economy, the outlook for the economy, and how, what policy is appropriate for that outlook. >> dennis lockhart great interview. thank you so much and our thanks to fed president lockhart as well. >>> coming up later, more from former utah governor jon huntsman and preview of the main event, mitt romney takes the stage at the gop convention. up next we'll talk to his senior campaign viadviser kevin madden who looks like a romney. you'd have trouble picking, becky, on a blind date. summarye consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. >>> tonight presidential hopeful mitt romney will close out the republican convention with a highly anticipated speech on how can he turn this country around. joining us with more is kevin madden, senior adviser to the romney campaign. how are you doing, kev

today, dennis lockhart, who heads the atlanta fed, said its next decision would be a close call. sylvia hall, nbr, washington. >> susie: meanwhile tonight, the spotlight will be on mitt romney and his plan to fix the nation's economic problems. he will officially accept the republican nomination for president. millions of american voters, including many small business owners, will be listening carefully to that speech. romney has been campaigning on a promise to jumpstart the economy and cut taxes. but as diane eastabrook reports, one chicago dentist wants details on how he'll do that. >> reporter: dr. marianne schaefer's been a dentist for more than 30 years. but the last few have been perhaps the most difficult. >> did we get the case back? >> reporter: she had to reduce the status of one of her three employees from full-time to part-time after patients who lost jobs either stopped coming for visits or had trouble paying. >> we're a family practice. we've seen each other, been together some of us 30 years. so, of course, we're always going to try to assist and help them, and th

we talked to dennis lockhart and he said it was not an easy decision. >> it's a close call. if we were to see deterioration from this point and let's say a persistence of job growth numbers that were well below 100,000 a month, if we were to see that, or if we were to see signs of disinflation that could signal the on set of deflation then there wouldn't be much of a question about policy. >> fed policy will be a huge subject of debate of equal importance is the discussions about european central bank and its policies as well. this ecb meets next week on september 6th and big question what kind of plans they have to buy the debt of troubled sovereign nations in the eurozone. the more the ecb does it may change hat the fed does which is another reason why bernanke will keep his options open. >> that was steve who will be in jackson hole again today. we've been waiting all week for ben bernanke to speak. have we been waiting all week for him to say nothing? >> i think keeping the option open can be a good choice. i think not only because of the ecb and because of the amount of

dennis lockhart. the monetary policy may not be to fix we are all hoping for. with more we have jeffrey miron. it is always good to see you, jeffrey. does that make other than the president have it right? do we need more or less at this point? >> my guess is that we might need more easing, but for monetary easing isn't going to do very much. i think a lot of the fed recognizes that. ben bernanke and others have said don't rely on the fed to do everything. the fiscal situation is a big problem and we have urged congress to do something about that. gerri: it has been said that we could ease too much. what are the negative consequences? >> well, first of all, one standard concern is if you eat too much time you end up generating inflation. the response right now for most economists is there is so much slack in the economy. we are not going very fast and there is no pressure for inflation. i think that is right as far as it goes. but sooner or later, that is going to be an issue. and if you put a ton of money into the economy and try to take it back out, it might b

dennis lockhart, the president of the atlanta fed and a voting mem per of the fomc this year, told voterser speech he remains undecided on additional estimate us are. he is not happy with current economic trend and hint he could support more. >> the u.s. economy has been in technical recovery since the summer of 2009. the recovery to date has been, has seen weak growth and persistent high unemployment. by any number of measures the strength of the recovery has been and remains disappointing. >> fomc meets next on september 12th. david and liz. david: big meetings coming up. thank you very much. sandra smith, adam shapiro and peter barnes. good to see y'all. liz: thank you. david: if you think your food needs more salt you will not be able to get it at one restaurant chain. oh, no, is this the nanny state gone wild? more details coming up. liz: even "the simpsons" couldn't save the u.s. post office from its budget problems. we'll take you "off the desk" for that one next. ♪ . everyone has goals. take the steps to reach yours, with us with real advice, for real goals. the us bank wealth man

