 trillion in 2020. that's nearly three times that of the chinese, who spent a happy $5.6 trillion. might be explained by china spending more of the pandemic year in lockdown. those lockdowns have continued in some of china's biggest cities, hampering its post pandemic recovery and halting much of its tourism and travel industry. at the united states is still the world's biggest economy and has big challenges of its own. rising energy and food prices as well as interest rates to curb inflation are adding to the cost of living. but in the plus

column, thejobs market is strong, recent monthly reports showed a massive pickup injob creation and also people in those jobs are getting paid more. presidentjoe biden was quick to seize on those numbers. quick to seize on those numbere— quick to seize on those numbers. ., ., . numbers. to date we received another outstanding _ numbers. to date we received another outstanding jobs - another outstanding jobs report. 528,000 jobs were added just last month to this country's employment. 528,000 jobs. we have now nearly double what, we're almost at 10 millionjobs. almost 10 million jobs since i took office. that is the fastest job growth jobs since i took office. that is the fastestjob growth in history. is the fastest 'ob growth in histo . �* , is the fastest 'ob growth in histo . �* , . ., history. but is a heated 'ob market enough i history. but is a heated 'ob market enough to i history. but is a heated 'ob market enough to give h history. but is a heated job - market enough to give american shoppers shopping? well, the american consumer confidence indexis american consumer confidence index is one of the key indicators of economists used to take the tabbita of the american consumer and airport the us economy. this is the last five years and you can see this year, that american

consumer sentiment is dropping sharply. it's really as low as when the pandemic took hold in 2020. that data is gathered by the business and research group, the conference board of america, it has more than a thousand companies as members and i have beenjabbing with the boss. steve, a real pleasure having you at the show. they give we're tired. let's get straight into because your numbers are showing consumer confidence slipping almost as dramatically as lockdown started. what is your take on the way consumers are feeling now?— feeling now? thanks for having me. the conference _ feeling now? thanks for having me. the conference board's i me. the conference board's consumer competence index has been declining now for three consecutive months. there are two components to the index, the consumers talk about their current situation, how are they feeling about inflation and theirjobs right now. and then, how are they feeling about the future. two months ago, people started to be worried about the future. now, in the most recent reading they are concerned

about the present. what is driving it is inflation. inflation is at record levels. we have not see these kind of rates in over 40 years. people are seeing that each into their household income and what they are able to spend. predominately, food and fuel, gas prices here are outrageous. americans are not used to that. you see consumer confidence declining. the reason this is important is because consumer spending makes up about 70% of the us gdp. it is a big deal when consumers are worried and thinking about ratcheting back their spending. thinking about ratcheting back theirspending. but thinking about ratcheting back their spending.— their spending. but steve, in their spending. but steve, in the us you — their spending. but steve, in the us you have _ their spending. but steve, in the us you have a _ their spending. but steve, in the us you have a pretty - their spending. but steve, in| the us you have a pretty firm job market. we havejust seen the recent numbers. how does that play into this picture? you know, it is an interesting situation. every recession post world war ii has been with big job declined. so you see the us federal reserve raising interest rates to try to

diminish inflation and adjust. people are worried about that by the way, because the fed has never engineered a soft landing. it's really hard. it's hard to be critical of them. but it's hard to do. and so people are saying, there is going to be as recession, because it is impossible to engineer a soft landing. you see that happening at the same time as the us jobs market is holding up. which is counter intuitive. you normally see jobs coming down in this kind of setting. it's a very strange situation, but it does give confidence to the federal reserve that they can be more aggressive because we are at that point. aggressive because we are at that point-— that point. you mentioned elation. — that point. you mentioned elation. we _ that point. you mentioned elation, we cannot - that point. you mentioned elation, we cannot get - that point. you mentioned i elation, we cannot get away from it. these price rises, it is going to hurt consumer sentiment.— is going to hurt consumer sentiment. this is the deal. because — sentiment. this is the deal. because we _ sentiment. this is the deal. because we see _ sentiment. this is the deal. because we see real- sentiment. this is the deal. | because we see real income coming down, but its food and fuel. these are typically, when inflation hits, you don't see as much in these two areas.

