and to recognize when you get to a certain age and your children get to a certain age you probably do not need certain insurance so it is better to reinvest that money into something like stocks and bonds. but the other is to keep a certain term policy in the fact then use the balance of what you would have four insurance to put into stocks and bonds. i think annuities work while in relation to certain classes of people but generally speaking with your money you cannot get it if you need it. and they have a big load going in with most annuities to pay so you are paying for their work to sell you the policy.

it is difficult to know what to do. people are facing a mortgage when do you buy or not? i have a chapter in this book called love nest or money pat. [laughter] you can determine people always ask me is it time to buy? i say sometimes it is and sometimes it is not it depends on the house or your circumstance or what kind of good deal is out there and what kind of financing is available. the other thing that people are asking right now is it time to finance? there are rules in the book ride on the money is the formula is when it is inappropriate to refinance and when is inappropriate to hold what you have got? people ask me these questions

on television and they keep asking them sit-down and worked out the equation if i will live in this house five more years and it cost me so much money to refinance its if i have a savings and interest of so much, what will be left? many times is nothing the other is it is a lot and it is a good deal. a person has to determine their own situation in regard to real-estate. i strongly recommended against buying real-estate three or four years ago. i knew it was overpriced come overvalued and lo and behold the prices have dropped 40 or 50%. people who jump in four or five years ago said this is a great investment have lost half of their money and furthermore they cannot get out. we have nobody that will buy them that is a very unpleasant

feeling. but this is why one must me cautious in terms of real estate but again in terms of refinancing real-estate cbn is on our crew be said i lowered my monthly expenses by $800 to refinance the mortgage and got an extraordinarily good rate and a nice package that worked well for him. he is not going anywhere for the rest of his life he will not sell the house and for him it is wonderful. if somebody is going to move in one month or one year or two years and may not be a good deal. all of this is here in the book "right on the money" and some of the chapters i would like to read to you just to show you what is here but first it says why aren't i

rich. [laughter] and the second one says why do i run out of money and the one says where do i get credit where credit is due? what's my score? what is my road map to 12? what is my engine to 12? what if i don't like risks? mutual funds and exchange traded fund options and futures? will i be a homeowner should prepay my mortgagor refi my mortgage? how do i prepare for winter and what can make old age more secure and how do i bring on the pieces together? and how do i pay for care in my old age? i have something in here having to do with insurance and one of the best insurance policies that is extremely important from a catastrophic care on the one hand but if

somebody is concerned about long-term care, i think they are relatively cheap policies and long-term care is very important for somebody as you move along than your put in a nursing home and who will pay for it? you have a policy that is not too expensive for something like that but there are other tips of how you balance your investments, real estate, you balance your retirement it is all here. i will turn the gathering over to the doctor if you have some questions [applause] >> sino for me i am already thinking about plastic surgery in a new way. [laughter] we do not want to make sure

your racket -- raise your hands we can recognize you we have one write-up front. >> and previous periods of our nation's economy with increase in the federal debt so from your experience what principles from your book strengthen a family financial position so they can play and to pay for the insurance industry? >> the government gets to print more money it is not rocket science but the government needs more money but the federal reserve prints it. they just print it. if you look at a dollar at i do not know i have a dollar.

[laughter] if you have one in your pocket read what it says that the top. see that? i will give it to the doctor here see that? >> he is testing me. >> the federal reserve note to? >> if you like this and want to turn it into the government what will they give you? >> it will not be gold or silver. >> it will be another one of these. [laughter] it may have a different serial number but it used to be you could get gold. it was a gold certificate now it is simply a promise of the i know you with the federal government with that in mind they can print all of those they want to so they run the printing press of the treasury wants money so it whips up a bunch of treasury bills and notes and long-term short-term

debts and they sell them into the fed and they take the cash and pay the bills of the government. that is how it works. if they need more cash they print more. that is a good deal. just crank it up. that is fine as long as they keep that under control. it has already gotten under control i notice the brick nation's brazil, russia and the and china have begun to say we have to have a reserve currency which has been the reserve currency of the world. what does that mean cracks the more of these that you print the price of oil is going up the price of gold, nickel, copper, iron, lu mber, you name it. it has all gone up. there are so many dollars

chasing these items. it will go way up o one dozen eggs will cost more, a loaf of bread all the way up and down the line. how do i protect myself? you can go someplace in the channel islands but in all seriousness as far as investment strategy i think investing in hard assets investing gold, silver, a crude oil, commodities, i think that is where it will be. and in terms of currency come at least up to recently these things have gotten too high by eight recommended 45 putting money into the currency and we picked up 1 million or so dollars going from the united states currency into australian dollars and

