a biography of t.r.m. howard and early civil rights. >> who is t.r.m. howard? >> he is actually a conservative civil rights advocate that doesn't get the sort of attention and respect he should, but was instrumental in moving forward a lot of sort of black agendas in the south. >> and joan, why did you decide that sojourner truth needed another biography at this time? >> the awe thundershower has a new and unusual angle. it's different from some of the ones that have been published recently and it's a substantial biography, so she touches on much, you know, new material that other people haven't treated in the past. >> and what other books would you like to point out? >> well, let me see. this cafe society, which is a story of the josephsons and their sort of night club in new

york city, where there actually was a mingling of the races back with that wasn't done p. it's a very readable kind of book that sort of gives you a picture of the time, the era, and the people who sort of frequented places like that. >> and what's the focus of the university of illinois press? >> we publish heavily in u.s. history, with specializations in african-american history, labor history, women's history, ethnic history in general, particularly latino kind of history, and american music. >> how is the business model for university press changed in the last couple of years? >> well, our print runs are much shorter and our prices are going up as a result, because the market is soft. we're selling fewer copies of books and it's difficult. >> joan catapano is editor in chief of the university of illinois press.

>> pat robertson is the founder of the christian broadcasting network and regenerality university. here he provides advice on how to maintain economic stability in unstable times. the library at regenerality university and virginia beach hosted this event. it's about 45 minutes. >> it's fun to be able to talk about my new book called "right on the money." i was talking to the publisher and i said, you know, that's right on the money and he said that will be the title and it is. we're in a terrific crisis here in america as far as the last depression, the one in the 1929, 1930, 1932 era. they liken what we've got to

something like that or worse. and it's affecting everybody in this country, and what shocks me is that we have an administration that consistently makes bad decisions and it's going to leave our country much like argentina was a few years ago, with argentina was one of the most prosperous fashions on the face of the earth. the argentineans were like rich texas oil people, they swaggered around paris and places like that, and then because of gross fiscal mismanagement of their government, they went in to a financial decline and they haven't recovered from it since, so the united states is well on the way to doing that. this crisis that we have has resulted in payments of about $12.8 trillion to try to salvage the problems that have been

developed, so in my book "right on the money," i began talking about wealth in general, and i quoted something that i find very interesting from john d. rockefeller, who was considered at the time the wealthiest man on earth when he owned standard oil company and all of its affiliates and somebody said to him, mr. rockefeller, how much is enough? to which he replied? just a little bit more. and if you're involved in money, money is never enough, and so i pointed that out in this book "right on the money" to begin to get ourselves perspectives. a man's life does not consist of the abundance of what he possesses and there is no way money is going to satisfy something. you can add additional zero, so what? it doesn't make you any happier,

it didn't make you any stronger, doesn't make you live any longer, doesn't make you do anything except the fact that you have another zero in your bang balance and so you've got to add a couple more zeros and it still doesn't mean anything and all the toys, the rich have, they have 5 and 10 and $20 million houses, they have the latest in quacks, the -- yachts, the latest in high-speed aircraft, it still does not satisfy them. money does not satisfy, so that's for starters, but we also need to understand, in terms of finance, that the average person has got to know how to manage their money. i understand that at least 50% of the marital discord in america is caused by money. problems.

fights over money. how do you spend money, how do you allocate money, how do you save money, what do you do with your money is a very major thing, so if we can get the money matter settled among households, we can cut the divorce rate down dramatically. i think that the other thing that we're facing right now is the baby boom generation is moving into retirement. those who were kids a few years ago, are now in their 60's. and those who were in their 60's regrettably haven't saved money for their retirement. they have saved on average, less than $50,000 and $50,000 isn't even enough to keep you for a whole year, much less 20, 30 years for retirement. so they're not ready to retire, and yet if they retire, they're thrust on to the mercy of the

federal government, which has a program called social security and social security, regrettably is going bankrupt and probably by the year, oh, 2019 or so, medicare as we know it is going to be bankrupt and within a few years after that, social security is going to be bankrupt, so we are relying on the federal government to pick up the tab for our retirement, yet we don't have money in the retirement account to take care of us. so there's going to be a terrible shock. now most people were using a technique, if i can use that term of, of saving money, under what was called a 401(k), if it's non-profit, it's a 403 or 403b program. where they set aside a certain small amount from their paycheck

