so that is the agenda for tonight, about as bombastic as it gets and i will try to be rational from this point on. ..

>> i have done a lot of surveys. asking about stuff in to make a list of the stuff you have received a and who gave it to you and how much do think they paid and what is the object? who is the giver your brother or sister? would you think they paid and what would you have been willing to pay not counting sentimental value but as an object? but i also ask them to think about step they purchase for themselves. what did you pay, what is

the most would have been willing to pay and so forth. so i can compare per dollar spent how valuable by items that the purchase for yourself compared to items that others purchase for you? the answer is about 20% less. the stuff that others by for me is 20% less than the stuff that i buy for myself. this is not just true overall budget within items so if i compare act i will buy for myself or others by for me i have an old example but the buy compare books her verses what others by for me bestowed at the same kind of results. it is not an artifact of looking at cranky people it is about the process of gifting.

is not if you drive off a lot it is worth less but it is a bad process of choosing did you might ask how does this happen the economic theory gives us insight into economic theory, we take the view that people are best situated to make situations for themselves. knew we know what we like and the view that we are best suited is the basis for a lot of the economist criticism one of those of government is making resource allocation whether we wanted a green sweater or the blue line and allocations is very wasteful.

givers like the fictitious government don't know what we wind. so their choices typically best of america. -- missed the mark. not all givers are well situated to make these choices. some of our more than others. let me show you some pictures. i have done a lot of surveys over the years and i did this in 2001 and the bars represent the yield the ratio you are willing to pay for it. this is the yield on gifts from different kinds of givers i claim the overall it is about 20% less but for some kinds of givers it is substantially less or substantially more. and it turns out over various surveys, it is the extended family, i don't mean to keep criticism on grandparents' but

grandparents and aunt & uncle tend to do the worst and significant others tend to do quite well matched with their recipients preference is. friends and parents tend to do pretty well as well but the folks who are in the extended families so going from lee sufficient to most, aunt & uncle grandparents, cousins. but then siblings, parents and spouses and significant others are doing quite well. why is this? go back to the ideas from economic theory we know ourselves pretty well and others who are in frequent contact with us also now our preference is pretty well and know what we have. they tend to do pretty well her one to be careful i do not want to blame grandma. that is not her fault but

because she is an least frequent contact so she chooses things they don't necessarily want. at this point* i seem to me he being criticism on holiday gift-giving but it is time to think about if i am entirely wrong. in the sense about what about sentimental value? can it rescue bad gift-giving? i'm talking about a situation where they giver goes out and spends $50 on a sweater but let's say it is only worth $30. not counting sentimental value the most you're willing to pay is 30. so far that sounds like that you destruction because one could have spent 50 on yourself but you might say wait a minute. the giver gets a pleasure but if they get $30 worth of pleasure? and then the 30 + 30 is 60 that is bigger maybe it is a value creating activities so

stop complaining mr. waldfogel. my response is that if the giver also got enjoyment from what they liked, then we could have created more value. if they get $30 of value and the recipient gets a 55 for the value than the total value is 85 as opposed to 60. as compared to giving something that they wanted is a choice of something the recipient does not want to stories value our misses out on an opportunity to create more satisfaction. it is possible that givers only get value out of giving things that recipients don't want. downs like giver sadism although there are more polite ways to put it. what is an 11 year-old why? you would not be happy giving a kid 10 compounds of

candy corn. you think is unhealthy so they would not enjoy giving them what they actually want but the term sadism is a very different idea i don't thing that describes the bulk of the gift-giving. there is clear evidence that is not what is going on. but i will come back to that. i don't think sentimental value is efficient. another thing that i hear a lot is it is in to holiday spending good for the economy? aren't you coming down again something that is good for the economy? there is a kernel of truth but let's think about that. what is good for the economy actually mean? a well functioning market maximizes the surplus that those buyers and sellers receive from the transaction

in. what is this surplus? sellers get a price for their product and that exceeds the cost of bringing it to market so the surplus is profit. that is a good thing. we are in favor of that. not just because i am from wharton school. what do the buyers get? the engage in a transaction normally if the value they get exceeds the price. of the difference is what it is worse than the price that they pay. normal spending outside the 11 months of the year without doing gift-giving, normal spending allows voluntary free activity to maximize the some of the surplus. good for the economy means producing as much as possible. what happens then with gift spending? it is still true that sellers receive a price in excess of their cost, but the buyers don't necessarily