release of its fomc minutes may provide a big hint but in the meantime atlanta fed president dennis lockharticy is employed too aggressively and without effect to address economic problems that can only be resolved by fiscal reforms that involve making tough choices about the allocation of public resources. tracy: so would a third round of quantitative easing finally do the trick and get the economy moving? or would it just make things worse? joining us now, steve forbes, chairman and editor of in chief of forbes media and the author of a new book, "freedom manifesto". thank you for being here. i want to talk about the book. go back to what our fed is doing. should they give more money to the markets? >> no. they're harming the patient, not helping the patient. their ultralow interest rates actually hurt small businesses. it has been a real boon for government debt financing and big companies. but the job creators still are having a dicey time getting credit. so the fed is doing more harm than good. anytime you detablize the dollar, make it go up and down like a yo-yo, like a clock. if you d

number one thing to watch tomorrow will be a speech by atlanta federal reserve bank president dennis lockhart been hanging on every single word and preposition, you name it the fed has said and exactly as a voting member and advocate of more quantitative easing, more large-scale asset purchases his comments could very well move the markets. so you really have to watch for that. plus as sandra smith mentioned you could watch the globex trading tonight in the grain ma

atlanta federal reserve dennis lockhart spoke. >> the u.s. economy has been a technical recovery since the summer of 2009. the recovery to date has been a scene of week growth and persistent high unemployment. by any number of measures, the strength of the recovery has been and remains disappointing. lori: week and disappointing. is lockhart suggesting the fed should get a jump on qe3? if so is it a good thing? let me ask you about the lockhart, it. he tends to favor tighter monetary policy. the fact that he is not shutting the door on more accommodation, is that telling and your you? >> i think the fed has taken extraordinary steps. when you look at monetary policy, it is most effective when it is being complement it by rote growth, regulatory and fiscal policies. in regulatory and fiscal policy to monetary policy with the economy appeared to stabilize, with core inflation running at the 2%, quantitative easing does not seem that compelling. lori: do you think we need to see more from the government, especially from the federal government? >

tomorrow a a an interview with dennis lockhart.ng. >> we keep hearing from all of these fed president, their take on whether we'll see qe3 and how big it will be. lacquer was saying the fed can't control unemployment. this will be another big hint tomorrow. when we come back this morning, america's richest oil man will be joining us to talk about the impact on the gas republican instruction. he have an energy adviser for the romney campaign. >> take a look at hurricane isaac as it battles new orleans. squawk will be right back. dad's tablet... or lauren's smartphone... at&t has a plan built to help make families' lives easier. introducing at&t mobile share. one plan lets you share data on up to 10 devices with unlimited talk and text. add a tablet for only $10 per month. the more data you share, the more you save. at&t. you have to dig a little. fidelity's etf market tracker shows you the big picture on how different asset classes are performing, and it lets you go in for a closer look at areas within a class or sector that may be

dennis lockhart was on this morning talking and said, you know, the fed really doesn't take that intoount. and i think they try to remain fairly out of thahaha secondly, even if romney were to replace bernanke, he said he would do it at the end of his term, so he would still have through 2014 to implement policy. connell: good point. let me ask you about what you think you will hear, at jackson hole, we're all asking these questions, as some sort of launching pad or hinting pad for monetary policy, will that happen this time around, wl we get a hint of what's to come or no? >> right, you know, i think this's a great debate -- there's a great debate out there right now if we will or not. first of all, i would say that bernanke is -- there are two thing has are driving this. number one bernanke is certainly looking at doing more. if you look at the speech he gave to congress in july, if you outline what he said, he said the growth has slowed. that may have been the understatement of the year. he said unemployment was stuck above 8%. payroll growth is slow. consumer confidence is down. m

we had an interview with atlanta fed president dennis lockhart.imply are you in favor of additional quantitative easing. here's his answer. >> i think it's a close call, really. if we were to see deterioration from this point, let's say a persistence of job growth numbers that were well below 100,000 a month. if we were to see that. or if we were to see signs of just inflation that could signal the onset of deflation, then there wouldn't be much of a question about policy. but now i think the policy question is how much will you gain and, of course, what are the costs short and longer term? >> he said he was not particularly concerned about the costs. so lockhart is is a key centrist. watched carefully on the board. doesn't sound like he's quite there yet. but he doesn't sound like he's too far from it either. let's look at some of the major issues that are out there as we wait for fed chairman bernanke's speech tomorrow. as you know mario draghi is not going to be here. the question becomes what does that signal for ecb policy? does it mean it's