right now it is food and fuel and that is over half of the ablation right there. these are the two issues that hit every household. and so the poorest households are the ones that are disproportionately affected and that is another worry. people are ratcheting back all of their plans relating to big purchases, automobile purchases, automobile purchases, applied purchases, capital goods. it is rippling through business. our latest ceo confidence index has predicted a recession. when us ceos get worried about recession they start ratcheting back capital investment, hiring plans and anything else. this becomes a concern because they can actually create a recession bite ratcheting back their spending. all of this is coming through in sort of a circular fashion here to our projection that there will be a recession in the us by the end of 2020. and carried over into 2023. but

ou have and carried over into 2023. but you have said _ and carried over into 2023. but you have said that businesses are more, they are not worried about consumers, but more the fed, america's central bank. what you mean by that? in our latest ceo confidence surveys, what we have seen is that ceos are projecting a recession. the reason is not because of consumers but because of the fed. as the fed raises interest rates, they then drive productivity down. they drive investment down and so forth. the fed is worried about this 2% inflation, they have been forthcoming about this, they target 2%. they would rather gdp takes a decline for a period of time or they hit the labour market glibly in order to get there inflation in place. that is their priority. everything else is secondary. if ceos are saying therefore it is not going to be a soft landing, it will in fact be a recession as a result. now that i know it will be a recession, as a ceo, i must then

bullet—proof my business, against that, which means i will ratchet back capital spending and will increase my liquidity. that is what then helps to create the spin in a recession and make it worse. and as we know, steve, your organisation also gathers research from other countries. how would you characterise the trajectory of the chinese economy versus the united states? and how our current headwinds going to play into their relative importance and their relative importance and the size of china? the conference _ the size of china? the conference port - the size of china? the conference port is - the size of china? the i conference port is global the size of china? tue: conference port is global and we do this work with leading economic indicators and consumer confidence around the world. you know, china is very concerning to the global economy right now. it is such an important part of the global economy. it is the world's manufacturing site and supply chain set up. we have seen gdp in china flattened out really for the first time in the last 50 years in modern chinese

economic history. we have relied on china as a global economic engine. and that has come down. part of this has been because of their zero covid strategy, doing lockdown evenin covid strategy, doing lockdown even in major cities like shanghai. and that has hit their economy. but it has also hit very dumb act there consumer of index and the chinese consumer is the least competent they have been since we have measured it. they are the early pessimistic about the chinese economy t’ge the early pessimistic about the chinese economy— chinese economy i've been wondering _ chinese economy i've been wondering is _ chinese economy i've been wondering is still _ chinese economy i've been wondering is still true - chinese economy i've been wondering is still true that| wondering is still true that when america ceases to the world get a cold? taste when america ceases to the world get a cold?— when america ceases to the world get a cold? we say here, how do we _ world get a cold? we say here, how do we know. _ world get a cold? we say here, how do we know. i _ world get a cold? we say here, how do we know. i think - world get a cold? we say here, how do we know. i think the i how do we know. i think the american economy is still 25% of the global economy, china is now a huge portion as well. it is impossible for the us economy not to have a ripple effect particular with the interconnectedness of the global economy and the global supply chain, the trading that

is going on with not only the developed world but also the developing world. we are all interconnected today. when the big economies have trouble or go into a decline, it does ripple over. go into a decline, it does ripple over-— go into a decline, it does ripple over. go into a decline, it does ri le over. ,, ripple over. steve, let me end on this. ripple over. steve, let me end on this- one — ripple over. steve, let me end on this. one of— ripple over. steve, let me end on this. one of the _ ripple over. steve, let me end on this. one of the lessons . ripple over. steve, let me endj on this. one of the lessons for business from these numbers? you have run plenty of big businesses. how would you be adjusting strategy? t businesses. how would you be adjusting strategy?— adjusting strategy? i think personable. _ adjusting strategy? i think personable, ceos - adjusting strategy? i think personable, ceos have - adjusting strategy? i think personable, ceos have an | personable, ceos have an obligation not to overreact in the sense that they can create a recession. they could hurt people through their actions if they are too aggressive. 0n the other end, they have multi stakeholders because customers, employees, owners, community, environment, they have to balance all of that. they do need to make sure that they take care of the long—term health and whatever is coming, you don't open sure what the future holds, but whatever is coming they have adequately adjusted their strategy to get through it. that requires liquidity that their cash position is strong. that

