it couldn't have happened without the government playing a critical role. you'll get all the basic research on which all of the advances of technology that we use, most of that basic research is supported by the government. there is a good feeling and good reason why that is the case but the fact is that you can't have the advances in technology if you don't have advances in science on which they rest. >> host: and the innovations and therefore the growth and employment. >> guest: it all has to rest on a foundation of government to reply from so disturbing during the bush year of was this constant bashing of the government. the government doesn't do everything perfectly. and any of was that what happened in the bush administration have to agree the government often takes things

very bad but it's also the case of the private sector dawson to get things perfectly. no government, no space government probably has ever wasted money outside of the war on the scale of our private sector in this crisis and we should remember that. so private-sector fail, governments have failed. we need systems of checks and balances and that's part of the space process. but one of the concerns is the system of checks and balances may be getting underlined. ..

>> our companies, whether it is providers of video or those who lacks landess tikrit the content are working overtime to figure out how to get consumers of the

content they want on every platform or a device that they may own as quickly as possible. >> this week in kyle mcslarrow head of the national cable and tele-communications association and what is next for the cable industry. "the communicators" saturday on c-span. >> host: tonight on booktv in prime-time, a discussion and call-in program on the war in afghanistan. joining us are to afghanistan war authors, mark moyar and seth jones. mr. jones book is in the graveyard of the empires america's war in afghanistan. mark moyar's book the question of command counterinsurgency from civil war to iraq. seth jones right before we get started you told me just returned from afghanistan. what were your impressions? >> guest: my impressions actually have beaven shane since i got back because we have obviously had the capture of the taliban second-in-command this week. what i will say that is as we

move into the late winter, early spring, there will beith nato offensive in helmand province where we see u.s. forces in the central helmand river valley as well as snow over the past week defensive by pakistani intelligence agencies and u.s. intelligence agencies against senior taliban officials in pakistan so we are really now saying offensives on both sides of the border. >> host: mark moyar has our mission in afghanistan change since president obama came to office and how would you define their mission? >> guest: i think the fundamental mission of trying to provide a stable and secure afghanistan has largely remained the same yet how we do that has changed. we had a large infusion of troops and seen a lot of activity this year already in the marjah campaign. i think we are making progress. the most important thing is looking at long-term afghan

development. when i was over there last month that was how i was looking at them how to develop and afghanistan the becomes more self-sufficient and all of that is important but the question is how you go about doing that. >> host: in fact in a recent "foreign policy magazine" article this is what you wrote. in developing the afghan national security forces, the u.s. and afghan governments must combine short-term fixes with long-term deployment. it is a project that will take longer than american policymakers would like, no matter how many resources they allocate to it. >> guest: because in a situation like this any to develop leaders. leadership is the key i argue and you can develop a leader in a year or two years for the critical metal levels of command in the path we have tried to spittle that up is tort de'etre and. we have in recent months finally figured that out in their moving towards better long term development at the same time doing short-term fixes in terms of trying to get the afghans to replace some of the that

commanders were already there. >> host: mr. jones, "in the graveyard of empires" page 317 who road, the first up must be to address mass of corruption at the national and local levels which has steadily alienated the local population and field support for insurgent groups. several forms of corruption appeared two of specifically contributed to the afghan insurgency. drug-trafficking, briber lee and pervasive extortion among afghan police and judges. >> guest: correction if you look at world bank and transparence international data, they rank afghanistan at the bottom of countries worldwide, so one of the things i think we have found is when you look back at afghanistan's previous periods, so for example the years of king zaire shot they were fairly legitimate governments over the course of the 30's, '40's, 50's 60's and

70's. what we faced the allison crisis of legitimacy. in order for the long one to establish stability and security there has to be some legitimacy at the central government level and in particular that means doing something about the large-scale corruption we have seen in government officials involved in the narcotics trade as well as individuals involved then large-scale extortion and bribery, usually about major contracts, large amounts of crack cash. this is not just about police checkpoints along the road. this is about large amounts of money being used in the think it is actually parsley fueling the insurgency because it is separating the local population from the government they view as illegitimate to some degree. >> host: are we doing that at all? >> guest: i think there have been steps. most of the key cabinet ministers at least in the power positions, for example the minister of defense actually tend to have pretty clean

records. the other interesting thing about corruption that note to mcinnes people tend forget the main insurgent groups, especially the taliban are involved and probably more widespread corruption in the afghan government. they actually make their money primarily off of the drug trade and off of taxing local farmers sell any sense the insurgents are doing exactly what the government is potentially worse in some of these areas we have multiple organizations involved in corruption. >> host: good evening to you. if you would like to participate in our conversation this evening we will put the phone numbers on the screen. for those of you in the east and central timezones and (202)737-0003 in the mountain are sunstar send ison e-mail at booktv at c-span.org or a tweet at twitter.com/booktv. here is a little bit more about our guest. we will start with mark moyar. he is also a professor, a