each pay period, and their employer normally speaking, matches that amount by a small amount and over the years, that begins to grow. and it became the principal savings vehicle of all these baby boomers. well, came the recent recession, and they have found that their 401's and 403's and others saving vehicles had lost about 50% of their value when the market went down, and so people were faced with devastating losses and the fear that was gripping america was just palpable. people were not only losing their retirement savings, they were also beginning to lose their jobs. we've laid off 7 or 8 million people here in the united states, and it's hurting all over the board. so what do we do with all that

and how do we regulate our finances so that we don't get caught in the vice that may be coming down the road. so that's what this book is, "right on the money." first of all, how did we get this way? it's the strangest thing that happened. the government was encouraging homeownership, that was the american way, to own a house. to have your piece of the pie, and the thought was that real estate always went up. that if you owned a house, that it would go up, 2, 3, 4% a year, year after year of after year, so it was looked at as an investment, so i'm going to invest in a house, so people bought houses. and then certain of those in

congress, not the least of which is barney frank, who is head of prestigious committee of the house of representatives right now, encouraged the fannie mae and freddie mac to make loans to poor people, so that they could have a piece of the pie, they could have a part of the american dream, they could own their own home. so with that encouragement from washington and from the administration as well, people began to apply for loans. now, remember, that these houses that may be sold for $200,000 are now worth $400,000 and some have sold that sold for $400,000 are worth $800,000 and the banker thinks that's a pretty good investment, i can make a loan on it, it's going up in value. now loans were marketed by

mortgage companies, who had an incentive to place loans. they got paid a commission on the basis of the loans that they put out. so the more loans they had in the market, the more money they made. now, the smart money guys decided that they could enhance that prospect dramatically if they could securitize those loans, so the mortgage companies began making loans to people who really shouldn't own houses to begin with and then they passed those loans up to wall street where they were bundled together and called collateralized debt obligations, and once that was done, the rate agencies came in and said look, these are loans

from thousands and thousands of people, so they must be good and gave them aaa rating, which is the same rating as government bonds and that type of rating meant that they were good for investment accounts, for institutions, for schools, for municipalities, for whoever would invest in money. these loans were sliced up into these collateralized debt obligations and then the guys on wall street were selling them overseas, and so all over the world, this wasn't a predominantly american phenomenon, it was a worldwide thing, because we were sending these loans overseas. now everything was just grand for a time and these investment banking houses began to lever up as much as 40 times leverage, over their initial capital, instead of 1 to 1 or 2 to 3,

which is more traditional, they had 40 to 1, which meant they had a huge amount of money and passing it out the loan and make passing these loans on to other people. now a sidebar of all of this, the people who were picking up these pieces of paper said, well, we'd like some assurance that they won't default on us. so they went to the big insurance companies, like aig, and said can you write a policy that these loans won't go bad? and so aig said sure we will, and afies fee and they began to sell what was called collateralized debt obligations. and before long, they began to, you know, sell these things willy nilly to anybody and what you could do, for example, is in

one block, a person could say, well, i want an insurance policy that i won't default on my loan, that's what my bank is, but what if your neighbor and the neighbor's neighbor and everybody on your block decided that they wanted to get insurance on your house an on your mortgage? and so the insurance company began to write many, many, many policies that had no relationship to the actual underlying security. and the underlying property. and so they flooded the markets with these things, until there was somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 trillion worth of credit default swaps. that's a lot of money. now you've got people, day laborers, who had no business buying $500,000 houses or 400,

couldn't possibly afford to make their mortgage payments and they were sold adjustable rate mortgages, so-called arm's, and very low rates, so they could go if and pay a few hundred dollars a month on their mortgage on this house. well, these were reset arms, so after three ar four years, they began to reset and the true value of what these loans were worth began to come due and this day laborer, who is making $400, $500 a month suddenly had to pay several thousand dollars a month on his mortgage. well, of course he couldn't pay it and so he defaulted. and the banks said we will foreclose on that loan and in certain jurisdictions, all that was necessary was for the homeowner to drop off the keys. so he would a, i'm sorry, i can't make my payments, here is the house and he dropped off the keys. and before long, whole neighbors in places like phoenix and

las vegas and miami and places like that where there had been such a property boom were flooded were foreclosed properties. now, these properties were backing up the paper that had been sold by investment banking houses all over the world. and they were held in bank as their own core capital. but as people began to look at them, they said, well, we don't foe what these papers are worth. they seem to be worthless. we're not sure. is this house worth $20,000, is it worth $50,000, is it worth $100,000? we don't know what it is. of course, it's in default and we can't assess a value to it. the banks therefore were unable to get additional capital because they didn't have enough money to back up another loan from another bank, so nobody would loan to them.