canadian dollars because their economy is based on natural resources. had is the average person protect themselves? i don't know. backed it was crazy then it was hyperinflation i was in dae year -- tsai year talking to the cabinet and said what will happen if they keep printing money your economy will be destroyed and people will be writing in the streets. they had their currency at a short period of time it went 40,000/one and everybody lost their money it was absolutely worthless. that means your savings in dollars are worth less. the dollar i cannot see it being anything but week so how you protect yourself? when you figure the best

scenario had you get out of dollars? i like commodities and things like that. somebody else? >> of dr. robert 71 of the things that i appreciate about you is you can make a relatively complex very easy to understand. but dealing with china, first of all, what is the significance of the chinese having so much of our debt? in other words, what happens if they say we will the longer by your debt any more? how will that affect us other than increasing the rate? and second made primarily dealing with china what is the significance of the trade balance or imbalance we have

had for so long? webb will be the effect of that over the long term? >> the bible says the borrower is the servant of the lender and the chinese told somewhere around 1.$2 trillion of our money. that is the kind of the debt obligation we have with the chinese which means if we ever started to get a hard nose with china they say we will take you down and they start flooding the market with dollars and it drops dramatically and the price of everything we by which you up dramatically and our people would be screaming because the average steelworker and automobile worker would be desperate for money. that is what all of that means. the chinese are not going to do that of course, because they enjoy a trade with us and they have to have a market to sell their goods they crank

out with cheap labor so i have to have somebody to buy it and we are it. but the trade balance in classical thought was if i had sales of $100 and purchases of $90 and i have to trade which normally speaking i would go and the flow would continue to go as it goes the chinese have added so much. of the united states the longer has a decent balance. usually the currency would go down so you would sell more goods and it would the what did you would sell less. that is classic economics but nothing is classical anymore with us. we break all the rules. what does it mean?

it means sooner or later the debts will come due and they will either demand payment or they will start dumping our money and either way it will be very painful. >> dr. robert sen what you are talking about today what is basically what the bebel's says 10 people perished or a lack of knowledge and that average person pass to know how to manage their money better so what do thoughts and would you support i know some universities have started requiring financial management education for incoming freshmen would you support that at even the high school level or even within college blacks would that help the problem we are having? >> i think it would because right now the american people are deeply in debt we have a savings rate close at zero.

when we went into the last depression we have largest savings among the citizens and so we were able to weather the storm. but right now, our savings rate is close at zero. we are not saving any money. we're spending everything we have got. we have leaders such as the late great george bush who said go spend your money. that is not exactly fiscal restraint but of course, the average person cannot balance a checkbook. can you balance your checkbook? [laughter] so many in college can. and they just spend and they think these plastic cards are their privilege and they don't have to worry about it and just give them a piece of plastic and everything is fine and they think a 10% monthly

payment is a good deal and they just do not think about money. let's face it our life does not consist of the abundance of stuff that we possess but a good stewardship is very important so if we had a course and that it would be very helpful parkway appreciate everybody being here. you are very gracious and i would be remiss if i did not remind you to go by the book. [laughter] thank you very much [applause]

>> what is a demagogue? a leader in the book it offers a four part definition which is one of the few times anybody has defined a demagogue i borrow the elements from may 1938 james benatar cooper and they have four characteristics they are identified as a person of the people or the masses against the you believe it's usually too, a trigger great emotional reaction. third, they use those for personal or political benefit. fourth the most important they been or break established rules of governance. >> host: who would you define as eight american and

demagogue? huey long was the quintessential at including daniel shays who was a revolutionary during the constitutional convention comment joseph mccarthy, george wallace, david duke even with his little burst and louisiana was a demagogue. and there also have been in history when i talk about is the paradoxical eight you can have a demagogue if the definition is they cast aside the rules of they are unjust. there is a chapter of british history were demagogue was used as a term of praise. so you have some demagogues offer something to people and they can do good in a paradox way but most of the time the term accurately is a negative

or a harsh of some way that does threaten. >> host: what is an example of a good demagogue and why? >> guest: the woman in charge of solidarity apple went that was a beneficial boris yeltsin in russia was beneficial, then there is a paradox huey long was a very dangerous figure in american politics but he also paved highways and build public hospitals and build schools and gave textbooks of his relationship was routed on his own ambition and his boundless willingness to manipulate them for his own benefit but also rooted in doing good things for thousands of people. >> host: the fight to save democracy from its worst enemy is the subtitle of your book.