professor at the marine corps university and he has written a couple of books including his question of command but. he has also written phoenix and the birds of prey, counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism in vietnam and try and forsaken the vietnam war, 1954 to 1965. dr. moyar has served, has been several times to afghanistan. our other guest is seth jones author of "in the graveyard of empires." he is also a political scientist at the rand corporation in a professor at georgetown university. marks moyar we have been in afghanistan now eight and a half years. is there and in came to this? >> guest: i think there is and it has taken us a long time to get there. in the early years for one thing it didn't seem to be much i am-- beilin cindy heda iraq ended the insurgency did not really get going until 2005 on a large scale. and then we were slow to react and as i said we have tried for

several years to sort of ran about the afghan forces quickly but again it was the quantity pushover quality. and that is also coming gets to the issue that we have talked about corruption. abruption starts with commanders on the afghan side because at some level they are tolerating this and for too long we have sort of let them sort this out. but, just in the past few months we have seen encouraging examples where we are starting to prosecute people for corruption, the governors, police chiefs and as i mentioned we have just upgraded the training mission to a three-star general, general caldwell, again. we are seeing our best and brightest going over there. for a while most of them were going to iraq and general caldwell and general mcchrystal, so i think we are going to see a turning point this year. >> guest: i think we are beginning to see what looks like

u.s. and the afghans in a doh more broadly potentially moving towards the tipping point. what is interesting again is we see major efforts in helmand. there will be very soon a defensive in kandahar province as well, and what is interesting is over the last really seven years in particular, the taliban leadership, the afghan taliban leadership has been able to operate in pakistan, especially in baluchistan province and other neighboring provinces with impunity. command-and-control structures exist in the shura. this week we have now seen it become public with information about the taliban leadership including shadow governors now being targeted in pakistan and this becomes a systematic effort, this begins to change the game in pakistan because this means no were now is safe for the taliban. >> host: what was the point of

pre-announcing our intentions for this week's military actions? >> guest: i think they knew the taliban were going to figure it out other could at surveillance and they would see this massive troop movement for an offense alive and think we have lost much in terms of the element of surprise. it did in naval list to set the groundwork with the local population and shortly before the offensive we had a lot of meetings with local elders which i think proved beneficial because you are seeing them cooperating with us even as the offensive is on going. it is also important to help make sure we had of the afghan leadership on board. >> one thing to add to what mark said and he pointed this out, i just want to emphasize, in my view the focus in and around the marjah area will probably not be the military operations. they will be the development side that there will also be the political effort. when i have been to marjah, what

you see in marjah is a range of tribal community leaders that have a hold on power. they range from tribal leaders, and part of the negotiations have been in trying to co-ops or coercive possible the allegiance and influence of these key powerbrokers. this will be a major struggle. this is pashtun area where power is to centralize. this will be a major struggle over the next couple of months because the taliban as they have done historically, will try to coerce these same individuals as well. >> host: finally before we go to calls come a question for both of you, seth jones. what if we left afghanistan? what would happen? >> guest: in my personal view, the taliban in particular and the groups allied with it would probably slowly, assuming they were backed by states in the region, there's some states from

iraq and pakistan, would probably take increasing tracts of territory. it is difficult to know how long that would take, but i think there would clearly make a push to take the bullet some point and as we have seen in the past especially with some of the insurgent groups like the haqqani network, they are very close an alliance with al qaeda in north waziristan. you potentially seatrain capset some point. so i would say based on the relationship now between some of the insurgent groups and foreign fighters, we would be somewhere around for the u.s. was in the late 1990's and early 2000's. afghanistan would be used as training areas as parts of pakistan are for that matter. >> host: mr. moyer? >> guest: i agree and i would emphasize you have to look at what happened in pakistan. pakistan is very much watching what we are doing as a signal of our intentions. if we were to withdraw the thing

that would push them in the direction of supporting taliban elements that they supported earlier but also make it much more difficult for us to deal with that government and of course it nuclear power. there are lots of reasons to be concerned about the deterioration of pakistan. us gore next call comes from norton, virginia. nancy is on our line. >> caller: good evening. i want to say something about what mr. moyar said. i wonder if either gentleman is familiar with the book, three cups of tea? there is a clip in the book that was used as a dowry which means it has economic value and would either of the gentleman know if our state department or department of agriculture is considering giving-- selee machines to the women in the afghan region to try to change

the sociology there? >> host: seth jones. >> guest: there are range of effort sexually by the state department, especially u.s. agency for international development. the afghan ministry of rural rehabilitation and development to pursue a development strategy that is in line with military efforts and that is that in areas that have been pacified are actually in areas that are relatively peaceful to provide a range of development projects and we see in the north there have been efforts effectively that i have seen up close to get women involved in making carpets for example in the mazar-i-sharif area. long-term, sustainable work for women so there are a range of projects as we look across northern, western eastern and southern afghanistan. >> host: are the effective? >> guest: some of them are. part of the question is are they

quick impact? is there a long-term focus and frankly in the areas i would say that our most vulnerable to the insurgency and that the most insecure, they are also in my view has to be a counterinsurgency part of that. and other words they have to help encourage the population to the post and surgeons as well, because otherwise this we have seen in surgeons will intimidate. they will destroy in some cases a development project, so i think they have been affected in some cases. where they have been able to be sustainable in the long run and also where they have been involved in really helpful, long term counterinsurgency projects as well. >> host: mark moyar are we nation-building? >> guest: it depends what you mean by nation-building. i think we are to some extent changing our institutions. crabs more importantly beard trying to build a national culture there, which has been weak in the past.

