the upper left-hand corner of the page, select the watch lynn, now you can view the entire program. hatlore the featured video box to find a recent and future programs. >> in their book, "carjacked", author catherine lutz at end anne lutz fernandez argue that global warming and the price of gasoline are not the only problems presented by america's love of cars. anne lutz fernandez "carjacked" 50 minutes of the new canaan library in new canaan, connecticut. ..

>> and spent a beautiful weekend celebration together. but invariably, as it happened over the past prior few years, the conversation turned to the loss of our cousin, christie, in a car crash. and shortly after we lost christie, i lost a good friend in a highway crash. and these two losses had a profound effect on our lives. and we started chewing on the contradictions that the car presents, particularly that contradiction between the intense pleasure that the car brings to us, and the profound

losses and tragedies that it also can bring. and on a daily basis, the contradictions between the convenience that the car brings and the frustrations that it also brings. so broadly speaking we want to explore the impact that this single object, this powerful piece of technology has on our lives. and we thought we could bring to bear our respected expert is. my sister is a professor of anthropolgy. she brings a ethnographic approach and i'm not a teacher and a writer but i spent many years as a banker and marketer of consumer products. we thought if we tackle this together we could bring some insights. some insights that really hadn't been brought to the subject. and we embarked on a research which took us across the country from exurban housing developments that were being carved out of rural countryside in tennessee, to detroit, to visit gm and go to its proving ground in milford. we traveled to seedy used car

lots in the inner cities. we traveled to auto shows at auto museums. and we spoke to a variety of people with expertise around the car, and around the ancillary services that are provided. and those who work to mitigate against some of the negative effects of the car, but mostly we talked to ordinary people. the owners, the buyers, the drivers of the 244 million cars that fly our roadways. and really, of course, our research started earlier. as all of ours do, with the family car. and this is the lutz family and it's not the bob lutz family. we've been asked a few times already whether we are related to the detroit legend, the outspoken bob lutz who is with the big three automakers, and

the answer is no. it was, yes, i suppose we would've been cut out of the will. no, this is the george lutz family. this as a family that, like many, grew up in the suburbs. and grew up around cars, and we both, my sister and i had tremendous, positive memories surrounding the vehicles that we grew up in. trips to grandma's, day trips to the beach, most of our members were positive. and as we started talking to americans, we came to realize how powerful nostalgia is in reinforcing incidence of positive ideas around the automobile. at the on the museums they understand. we went to a few. at one we met a gentleman named dave, who was there for his saturday morning drive in his beloved ford mustang. and he was wearing a watkins glen jacket over his car print shirt, and we asked it, we said, when did you become interested in cars? and he said, when i open my eyes

and realized i was born. [laughter] >> and in many ways, that's true for all of us. and my sister, the anthropologist, likes to put it that to humans, coulter is like water is to fish. because it surrounds us. is often quite invisible, even though we are in it. and the ideology that supports our car culture is something that is largely invisible to us, and that we started to explore fairly early in our research. the images that bombard us daily from the media are quite different than those family snapshots. not quite so comforting, but much more exciting, much more glamorous, this poster from 2008, iron man, starring robert downey, jr., provides just the kind of karzai that we've come to expect, not just of car advertising. again, but from much of the

entertainer that we indulge in that is car centric. american car ideology lights the messages that come to us in many hollywood films, is supported by a series of core american values. individualism, freedom, are two of the key, but also family -- the very american dreams. the automakers have tapped into the core american values in their advertising. and a year in and year out, we are exposed to tens of billions of messages from them. just any advertising, let alone the marketing, promotion and publicity. because we are supposed under exposed to this and realize we are born, we come to intensely associate these ideas that we already have about what the car can provide us. we associate those values and more intensely with the car. freedom is one of the key values with the car taps into. the iconic image of the lone car

traveling wickedly, widely and freely down this anti-roadway. no other cars in sight. is really an exhilarating image of freedom that we'd imbibed. in daily conversations, we tend to talk more modestly about the convenience that the car provides, but over and over when we talk to people about the car, one of the things they said to us was, i just really like the idea that i can get into this vehicle anytime i want, whenever i want and go wherever i want. it makes me free. we believe the car makes us free. and can provide liberating adventures in the wilderness, as car advertising so often represents it. if you think of the dozens of model names, the escape, the explore, the expedition, the quest, the odyssey. we are being sent out on this