my claim is they get 20% less on average than they would with items they had chosen for themselves. is it good for the economy? it is good for sellers but good for sellers and buyers not so much good for the consumers who are not the buyers but the recipients. you can imagine after a gift-giving transaction a seller can say to the buyer was a good for you? not so much. not so unambiguously good for the economy. i think it is worth contemplating a little bit of whether it is possible to do something better than what i have described. what is the ideal gift? we have our own definitions but one way to think about it is something that is delightful to the recipient that maybe they would not

have known to buy but it delivers more satisfaction than what they would have chosen for themselves. it is special and opens their eyes to new consumption and the stock. you can ask how is that possible if you talk about people being well-informed? but of course, in real life there are all kinds of products and many products out there and we do not know about all of them. it is entirely possible that at least four people that you know, well our preference is that you know, well, some type of product you enjoy you might know about something they have not discovered that you can give them could do better than they would have chosen for themselves. it is possible but just on average not very likely but it can happen. that is one method. talk about gift-giving within the family you are a

good spouse you do not want to spend the money without permission 181 from sinn to buy the fancy digital camera but that could allow us to do something could not have done on his own and makes him better off i do not want to dash hopes entirely. it is not impossible to do transcend it gift-giving it is just hard especially when you don't know much about what the recipient really one's. this gets us to more numbers. how much u.s. holiday spending occurs each year? the national retail federation actually all retail sales during the month of november and december as holiday sales. they say 450 billion per year that is a big number that implies over $1,500 per

person per year. i think that is unusually large because if you compare to household surveys if you look at the monthly retail sales numbers look how they bounce around, it turns out the biggest source of seasonality is christmas bread is december but something happens in december but look how it bounces around going january january 2007 from the first two months of 2008 and and then it hits 38110430 and

4307 in january to determine the magnitude takes the difference from december be due back you get about 65 billion per year and again that is divided by the number of people you get close to the household surveys how much to assure house will plan on spending this year that comes out to a number of the ballpark? having said that if the answer from before how much less are the gifts worth than what you buy for yourself her dollar spent? that was 20%. 20% from $65 billion is the measure of the forgone satisfaction through gift-giving that is $13 billion per year. $13 billion per year.

it is interesting to compare that to compare that to waste so the citizens against government waste the watchdog group that looks at the federal budget and points out things that are wasteful do an annual tally where there looks to the federal budget to find projects that benefits are smaller than the cost and deem them wasteful and can come up with 17 billion in a recent year. 17 billion in projects with benefits smaller than costs but on on average not every instance but the whole enterprise the benefit of low-cost if you take the national retail federation bid is 450 billion that we would deem wasteful and more honest definition is the

13 billion. that is an outrage. 512 personify this santa claus notwithstanding a beloved figure he is not evil just sloppy. the next question is this a u.s. phenomenon or worldwide? surely we americans must lead the world and the exodus that we lead the world and obesity, gasoline consumption, will lead the world urban sprawl also older access. but if you look around the world that this december spending and i can assure

you it is just not an anomaly let's move around the world, are we alone? here's a comparison. lot of countries for the year 2007 for the first two months of 2008 the u.s. appears last and in the bottom right there is western european countries on their produce the december? every where. we are not a loan. not at all. in some countries december moves up in november like the u.k.. but we see a spike in december and all western european countries was about eastern europe? eastern european countries for which the data was available, the czech republic, hungary, poland and even russia had nearly a

century of godless communism have a big december spending bump in 2007. russia it is interesting its transition to a market economy not too long ago to keep track of the monthly data was about 94. this picture shows in red is the russians shows the size of the december spending of of -- bond and look at the u.s. around 2005 price think of dr. strange love played by a george c. scott and was worried about the gap here you have the santa clause gap. i do not know if this is good news or bad news but we're behind. let's move around the world some more. are we alone?

now all the steve tisch of large spending bombs. there are some places where you don't see it dorsey less of it. some of which don't have it you can see in the end of for comparison israel does not have it. why? although americans use it in december for hanukah and israel gift-giving -- gift-giving holidays are passover and rauscher sean and so there's not spending funds. they do not occur. china does not appear we could debate about that or three yes the japan has very few christians but a tradition to celebrate christmas the material aspect so you do see pretty clear december spending bump. it goes on around the world.

the next question is a direct comparison there is a spending but above all these countries but who has the big spending bump? we have not answered that will buy to compare the size averaging across years across the different countries. across the year 2000, this is the average size of the december relative to the month around averaging across since the year 2000 and what you see is busy but it starts over 50% coming down to career or israel and where it is the united states? it is way down the list. with a red circle what about the 1990's? a similar phenomenon. 1980's is a similar story.