one of the things i have had the opportunity to see and spent looking at is the national military and they are within 18-year-old doing a very good job of bringing together people from diverse ethnic groups and provinces together and instilling a sense of nationalism and i think we are making progress there. that is a long-term effort. you are not like to do the same thing with the 40 walls but i think that is in the long term where we are going to make progress with the younger generation of fans who are going to see the importance of the nation's state and are going to be more virtuous and avoid things like corruption. >> host: jimmy in portland, oregan. please go ahead. >> caller: viewer a workaholic but that is not why i called. you do a very good job. i watch you in the morning sometimes. i have two quick questions i want to s. either of the gas. the first question is, how important is marjah to the

taliban. we hear a lot, but really that important is that? is it going to hurt them short-term or long-term, and the number to cup question is, they have been growing poppy for long time. and, because it is easy, it is low maintenance, and why can't we buy that from them, turn that into morphine? during the war sun people are getting hurt in when you go to a hospital or doctor, they are in need of morphine. >> guest: let me talk about the first question you had. i do think marjah is import militarily. and if you look at in insurgency overtime one thing they would like to have this they sanctuary area and that is what they have had in marjah. the been able to process opium there and be able to build ied's

in doing those things as a lot harder when you are in a cave or running round the hill somewhere and we know indian surgeon will tell you that. they also like areas to rest and recuperate so it is important to take this away from that. is their last big sanctuary within afghanistan and we have to deal with the pakistan sanctuaries, but it is clearly something that we don't want to allow them to have anywhere and i think it is not going to be the be all end all and more important than clearing it is going to be holding it but it is certainly important to deny them sanctuary in marjah. >> host: what about the poppy question seth jones? >> guest: i think there have been a number of efforts to try and deal with the poppy issue. there have been effective efforts in the east of afghanistan to get some farmers to actually grow other things including wheat, fruit in some areas because there are those options. the problem we have right now in

the south in parts of kandahar and hell months where poppy is grown, is that nato forces and afghan forces don't actually control the territory, at least chunks of the territory so it almost makes it most with do you try to buy it or not because they don't control the territory and in fact the taliban controls and ellison some cases some of the land and runs the key trade routes. all along the key roads where the-- narcotics are taken so the first of the much of the south where most of the poppy is grown actually has to the first. to control that territory and then we can get into the question about this it makes sense to buy it? does it make sense to try to get farmers to grow of the things like wheat or to look at other options? >> host: does it make sense? >> guest: to buy it? >> host: to buy a thick things? >> guest: in the central river valley the u.s. river

development was involved in the 1950's and agricultural production there. and, that area is a hot bendar has historically been a hotbed for range of different types of produce, including wheat as well as different fruits and vegetables ecothere clearly is an option. >> host: giovanni in district heights, maryland. >> caller: how are you doing peter? our youtube jones? my comment is on will the war ever stop, and do you all understand that god is watching every step in progress, and when you said thou shalt love thy neighbor and thou shall love thyself, and we are the brothers of this planet and we are here to multiplied. >> host: giovani where are you going with this question?

what would you like our to afghanistan war authors to address with that question? >> caller: i would like to hear their joyful the expression on that question. do they believe in change? >> host: is there anything there you would like to address? >> guest: let me talk about the question of the is this a war ever going to end? i think it is a good question because obviously the american people have limited patience for this war and we have seen other wars over the time and patience roads. we can get to the point where the insurgency is brought them to a nuisance level. there probably will be an ongoing level of violence but the key here is to develop that again security forces to the point and afghan governments to the point where they can handle these insurgents without american combat troops, and so that can get to that point it becomes a nuisance level of violence. i think then babel have

succeeded. >> guest: i have that two additional points and i think it is worth remembering that if you look at the taliban machine during the 1990's up through september 11, 2001 and you see it right now, what you see is one of the most repressive regimes that we have seen that regularly violates basic human rights, its view of women, its large scale oppression of beheadings of the individuals. part of what we are dealing with is a range of militant movements i think that are and have been very brutal, so for the u.s. to withdraw i think he would subject the afghan population to the same sort of barberry that they have had to face during the 1990's. the editing i would also notice this is the area where u.s. and other western intelligence agencies indicate that the core of qaeda element remains, osama

bin laden kent zawahiri and others. i think the caller-- the afghans have suffered a tremendous amount. we are also dealing with some groups whose behavior in the past has been a very abusive. >> host: the next golf for two guests, seth jones and mark moyar comes from tim in pocatello, idaho. >> caller: good evening gentlemen. i just had a couple of questions. i am a retired military, fought in three wars and it puzzles me the fact that how were we going to continue to finance this ward number one, in number two do you really believe done deep, are we even going to come to a solution? i have just listened with to set and the probably the first intelligent thing i've heard about this war, but are we