grand adventure that is often to the supermarket. [laughter] >> because the breathtaking view that we tend to see is this one of the highway. out your windshield, much more likely to see the brake lights of cars stopping and stopping you. because of all of the values that the car taps into, it subverts those very same values. i we are hardly free when you think that we spent 18 and a half hours on average a week in our vehicles. as drivers or passengers. and if you calculate that as part of our waking lives, that's nearly two months of every year. that we are sitting in our cars. that's the average. as a nation, in terms of mileage, 4 trillion miles are traveled by us a year.

and that is quite an increase. about double what it was 25 years ago. but with the 2,244,000,000 cars out on the road, we are rarely alone, even though we are often alone driving. and there are few spots on the landscape that are without roads, even the national parks are crisscrossed with roads and play host to traffic jams in the summer. trapped in our cars, we're finding ourselves to be less free than we wished to be. and traffic is getting worse and it is getting worse and the big cities, small says, in between cities. and we are noticing it and it's starting to make us not like driving quite so much as we once did. in fact, one of the auto executives we spoke to said that americans really like the idea of driving better than driving itself. and the real driving that we do is actually quite frustrating

and a lack of control is the antithesis of the freedom that we hope the car will provide us. why are we doing all this driving? suburban sprawl is a big part of it. obviously as the corporations will do and took their jobs out of the suburbs, and some of us be cited to get further away and go to the excerpts were a bigger house, larger yard, we found ourselves driving more to get to work. and a lot of people that we spoke to felt kind of helpless about this. and said, you know, what choice do i have? i have to get to work. but quite a bit of that is our choice. so if we are choosing where to live, and often our choices on where to live are the perceived eyes off her housing in relation to her jobs, we are creating our own lincoln commute. and many of the troops that we are taking not commuting trips. when we look at -- were is always traffic coming from?

well, it's coming from increased trips to school, to run errands, to shop, and in fact, the busiest hour on our nation's roadways is no longer what you would expect, 5 p.m. on a friday, 7 a.m. on a monday. but 1 p.m. on a sunday. so we are choosing to a certain extent to trap ourselves and traffic. and again, to drive there and to drive their own. and we avoid car pooling and we avoid public transit because as one retired auto executives said, we're cowboys and we like to get out on a horse and go where we want to go. and cowboys don't take the bus. [laughter] >> that individualistic streak that says we prefer the individualism and the car to the collectivism of public transit also trans -- translate into another form of individualism that the automakers tap into. which is our sense of self identity and self-expression.

they have convinced us that the car can say something about who we are. and a significant minority of americans do believe that their car communicates something about who they are, or that if they had just the right car, the one that really is them, that really is them, they would be in that car that express their true identity. this notion that the car can say something about us is not new, but the upsurge in car customizing that's happened over the last few years as evidence that it's growing. and that we are increasingly using cars as our social skin, as terence turner has put it. individualism sells so well that numerous automakers sell their models this way. the honda element, the scion, the vw beetle, the mini cooper, there so many rows and iconic

classes out there they all need a different vehicle. the honda ridgeline is a pickup truck for the rebel. the campaign urged buyers a couple years ago to separate and by the honda ridgeline. but even in the scion ad, the tagline of which is united by individuality, points out the irony in trying to express yourself through a massmarketed vehicle. out of these hundred or so vehicles which i suppose are supposed to look different, there are different colors and slightly different styling, actually kind of look alike. they all have four wheels and a windshield, and either a trunk or hatchback, and they all -- all of these i believe tried by a engine. one of the things a nissan

marketing manager said to us is that when that company introduced their altima a few years ago, in the first year of its have they sold 100,000 cars. they were very excited. this was the first big model for them in a while. and those 100,000 altima owners told nissan, this car was built just for me. and so they convince 100,000 people just in the first year that they were buying the right car, a car for their individualistic self. still most of us would have a hard time picking out and altima out of a lineup. because a car is a car is a car. and it seems innocent enough to express yourself through your car. but what it's done over the last few years is truly forced us into a conformity of overspending on our cars. we are spending more to get the newest and the best in order to distance ourselves. we are loading on pricey options and accessories to do things

ourselves. and even environmentally minded people, who want to risk their socially conscious identity, and now we're talking about me, have been convinced by a new car that they didn't need. because you had to buy the hybrid, didn't you? yes. even though most of the carbon footprint, or at least a third of the carbon footprint, most of you will produce if you don't own a car that long is in the production of that vehicle. so a few of us are immune from this. this overspending has led to the average price of an american car, not made in america, but sold to us americans, $26000, which is about 25% higher in inflation control dollars that was a few decades ago when i got my license.