requires that they have the right strategy to move through whatever your product or service is to take care of your customers through this period of time. so they don't impact their employees with layoffs and so forth. that they take care of employees that they have, they don't overreact to inflation and overcompensate that then drives layoffs. these all the strategies that ceos need to balance through this period of time, such that they come out the other end in a stronger position so that they can continue to balance all of those stakeholders. steve, a real pleasure having you on the show. thanks for your time. we'll talk to you soon. great to be with you. thank you. so the american consumer, it's clearly not a single thing or idea. women are by far the largest consumer group spending more dollars than men. well, i caught up with a senior council of economic advisers

under president 0bama. she's also the professor of women and economics at barnard college, elizabeth arnnat, a real pleasure having you on my show. thanks for your time. and elizabeth, let's start with this, because recently we've seen president biden hail those strong jobs numbers. but are those job numbers? is that across the board? i mean, the economy, thejob numbers are improving. but in terms of who's numbers are up above the pre—recession above the pre—pandemic trend line for professional services and a lot of high wage labour. but they're still well below the number ofjobs that we had in the low wage sector in, and hospitality, which were some of the worst hitjobs. those are still about 7% below where they were before the pandemic started. and i'm wondering, elizabeth, how is job insecurity impacting on consumer confidence? the us low wage labour market is really characterized by a lot of what in the uk,

contracts, right? so a lot of folks who don't have predictable work schedules, work hours, they are sent home early or not called in at all if if demand is slow. and so they can't predict how much they're going to earn, which creates a lot of uncertainty and and leads to particularly when people worry about rising prices, the possibility of a recession, if the fed overshoots, they're very concerned about their ability to make it through that because they can't rely on a steady paycheque. and these wages are generally low enough that it's very hard to save for a rainy day. so they don't have much margin to do much besides basically enter a financial crisis, like not having enough food

to feed their kids, having to stop paying rent and possibly enter a sort of an eviction spiral that can lead to a really bad financial crisis. so there's a lot of anxiety among folks at the low end of the of the labour market that folks at the higher end who are seeing these strong jobs numbers and also have a lot of savings buffer and a lot of room to cut back on extras don't experience. and elizabeth, let me ask you this. let's talk about women, because i'm wondering what all of this means for women. they are the biggest consumer group, right? absolutely. you know, they had a lot of families as sole sole owners. and they also make a lot of the decisions in married couples, families. so to a large extent, to the consumer confidence is really about women's confidence. well, just how how is that confidence? you know, there are a lot of headwinds. women are more concentrated in lower wagejobs. they're more concentrated in these unstable jobs, in services. they are more focused on taking care of children. and so we know a lot of them have not been able to fully reenter the market because of the unstable child care that they're facing. there's a lot less child care

than there was prior to the pandemic. therefore, they can't confidently accept a job if they are working and their child care shuts down. a lot of these folks don't get paid, and then that, again, can lead to that sort of spiral of disaster that that people are worried about that is affecting their their confidence. so on that, elizabeth, no doubt you're suggesting that more policies to support childcare? well, it's definitely needed, absolutely. absolutely. we haven't had the political will to provide the kind of child care infrastructure in the united states that you see in most other rich countries. and that leaves families to cobble it together by themselves, which means it's a lot less stable, a lot more likely to fall apart at the latest crisis and lead to a spiraling crisis. and that is definitely undermining people's confidence in the future. and, elizabeth, let me end on this, because if you are advising the white house today,