really going to be able to accomplish what we set out to do? >> guest: i think we are going to be able to develop and afghanistan that is self-sufficient in terms of personnel and as i mentioned, if we can drawdown the number of foreign troops i think we will be in good shape. i think public opposition will subside even if we have to-- there is an important question on how long are we going to keep funding the afghans because as we build up the security forces we have also raised their pay and the cost of maintaining these forces is going to become very high and one that the afghan government and its kurd form may not be able to pay for it any point so we are going to have to come up with a way to drawdown those forces eventually. i think we are going to need to continue some investments in that country for a long time. we pulled out after the soviets

left and, lethings deteriorate in the think we can't completely withdraw from there again. >> host: a little bit more from mark moyar's article. afghan forces reliance on americans for leadership test will have a number of negative consequences. some afghan commanders will sit back and let the americans do their work for them. some u.s. commanders will relegate their afghan partners to an important task because of doubts about their confidence or loyalty. consequently the development of afghanistan's leaders will be slowed. how many afghanistan troops are fighting alongside u.s. troops right now and how many u.s. troops are currently over there? >> guest: we are now moving into position with essentially trying to have all the afghan army forces park and with our forces, and again because there is a number of reasons. it helps us because they have a better report and making it intelligence and on the other

hand we can provide them with the assistance and a lot of areas that they are just not pae ofnd we are moving more and more towards this concept of partnering. every marine battalion is part and with an afghan army battalion. but there's certainly a danger that they are going to become overly dependent on us in part of how we get around that is having the right american battalion commander who takes the time to work with his afghan counterparts but again, it is going to be a struggle. we saw in iraq we try to turn things over to the iraqis. 2005 and 2006 it didn't work. the same thing as happened in afghanistan so we are going to, we are taking on a larger pool working closely with them because we can't allow them to fail. in the long term we are going to have to figure out ways to withdraw and as we have done i think fairly well in the rack, to gradually let them take responsibility. >> host: seth jones to go back to the caller's point are we ever going to get them of there?

are we ever going to win and the name of your book, "in the graveyard of empires." >> guest: i think what is interesting is foreign governments whether it is the three british wars, whether it was the soviet invasion, again in 1979. it has been pretty clear that foreign governments have had a very difficult time stabilizing afghanistan, but between 1929 and 1978, there was a period of stability during the dynasty, so what is clear is that afghans do have a history of stabilizing their country. there have been recent stable. but i think the issue is for us as be looking at trying to create a stable afghanistan, relatively stable afghanistan is one where we increasingly as mark noted, have afghans both in the central government but also the local government level doing

the bulk of that work. if i could just add one thing, he know we have often thought of, and over the last eight years there has been the concept of trying to do this entirely from the top-down from the central government. i would also argue that there has never, ever been a history in afghanistan in the rural areas where the central government has provided long-term stability so we have to remember we are not dealing with the traditional western state. >> host: from "in the graveyard of empires" you write this. charles, missouri i believe it is. go ahead with their question for our guest. >> caller: good evening gentlemen. as long as we throw money at the

two governments, iraq and afghanistan, once we quit throwing money at them they are going to go back to their tribal affairs or whenever and here we are wasting all this money. it started during the bush administration. and worst, all the persons that have been killed in funded, that is really terrible. just remember and i think one of you alluded to this before, once we leave, they are going to go back to the same old same old and i would like your comments and good health to you all. >> host: seth jones. >> guest: that is a good question and a good comment. i would know if you look at the last 100 years in afghanistan there are and have been stable. so part of the question for the united states, for nato countries operating in afghanistan, and for the afghan government more broadly is to find ways, as has been done in

afghanistan's history, of ensuring long-term stability. what i would note in pashtun areas of the country, a bill that goes from herat in the western afghanistan down to the south and into the ease, pastuns of the largest tribal group in afghanistan. power has been very decentralize there. the pastuns have a tendency in rural areas to wanted to a lot of the policing of the village level on their own. we see them use arbakai, and other local security forces. i think part of it, as we move forward as to look towards more stable solutions we have got to think about top-down effort to build a stronger central government as mark noted earlier with afghan national security forces and development efforts at one of our previous guests noted. as well as bottom-up efforts to work with local come key local legitimate institutions and

pashtun areas, shura's injure's do it think if you look at the history there have been mods for stability and we just need to look carefully at those. >> host: to kind of build on that point, aren't you ignoring how the pastuns are the majority try it and they aren't represented compared to the minority tribes? >> guest: i would say the president of course is a pop the site. there are a range of key ministers. so, there are. the president has tried to balance some of the key pastuns with some individuals from the number it is clients, uzbek send tajik speak what we saw in 2001 and 2002, we have that more of their representation of pastuns in the government. what we don't have the at and what we need to do is start