and the credit markets, they used the term, seized it it up. so to be could get a loan. and because businesses couldn't renew their lines of credit, and others couldn't buy -- get money to buy houses, startup businesses couldn't get financed for startups, the whole economy froze up. and things began to go into default, there were tremendous loans and companies that had gone way out on a limb on these collateralized debt obligations and tease fancier instruments, they went under un. lehman brothers, which is one of the oldest and senderble banking houses in the world declared bankruptcy and others became wards of the state, and the look was at ag, they were so afraid of -- aig they were so afraid of

these credit default swaps, because not only was there $50 trillion out in credit default swaps, there were also so-called derivatives, and a derivative is a bet, it's a bet, you can bet if you want to, the fly will crawl up a window pane or go down a window pane. it's the fly derivative. you can bet that oil prices will go up or go down, gold had go up or go down. tin will go up or go down. wheat will go up or go down. you can write contracts on anything and then you can get more complex contracts, where you look at the ratio of a basket of currencies to another basket of currencies and you bet on that ratio, so it gets increasingly complex to such a degree that the former head of the feds said i don't understand

the thing and to be did either, but about a year ago, when i -- $700 trillion in derivatives in the world, now it's over, what is it a quadrillion. it's over a quadrillion, derivatives, and that's why the powers that be in the treasury are so totally spooked about what could happen it our economy, because if counterparties begin to refuse to honor their bets, then they could unravel the whole financial system of the world and bring on one of the worst crashes that we have ever conceived of. that is the sort of demaclese hanging over the head of the united states and the rest of the world. now the big boys don't like to talk about that, but that's the danger out there. if we have derivatives in excess of $1,000, they say that's the nominal value of they will, or

the notational value, but nevertheless, that is the situation we're faced with. that's why they had gone to such heroic efforts, we've just seen the last couple of days, lewis, the head of the bank of america has been grilled because he says, that the head of the federal reserve board and the head of the treasury essentialy twisted his arm and said you will buy merrill lynch, you will buy it, you will rescue merrill lynch, regardless of how many billions of dollars they own, because if it goes down like lehman brothers, the whole house of cards may collapse. so anyway, that's the backdrop that we're dealing with now and that problem has not been solved. the obama administration is throwing billions, trillions of dollars at it, but unfortunately, the first rescue package was a payoff to democratic constituencies, and

some of the money that has been spent has been nothing short of ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous, so they're loading the united states taxpayer with these huge debt burden, and if they continue the amount of debt, taxes going to have to be spent by the american taxpayer, up to about 60%, it's really horrible to contemplate how deep in the hole we're going and how much money is being spent. now being, they can say we're going to take on held care, in addition to that, it will be between a trillion and a trillion and a half dollars to assume health care and that means the united states government is going to crowd out the private insurance companies and they will then be responsible for all the health care of everybody in this nation. and it's going to be a hideous mess. so this is the book "right on the money," what's the backdrop if which we have to operate, but

people still need to do appropriate planning. the first item that i point out in this book has to do with something that's fairly simple, but it's not being practiced by many people. they have to have a budget. a budget is nothing more or less than figuring what kind of money comes in, what kind of money goes out. and there are two types of budget. one is the fixed, that is -- has to do with money that will have to be paid regardless, and then there's the discretionary, which is money that can be optional. every family needs a budget. and every family needs to determine what are our fixed costs. if we have a mortgage, what is the mortgage payment. if we have taxes, what are the taxes. we are certain other things that

