the oecd has a good study on that. in an ideal state you take it to zero. you get rid of it. make the business community more productive. to your point of 25% if that's what it was, you have to add to that the state rate as well. 3% to 4%. your at 28%, 29%. at least it's a lot closer than where we are today. it is a fair point. >> i've got great faith in emergency ingenuity if we don't stifle it from here. that's one of the concerns i have. isn't 0% the greatest progrowth rate for business and job creation? >> i would argue it is. >> i agree. >> come on down. >> yes, i think the lower the better. >> and 0% would be the most progrowth policy we could have as it relates to business. >> yes. >> i think there are important government services -- >> without a doubt. >> the highways, the airports, defense, and soim not sure a zero rate is what would necessarily be the best. >> but for progrowth policies as it relates to businesses isn't 0% the best? >> i think businesses are look at more than just the tax rate. they're looking at all the factors that will make the american economy

at 25% that's close to the oecd average which is about 25% right now. given our international competition that's about where we need to be at a minimum. you talk about base-broadeners and the trade justify and there certainly is as i mentioned in my prepared remarks. that's something we take into consideration. the cash-flow effects are detrimental, no question. but lowering the tax rate overall to something around 25%, i think, would be well received. >> mr. schetel? >> i agree with mike. resounding, "yes." i think if we can get to a 25% rate or something like that that's in line with the rest of the developed world you'll find the vast majority of the business community coming out in support of it. i know it's a challenge to get there. from our perspective as a company, our health and growth is tide inextricably to the growth and health of the overall economy. no question about it. that's the biggest driving factor in how well we do over the long run. our view is that it's significantly lower rate and simpler tax code will come down to the benefit of

would be some rate close to the oecd rate with 100% expensing and i think you'd see tremendous new investment, additional global expansion, u.s. expansion and job growth. absolutely. and even if you went with a base-broadeners you talked about chairman camp, if you got down to a rate of 25%, no doubt that would also increase growth. >> i would love to keep our tax incentives like accelerated depreciation. i would love to see expensing extended as part of an overall tax reform that lowered the rates to 25%. but i don't see how that's possible in a revenue-neutral fashion. i think for the short term, until we have corporate tax reform, i think expensing, extending bonus depreciation is tremendously important and impactful. certainly from our vantage point and the vantage point, it's tremendously important. that being said, if we all put everything on the table and we start working toward a targeted and a simpler code, i think we'll see more growth and for us, that will definitely result in more jobs and more investment. >> all right. >> i've got a question for ms. hanlan and mr. neubig. in cong

at 25% i think that's close to the oecd average, which is about 25% right now.and given our international competition, that's about where we need to be, at a minimum. you talk about the trade off, there certainly is because i mentioned in my prepared remarks, and that's something we take into consideration, the cash flow affects are detrimental. there's a question about it, but lowering a tax rate overall as something around 25% i think would be well received. >> mr. schichtel? >> i agree with mike. resounding yes, but i think if we can get to 25% rate, or something close to that, that's in line with the rest of the developed world, you will find the vast majority of the business community coming out in support of the i know it's a challenge to get their. >> from our perspective as a company, our health and growth is tied inextricably to the growth and health of the overall economy. no question about it, that's the biggest driving factor in how will we do over the long run. our view is that a significantly lower rate in a simpler tax code will be to the benefit

we rank 31st of the 34 countries that make up the oecd.the 34 member states, only mexico, chile and israel are worse off than we are. the uk has a poverty rate of 11%. germany, 8.9%. and france, 7.2%. they're all much lower. the oecd average is 11%, well lower than ours. let's look at another chart. this one's even more worrying for americans. the percentage of children living in poverty. we come in at 20.6% of our children. again, far worse than other rich countries. japan, australia, the uk, germany and france all have much better numbers. mitt romney spoke about how he would fix the safety net for the poor if it needs repair. well, let me suggest one place it desperately needs repair. and that is in the area of child poverty. now, whatever the causes of poverty, when children grow up in desperate circumstances, circumstances that they had no role in creating, studies show that they will be more likely to drop out of high school, be unemployed, use drugs, have children out of wedlock, and get sick. in other words, they will be unproducti