finding a way to incorporate taliban pastuns into this government in some respects, what we called reconciliation. we are going to have to reach some sort of an agreement with those individuals that want to switch sides on being able to pull those individuals to weapon fighting against the government and most of them are pashtuns. >> host: mark moyar and e-mail from pegg in maine. although i am very proud of their service to our country i can't help but wonder why we are sending more and more troops into afghanistan. it seems like ali keep hearing about lately is how difficult it is to train afghan soldiers as many are illiterate in turn the of the way when fighting is going on. the military solution to the problem cannot be the answer. it seems like an impossible task with their soldiers being caught in the middle, of being injured and dying almost on a daily

basis. >> guest: ifrs point out we were saying the same things in my rack a couple of years ago, that this was a hopeless situation and we are at a time now where hopefully we will be seeing a turning point going forward but i think it has been very valuable of ready to have these extra troops there. as we mentioned, you need to deny them sanctuary areas and if you don't have enough troops, and we saw this on iraq before the surge, ego and clear one area, take care and the-- wasn't until the surge in iraq that we were able to build prisons up in lots of different areas in the same thing is happening in afghanistan now. the other thing i would add too is the partnering effort, our american forces are having multiplying effect on the afghans. for example, there are cases where you will have 40 afghan policeman and you take ten american troops and put them

with those, those 40 may have been very ineffective before but when you have the ten americans, they bring a lot of expertise and make sure things are not being done improperly. so instead of just getting the ten americans you also have 40 afghan troops or not contributing much before the war now. >> host: this is booktv and prime time and we are talking about the afghanistan war with mark moyar and seth jones. your their books, a question of command in seth jones, "in the graveyard of empires." what is this picture on the front of your book? >> guest: it is a soviet tanks sitting in an afghan field. just a reminder of the soviet experience in afghanistan, partly to learn the lessons of the soviets. >> host: mark moyar we have heard quite a bit about vietnam. are there comparisons? >> guest: there comparisons, lots of similarities, lots of differences in one of the things i like to point out to people is

we often invoke the idea of the afghanistan be another vietnam as in it is hopeless and i argue here and in my other books on vietnam that there were periods where we were pretty successful, 1962 and 63 made progress in counterinsurgency which was unfortunately and then by the kubli orchestrated against the south vietnamese president and then also after the tet offensive to have effective counterinsurgency so by the end of the war, it is no longer an insurgency. it is a commensals fret so i think it is the myth insurgencies are all-powerful and there's nothing we can do to stop them. >> host: subwhen we have spent about $680 billion on the vietnam war in today's dollars. about the sanely spended nigh rath. how much it we spent in afghanistan 979 servicemembers have lost their lives so far. >> guest: the exact amount is difficult to calculate but it has been billions of dollars. one of the things that has been

a little bit different in afghanistan though and is that helpful liz there's a much greater foreign presence, so we have german forces operating in the north and italian forces operating in the west and the range of other neda countries that at least, even if they haven't used a lot of their forces for combat operations or sense development people in the areas that are the most war-torn they have provided assistance. the germans have been involved in police training and the italians have been involved in the justice sector reforms. the japanese that provided a lot of money for demobilization of combatants and now for reintegration of the taliban right now so one of the things that these has been helpful in the afghan context is that burden sharing has been much more acute in afghanistan and it was in the rack where we really do have a lot more partner nations-- the japanese have just ended up several billion dollars again for reintegration of the

senior level taliban official. >> caller: >> host: please go ahead bashir. >> caller: i have a question for mr. seth jones. i have read your book, and commend you. one major problem is that you are still dealing with the conflict of north and south, just like many other places. the center for global crisis in 2003 put out an excellent paper called-- of pashtun. how are you going to win the hearts and minds of the afghans, when the well-known afghan proverb says, you probably know it, it says you can make-- go to

hell with you with kindness but you will not be able to take him to have done by force. >> guest: well it is a great question and a great point. i would say that one of the things that the afghan government and nato more broadly has to do better, including in pashtun areas is to recognize again that the power is very localized in these areas, and that they may not act according to the interests of outsiders, whether it is u.s. or nato governments, even whether it is the central government. they will act in their own interests and that is okay because i would argue when you look across the east in the south there is a range of tribes and subcry-- subtribes that don't like the taliban, don't

like the haqqani network, don't like most of the resurgence groups and have had with them and they would like to help stabilize, secure ants provide services to their own populations. i think in that sense, we need to recognize they are not doing it for us. they are doing it for their own population and that is okay. in this case, we can help them help their own populations. i think that is actually important because this does not always have to be about the central government is special in pashtun areas. we have seen a recent public opinion poll that came out by abc and bbc which indicated the taliban as well under 10% support versus 90% support in that recent poll, so leveraging desires and interest of the local population i think is quite critical. >> host: james, a houston texas, hello. >> caller: good evening.