are definite costs, then that's how much is our fixed income. then the balance is into discretionary, so we then can write down, here's what we'd like to do and here's where families can make a huge amount of mistakes, because they can feel like, well, i feel flush today, so let's go out and eat a $100 dinner, when they can't pay their grocery bill. but here again, we've got in this book "right on the money," ways that families can cut their spending, get back into line so they can live more comfortably, but if they get in $40,000 a year and they spend $45,000 a year, they will be in debtor's hell and what do they do? they go to the credit cards and they run up credit card balances, which now are 18%, and

if a person misses a couple of payments, they ratchet it up to 28% interest and the person can't ever get out and the one thing nobody su should do is tae that minimum monthly payment. on a $3,000 loan, you could spend 20 years paying off the balance, because they rigged it so that you can't get out, and this is the kind of thing that we warn people did in -- about in this book. the other thing that i recommend is that you only have two credit cards. that means plastic surgery on the rest of them. one that you use primarily for the various expenses, the other one is standby in cases of emergency, and maybe you have to buy one continuing on it once a year to keep it active, but no more. one. two. nothing else besides that.

the other thing that is so important is that every family have a minimum cash balance of probably five to six months of expenses, so that they won't just completely be at the mercy of the events that may take them over a period of time, and they can have some feeling of security in terms of their money. so these are a couple of simple things. i have many things in this book that you will find interesting. i've got one chapter in here about how to start a witness. i'm a great -- a business. i'm a great believer ineptship. i think -- in entrepreneurship. i think people should enjoy the fruits of the free enterprise system and should get into business. it's not all that hard. i indicated that a lady with a third grade education can make a

beautiful entrepreneur, if they can add, sub extract and multiply. that's all they need to know. here's what i'm going to get for my products, here's what i'm going to spend on my products, here are the other expenses, i add them up and if there's a balance, then i've got a profit. that's business. i know we hike to make it a lot thundershower, because we have masters and doctors in business, but that essentially is what it amounts to. i also point out in "right on the money," something about families. more and more women are in the workplace, more and more women are getting paid very nice salaries. more and more women are getting paid more money than their spouses. that sets up a conflict, because the spouse wants to tell the woman, the wife how to spend her money, and the woman doesn't want to do it that way. it's my money, i earned it, and i'll spend it the way i want to, so a couple has got to make a decision as to what they're going to do with their money and

it needs to be, you know, very dissipationate, and yet, here's what i recommend, and it's in this book "right on the money." i think that the couple should determine what are their expenses, and then which expenses are going to be the obligation of the wife, which expenses are going to be the obligation of the husband? and that means that let's say that there's rent or there is a mortgage payment, and the husband says all right, that's mine, i'll take that, that's a car payment, the husband says i'll take that. and then there are expenses for groceries, children's clothes, so forth and the wife says, all right, i'll take that. i'll run the household expenses, and then what about insurance, somebody has got to pay for the

insurance, somebody has got to pay for health insurance and all the rest of it and they can work it out very rationally, but i do think if a wife brings home money, she should have her own bank account and brokerage account so she can make investment decisions with her money. i think the same thing with her husband, it's his money, he puts it into an account and hopefully they can get together and agree on what to do. especially if relation to charitable contributions, because i think that charitable contributions should be put down as one of the fixed expenses. i think the most important thing in money is to have god on your side. and i recommend here two keys to financial prosperity. one is to give. the bible says give and it will be given unto you. press down, good measure will run over heap into your bosom

and i think every couple should have money set aside for charitable giving. the tithe was the amount in the old testament. new testament, i think that should be a foundation of somebody's giving, it shouldn't be accidentally if something is left over. it should be one of the fixed expenses that somebody has, our contributions to charity should come at the top of the list. the second thing that i think is important is to understand the principle of the law of use. all right rot child called -- lord rothchild called this the eighth wonders of the world. einstein called it the power of physical i can, as powerful as anything he knew of, and that is that money will multiply i cording to the interest rate being charged. i like what i call the rule of 72, that if you will take the

amount of compound interest that your investments will garner, and you divide that in to 72, you will learn how many years it takes you to have your money doubled. and if it doubles, for, say four years it goes to 8 and then it goes fore12 and it doubles -- another 12, and it doubles every period of time that that money goes through, so when a person gets to a certain age, before long, they will have much more money than they realize possible and that to me is the way to become a millionaire. it isn't to hit the lottery. it's not to hit a jackpot, it's not to take radical moves in the stock market. now, in addition to all these things, there needs to be investment portfolio, as people gain a little bit of money, and where they put their money, how is it allocated? well, i go if to some detail in