70's and 60's and again, the coverage differs there is not the same data but a very similar story the u.s. is pretty far down the list in this particular measure of how big a deal is holiday spending relative to the rest of the year? so there is good news for americans particularly those who have image problems and we're not alone are not even leaders. there is bad news and that probably outweighs the good news. the bad news is it you think you are convinced in billion was a problem than the world wide number is much bigger. if you tally up holiday spending around the major economies of the world instead of 65 billion you get 145 billion, the waste

is on the order of 25 billion per year. that is the bad news and it is probably worse parker probably outweighs the good news. i could say i have done some surveys about the real question of how much the people value their gaffes relative to purchases around the world and it is just a quick glimpse, the very worst is that and losses followed by a aunt & uncle and every survey does pretty well. there is not a lot of data telling you the phenomenon that is in the u.s. follows value destruction but dated is consistent so i think it justifies it is a worldwide phenomenon not just in the u.s.. 25 billion per year? that is a lot. the next question to think about, did our generation

invent the commercialization of christmas? how did this generation and excessive or large amount of consumption and compare with previous generations? every generation imagines it invented sex and every generation thinks it invented the commercialization of christmas but did not. we can look at this monthly nine seasonal adjusted retail sales data going back. increasing irritation as the growth of gdp over the years here it is for the '80s and 80 is the same story. we can keep going.

going back to the thirties it is a summary it is to lines of the picture for the december access over november is the blue line and the december decline is over january and these lines bounce around a bit but they are essentials a stable back at 1935. looks like our generation is the access where we can blame the greatest generation are whichever other one you would like. prior to 1935, the way the data existed and retail sector existed there is mail-order houses, a dime stores, so i got my hand on interesting data on a dime stores. basically will worse is the big one at that time. look at that. january february and december there is the enormous bike and good $0.10

store sales figures that woolworth's. if you do that iran tired twenties, i am probably convincing you know, something you already know that the spike is through the twenties. no doubt it goes back probably earlier but the data is harder to come by. and has been there the whole time but how has it changed over time as a share of the economy? actually, holiday spending talking about the retail spike is a smaller share of the economy now than it was in the thirties. over the last 70 years gdp has grown enormously. growing by a factor of five in three generations is

miraculous but only with the gdp goods and services were as holidays spending gone up by a factor of three but the share of the economy if fluctuates year-to-year she is spending proportionately less but it is not a luxury but a necessity part of that is a hand. three new brief economics lecturer just four quick and introduction we have these goods spam and chicken and caviar which are typical examples and you can say

christmas is like spam in inferior good fgic and is normal and caviar is luxury. how do we define those? the normal way is how does a share of expenditure how does that very as the household gets richer and richer households spend a higher amount and higher share it is a luxury with a lower amount and if it is a higher amount but lower share it is a necessity. like check-in the sheikh fgic and. sounds like it would be a luxury but i have given you a hint to the contrary. it sounds like a luxury but if you look at the data over time in the spending have this has changed you can do this for many different

categories as an expenditure and as a comparison the way to think about this is the height of the bars is the elasticity expenditure with respect to and come but think it is bigger than mine is a luxury less than that it is a necessity. looking across this from the would uraeus -- luxurious the most necessities clothing, food, issues we all have to eat and then then there is spending between gasoline and crude. it is not the most glamorous this holidays bending to wade necessities behave with a reasonable view it as an obligation to obligation to engage as we get richer we

do not spend more we have a little more money but a lower sheriff spending or expenditures. over the years we have big changes we refinance christmas it is a highly beverage activity. in the old days they saw a christmas coming in the year and a new they had to save. sometimes they save through christmas clubs that were funny bank accounts because they pay very low interest but meant to help people who have little foresight to have money during the time of the holidays. i found some data on a christmas club accounts from the 1930's and there is a wonderful sawtooth powdered -- pattern which is quarterly data that shows the beginning of the year it

is very low the first half 18 million than through the year rises 36 been 80 million coulda so that the deposits come out for christmas gifts. and a fairly large fraction of holiday spending occurs through this. that is not how we do it any more. the newfangled approach to holiday spending is the credit-card a quick look at revolving credit over the past 30 or 40 years, we are now almost at $1 trillion in revolving credit. it is the credit card stuff as opposed to buying a house or a car, the revolves it is almost $3,000 per person in the economy. what happens at christmas? to see that clearly you have to focus one year at a time.