thank you for taking my call. my question is going to center around the proliferation of the radical madrassas that are cropping up in the pashtun region of pakistan and afghanistan, with the knerr wing version of islam promoting jihad enchilada, and with the influence from saudi and persian gulf entities financing these schools, which also have the military training giving the taliban a new group of fighters. what are we doing as a nation or as a group of nations to get these countries to back off supportive these schools? >> host: mr. moyar? >> guest: i think we are doing things behind the scenes to work on these issues. as he mentioned a lot of the insurgents are coming out of these madrassas and we have also

talked about other efforts to promote education and rural afghanistan. you have done something one of that earlier callers mentioned was something about greg morgenson's three cups of tea and can we use that approach and i think greg morgenson has done great work and schools are critically important but i would add you can't beat the insurgents through education because we have seen in case after case, the vietnam come a prime example as well as sell sell the door, if you send in the teachers, the insurgents are going to kill them or force them to flee because they recognize those people are a threat so we need to do the education peace but in conjunction and closely coordinated with security in government. >> host: and early december president obama announced an additional 30,000 troops on top of the 68,000 or so that were already there. , many have moved over? >> guest: i am not sure of the exact number.

there are certainly more coming in the spring. i believe there is a entire regiment subcommand team that is scheduled to come in in a couple of months here. but clearly, it is interesting to compare them to the size of the iraq research and similar and deployment size. i do think they are starting to make a difference and as the mentioned denhill month they are playing a critical will lend we are going to see more kandahar coming up this year and again it is not just 30,000 americans but you have got to factor in the number of the afghans that are being empowered by the americans working alongside them. >> guest: i think the biggest difference we are seeing now is just adding to mark's point, in 2006 the united states move most of its forces out of the south, the taliban's heartland for most of the key taliban leaders are from and handed the soldiers to the british in the dutch and the

australians. lets some special forces. now what we are seeing is the area where it is increasing its forces in general is in the south and this is the taliban heartland so not only are we increasing forces, we are going with marine forces in stryker and army forces into the heartland of the taliban so it is an increase in the numbers but also the location of those forces as well. >> host: what is your role as an adviser to general mcchrystal? >> guest: i served in 2009 as a plants officer and an adviser to the u.s. military looking at their range of issues for the military in afghanistan. >> host: you just got back. did you meet with general mcchrystal when you were over there? >> guest: i work with the general mcchrystal kierley gulay. >> host: weir seabasing what kind of security does he have? >> guest: he is facing couple were the isaf headquarters is located. he actually gets around on the

compound quite easily. he is somebody who in general has a strategy that is very population centric. he is a very people oriented person. he is very friendly. he takes that strategy and personalizes it into his interactions with individuals so very interesting to watch. >> host: does he ever get off base? this, karzai ever get out? >> guest: there is no question general mcchrystal, like every major u.s. and nato military gets out quite a bit, gets out into the rural areas, it gets out into the urban areas and meets the population. in fact general mcchrystal has been very adamant about getting out regularly. president karzai has not got not a lot. he does occasionally get out. he is out a little bit during the presidential campaign.

but, he has not got that out and interacted with the afghan population partly for security reasons. is helicopters have been targeted in the past and there nip been several assassination attempts against him so it is constrained his movement. >> host: is up dearlove tulis dylan afghanistan nor has he left? >> guest: i am not sure where he is now but i want to comment too on the question you mentioned. the reason i went out last month as general caldwell is starting a leadership initiative on the afghan side and wants to get them into more of a discussion about leadership which i think we have not paid enough attention to it and one of the things we have seen for many of the afghans is they don't go out into the field as much as we would like. lot of them want to try to do things by cell phone and at the same time they micromanage so they will be in their office but telling someone what to do hundreds of miles away. so, one of the points i make in the book is in case after case

in templer, and malia and abrahamson vietnam they spend a lot of their time out there circulating in what we call battlefield circulation, going out and seeing what is going on and assessing their local commanders saying is this person doing a good job for not and providing coaching on those commanders. >> host: mic in l.a.. good evening. >> caller: i would like to know, during world war i and world war ii when the west was all over the middle east why didn't they try to make afghanistan the make-let main focal point in western family government then when they were already there instead of waiting so long and having to deal with it now? >> guest: that is a good question. the u.s. actually was i think relatively weak in that area of. even though it was involved in some areas of the middle east, the biggest powers in the region by far were the british, the

british had a major presence especially in the area of india as well as the russians, the soviets in afghanistan during that period was primarily served as an area of competition between the british and the soviets. by the 1950's, so about a decade after world war ii, you did see a major increase in the u.s. presence there especially on the development side and the go into places like shellmont or kandahar provinces and the southie still see today areas, the whole central helmand river valley for the u.s. contribution at the time was on the development level and you still see those a lot of infrastructure still there today. >> host: another tweet. why is the hand of bagram prison to afghan control receiving so little critical inquiry in the

west? >> guest: that is a good question. and we have seen a lot of problems with how detainees are handled that miso also the same thing in their brac end seth probably knows more about the bagram case swibel let's ham comment on that piece but in iraq we had a lot of problems with huge numbers of people being arrested, inadequate facilities to train them. initially some commanders would go out and the rest massive numbers of people and when i was last there in 2008 there was a lot of concern about who was being led out of these prisons and iraq and i think there is ongoing concern because they have been letting a lot of people out in this beslan now that our presence in iraq is subsiding, they are having trouble tracking these people. i rapp, the future there's an sir none we have talked about the ethnic problems there, the sunni versus shia. i don't think anyone knows that for sure. >> host: anything you want to