who is fighting against him? >> guest: a great question the book is about constitutionalism it follows the stories of six great thinkers to watch as democracy stumbled around them and encountered, there is a paradox where democracy will extend into tyranny in has haunted since it was invented that cycle is arrested when people are committed to a culture of republican values which requires a lot of individual citizens which keeps any leader on a short leash. the book's title refers to the fight of people to save democracy from itself pro-democracy can achieve extraordinary things as we have seen in america but demagogues can tap into people's willingness for

something greater or different than the constitutional culture and cause it to collapse in on itself so that is the fight that we are the own worst enemy. >> host: any contemporary issues were the conflict is going on? >> guest: absolutely proper right now one of the ironies of the bush and administration democracy was the number one goal of the bush foreign policy the freedom agenda announced at the second inaugural january 2005. confident with freedom of being on the agenda was an eruption of demagogues around the world, hugo chavez venezuelan of common at mcdonnell at al-sadr who was really a cleric in iraq may for the first several years the post invasions aside be very dangerous by turning people against the state.

mahmoud ahmadinejad a demagogue in some ways but i think he was not the way he can to power but the threat he posed to other countries, the leader of hezbollah in southern lebanon is classic and a list goes on. >> host: why did you write this book? >> guest: out of a longstanding fascination with wide democracy to me is probably the most beautiful and extraordinary thing we have come up with in society. of course, -- in the course of human condition but suffers from a paradox which is a freedom probably our most valuable gift we can so easily let it go that i have been thrown my life would be at what happened in germany in the 1930's they had a beautiful and hopeful constitution and people

ordinary germans handed the freedom over through the lawful process and it was turned against them. that it turns out was just something that happened in germany. it has gone through human history over and over france during the french revolution and where you had in a few short years liberty equality and fraternity were their goals then you have the air and guillotines. you have this paradox haunting mystery. and it was fascinating. had you make democracy work and not just with the flourish and had to make ordinary people hold is so dear that they prevent demagogue's from preying on them? back years and years of thinking there is an answer it is constitutional but it turns

out political scientist come historians, political theorist, philosophers have thought about it and at the heart that helps explain some of the majesty of the american victory over demagogues here. we still have the number one fear that a demagogue would topple the constitution and develop a tyranny and we have not seen that. time and again americans with our constitutional coulter has overcome our most pessimistic expectations of what might happen and one classic example is fdr when he tried to pack the courts in takeover the supreme court the american people snapback so hard that he tried to pass the law anyway but he was rebuffed by the people. >> host: what is your day job and what did you do on the john edwards campaign? >> guest: senior national-security policy fellow at the think tank third

right i was previously at the center for american progress in washington. i have been a long time, part of the book comes from a dissertation i row i have a doctorate in political scientist as well as a law degree i've been a practical lawyer and a professor but also a longtime political activist. activist on social justice issues including electoral reform in virginia and issues dealing with democracy at a local level and that is partly the fascination of the book that was the foreign policy adviser on his presidential campaign with issues how to restore the authority which is rooted in not only in moot -- military strength but our ideas. we worked a lot on those issues and all was proud of the work that we did a global

aid, expansion of some of the ideas that i propose and the book. it is a multi layer it is political theory, american history and one of foreign policy and national-security. >> host: michael signer is the author .

>> thank you very much? everybody can hear me? when i speak to a crowd what is going on in the economy and markets i have to figure out what i will leave out and what i will not talk about one first are doing the sort of chad's it is how can i fill 45 minutes? of the possible? now it is how can i cut this down at 45 minutes? we will start and end around tuesday but we will take breaks for bathroom and

teeeighteen. so i will speak of some highlights and other relevant things and then i will open up for questions and q&a and we will go from there are one not do just a traditional breeding because no one wants to hear my nasal twang reading for half an hour so instead i would give you a few highlights and the sectors that are relevant to what is going on in the news this week but a lot of the stuff continues to be front-page headlines so hopefully you find it somewhat interesting. let's start with the 10 things you probably did not know about the bailout. i was at a dinner about three months ago and i was by far the biggest and the room every by eight works a senior person at goldman sachs, works at the federal reserve, new york, and the book was still being

edited and finished up and the conversation was, how do we pull ourselves out of this collapse or get out of this are terrific morass? what really struck me that i heard over and over was people did not understand how this came to pass through it was very much an example, there is an old story of the six blind men describing the all of the one has the tale, one has the year, a task and they and a leg and the truck but no one describes the whole so the road goal of the book was to give a big overview ensure everything that is happening in a way that makes some sense. the first false statement the first major misunderstanding is this was an accident, the perfect storm, a completely random, one and a million shot wi