what would you recommend? so i would recommend investments in child care and in supporting families through the expanded child tax credit that we had last year, which gives families some buffer against inflation and rising prices forfood and fuel, and also allows them to invest in child care, in car repairs, things like that, that help them sustain their work. if they have reliable child care and some money coming in every month, they can make the investments that allow them to be long term in the labour market, which can ease wages that employers have to pay in order to attract workers, thereby preventing an inflationary spiral and improving the strength of the economy. well, on that note, elizabeth arnanat, thank you so much. a real pleasure talking to you. and i'd love to check in with you soon. thanks so much for having me. a pleasure. after over two years of the pandemic and isolation and lockdowns and enforced separations, who can blame anyone for wanting to get away from it all? and if you're booking online, as well as trusting whichever

company you choose with your holidays, you are handing over large amounts of personal data and when that is combined with all the other customers' information, we can get a pretty good picture of what is going on in the travel industry and to some extent, in the wider economy. so i caught up with the big boss of booking holdings, the parent company of booking.com, to see what the post—pandemic picture look like. glenn fogel, my friend, a pleasure having you on the show. i mentioned booking booking.com but you are a lot busier than that. and let me start with this, glenn, because this week's the show is on the american consumer. are you seeing, in general, confidence and the american consumer? thanks for having me. it's interesting because we hear a lot of concerns about the economy and inflation and recession and all these things but if you go out on the street, you see that

people are going to restaurants, or if you look at the number of people travelling right now in the states, it's a lot of people and we announced the second—quarter numbers and they were very good and we talked about record numbers and we talked about bigger than we were in 2019 so there is still a lot of good feelings about going out and enjoying life right now. so yeah, there could be some concern about the future, but right now people are feeling pretty good. and because we've seen this huge surge in demand to travel, and as yo uknow, it's highlighted how airlines and airports have been caught wiht their pants down. tthere are problems in some cases but significant amount of talk about all the terrible issues and travel and how much did that inhibit travel, the absolute number of

cancellations is still a very, very tiny amount of cancellations. or if somebody says, there is terrible chaos at the airports. there have been some airports absolutely that have had a shortage of workers and there have been very long lines and that's unfortunate, but again, does not most airports. on that point, you mention some airports but there are big ones, london's heathrow which was messy, amsterdam, i'm just wondering, on this point, do you think airlines and airports, who are let's be clear blaming each other for the mess, do think they could have been better prepared or was that an impossible task? two of those airports have big problems. i have travelled frequently over the last couple of months in those airport numerous times and sometimes chaotic and sometimes it's fine, but without doubt, if you have a bad experience, you want to say who was to blame and certainly

the airlines have been blaming government, governments have been blaming airlines. the pandemic saw a lot of people leave the industry, whether they were forced to leave or left on their own, you end up with a lot fewer workers. then demand came back much, much faster than the supply of workers could ever catch up and then you end up with a situation like you had at heathrow or schipol and gatwick hasn't been great either, but that is a problem. but it is slowly coming to more of an equilibrium where the airlines and airports are hiring people as fast as they and training them. you have to get people through safety checks and investigations and do all this to get them into thejob and that takes time. this is the fact of the terrible pandemic that we are working through. let's talk about hotel rates because we are regarding those rates. are you seeing any changes that are resulting from the cost

of living crisis that we are enduring at the moment? absolutely, hotel rates are way up. we talked with this in our second—quarter earnings call. on an average daily rate, we are coming up with 25% higher than in 2019 based on cost of currency. higher than in 2019 based on a constant currency. you look globally and have to equalise all the changes globally and you're not comparing apples with apples and when you do that, it's 25% higher than 2019 so that's a big increase, when you compare that energy cost or food costs or other type of costs, actually not that high. briefly, is there geographical element to that? it matches up with demand. there's more demand if prices were higher such as the us and europe compared ot asia, which is still not having average day rates above 2019 and that makes sense because they haven't recovered total demand yet to 2019.

and that is obviously one of the biggest factors such will be supply and demand. glenn, those price rises, you mentioned 25%. is that sustainable or will that eventually hit demand? it's an interesting question. will it be sustained or not and it's interesting because we know in most times when the amount of rooms are filled in hotel is lower, prices dropped as hotels try to up the occupancy. the occupancy rate is still lower than it was in 2019, yet the prices are much higher. it's kind of a strange situation and the question will be, if there is a recession or if people start feeling that they can't afford to travel because energy costs are so high, food costs are so high, if that demand goes down, will those prices start to drop and go back to where they were? it's hard to say.