add about bagram prison? >> guest: no, of which is editing baidu has to be one lesson from iraq and abu ghraib in general was the decent treatment of prisoners. and, when you look at the web sites in the recruitment policies of a lot of the jihadi groups now, they use the abu ghraib the photographs that came from and the entire episode for recruitment purposes. there is an extraordinarily negativeification when you start to go down that road so as we move forward on bagram and other facilities, i think there has to be and my sense is there is slowly and improvement of the way the prisoners are treated. >> host: michael, chicago, good evening. >> caller: good evening. i appreciate you taking my call. hopefully this is somewhat of a loaded question so bear with me. in your opinion, do you think guiness naïve to take the

charlie wilson train of thought and say hey if we would have not let these folks-dry after we push the soviets out of afghanistan that we would be in the "mess we are in no? the second question and i hope it is not loaded, clearly before we went in and took cobbled these folks were skeptical about what the u.s. had. what are these folks doing, the united states, doing to make sure we retain our credibility? a lot of folks say the usaid etc., but i am sure in afghanistan and i have a long memory, i would be thinking-- what is going to stop them from doing that? lescallet start was seth jones? >> guest: that is a great question. i cannot tell you how many times i have been asked the questions

by afghans, pakistanis and others in the region. i think it was a problem that the u.s. and ultimately the soviets got out of afghanistan because what we saw as the central government collapse by the early 1990's and afghanistan move into a direction literally of anarchy, competition among the warlords and militia forces. had the u.s. then there and played a more direct role in brokering an agreement in trying to settle the disagreements among the abdul rashid dustin and the other major actors, i think it could have ensured long term stability, so part of what the united states has to signal now has become a little more difficult in the 2011 deadline an ounce to some degree of though i think there's flexibility on it, is committing development aid and forces long term to the region and i think it has done a pretty good job of

trying to convince the afghan and pakistani governments as well as others in the region that it is committed in the long one to the stability of afghanistan and part of that is actually working with neighbors. directions, the indians, the afghans then the chinese, d.a. to some degree as well on that as well because as we applied a starkly from afghanistan the neighbors have a large stake in afghanistan as well. >> guest: when i was there last winter there was a fair amount of concern over the july 2011 deadline that has been set and everyone over there is doing an excellent job of reassuring them that that does not mean we are going to have a massive withdrawal on that date but i do think it is important, in this country about afghanistan, it is important to president and members of congress are out there talking about the firm is our commitment and i think we can do more in that area to reassure them. there is an argument to be made

that of fleet put a time limit, it will force them to get their act together and i think there is a certain amount of truth to that the that don't think we ar quite to that point yet and i think you do that when they are on firmer footing. i think we need to send them the message that we are going to be there for the long term and i tend to agree with president karzai's timeline, it is going to be five years to get them to the point where they can take over most of the security. it may be an aggressive timeframe here. >> host: loe in washington d.c., you are on the air. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a quick question and hopefully it is a good question and i will holling up and listen to the answer. who exactly is funding the taliban because my point is this. i don't believe-- would be funding them because afghanistan-- >> host: we caught the basis

of your question about funding the taliban. sorry, yourself and was fading out there. let's talk about who is funding the taliban and the activities of other countries outside players in afghanistan. we will start with you mr. jones. >> guest: well, the taliban has done a pretty good job of getting redundancy in its financing. >> host: what do you mean? >> guest: with its funding from a range of types of behavior. it gets money from the drug trade including taxes, what is called a busheir against farmers, texting the movement of poppy along major roadways. it also gets some support from-- collected from major donors and the arab world. including wealthy donors from saudi arabia, united arab emirates and other. but it also has got the support

in continues to get support from on the taliban case, despite the fact that iran nearly went to war with the taliban at the end of the 1990's, iran has provided local support to the taliban and other insurgent groups, state support. the iranian quds force as has elements of the pakistani government, in their services intelligence director, so there have been, there has been state support so interestingly, this the rest of mo lover rather, the second command in karachi recently has been horridly springs of the question of whether there is a notable shift in the-- code that is an excellent summary and the only thing i would add is mentioning how leadership is crucial in terms of the afghan security forces and in terms of u.s. security forces and also crucial in terms of the taliban and they

don't have a huge foreign presence but we do know some of their commanders are pakistani or from other countries and those people are very important. in many cases they are more important than the large amount of money because we have seen some very militarily skillful taliban forces, and that is not an accident. they are getting very good leaders from pakistan and elsewhere and that is again part of a quiet dressing the pakistan piece of this is so crucial. >> host: let's talk specifically then about pakistan. it sounds a little schizophrenic that if the head of their isi is supporting or their isi is supporting the taliban efforts, but they are also our ally. did i say that directly? >> guest: you did say that correctly. the pakistan government has tended to act in its own interests, as in the state would. they have targeted militant groups that threats misstate so they have targeted the al qaeda and foreign fighters and helped

capture khalid sheikh muhammad and others. they have increasingly targeted what some people call the pakistani taliban, the pakistan base seven selva waziristan, baitullah mehsud. that connected operations in posure, slot in buner, areas where targeted attacks in pakistan but at the same time they have assisted historically militant groups that have operated in afghanistan and kashmir and india. s have viewed afghanistan in the context of their troubled relationship with india and a few.as somewhat of an insurance the policy of rear area.