this book, about the appropriate balancing of somebody's money and the other thing is that the -- once you've determined so much goes to bonds, so much goes to equity, so much goes to foreign, so much goes to, your know, large cap, small cap and all those they are things that are involved in an investment portfolio, if one class exceeds the others dramatically, then the important thing is to sell off a part of that and reinvest to get back to the balance. that's what's known as balancing the portfolio and people need to understand how to balance their money. i'm talking in here about fixed income, about how it works, how coupons work, how these various investment vehicles work. what happens in the stock market, where it is nour and where it's going, and that's all

here. in addition, i think we need to understand about mutual funds. things like insurance policies, what's smart insurance, what isn't smart insurance, what is foolish insurance, what is good insurance. i think something called whole life is stupid. yet there are many people who make a good living selling it. i think the important thing in my opinion is to get term insurance on the amount of money you want in case you die, and also to recognize that when you get to a certain age and your children get to a certain age, you probably don't need insurance anymore, and so it would be better to reinvest that money into something that will grow like mutual funds or like stocks and bonds. but the other is to keep a certain term policy in effect

and then use the balance of what you would have for insurance to put into stocks and bonds. i think there's such things as annuities. annuities work well in relation to certain classes of people, in certain financial airplane i can't say, but generally speaking, an annuity ties up your money, you can't get it if you need it, and they have a big load going in on most auntie's to pay for the salesman, and so you're paying for their work in selling you the policy. and it's difficult to know what to do. the other thing that people are facing right now is a mortgage. when do you buy and when you don't buy. i've got a chapter in this book called "love nest or money pit." and you can determine how it

stacks up. people are always asking me, is it time to buy, is it time to buy a house? well, sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. it depends on the house, it depends on your circumstances, it depends on what kind of a deal is out there and what kind of financing is available. the other thing that people are asking right now is, is it time to finance? well, the rules i've got in this book "right on the money" is the formula of when it's appropriate to refinance and when it's appropriate to hold what you've got. i think people keep asking me these questions on television, i keep saying do the math. do the math. sit down and work out the equation. if i'm going to live in this house for five more years, and if it costs me so much money to refinance it, and if i have a savings and interest of so much, what will be left? and many times, the answer is nothing. it will cost more money.

the other, it will be a lot of money left, it will be a good deal. so a person has to determine what their own situation is, in regard to real estate. i strongly recommended against buying real estate about three ar four years ago. i knew it was overpriced, overvalued, and lo and behold, the prices of houses have dropped 40%, 50%, so people who jumped in four, five years ago, said this is a great investment, have essentially lost a lot of their money. furthermore, they can't get out. they want to sell these things and nobody will buy them and that's a very unpleasant feeling, but this is why one must be cautious in terms of real estate. but again, in terms of refinancing real estate, we have cbn on our crew and he said i just lowered my monthly expenses by $800. he refinanced his mortgage and

got an extraordinarily good rate and a nice package that worked well for him, and his finances. he's not going anywhere for the rest of his life, so he's not going to sell the house and for him it's wonderful. he refinanced. somebody is going to move in a month or a year, two years, it might not be a good deal, so it just depends. all this is here in this book "right on the money," and some of the chapters i would like to read to you, just to show you what's here. the first says "why aren't i rich" and the second one says, "why do i run out of money," the third is "where do i get credit where credit is due," the next one is, how do i dig myself out of debt. the next one talks about credit scores and how you compute them. what is my road map to wealth, what is my engine to wealth. what if i don't hike risks.