something at least close to the average oecd rate, along with capital vimt incentives like 100 percent expensing. we've said, however, if tax reform must be revenue neutral, so be it. we're willing to put all base broadeners including expensing or accelerated depreciation on the table in exchange for a materially lower tax rate. doing so, however, would come with a cost. both macroeconomically and to our company. strong capital costs incentives like expensing generate new investment and new productive assets in the united states. and it's reflected in the chart i attached to my written testimony. there's an almost perfect correlation between new investment and jobs in this country. the from our company's perspective, we would generally expect is lower tax rate to increase our tax flow, bottom-line earnings and earnings-per-share and to the contrary, reducing capital incentives would have a generally greater adverse affect on our cash flow. this is important because as is often said, cash is the life blood of any business. our investors paid close attention to our cash flow as well as t

we urge that you continue your efforts to lower the corporate tax rate to be consistent with the oecd average and to simplify. we need to get back to the basics where businesses compete on the basis of the merits of their products and services, not on the basis of what the tax code says. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. fryt. mr. schichtel, you have five minutes. >> thaupg. chairman camp, ranking member levin and members of the committee, thank you very much for inviting me to share our views on corporate tax reform. i'm the senior vice president and chief tax officer for time warner cable. i'd like to first tell you about our business and the impact of taxes and tax policy on time warner cable. then i'll explain why we believe that less complexity and a lower rate will benefit our investors, employees and customers as well as the overall economy and americans at large. time warner cable is a fortune 150 capital intensive domestic company that provides high speed data, video and voice services to over 14.5 million customers. we have over 48,000 employees in 29 states. we offer o

will -- they are being oriented in the direction of reducing this is something the imf, the eu, the oecd recommended to italy, reducing the segmentation of the labor market, reducing the uneven treatment between the insiders and the outsiders who cannot get in, mainly, the young. and also changing the nature of some social protection mechanisms so as to reduce a bit the distance between italy and some nordic countries in having more flex security, namely, a closer kpatibility between labor market made more flexible and modernized system of social protection centered on the individual worker but not on the individual job as was the case for so many decades. now, this, ladies and gentlemen, cannot be a -- of course it cannot be an unbiassed report that i am submitting to you because i'm certainly very, very biassed although i as well as my ministers -- no, i will say that i am like my ministers but we have with us here the foreign minister. no, we should have had the foreign minister but he had a meeting at this time with the secretary of state. certain of the ministers are by no means her

. >> the oecd says france has re-entered recession. by angela merkel, nicolas sarkozy has plans to boost the economy and create jobs, to make france more competitive he wants to raise sales tax and dismantle the 35-hour week. but who would vote for that. the latest polls show this socialist as the presidential front-runner. he wants to raise taxes and high government spending which could push france deeper into dead. >> the first thing i would do immediately is, of course, to put in place a commitment to go back to a balanced budget and stick to it. the longer you wait, the more painful it will be for the population. >> reporter: the far right's anti-euro marie lepenne is gaining more. sarkozy may try to make good his pledge to the french to work more, earn more. whoever wins over voters here will need a decisive plan for the economy. it's the same economic story playing out across europe to varying extremes from cash-strapped greece to italy to spain. it's infectious. in france, the presidential elections will be crucial. if the peopl

march, and they are being oriented in the direction of reducing -- this is something the imf, eu, oecd treatment between insiders and outsiders who cannot get in, mainly the young. and also changing the nature of some social protection mechanisms so as to reduce a bit the distance between italy and some nordic countries in having more lax security. namely, a closer compatibility between the labor market made more flexible and and modernized system of social protection sent out on the individual worker, but not on the individual job, as was the case for so many decades. this, ladies and gentlemen, cannot be -- of course, it cannot be an unbiased report that i am is submitting to you because i am is certainly very biased, although i as well as my ministers -- i was saying that i am a dilettante, like my ministers, but we have with us the foreign minister. no, we should have had the foreign minister, but he had a meeting at this time with the secretary of state. we are putting together this strange experiment, and we cannot say how the final results will be, but we do feel that -- but the

we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the oecd and we collect about the lowest amount of revenue fine with that. >> that's because -- >> lower rates -- >> -- companies don't want to be competitive in america. >> lower the rates and get rid of these deductions. but again, the toorth my view has to be you end up with a bit more taxes, not a bit less, and i worry that if we start out with the idea it's going to be neutral we might end up with quite a bit less because you know the way things work here. everybody comes in and says okay, we're going to lower the rate and get rid of the deductions. we end up lowering the rate and keeping the deductions. we've been there before. >> i don't want to pick sides here. i'm just saying romney's developing his own tax plan, that's what prompted us to put this in. what do you think? do you think romney will have something similar to what we're talking about tonight, or do you think we're all going to be terribly disappointed? >> well, based on what romney's already said, he wants to extend the bush tax cuts. he wants the corporate tax rate at 25