this stunning car parked in front of this beautiful home is emblematic of how central the car or i should say cars, because many of us have multiple vehicles, have become to the american dream. and americans do believe still that the car can drive us towards opportunity and help us show it off when we get there. we were mystified additionally by how, when you buy a new car people tend to almost involuntarily say to you, congratulations. and at first we couldn't quite figure out why that was worthy of congratulations, but once upon a time it was. you are and, you saved, you bought a car. and it was representative of an achievement. and in those days, gm worked to set the stage for us. first you bought a chevy and then you moved up the corporate and social ladder, you got the. and if you got the full american dream, the cadillac.

but the american car buyer, like the american homeowner, over the past decade has overextended themselves. and this has happened for a variety of reasons, some of which are a result of a housing bubble because a lot of people do on home equity to buy increasing the cars. buying on credit, not understanding the true cost of ownership, because we rarely total of the depreciation, the repairs, the maintenance, insurance, gasoline on a monthly basis and see how much it is truly costing us. on average, $14000 a year to own our two cars. and being pushed by dealers and financing sources to buy, based on low monthly payments so that we have become payment shoppers. has led us to always been on our vehicles and get ourselves into financial trouble. congratulations on your debt, would not be a more appropriate

response. if somebody tells you to buy a new car, try that on. cars consume about one fifth of our household budget now. and not far behind housing as far as second biggest household expected we rarely see it that way because it is all divided up in bits and pieces. for the poor, we often focus on carlos this as a problem. but car ownership is a big problem for the working poor, who are working hard just to keep themselves in their car to get to work to get a paycheck to buy the car. or to continue to own the car. so car ownership is impoverishing many families. that once it is average. so if you are lower down on the income scale, your car, portion of your budget is much bigger. the poor are paying more for cars, not just because their income is smaller, but because they are being charged more.

they are paying more for vehicles because you are subject to high rates of dealer fraud, higher loan rates, often higher insurance rates have been because of a zip code in which they live, even if they are great drivers. and they tend to own all the cars that cost more to maintain. sadly, there are plenty of outbids eager to take advantage of folks who are trying, struggling to stay in their car. and rent-a-tire is one of these. went to you if, for example, need a new set of tires to pass inspection, and you can't afford the 450-dollar, say, for a set of four tires at wal-mart, the cheap is that you can get. you can't afford that much hundred month. you can go to rent-a-tire and sign a nice contract. by the end of the year you will pay perhaps almost $2000 for that set of four tires. family values. back to the happy talk. family values are unknown the

american ideal that the automakers tap into. often with visions of family fun. although a surprising few number of our trips are to actually have fun. commuting, shopping, yes. everybody, schools, yes. less than 3 percent of miles driven on vacation. less than 1% trips taken are on vacation suggesting that perhaps this image should be by hertz determined as a car for those occasions rather than being sold to us again we are buying based on these people needs. automakers message around safety, also tapped into our intense desire to be good parents, to be good until good heads a family. and parents meticulously pick out the best car seat. they talk safety. they often even by based on

safety. if we can afford to buy new cars, for our teams because we think that they will be safer for them. when we were at the gm proving ground, we were invited to test drive a new car that was being introduced called a chevy traverse. and we were along with a journalist and a test drive involves a series of little exercises and the traverse. such as driving with a giant motorboat attached to the back. as you drive with this giant motorboat on the back, do you feel in control? we were asked. as you zip around these cones a little too fast, do you feel in control? when you speed up really fast and break and take in the electronic stability control, do you feel in control? the question was asked over and over again. we realize we're being asked, do you feel safe? and cars are marketed with the illusion of safety as much as they are marketed with any real