here's one year at a time the monthly levels of credit-card debt around christmas 2007. there is the underlying trend it spikes up around christmas. seeing what happened to retail sales they spurted -- spite the nervous in december then came back down in january. thinking how much of that trend line is the debt to in december and how much above it in january and how much in february? how does that compare to how big holiday spending was in december? here is a picture. literally for december a comparison how far above the debt is in december and this just shows do that at this point* about two-thirds of

christmas is put on the credit cards in the year 2004 as it was 40% in 1960. that is normally debt because you can pay it off and it would still show up and really want to think about that the you are still above trend in january when spending is low. here is january about 15% until 1980 then it goes way up and buy recent years wraparound 50% so 50 percent of christmas is still not paid off in january. february? same pattern but lower numbers about 20% is still not paid off. we really have changed the way we finance christmas. discussions of debt is it good or bad is very contentious. having credit means you have the ability to take

advantage of things that your present itself cannot afford by your future self can to give you more opportunity in having more options and that must be good. right? but on the other hand, i think you'd be embarrassed to tell something to your mother. not so sure of how good this development is. few years ago retailers phased out layaway programs because it no longer seem to be necessary but the recession has hit we have seen a lot of layaway and christmas clubs coming back. although there undesirable financial instruments on the other hand, they are helpful for people who black sold as a plan and foresight. i am not sure that is good or bad. i want to talk about gift cards. going back to the basic

problem is somebody else's using your stuff if cards have become very popular now one-third of all gift-giving bailout the recipient to choose what they want. there is great news in theory so what is a gift card due? although you spend the money the retailer does not get the monday but it can recognize the revenue and statistics show the revenue arrives whenever it is redeemed which is typically in in january part of give cards are having a big effect if none of the economy we should see a drop-off ha should have been over time sure enough it is shrinking in particular since give cars hit the scene about 1015 years ago that point* as maris see the drop-off happening in a big

way. is even more pronounced if you look at for ticker retail with the general merchandise stores or department stores it is even bigger drop off there. give cards are changing the timing of holiday spending. one criticism i think is legitimate, why am i a complaining of gift-giving? this is voluntary behavior by gift givers and has been going on for a very long time. fifth and must be efficient optimal so how could anything that happens voluntarily be bad? to that, first ask the question is it really voluntary? it is true in is not against the law.

you can show up at a big event with nothing for nobody but why would you get a funny stairs? are you free -- freed to do that? you can answer that question for yourself but if you're not free to do that then the fact that people choose to give gaffes in face of social pressure does not mean so they are doing it voluntarily but under a social obligation then we cannot infer that it is not necessarily good. what about the persistence? how could something that i claim is sold in the fishing persist? suppose you get a bad gift and you smile to complain and say i hated don't give it to me again? of course, not. you should not say that but

the fact you are not allowed to say that means there is no incentive for they giver to change his or her behavior they're not getting feedback so my view is it is not really volunteered it is easy to understand how it persist but we are stock with any efficiency as far as the eye can see. now it is time for the inducing part of the show. there are some good causes that go begging and one way to think about this it is a good cause but eight guilt inducing this to be should call the laurentiis curve but it is really unequal. the bottom 80 percent of the

80% of the population has 20% of the world and come. the top 20 percent has 80% of the world's income. why does that matter for anything? but if you think people value having stuff but as they have more stuff the incremental benefit declines then you might well think shifting this around is a good thing. that sounds like socialism. i'm not advocating that but we do see sharing that occurs voluntarily. one of the forms a sharing lee c. voluntarily if you look at household expenditure data, what are the categories you see is charitable giving. engines

engines, charity, education, entertainment it shows the elasticity of expenditure two and come and then you have necessities on the right. for example, food and housing and up on the right and that makes sense but on the left you have tensions tensions, a cash contributions and education and entertainment and so forth. but the point* to emphasize is cash contributions and charities are a clear luxury activity. the fact that people do that voluntarily and it shows up seems like a kind of things people want to do more of. if we interpret the data that way. there is. cash contributions. you think what can we do

better? we think what we might be able to do better as a society? what should we do? notwithstanding the subtitle of the book why you shouldn't buy presents for the holidays" i do think you should keep giving presents to kids and other people that you know, well because you know, what they like and you're not likely to disappoint them terribly few want to express your affection and knowledge it is not terribly inefficient per and the data show that but for others, a situation where you have an obligation to give a gift with little idea what the recipient wants, what can you do? it is not be but kph cards have grown from nothing 15 years ago to one-third of all gift-giving now and it is the most desired gift sell it and a way it is a