i will say that we are at a very high level right now and i would not be surprised if rates for hotels do not drop in the near future. they would not shock me in the least. glenn, let me end on this. how confident are you, are you confident for the business for this time next year, and on a broader picture, what are the trends do you think are in the future? i am so pleased with where we are today. when this pandemic started two and a half years ago, i would talk to our team and we had 27,000 people at the time and we said this is not good but it will change and we will get out of it but it will take time and take years, not quarters, years to recover. and now we are recovering. the second quarter being able to show growth over 2019, being able to show us$35 billion worth of travel which was a 38% increase

over the 2019 number, what's the future, is it going to continue to trend like this or will have a setback? there are so many things people are concerned about, recession, inflation, terrible war in ukraine right now which is causing all sorts of terrible things for people and travel and it impacts the world's economy. who knows what's going to happen which is my way of thinking. i can't control those things but what we can control is make sure to play our part to provide better value to the consumers who are travelling and our partners who supply them, hotels, airline, etc. but i don't know what's going to happen next quarter or next year but i do know that in the long run people will always want to travel more. this has been going on for 120 years. go back to 1900, to thomas cook when he started out, in the late 1800s, people want to travel more and more and more.

gdp in the long run will go up, travel goes up, ourjob is to continue to get a bigger piece of this larger pie. on that point, glenn fogel, the big boss of booking holdings, thank you for your time and i will check in with you soon. thank you so much. you can keep up with the latest on the global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. you can also follow me on twitter. you can get be at @bbcarron. bye— bye. well, much—needed rain in the forecast, but that unfortunately may come at a price for some of us. and with big downpours forming once again on tuesday, there's a risk of flash flooding across parts of england and wales.

now, here's the big picture. this dip in the jet stream has spawned an area of low pressure which is in part responsible for breaking the heatwave and developing the showers. and then later on in the week, the jet stream here could push in a weather front with slightly lighter rain but more widespread rain crossing parts of the uk, but no guarantee as far as rain is concerned further south. and then that westerly jet stream brings fresher conditions later on in the week. now, here's the rainfall accumulation over the next 48 hours or so. the computer models tend to smooth out the rainfall and average it out, so i think if you take a closer look, actually, some areas get very little rainfall. you can see it's just at the bottom of the scale — 5, maybe 10mm, no more than that — and some spots won't get any rainfall at all. so let's get onto the forecast, then, for tuesday. and quite a warm start in the south and the southeast — 18 degrees. fresher in scotland. and in scotland and northern ireland, quite cloudy

in the morning with some light rain, i think, in central and eastern scotland, which should eventually peter out. and then we've got those scattered, heavy showers and thunderstorms developing across england and wales and that risk of flash flooding. but remember, some of us will miss the storms altogether. mid—20s across the south, around 18 or so in newcastle and a very fresh 14 there in aberdeen with that northerly breeze. here's wednesday's weather forecast, and again a chance for some showers across parts of england and wales, but further north, the weather's looking dry and bright. i think a very pleasant day on the way for scotland and northern ireland, with temperatures of around 18 celsius. now, i talked about that jet stream at the start pushing in a weather front, and here's that area of low pressure approaching the uk during the course of thursday. it'll spread thursday night into friday across the country, bringing thicker cloud and perhaps some outbreaks of rain early hours of friday, but no guarantee of rain further south. here's the outlook for the middle of the week, into the weekend. you can see it's generally set fair towards the end of the week.

you're watching bbc news, i'm rich preston. our top stories: chaos and confusion as kenya's deputy president william ruto is declared the winner of last week's presidential election, but claims of vote rigging over the result. there is no room for vengeance, there is no room for looking back, we are looking into the future. donald trump's former lawyer, rudy giuliani, is told by us prosecutors he's a target of their criminal investigation into attempts to overturn the presidential election result. the taliban celebrate the first anniversary of their return to power in afghanistan, but the picture remains bleak for women and girls.

one big thing among others that challenges the more moderate