safety benefits, tangibly at our disposal. it's important to realize that the car is no friend to the family on a lot of levels. and roughly half of air pollution being responsible coming from automobiles is a big part of that. so we can credit as the rates, we can credit loan disease, cancer, heart disease, strokes, many cases each year to the car. obvious he, if you think about we're sitting in the car for 18 and a half hours a week, it's a major contributor to our obesity crisis. and the reality is there's nothing more dangerous to children and cars. the number one killer of americans aged one to 34. and these are the images that we rarely see, the roughly 40000 fatalities a year, the roughly

two and a half million injuries a year, which like it were, we tend to focus on fatalities and more the into. and there's a hidden community. each year, two and a half million are injured. some of them in ways that recover from in a couple of days. others with a lifelong debilitating injury. and the numbers have remained fairly steady year after year, despite safety improvements in roads and despite safety equipment being added to cars. we can be thankful for the activists who have pushed for each innovation that the car companies have tended to resist in terms of adding safety equipment to our cars. from seat belt two airbags, to electronic stability control to antilock brakes that all these things have made cars safer, but because we are driving more miles, we're putting ourselves at risk. and up until last year, those numbers have been fairly steady. last year we saw the first dip in fatalities, and that was due

to the fact that americans were driving less. it's a hopeful sign, that we can drop the rate. but it also means that safe driving means less driving. the final value i want to talk quickly about today is progress. americans believe in technology, as the salvation that is going to give us hope that car technology itself will solve many of the problems with the car. so we expect and hope that car engineers will make cars safer, and that road engineers will make roads safer. we hope and expect that alternative fuels will soon eliminate the need for fossil fuels, and that we will be driving spectacularly streamlined vehicles that will hover above the road, or maybe something a little less glamorous. but still, even if we could convert our fleet today, if the

244 million vehicles that were on the road today suddenly could be fueled from your garden hose, with water, many of the problems that i've talked about tonight would remain. the obesity problem would remain. the overspending problem would remain or get worse. the traffic problem would remain. the inequity problem would remain. the crash problem would remain. and so while we want to encourage debugging of alternative fuels, and it will mitigate many of the problems that the car when they get there, one of the problems with looking ahead is that we don't look at what we can do now. and one of the things that would write about in the book is what we can do now. what can we really listed we do now in terms of behavioral changes and in terms of policy changes to improve our lifestyles? we're not going to get rid of cars. some of you are happy to hear

that. we will not get rid of cars, but there are some very practical, small steps that families can take. and there are bigger steps we need to push our government to take to make that happen. and the first thing we recommend to the people, take a family steps out in front of the car. and i that we mean look at how you're using your car. look at how often you're driving into where and what trips can be removed and eliminate, or combined. look at your car budget. really add it up. what are you spending? after you do those two things, you will not find it difficult at all thing to think about downsizing. about moving to smaller vehicles. the next time you buy a car or train in your larger vehicles, or downsizing your fleet. removing one vehicle from your fleet. could say the average american family tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a decade.

buying smart, understanding the schemes of the dealer, understanding how to finance in an intelligent way and they carefully, stepping back from the car, trying to drive less. there aren't number ones that don't require sacrifice, but can improve your life. many people who have been forced onto public transit in this recession are finding it to be actually a very positive change. and don't plan to go back when they can afford to go back. to the car. changing your personal culture driving, driving not just less but more safely, more saintly. finding the sweet spot when you're making major life changes, really thinking about that commute, deciding where to live and deciding where to work. looking as more people are now for by kabul, walkable places to live. they are there and they're out there. people are moving to them. finally, we recommend that

people get political both on the local level where it can be as simple as looking to add sidewalks so that kids can walk to school. so that you can add pathways that will encourage bicycles. at the state level and at the federal level, pushing for policy changes, understanding which of your leaders are receiving contributions from the oil and gas industry and from the car industry, and pushing perhaps for a different choice. if they do. there are a lot of things that the government can do to shift spending from subsidies for oil and gas companies from auto bailout toward public transit. so we recommend a shift in spending, not necessarily more spending. but with that being said, i want to open the floor to questions, and we have a young gentleman here with us, mike. so if you do have a question,

