[Lake:] US stocks fell Tuesday after the US and several Middle East countries launched attacks against ISIS and Syria. There are also several other factors at play. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange. And Alison, a weak day, but we really saw this start yesterday. What's going on in the minds of investors?
[Alison Kosik, Cnn Business Correspondent:] A lot of it, especially today and some yesterday, it was really all about the news flow. Today specifically those US airstrikes hitting Syria. So now the question is, will those geopolitical headlines be strong enough for a deeper pullback. Investors are trying to stay focused on the better trend of data that we've been getting, the strong earnings. And today, they've also been focused on the US government's crackdown on inversions. That's when a US company buys a rival overseas then moves its headquarters there to benefit from lower taxes. We saw shares today in some smaller drug companies take a beating. There's a merger in the works for AbbVie and Shire. That may be in jeopardy now that there are those restrictions on tax benefits. The merger may not be as attractive as it once was. Another thing that played a role in the Dow's drop today, lower volume. Maggie?
[Lake:] All right, Alison, we're going to talk about that tax issue in just a moment as well. Thank you so much, Alison Kosik for us. Well, European markets fell Tuesday on data showing weakness in the EU economy. French business activity contracted this month, and growth also slowed in German manufacturing. G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs have made a pledge to rev up global growth with more infrastructure spending. They're meeting in Australia at the moment. Angel Gurria is director-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He is on the other side of the world at that big event at the United Nations. He's had a lot of traveling, too, and he joins us now. Thank you so much for being with us on this busy week. Investors are clearly very concerned about Europe, and we're not talking about the periphery anymore. We're talking about core Europe. Seems to just be stagnating. How worried are you about growth in the region?
[Angel Gurria, Secretary-general, Oecd:] It's a very important concern. This is 25 percent of the world's economy, the single largest trading bloc. And the euro area in particular is still losing jobs. So, there's a lot of repair. And the legacy of the crisis was tremendous. Low growth, high unemployment, growing inequalities, a very serious deterioration of trust. And of course, the cylinders of growth, which are trade, credit, and investment, are all rather sluggish. On the other hand, there is this commitment in the G20 that they say will go for a 2 percent additional growth over four to five years. And that is very positive. It's the first time in G20 they're talking about growth rather than about crisis or about recovery. And basically, we ran or not totally, but ran a lot of the room on monetary policy. Ran out a lot of the room that we had on fiscal policy. So, it's mostly focusing on structural policies.
[Lake:] Yes, I want to ask you about that. The ECB is doing what it can, clearly. It is embarking on further strategies. The financial crisis was tough, but the UK is recovering, the US is recovering. Do they have the wrong policies in place in Europe? Do governments need to be doing more to stimulate growth?
[Gurria:] Yes, Maggie. There's only so much the central banks can do. I think we owe a lot to the central banks. They we would probably be in a much deeper trough if the central banks had not reacted so fast and so thoroughly. But there's a limited space in which they operate, that's interest rate, exchange rates. When you talk about structural change, we're talking about education, we're talking about innovation, we're talking about more competition. We're talking about regulations. We're talking about flexibility in the labor market, flexibility in the product market. We're talking about research and development, we're talking about the tax structures, we're talking about health systems. We're talking about the way you deal with infrastructure, et cetera. These are the things that are going to keep growth in the medium and in the long term going. And that
[Lake:] But let's talk about
[Gurria:] can only be done by
[Lake:] that innovation.
[Gurria:] public policies, not by central banks. This is not by central banks
[Lake:] That's right.
[Gurria:] this is by public policies.
[Lake:] That's right, and we've seen a lot of inaction on the public policy front. Let's talk about innovation. A lot of people would like to see innovation in clean energy. You are there talking about the climate at the UN. What is the price of inaction? We have a lot of rhetoric every time we have one of these summits, but very little action. What price is that? What cost to the global economy?
[Gurria:] Maggie, the price of inaction is the highest price of all. Every single known course of action is less expensive than the price of inaction. The price of inaction is going to have enormous consequences. We have no more questions today about the science. And we also know that the economic consequences of inaction are enormous, and therefore, the question is, why do we not do something about it? We did not know that the financial crisis was coming and the extent of the financial crisis. But had we known half of what we know about climate and the environment, we would have probably avoided its worst consequences. Well, we know a lot more about the environment, a lot more about climate. Why is it possible or why is it not possible that we get going with it? We've already started late. We've lost a lot of years. And we remember, we have to go for the second half of this century to a zero net emissions coming from fossil fuels. Otherwise, we will not make that target of maximum two degrees warming, and the consequences can be very devastating
[Lake:] Absolutely. Well, we can only hope that leaders will take this very seriously and act on that crisis. Angel Gurria, the secretary-general of OECD, thank you so much for joining us this evening.
[Gurria:] Thank you, Maggie.
[Lake:] Now, we mentioned the US crackdown on tax inversions. You heard Alison talking about it. The way it works is US companies buy rivals in other countries, move their own headquarters there in order to enjoy lower taxes. Now, that's the idea anyway. We've seen a few examples of this just in the past couple of weeks. Now, a US food fast giant really grabbed headlines, Burger King. It said it will by the Canada-based doughnut chain Tim Horton's. The new headquarters would be in Ontario. Chicago-based drug maker AbbVie agreed to buy Ireland's Shire PLC. That new company would be headquartered in Dublin. The new rule changes make it a lot harder for companies to keep their cash offshore. It will also make ownership thresholds somewhat stricter, and there will be no more of fattening up of foreign partners by including so-called passive assets, like securities. In most cases, they will no longer be counted. Well, Willie Walsh says the aviation industry is united in an unprecedented way on the issue of climate change. The IAG CEO says airlines can't do it alone. That's next on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.