we saw the work done by the oecd on the structure reforms, but they leave a specific word on the sort of liberalization measures that italy has not been introducing. a day and others in the bank of italy come to the conclusion that this opening up markets could altogether generate the ten, 11% increase in productivity half of which could be there in the first three years alone so also were lifted in the short term. and of course we of the global and european policy stance that becomes more gross generating hence our resource on the european level, and i come here to the second part about the structure reforms beyond italy including germany. well, i think there is a lot to be done in terms of the structure reforms country by country which is in the response of the of the various governments. .. through a marroquin nation frame of mind. but i think they are more likely to respond positively if one calls them to fully go when the direction of their invention, social market economy at the feet decent fix these, open up markets and i believe that if germany fully went to the domestic servi

since ronald reagan 86 and 45 the tax code in a substantial way and during that time every one of our oecd meeting the other developed countries in the world trading partners reform to the map and it's not just about, it's once it is the word in april but it's about the complexity. so if we are going to compete globally, and you mentioned 95% of the consumers outside of the united states interesting statistic is 80% of the purchasing powers of the company that makes most of its money overseas the same with the fortune as it grew we are competing with one hand tied behind our back. the fact we have a different global tax system, we tax on the worldwide system that means other companies have an advantage that are headquartered in japan or germany or china and on the individual site it's gotten to the point is this so complex and difficult to work through that is a disadvantage to the company's the subject risk. i am still the order of the subject risk company and that's the way that 85% of the businesses operate in the individuals because they've probably been through that, too. the knees to

sort of rate that they're talking about, 28%, that certainly puts america back in the middle of the oecdlot of it, though, that point becomes about you know, do we believe that the business environment is going to be steady and predictable at that point? because when you calculate whether to invest in a country you're asking what's the tax rate going to be and what's the economic opportunity going to be. if you're very uncertain about the regulatory environment if you're very uncertain about where the economy is going, even with a very low tax rate you may not invest. think the obama people have got to do both sides, they've got to get the tax rate right and get more confidence in the business community, that there's long-term policy in place that they can rely on. so that when you make an economic bet, you feel you're not going to be second-guessed by the government. >> matthew bishop, great piece in the "economist." i'm saving you in a way. because joe chided me for a good -- i thought you were going to say 28 is too high. >> 28 is too high. >> arguing over the tax rate. >> you have a

. -- oecd and the other is a part of our department of energy. and they both, as you see, had a plateau here and look what happened to the price of oil. this was a little bit before it peaked at $147 a barrel and the economy collapsed along with the housing market. and that was kind of a double whammy. it was both the housing market and the price of oil, $147 -a-barrel oil and the economy came tumbling down and oil dropped to something under $40 a barrel and it's steadily climbed up to now around $100 a barrel where it's been for several months now. are we there yet? well, just recently we've had two charts produced by one of those entities. the i.e.a., the international energy association. and this is called the world oil -- world energy outlook. the chart on top here is from 2008 and the one on the bottom is 2010. now, if you look at their website you're going to have trouble finding the chart from 2008. they have purged their website of that chart. and in a few moments you'll understand why they purged it. let's look at that chart. this dark b

hsbc came out and they had the bid that made the most money out of any oecd bank, $22 billion. just shy of $22 billion in profits. the stock just down off, as you can see, 2.3%. they just missed the consensus forecast. they did take a hit from europe on the investment bank. elsewhere the yen just coming back off its multimonth lows. we're keeping 0 our eyes on brent. was over $125 when we started. becky, back to you. >> all right, ross, thank you very much. warren buffett sitting here saying he's paying close attention to what you're saying, too. right now we're going to pause for a break but we have much more with warren buffett. he'll be answering some of your e-mail and twitter questions after this. also, buffett watch is not stopping there. later today i'll be hosting a facebook q&a session. right now, though, as we head to a break check out the global market headlines. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans r