and i call on you if you could just wait for the microphone to ask the question. and if we have someone here in the back row. [inaudible] >> i have. >> very interesting, but what i really want to ask is i always hear people talking about the fact that americans are cowboys, and they are independent and we like our freedom. but there was a time, and i have read about it, i don't know it, the turn of the last century when people really did enjoy jumping on a toy car or getting on a train and socializing with people and traveling to where they were going. but then something happened. gm, firestone, all of the cubbies interested in the car industry body of the trolley companies. and proceeded to destroy them, rip up the tracks. destroyed the cars and push their own product. in other words, we were sort of manipulative as a country into

believing that we were cowboys and free, and we want our independence. and we lost the culture of actually meeting people on a train or going out on a trolley and talking to people and being part of our culture. we sort of isolated ourselves in these boxes. i mean, i don't want to assume. i don't think i want to assume the american populace is just so fixated on this business of independence and freedom. yes, we are in the sense that but i think we want to be with our fellow human beings also in a public transit centric i think the last one, get political, is a really important point. i think we need to get public transportation funded. we need to get back on track. . .

and again the recession has been positive and that people have been trying public transit and discovering and realizing the human element of interaction missing on the roads. so one thing we recommended particularly that people haven't tried in a while, look around and see what's available to do, try it coming and i like it and the more people at the economic levels using public transit invested in it and pushing more of it the better off we will be.

>> i have a question. in your talk tonight is basically a marketing, has nothing to do with the advancement of technology in the auto industry, the lack of advancements. when i was a kid ever making 15 mouse to the gallon and today they are making 15, more horsepower. everything is powergen some people think their car is weight less. they follow you within a car length, it's impossible that they could avoid an accident because you are going 44 p to a second at 30 miles per hour and i think that a say so the very advancement in safety and cost accidents. >> absolutely. >> because people think there are safe in don't weigh anything. they don't know what interest is so could you talk a little about the lack of a branson in technology in the auto industry? >> on you're last point i

mentioned in the fatality rates have remained relatively stable despite safety improvements in cars and is due to the fact we are driving more but also which referred to, no one has risked compensation where because i feel safer and have the air bag and those breaks, and taking more risks. and that's absolutely been a factor and even some of the engineering improvements got into making our cars more comfortable are at cross purposes to safety so the sound engineers make it nice and quiet in this luxurious little capsule, but perhaps we should be hearing and feeling that road. i didn't like that i couldn't feel that giant motor boat that was behind me. i felt in control of a giant go to so to your point, yes many of the improvements in cars have made us feel to say if and have worked at cross purposes to safety and the fact that we still have a gas burning engine

is shocking and you're absolutely correct that technology advancements and the fact we're spending more money on our vehicles for more horsepower and that more luxury or electronics. there's a question here. >> with regards to save see what the gentleman said, i think also brings to a pointed out driver education. these days i think progressively we are seeing less and less driver education so therefore a a a a are operating these vehicles and not as good but i take a little issue with what you are saying about the number of accidents that may be but as a percentage to the driven mile i think of fatalities and injuries have actually decreased as a result of these things nes the car is heavier because it has the air bags and all the doodads on that to be stronger

and survive crashes better and everything so therefore doesn't get as good gas mileage and is of this circle of. >> cars are safer than they were, but 40,000 people dying is 40,000 people dying so it is still something that is worth thinking about and when we see that tip, actually a lot of our driving is discretionary. so if we can reduce our driving by a significant percentage as we did last year to us because we had to, but a lot of that was trips that people are realizing i didn't need to hop in the car at that point. and we can reduce the number of miles of driving can improve those numbers. there's a question right here. >> i have a sense that in other countries perhaps particularly in europe that people are less carjacked then we are in america.