way to launder money but you cannot give cash but we are allowed to give gift cards. it is a way to allow their recipient to choose what they will consume so that is good although i have to say there is a little bit of a problem with gift cards there is the non redemption problem. 10% of give card balances are never redeemed. what happens? eventually the retailer's they have to recognize the revenues would end it being 90% of the gift to your friends and 10% a gift to the shareholders that is nice but probably not with the giver had in mind. my soapbox suggestion is would it be nice if retailers were to issue give cards that after two years the and sent balance defaults to a charity? that is a little guilt

inducing you can have a gift or save a dying seal but that would be a nice option. another thing i think is a solution would be charity gift cards. charities that people like to do and a luxury activity by the viewing gift card that allowed you to make a gift to a charity like eight charity navigator organization if they give you a card you can go to the website and choose 1 million charities and you can give the money 21 of those charities i am allowing you to act which engage in a luxury activity we're not destroying value and we can feel good. that is a nice solution much better than buying a horrible object that nobody one's. and terrible recipients will

still have to spend it so it is good for the economy in the sense of producing spending. what are my ideas how we might change $25 billion per year in value destruction? i wish you happy and efficient holiday season. [applause] questions? >> can you hear me? the methodological problems occurred to me while listening to your presentation. first, your -- you show spikes in december and point* out there is more sales but of course, we know that this is happening in a universe where december is a completely different month

from june. it is the tame -- time of the year when the day's shortest comment-- are darker, but much more so than generations before are on a calendar system where everybody is aware what everybody else is doing. my brother is getting married in december because he wants the tax benefit so he will have a very jolie because there is a tax law. that chinese people are making everything but we use so of course, they ought to have a gift-giving season when they're done making this in november they pay everybody bonus then you go out and spend money. one problem looking at it this way is we are ignoring the fact there is a calendar that we're all on the synchronous calendar world wide. one thing that occurred to me is how about comparing northern and southern hemispheres? the southern hemisphere the

longest day of the year is in december so that could be tweaked a little so as you pointed out israel does not have a phenomenon? is a christian phenomenon then it wipes out it is the shortest day of the year times the kristian and calendar which is the same in the southern hemisphere that is a hint that has nothing to do with the sun or some thing. another problem is the tax laws burkhart know how we account for that it is clear a lot of things are happening because of the way we view the calendar. your last desperate chance to have a good year for the you're trying to look better, sell more, more sales, also the time when new products are introduced. i used to work for a toy company they think about in april and december it is not just the gift-giving season, they are now

concrete have to introduce new products at the end of the year because it is the gift-giving season. you have a bomb more because of that than anything else. that is a problem. another thing you did not analyze is what about the fact there is this effort to have an index to help people make choices? if you buy stuff on the amazon you can go out there and find a lot of people he went to buy gifts for and find appropriate gives but they can this exactly what they're looking for if it is a portable tv set and hit the mark. maybe the problem is partially it will solve itself as more people are listing their interest on the internet and even the grandparents with a little advice could buy a more appropriate gift. another problem is when i buy something at amazon, i get about a 60% price

because i know how to shop because i am interested. if my grandfather would buy it, she would pay listed as not just 10% but 40% more for the same computer because she does not apply it on amazon so she is the wrong person to make the purchase for me if we are worried about the efficiency. maybe there is a bigger savings if people knew where to buy the stuff than the fact that people are disappointed. another thing i noticed that was different is you are an economics professors you did this straight forward and ask people here is a gift for you have be and how would you rate it? is that really that satisfaction is rated by sociologists or psychologist? and no. they tell them they are doing a study on raincoats and they sneak in the real question and never ask that question except when the

date is analyze they did not know what we were really trying to find out but now we analyze the data and find out so you just let people rate but gives we probably should have conducted it in a way where the of people were allowed to say where they have be from the gift because she finally bought them a gift that they could wear? maybe they had more satisfactions of there something unsettle from the analysis from the satisfaction that they get. another thing, people that by gift cards is a very cold gift. i get the money but the people that buy me a sweater because they think they can pick a nice color or somebody that knows i'm interested in music and say i will get him something that stretches his interested, he never listens to opera, the people that give me a gift card leave me