mutual funds and exchange traded funds for me. what about option, gold and futures? will i una homeowner. -- will i be a homeowner. should i refinance my home. what will make old age more secure for me, how do i bring on the pieces, so on and so forth and how do i pay for care if my old age. i have something in here having to do with insurance and one. best insurance policies i think is extremely important is -- well, catastrophic care on the one hand, but for somebody as concerned about long-term care, i think there are relatively cheap policies and long-term care is very important for somebody as you move along, all of a sudden you're put in a nursing home and who's going to pay for it, so you have a policy that's not too expensive for something like that, but there are many other tips in here about how you balance your

investments, balance your real estate, balance your retirement, it's all here. so i'm going to turn this little gathering over to dr. campo if you have some questions. >> thank you. [applause] >> thanks for those comments. i know for me, i'm already thinking about plastic surgery in new ways, so -- >> i'll lend you the scissors. >> we do want to make sure you raise your hands so we can recognize you and we do invite you to have some questions for dr. roberts. we have one right up front here. yes, please. >> dr. robertson, in previous periods of our nation's economy, increases in the federal debt have increased financing

conditions, so what things in your book increase a family's financial condition so they can plan to pay for their children's college and also to give more to the church ministries? >> when the government begins to print more money, which it's doing right now, do you all understand what happens? it's not rocket science, but when the government needs more money, the federal reserve prints it. just prints it. you know, used to be, you look at a dollar, i don't know if i've got a dollar. here's a dollar. if you've got one in your pocket, read what it says at the top of it. see that. i'll give it to dr. campo here. see what that says. >> you're really testing me now. federal reserve note. >> that's right. now if you don't like this and you want to turn it back into the government for something, what are they going to give you in its place?

>> i'm sure it won't be gold or silver. >> it will be another one of these. it may have a little bit different serial number, but it used to be, you could get gold. it was called a gold certificate. you don't get that anymore. it's strictly a promise, it's an i.o.u. from the federal government. so with that in mind, they can print all of these they want to, so they run the printing presses and then the treasury wants money so the treasury whips up a bunch of treasury bills and notes and long-term, short-term, so forth and they sell them to the fed. and the fed gives them cash an they take that cash and they pay the bills of the government that's how that works. and if they need more cash, they print more. that's a good deal. wouldn't you like to have your own printing press in the backyard. just crank them out. well, that's fine, as long as they can keep that under control. i think it's already gotten out

of control and so does the rest of the country. i notice the so-called brick nations, brazil, russia, india and china say we have to have a different currency. the dollar has been the reserve currency of the world. now, what does this mean? it means the more of those things you print, the price of oil is going up, the price of nickel, of iron, of copper, of lumper. you -- lumber. you name it, it's all going up. because there's so many dollars chasing these items. so you want to build a house, it's going -- right now, it's cheap, but it's going to go way up and your groceries are going to go up, a dozen eggs will cost you more, a loaf of bread will cost you more all the way up and down the line. so the question is, how do i protect myself? well, maybe you can go

someplace, the channel of high lands, but in -- islands, but in all seriousness, as far as an investment strategy, i think investing in hard assets such as gold, silver, crude oil, commodities, that kind of thing, i think that's where it's going to be, and in terms of currency, at least up to recently, these things had gotten a little too high now, but i recommended for cbn, we've got some money that's into currencies and we peck up about a million or so dollars going from united states currency into australian dollars, and into canadian dollars, because their economy is based on inarm resources. -- on natural resources. how does the average person protect themself? i really don't noel look what happened in germany, back in the 1920's, things just went crazy and before long, it got to be hyper inflation. i was in zaire talking to the cabinet and i told them what was

going to happen if they kept printing money and i said your economy is going to be destroyed and people are going to be riding in the streets. well, they had a currency called the sigh here that was about 3 or 4 to 1 to the united states dollar. within a short period of time, it went to 40,000 to 1. and everybody lost their money. their money was worthless. it was absolutely worth lez. and so that means that your savings in dollars are worth lez. and -- are worthless. and the dollar, i can't see the dollar being anything except weak. so how do you protect surhe when you figure that's the scenario, how do you get out of dollars, but i like commodities, and things like that. somebody else? >> another question. go ahead. both of you.

>> one thing i very much appreciate about you, you can make the relatively complex very easy to understand, so thanks for doing that. that's what i would like you to address. two things, first of all, dealing with china. what is the significance of the chinese having so much of our debt? in other words, what happens if they say, we're no longer going to buy your debt anymore, how would that affect it other than increasing the rate? in addition, secondly, again, primarily dealing with china, what is the significance of trade balances or imbalances that we've had for so long? what will be the effect of that over the long term? >> well, you know, the bible says the borrower is the servant of the lender. the chinese hold somewhere around $1.2 trillion of our money. that's the kind of debt obligation we have to the chie meets.