do you share that sense and so can we learn something from those other countries? >> absolutely, unfortunately we do have a -- fortunately we do have some of the domestic models to look at with localities and municipalities doing things but generally speaking to look at models to follow we do have to look to europe and often americans still like to look to europe. as an example of how we should run our country, but in terms of public transit in in terms of consumer behavior, consumers are more practical allah in europe, they do buy more based on needs and wants at least according to the industry people we spoke to and in particular we talk to one gentleman representative for all well we did spend quite an amount of time talking about how shocked i was by how american's load up on the accessories and

options so we can look to them as a model as consumers saying to me to spend some much even if we have a car and can also look to europe as a model for directing spending towards public transit to and that may involve light rail and high-speed trains. people like to say the countries are smaller and we are a big country, but connecticut is not a big state. so if we do these things locally and state-by-state they are to a boil. >> technologically i agree with you that it is a wonderful idea to have a reduced size of car here it is not only environmentally friendly and so on, but i was shocked recently by a picture that i saw in "the new york times" of a family that had to live in the car because they were dispossessed from

their house. this is i hope a temporary condition because the banks who, of course, of the mortgage of people in that position are not really ready to relent and give up the fact that these people are really tessellated -- desolated and disadvantaged by that fact they couldn't pay their mortgage. in such cases they are glad to have a large car because the entire family has to then. [laughter] that i hope is a temporary condition. the real issue by wanted to ask you about is that the distraction and that drivers have burst due to cellphones. even when a plant that they have had the ability to converse buyer to of a microphone rather than directly into the phone itself does not necessarily mean

that there are driving more safely. we have a lot of accidents because one can be extremely emotionally involved while driving in the cell phone is not a device that should be used under those circumstances. "the new york times" also published today with the fact that computers are not just in laptops and desktops, they are going to be on -- boards. can you imagine, what with the driver be doing if he has a computer on the dashboard? do you think that makes him a safe for driver? do think he should be driving a car while he is messing about with his computer? we have some problems in this entire business because innovation is driving the american public frantic in terms of lack of safety.

>> one refer started talking to some of the auto companies you asking about technology and they kept coming back to e'en in car technologies. we are at the forefront of technology and what they meant by that was the kind of technology you're talking about, putting the mp3 jack in a car, putting computers in a car. it's emblematic of again trying to cram our vehicles with all this extra stop. for somebody who is a salesman, for example who travels tens of thousands of miles a month perhaps for their job and who actually work out of their car, realtors come to mind is another example, there might be a practical use to have a computer in your car. i don't know if needs to be built into its. and all of these devices, the cellphones and even a simple radio can provide this -- and when you look down to turn the

knob. we feel comfortable with all these distractions in the car because year in and year out begin to them and become immune to their danger. we forget that we're doing is incredibly complicated task that requires a tremendous amount of concentration and attention. we take for granted and we try to do too many things out on time and in danger ourselves and others. >> my name is richard. the few things that i am sure you are aware of the that are probably worth mentioning in the context of representation, one is the length of miles traveled by americans. 26 percent of our trips are 1 mile or less, 40 percent are to mauser less than 80 percent of those are by car.

another area is our rail of the structure. we have had a defamation of rail stretching -- structure in the last 80 years. i think it is down by two-thirds and of that one-third that remains very little of it is used for commuter rail or frequent service. hear from new haven to york we have the business line in the country, carry twice as many people everyday as amtrak does nationwide. certainly people are more than willing professionally either to go to work or recreation league to go to york on the weekends to take a car. why is that blacks -- why is

that? well, people usually talk about the price of parking in new york so that is an issue, a real issue this country faces peering the adverse consequences of impervious services related to the roads, but to the automobiles and especially to the parking spots for automobiles. in cities other than new york those parking spaces taking a greater and greater percentage of the land area. hartford, connecticut for example has had a declining population of the last 30 years, but since 1970 the number of parking spaces has risen by 30 percent. i would say also that the

country has to set goals, where we are going. the rest of the rose having an increase in the number of car ownership, we are leveling off in. we should really set a goal of reducing car ownership. you alluded to that. so i guess i'll wrap up and say, get a few comments with regard to that and also mention to anyone in the audience interested that is donald and shapiro to the high cost of free parking will be speaking at yale university at 7:00 p.m. on tuesday, january 19th. it is kind of related to what we are speaking with. >> two your first point about how many trips we're taking that are quite short and why we do that it is have it. if we hop in the car, don't think twice about it and want to start driving in become sedentary in that way what seems

