. >> harvard professor ken rogoff is with us. simplest terms you can think of, why can't we create more jobs in this country right now? >> there are two basic problems. one is we're in the worst recession, whatever you want to call it, since world war ii. and it's lasting a long time. we're coming out of it slowly. and of course there's the slow, grinding overhang of our growing trade with asia, the growth of china, india, brazil. and that also is hitting american jobs, particularly for lower educated workers. >> is it right to throw money at the problem in the near term? you're talking about big structural issues in the economy. >> i'd like to see big structural solutions coming out of this crisis coming out of congress and the president. that said, i don't think it's necessarily wrong to try to -- at least not pull back the stimulus. that's what's going on right now. you have to put some new to replace what you're taking out. think of it like taking an aspirin. when you're pretty sick, it will make you feel a little better. but

welcome to our program, tonight an assessment of president obama's speech early this evening can ken rogoff, he is a professor at harvard university, carl slam is the president of the marion kauffman foundation, markham halperin is a senior political columnist for "tim magazine, john heilemann is with "time" magazine and andy stern is the president of the service employee international union and nia-malika henderson of the "waington post.". the president makes his case to the congss and the american people when we continue. captioning sponsed by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: this evening, president obama addressed a joint session of congress, he unveiled an ambitious strategy to create jobsnd prevent a second recession. he called upon congress congress to pass a bill immediately and without hesitation >> i am sending this congress a plan that you should pass right away. it's called the american jobs act. there should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. everything in here is the ki of proposal that's been suppo

ken rogoff former economist for the imf. what does this mean? have we stagnated? >> clearly we're stagnating. the employment numbers have been getting weaker and weaker for a while. it underscores that the recession never ended. we're not close on employment. we're still very much crawling our way out of the recession. and right now, nothing. >> gloria borger is our chief political analyst. gloria, we're going to get in a moment to find out about whether or not we are still in a recession or danger into getting into another one. but a cnn poll shows 37% of americans approve of how president obama is handling unemployment, or the employment situation. on thursday night, the president gives his jobs speech. politically, what could he possibly say to convince americans that his administration has some idea or answer to fixing this chronic, dire unemployment situation? >> well, he's got to go out there and tell the american people that he's got proposals to try and fix this unemployment problem. so you're probably going to hear some things from him that people will li

i'm going to say ken rogoff earlier today today told ali and i, he said people are nervous and justifiablyo. the debt debacle we recently had isn't inspire the confidence of actually creating jobs and deciding how the direction the country will be in terms of jobs and taxes and spending no one has confidence that going to go smoothly because we haven't seen anything to inspire confidence out of washington. all up and down the line, there is this feeling that -- i say paralyzed. our poll shows 8 out of 10 americans think we are in a recession. i asked who are the 2 out of 10 who don't think we are in a recession? i was told they were ceos or they were drunk. what does it take to unlock it? we don't know. >> ali, 188 points down after this jobs report release an hour ago. we talk about confidence so often and being paralyzed and we talk about investors and those who are doing the hiring. but really doesn't it fall back to the american people as christine was just saying, we need confidence first and then we will go buy, then we will will invest. >> we need to pay down our debt. too much debt

ken rogoff joins us now. good to see you, ken.strong reactions to these job reports because we all get we are kind of stagnating. >> i think that has happened especially the last couple of months where a lot of the numbers have come in soft and those forecasters who thought we were going to bounce out of this at the end are now saying this is going to be a long time all of the growth numbers are getting lower and i'm afraid this isn't that surprising. it is discouraging but it's not that surprising. >> is there analysis, right, that companies are holding on to their catch and people holding on it their cash and paying a lot of depth. six months down the road whether you're running your household budget or your company. i don't really know. i'm not confident enough about the outlook to make any big decisions. >> i don't think any question about that that there is a big overhang of debt in the economy. we have not left the recession. i mean, i think that is the point most americans understand. and the thing holding us back from a no