in the same choices that i always have for the person that gets me something personal ought to try japanese food. maybe they will like making sushi. the person that does not get the appropriate gift may add value or enriching society. so if everybody just got a gift cards it would be a financial transaction without the sentiment for or also noticed if you were an economist for julius caesar you'd see the same spike because they had the time at the end of the year where people were bored or the slaves were getting restless they would have another think the wasted 10% that had nothing to do with christianity your real gift-giving. we did that in america they gave slaves gives at christmas time because there was not enough work to keep

them busy and they were afraid they would get less less so it is a common practice after the saturnalia party they would get drunk so it is a tremendous brac desperate of the slaves had something to look forward to. >> that is a great. first of all, north vs. south. indeed brazil is on their south africa and i agree. that is a great idea. i did it you can see a spike and in the north american countries as well. the tax laws cars are introduced in december exactly. why? that is right. systems are wonderful and promising it is a huge area of research but maybe

someday it will be possible and by a agree that is fascinating to think about. on the psychologist it is true they do ask questions in devious ways. but what i did is i use the same methodology for the gift and their own good so the bias is the call so my argument is weird but it is the same methodology for both price think the other point* i am not too worried about. give kurds a lot of people like them. they're only appropriate when you have no idea if you do know what they like you can do better than a gift card part of my wife dismay a gift card i am distressed. we should talk. on the saturnalia, i am not saying christianity causes from a hatpins christmas is a holiday celebrated but nothing about christianity per sabre the fact that israel does not have it in

december but they have it in april and september. thank you. >> thank you for your presentation. as an executive director of a nonprofit charity, i am particularly intriguing slide with the comment of giving as a luxury activity. [laughter] my question particularly with your comment of your opinion of the balance on a gift card perhaps being men used after a two year period being donated to a charity. with regard to that one of the concerns that we have with our nonprofit whose targets are the it -- audience this medically underserved and homeless we want to access prepared cooked foods from area food establishments and conference is. we would like to determine the best way that we can

encourage the contributions of those wasted resources outside of the social and economic pressures that could be applied internally beyond that. if you think it is advisable perhaps to apply to external pressures on these hotel chains but to give an example of was that a medical conference and there was tremendous waste i was looking to pick a few items as my colleague sooner we don't have a chance to eat a decent meal. the response of the pharmaceutical company

objective of the two be moving items out of the room to another area of the hotel with the understanding that this was considered to be socially inappropriate. in the inappropriate comments. >> the first thing to say i have no radio but then to say are there ways for these firms or her toes to take credit for doing stuff like this? if there was not so much social pressure to do but to disclose a few have done it, it is voluntary but it is not doing it at the end of a gun but as a way to claim credit. maybe we should talk about this. it is related obviously because it is about sloppy consumption against a need. i see the connection. >> because food distribution

and hunger is one of the major charities of the world lit vastly under utilizing the resources and the need to expend cash is unnecessary to some extent and the cash can be better utilize for other purchases. it is not to say the cash would not be donated of course, it would destroy the good will that grocery chains like to have with the pr and good will but they develop as a result of participating or partnering with other community organizations or charities but any particular comments with that? our principal is we need to redevelop the philosophy as a basic practice. >> we should talk offline. thank you. >> i know you have good

criticized for overestimating the lead the bet loss i think you are underestimating in some ways because you may have had a $20 tie and might have been willing to pay $24 for it as opposed to somebody else bought it in may have only been worth 16 but you calculate the difference between 16 and 20 as opposed do 24 or europe during the loss consumers soups or plus -- surplus as opposed to the value? >> it is in day systematic difference from what others by four be or myself? >> if they spend $20 when you get this $16 of value but for yourself you would have had $24 of value but

something more than what you started out as a surplus. >> right. i still don't get it. [laughter] we will talk later. items are in. i am sorry. if that is it i thank you for your attention and the interesting comments. think if. [applause]

>> i have regards from microsoft puerile was two days ago speaking to an audience like us. they speak very fondly of all of you folks. [laughter] and i should tell you there is a story that i tell at the beginning i think the

chapter to interview i do with bill gates in 1998 and i said mr. gates, when you think about the future what do worry about? what is your nightmare? and i expected he would say he was about to go on trial for violating antitrust laws which she was found guilty twice of doing or say or coal or apple but he thoughtfully rocked back and forth gently and said, i will tell you what i worry about. i worry about someone in the deride to do with inventing some new technology that i have never thought of and that is my nightmare. because we know who was in a deride and they have