like a short walk becomes law and because we and i used to walking any more. one of the things we recommend people do is keep a trip wire in their car and i can be as simple as having a pad of yellow paper to keep track of where you're going and how long it takes to get there and how far away it is so that people can see how many trips they are taking they could walk or bike. it is a high percentage of those are not necessary trips. we can consider the irony of driving to the gemma dashed to the jam. luckily my husband is not here because you say the reason i don't drive to the gym is because i don't go to the gym so i don't have authority on that, but there are a lot shorter trips that can be more healthfully walking and biking and cutting down on our driving quite a bit to. you're second point on the need for greater public transit and our public transit system is

thinner, it's better in some places than others. but we should be pushing for more of it. others no reason why we shouldn't have a new world-class public transit system at. it's just the spending has been directed toward the roads and that policy should happen. there were some stimulus funds devoted to public transit, but they pale in comparison to the auto bailouts. and i think we can take one or two more questions and there's one right here. >> one of my grandchildren came -- >> wait for the microphone. >> my grandchildren came from maine for thanksgiving and there were these little exhaustive from a car ride in, little sprites falling out of the car and walking up to grandma and what i suggested that that we

take right away a walk downtown, there was this instant transformation. they ran out into the woods and a day got sticks to make into walking sticks. the stab them apart and it was just really a wonderful liberating experience for them and for me. and my daughter. i would just love to have that example thought about and actualized. because we all have these experiences and if we couldn't just -- >> even the walk to school which used to being a respite or an adventure for kids, very few children walk to school even when they can. they are being driven and i

would argue -- so many people we said sadly said the only time i see my kids is one on driving them to school or when i have them trapped in the car. i think that's a sad reflection on the way we spend time with our children. there are better times to spend time with your children. our children would be healthier if we encourage them to get out and walk or bike. we have a false sense of danger with respect to children because they're much safer for sample walking or biking to school and much safer taking a school bus than being driven by their own parents. like that feeling of control so we want to take the marcels and certainly there are much safer to give the school bus and walking -- once they are in high school. i will take one last question right up in front if you can wait for the microphone that would be great.

>> thank you for your talk. you mentioned certain values of freedom and individuality and family values, none of which seem two really pertain to our use of the car. so i am wondering if and then and this might somehow correspondent to if we are not doing these things that the car itself is a false symbol of these values, even a dead symbol of these values or eight program of these values and i'm wondering if you can comment then since it does work that might also -- i'm curious how you might comment on the

possibility that we ourselves are living our lives as a kind of -- just that. [laughter] >> when we say that the card tabs into these values, some of the aspects are real. in yes the card as many as three particularly in a car based society need the car to be free so it's created its own sense of providing the freedom that it actually can prevent us from having so in embodies a host of contradictions. we can take your family on vacations. we want to, we just a vote to much of our energy to thinking that's why we are buying a certain. minor uses are very difficult -- different. it would do better to think of the car as a tool and we talk to the auto marketers the center of the appliance people, the people who treat them that way, there

still are some, and then there are the people who buy on a motion and unfortunately most of us are buying on a motion and should be thinking more like a washing machine. although they are getting pretty fancy these days. [laughter] i'm going to have to wrap up but i thank you very much for your good questions and i think again on street books once again in newnityo share with you today. thank you. [applause] >> anne lutz fernandez is an english teacher at westport, connecticut and a former investment banker with 15 years' experience working for corporations. catherine lutz is an anthropology professor at brown university. she has written or edited nine books. >> we are at west virginia university speaking with professor daniel shapiro about his book, is the welfare state

justified? so let's start at the end that if you will, is the welfare state justify? >> probably not but i should explain a little bit what i mean by that. out the first one i mean by the welfare state, by the welfare state i mean programs like national health insurance, social security, sometimes called social insurance program and government welfare and when i say probably not what i do in the book is interesting i think is i look at the values and principles of people who defend the welfare state and take their values and the reasons they give it so i'm in philosophy, various positions and that support it. to skip technical terms i will say people feel it is fairness or protecting the poor, providing a sense of community and i argue that a given their values if you compare those institutions with feasible more market-based alternative is, the people supporting the welfare state should actually support the alternatives, they come out