which means if we ever started getting hard nosed with china, they'll just say we'll take you down and they start flooding the market with dollars and the dollar drops dramatically and the price of everything we buy in this country would shoot up dramatically and our people would be screaming because the average steel worker and automobile worker, what have you, would be desperate for money. that's what all that means. the chinese aren't going to do that, because they enjoy trade with us and they've got to find some market to sell their good. they're cranking all this stuff out that's cheap labor and they have to have somebody buy it, and we're it, but the trade balance, at least in the classical thought was that if i had sales of $100, and i have purchases of $90 and i've got a trade balance of $10, which

normally speaking, i would go and then trade with somebody else, and you know, the flow would continue to go, as things are now, the chinese have added so much and the united states has been so profitget, it's no longer a decent balance. usually currency would go down and you would sell more goods and it would go down and you would sell goods and that's classic economics. nothing is classic economics any more with us breaking all the rules. what does the trade balance mean? it means sooner or later the debts will come dupe an they're going to demand payment or they're going to start dumping our money and either way, it will be very painful. now the young lady. yes, ma'am. you're on. >> dr. robertson, what i heard

you talking about today is basically what the bible says, which is people perish for a lack of knowledge and you know, you were just saying about the average person has got to know how to manage their money better. so i was just wondering what your thoughts are, would you support -- i know some verts have started requiring financial managements, education for incoming freshmen, would you sport that at even the high school level or definitely more within colleges, do you think that would help the problems that we're having? >> i think it would, because right now the american people are deeply in debt. we have a savings rate that's close to zero. when we went into the last depression, we have large savings among the citizens, and so we were able to weather the storm, but right now, our savings rate as i say is close to zero. we're not saving any money. and we're spending everything we've got and we've got leaders,

such as the late great george bush, who said go spend your money. well, that isn't exactly fiscal restraint, but i think of course the average person in school, can't balance a checkbook. how many -- can you balance your checkbook? can you. well, so many in college can't, and they just spend, and they think that these plastic cards are just sort of their privilege, an they just -- they don't have to worry about it, just give them the piece of plastic an everything is fine and they think 10% monthly payment is a good deal and they just don't think about money and we really -- we don't want to be absorbed with money. let face it, our life consists -- does not consist of the abun dance of things we have possess, but good stewardship is very, very important and if we had courses in that, it would be

very helpful. listen, i appreciate everybody being here, and i would be remiss if i didn't remind you to go buy my book. >> thank you. thank you all. [applause] >> >> pat robertson is the founder of several organizations and media agencies, including reent university and the american center for law and justice. he's written 18 books. for more information, visit faithwords.com. >> these are the best selling hard cover non-fiction books as of july 9 according to book sense.com. first is outliers, malcolm gladwell explains why some people are successful and some are not. mark levin comes in with his latest book, "liberty and tyranny." mat

>> children's author emma walton hamilton, what's the key to writing a children's book? >> gosh, i would say respecting children as readers and not talking down to them. if anything. it's all basically about trusting their judgment and their intelligence and hopefully speaking to what interests them, and what they're passionate about. >> what are children interested in? >> well, just about everything that adults are interested in for the most part, their world around them, growing up, learning no things, music, art, sports, you name it. all the same thing we're interested in. >> how many children's books have you written? >> i've written -- well, just now, about to release the 17t 17th children's book, that i actually co-write, with my

mother. believe it or not. >> what's it like working with your mother as a co-author? >> well, it's a great pleasure. we weren't sure it would be a great pleasure to begin with, we're both a little bossy, very opinionated ladies and we thought mother-daughter working together, this could be tricky, but happily, we play to each other's strengths and we have a great time working together and it's turned out very well. >> and your mother is julieann druce. julie andrews, what part of the book do you write? >> what part of the -- >> book do you write? >> it was the structure as much as anything and i'm the sort of -- tell me if i'm wrong, i think i'm more the flight to fancy. i do the image making, the openings, the closings. emma, the -- i do the big picture and emma says we must have a finish, this is the send of the first act, where do we go from here and she makes me focus