we at an asset, which is our obligation of the oecd. we have an obligation in -- which is our obligation of the ecb. >> you got the option to lend this money directly to the european banks. you could do it to domestic subsidiaries of the banks. why earned you lending directly to domestic subsidiaries? >> domestic subsidiaries of overseas banks have to be treated on an even playing field with u.s. on the banks. we do not have any lending to the discount -- through the discount window. from our perspective, doing it through a swap is much better. it is the responsibility of the you see being -- ecb to decide who can qualify for the loan and to decide how much is needed to address the money market problems. we are totally protected. we are also protected at the discount window through collateral. this is a better way to do with 0-- do it. >> my colleagues in south carolina were told by you that you have needed the a -- needed the intention or the authority to bailout european banks. >> in that off the record, a station, i said i explained

this is the international energy association a creature of the oecd in europe, and the energy administration, these are the two curves here. you can see that they are very similar. and the caption up here says, peak oil, are we there yet? because they appear to be leveling out. they appear to be leveling out. this chart was drawn when oil was a bit under $100 a barrel. you remember it went to $147 a barrel. these did not go up. roughly here at 84 or 85 million barrels of oil a day. that's where we have been for five years now. with increasing demand and no more supply, the price finally went up to $147 a barrel. and the economy with some pem by the housing crisis in our country, came crashing down, and oil dropped down to i think below $40 a barrel. this has been a steady climb as the economy picked up from that time on, and oil as you know is now about $100 a barrel. the next chart here, i want you to remember this one because you are not going to find it on the internet when you go there, these both appeared on the internet is where we got them. these are charts produced by the i.e.a., int

and during that time every one of our oecd, meaning the other developed countries in the world, tradingve reformed their code. all of them have. >> right. >> it's not just about the rate, although that's important, as jay said, but it's also about the complexity of the code. so if we're going to compete globally, you mentioned 95% of the consumers living outside the united states. a more interesting statistics is it's now over 80% of the purchasing power. so a company like ge makes most of its money overseas, most of its revenues, same with the fortune 200 as a group. we're competing with one hand tied behind our back. partly the rate, partly the fact that we tax on a worldwide, rather than a territorial system which basically means other companies have an advantage that are headquartered in japan, germany or china. and on the individual side our code has gotten to the point where it's so complex and difficult to work through that it is a disadvantage to the companies that are entities, and i grew up in a company that was a subchapter s company, i'm still the owner of a subchapter s com

and during that time, every one of our oecd, meaning the other developed countries in the world, trading partners, have reformed their code. all of them have. >> right. >> and it's not just about the rate, although that's important as jay said we will have the highest rate once japan lowers theirs in april and it's about the code and so if we're going to compete globally as you mentioned 95% of the consumers living outside of the united states, the more interesting statistic for me it's now over 80% of the purchasing company and so a company like ge who makes most of its money overseas and most of the revenue as well as the fortune 200 as a group we're competing with one hand tied behind our back and given the fact that we have a different global system we tax on a worldwide versus territorial which means other have other companies that are in japan, germany or china. on the individual side our code has gotten to the point where it's so complex and so difficult to work through that it is a disadvantage to companies that are pass-through entities and i grew up in a company that was a subc

since ronald reagan 86 and 45 the tax code in a substantial way and during that time every one of our oecd meeting the other developed countries in the world trading partners reform to the map and it's not just about, it's once it is the word in april but it's about the complexity. so if we are going to compete globally, and you mentioned 95% of the consumers outside of the united states interesting statistic is 80% of the purchasing powers of the company that makes most of its money overseas the same with the fortune as it grew we are competing with one hand tied behind our back. the fact we have a different global tax system, we tax on the worldwide system that means other companies have an advantage that are headquartered in japan or germany or china and on the individual site it's gotten to the point is this so complex and difficult to work through that is a disadvantage to the company's the subject risk. i am still the order of the subject risk company and that's the way that 85% of the businesses operate in the individuals because they've probably been through that, too. the knees to

this is the -- a creature of the oecd in europe. we have a kindred organization, the e.i.a., energy information administration, which is a part of our department of energy, and i don't have them with me but they have very similar charts that are saying essentially the same thing. the top chart they had on their website in 2008 let's take a look at that it's a very interesting chart, this bottom darning blue here, the chart was very long and went way over to the far wall over there back 100 years ago and we started using oil, it would have started at zero. every time we needed more oil we could pump more oil. so it just kept rising and rising and rising. now here we are at a total liquid fuels of 84 million barrels a day. not all of that is usable in your gas tank. the top one here is natural gas liquids that will increase we found a lot more natural gas. the price has dropped now to about $3. the green one here, which is small now and projected to grow and that will grow, that's unconventional oil that's oil that you get from things