looking either better or and least as good given their own values. >> so what are the essential values are principles that drive the creation of welfare programs? >> i think one i will talk about the most, the one with a notion of fairness, i think if you ask people why do we need these programs may probably say because they are fair. let people tried to have their health insurance on their own war have a pension plans, retirement on their own love to find themselves of their poor, it's not going to be fair to them. so i think those of this values. do you want me to talk about one of my arguments? >> sure. >> since health care is in the news this talk about this. i wrote this in 2007 by cambridge university press so it is not completely turned with what is going on but basically if you look good systems of national health insurance which exist in all the affluent

democracy is, we don't have one. we have a quasi system of medicare and medicaid, half of all government expenditures paid for by the government -- half of health care expenditures. to put it simply they involve massive subsidization of everybody and keep the prius below what they would pay in a market. what happens is is elementary. if you subsidize something you get more of it. once you get more to get big explosion in demand and eventually the government has to put a cap on that and then you get rid of rationing and when that happens you get lines and who is going to go to the top-of-the-line? i will tell you, we know this and have this, people like me with connections, people who are knowledgeable, the king gave the system. will go to the bottom? look at poor west virginians. so if you want to be fair this is not a curse system.

now, to do this we would have to talk about what a feasible alternative, real market based insurance would look like. he wanted to talk about that? >> yes please. >> we have to compare two alternative because is not fair to look in a system and say it has a problem without working its so by real market health-insurance i don't mean the u.s., i mean a system or not the government is in control and not the insurance companies but you are in control as the consumer so imagine a system health savings accounts. you have an account tax-free coming you can use it to spend for predictable routine expenses. meet limit insurance to catastrophe which is what should be like. think about car insurance -- does it pay for welland luba? you know the answer -- it did we would be catastrophically part of the problem, it would be catastrophically expensive so if we had a system like this everybody can be in control of their own health care dollars

and seems to be much fairer and limited to catastrophes. you don't have rationing because in my system you have tax incentives almost everybody would have a health savings account, leave for the hard cases some subsidies and then you don't have a rationing that to get a national health insurance, you don't get the lines and poor people being shunted to the bottom of the line so i argue if you want to favor and be fair have a system in which people are in control of their own health dollars in which we don't get this kind of rationing which we see in a lot of national health care systems. >> in our opinion, can welfare programs in general achieve social justice? >> well, it's sort of depends pardon the philosophers answer what you mean by social justice. if you mean something like fairness, sense of community, protecting the pour come i think if you compare them to social

programs they do a worse job than these alternatives. on welfare i think it is more of a tossup. but just asking my opinion and the arguments i would say they do a poor job. given and and the values of people that depended. >> who would you like to read this book racks who will benefit the most from it? >> is dedicated, not as a joke, to all supporters of the welfare state have a dedicated to them. i didn't want to answer my own views in it. i wanted to say i'm going to take your views seriously and i want to convince you rather than -- convince you that the institutions you are supporting which is poor alternative can say -- i can tell you what motivated this. would you like me to talk about that? >> sure. >> as a philosopher i've seen these debates on down like some people say liberty is most important and furnaces and some say community is and then in a

battle about principles. the truth is it doesn't get anywhere. no one's minds are changed so instead of that why not say we start from difference starting points and maybe then we could converge on the same kind of institutions so i draw a distinction between the principals and institutions and tried to say maybe this kind of a disagreement with the missions of hope, despite this weekend converge on similar results about what institutions we should have because that is what it's about to. what kind of society we want, social institutions we want so that's who i would like to read the book. it is a serious dedication, not sarcastically. dedicated to my friends that disagree. i say we disagree on principles, my own view is i'm much more of a living by libertarian but i keep libertarianism of the book and say even if you are egalitarian you shouldn't be supporting the social insurance

programs, you should be supporting on your own principles which to a worse job. >> when your central message be to the egalitarian as quacks. >> the central message would be reconsider your position that is to say maybe your supporting institutions in promoting the values you want to promote when you compare to feasible alternatives. >> we have been speaking with professor daniel shapiro at west virginia university on his book, is the welfare state justified? thank you. >> retired in lt. gen. julius becton talks about his autobiography. general becton a veteran of world war to end u.s. sourcing. in vietnam serve as the director of fema from 1985 to 1989.