on the shape of the book, but the actual sort of images and things, are probably my strength and emma's is the structure, as far as anything. we seem to compliment each other. >> i do too. >> wonderfully. >> why did you start writing children's books? >> i started as a complete surprise. i started as -- it was an answer to a game that i was playing with my children, and i had to forfeit, i was the first to lose the game i said, oh, what will my forfeit being and my older daughter jennifer said write a story, because i used to like to industrial things and i thought that will be simple, i can just write a small thing like an esop's fable or something very short and i thought no, this is my stepdaughter and this might be a wonderful way to help us bond and i came up with a wonderful idea and kept fleshing

it out and the next thing i knew, there was a book. and if it hadn't been for my husband blake, blake edwards, i never would have finished the book, he said julie, it's a great idea, keep write, and that was 40 years ago just about and i've been writing ever since. >> how many children's books have you authored? >> emma, we've done 17 together. >> and you've done four on your own. >> four on my own, plus a memoir, and so we go back and forth really, and we have more coming. >> now emma walton hamilton, do you live close to each other, do you e-mail each other? how do you do it? >> unfortunately, we live most of the year on opposite coasts and we always work best with we're together and love to be together where we can be, but we've become very reliant on the modern technology, and we use web cam for a lot of our work

sessions. we log on together at the same time and we can see each other. >> poor mum as to get up three hours earlier. in l.a., she'll say mom, 10:00 a.m. is halfway through my morning, can you get up at 7:00 a.m., and i'm saying, well, i think i can, you know. >> she does very well. >> i do my best. i'm not as literate on my computer as she is, but i do my best. >> is there a certain length the children's books should be. >> say that again. >> is there a certain length a children's book should be. >> it depends on the age. >> what age? >> we right for all ages, we tremendous audacity, i should say. we write picture books, we write young adult novels, we write chapter books, for middle grade readers, an our latest book is an anology for all ages, called the julie andrews collection of poems, songs and lull buys. >> this one is actually quite

thick. >> it is the first book with our lovely new publisher, little brown, and they actually came to us and said, would you consider doing an antology for us, and we -- >> we had so much fun, we're doing another one. >> yes, we are. and it was enormous fun to compile. obviously our favorite books, we've been fond of them all our lives, my father instilled in me a love of poetry, i hopefully instill a love for it to my children. suddenly, here we are asked to put down our favorites and the first choices which were about 20, were really easy. and then after that, we had the most wonderful journey of discovery, finding what we really love. >> digging back into our memories and family anthologies. >> and we eventually came down to nine separate themes, and

before each theme, there is a piece that we wrote explaining why we love this theme, that is is documented more or the countryside or nature, and why each choice of poem or song lyric within that theme resonates for us. >> and we've always, as a family, experienced poems for fun and as gifts at birth days, and special days handle holidays and so on, so we sort of challenge each other to write a poem and we added a few more. >> now you have, emma walton hamilton, you have some of your children here, grandchildren, are they your forecuss group for the purpose the children's books? >> they have to be. >> actually you were when i was writing on my own and now of course all the grand children are a tremendous he help. >> not only our focus group. they help us know what's working and what's not work of course,

but they also provide a tremendous source of ideas for us an many of our books were inspired by -- well, for example, the dumpy the dump truck series was inspired on my son sam, who was a passionate truck lover and would only read books about trucks, and we were having trouble finding those that had a little bit more than just nonfiction, you know, the bulldozer goes crunch kind of book, so we wrote that series for him and we're working on a new series now with little girls if mind, inspired by my daughter. >> and ms. andrews, you've also wrist 10 a memoir. >> yes. >> this is the first half of your life basically, right? >> it goes up to my coming out to the west coast of america for the very first time and my first movie, but it's about the first third of my life, you know, and it was -- it took a long time to do. i never would have done it if

she hadn't been so generous with her time to push me to do it and make me do it. >> is there the second half or second 3rd coming out? >> a lot of people are asking that. to be honest with you, i don't know at this point. it's taken a long, long time to write the first part, so maybe one day. >> emma walton hamilton, what's your favorite children's book that you've written? >> that i've written or that i've read? >> either one. >> well, the book that was for me, the formative book growing up, was norton justice, that was just my favorite. go back to book on rainy days and so forth. and people often ask us, which is our favorite of the books that we've written and it's so hard to answer. it's like saying, you know, which is your favorite chocolate if a box of chocolates, or which is your favorite child, because you love them all for different reasons, but i would say that i'm particularly proud and excitedut