and there's still a lot of suspicion among pakistan. because in the past as we were in afghanistan, we've been stuck on that. they too were upset about the way we attend in afghanistan after the soviets lost. so they were to some extent still hedging about how long is the u.s. going to be still hedging their bets about how long is the was going to be there and do we need to have the taliban on our side at some point in the future. postcodes of the a bomb administration, how is it addressed some of the pakistan questions? >> guest: they've been doing a pretty good job thus far. i think most of it -- most of the effective work is going on behind closed doors but clearly we've seen some good cooperation from them. we saw the rest. saft mentioned the number two television feature recently. i don't think so. i think a lot of people would say that they probably could have arrested him earlier.

again, i think were doing a better job now cooperating with them. and we are providing more assistance to them as well, which i think is making a more cooperative. >> host: there's another side of this equation that these are nato allies. many bring this by reading this e-mail that we got from colonel paul caldas and it's addressed to you, seth jones. we met in kabul in no six when it scored and ob had you knew steve. i work strategic reform for the emboli in the anp and their fellow to the electorate to reading your book as i will be returning to afghanistan in a couple months. my question, how do we deal with what i believe is the other center of gravity in the war. the populations of the western democracies and the growing afghanistan fatigue. do you believe the west is the will to sustain a major effort required for the counterinsurgency fight and how do we get the word out on positive aspects and improvements over the last two

years? sass, you have respected the armed forces. thank you for which you do. just >> guest: this is a very important question. what we've seen with some countries, with the canadians were example is a decreasing commitment to afghanistan. they deployed a range of forces to kandahar and are now primarily and around kandahar city. we send the dutch long-term commitment to a risk on providence waning. germany has the german population has expressed wavering commitment over the long run. i would just say two things. one is i think the bulk of the effort in the insecure parts of afghanistan will increasingly be a u.s. effort, with help from some other countries like the british. i do not believe and in an ideal

world i would buy that, but i don't believe that these countries will send forces into areas of deep-seated insecurity. so i just think that's the reality. the second thing though is i think there areas where we still continue to ask for assistance. some of the european countries still have very good shonda murray type police forces, the french, the italians, finding ways to get more caught up in jd for example to train police forces come even if it's not in the most insecure areas can be helpful. threading their way to continue to get allies on board. i think at this war begins to turn its lucky like us potentially in a position to turn. european population support may actually begin to change. >> host: last call for guest. >> caller: this is especially interesting program this evening and i think c-span for continuing excellence. i am wondering, you even

mentioned a few moments ago, we hear a great deal about the significant and problematic distressed between certain elements at least of the pakistan intelligence and the karsay government, if not of the larger patch to the community. and i'm wondering if any of you perhaps mr. jones especially know of any attempt to overt or otherwise to arrange direct communication or even back channel communication between those elements of the pakistani intelligence and the karzai government and/or other centers of leadership in the suspicious pashtun communities. >> host: short answers. >> guest: yeah, i think their opinions this up not have been going on quietly. i would just like to make the

point that karzai for all his faults does have a certain moral authority and the most unifying figure in the country. and i think you someone who potentially is capable of brokering certain compromises with elements in the taliban. >> guest: i think there have been efforts in particular actually to improve the relationship between president karzai, left the isi, the more president zardari and civilian leadership of pakistan. in that sense, reaching out to the civilian side can help influence the military and intelligence sides. this is the way we've seen the pakistan afghan relationship really begin to develop. >> host: and finally the street. please add the authors gives a synopsis of the books at the end. i missed the first portion of your show. >> host: >> guest: ibook looks at why the insurgency began after the u.s. overthrow.

i look in a couple of factors. one of the collapsing government in afghanistan including corruption issues. and then focus in particular on ways to come in the last chapter, standing insurgency and develop more effective counterinsurgency efforts. >> guest: mine consists of a series of case studies, one being the afghanistan, argues that leadership comes down to a question of bush site has better leaders in certain areas of leadership. and identifying how do we get this kind of people into positions of authority. >> host: mark moyar, seth jones, thank you for discussing the afghanistan war. coming up, two more hours of booktv in prime time this evening. up next is michael steele, the chairman of the gop. he was out of the reagan library recently talking about his new book, a 12 step program for defeating the obama agenda.

following that you'll hear from pulitzer prize winning economist joseph stiglitz on our afterwards program, his newest book is called freefall and is interviewed by a board of folic of public citizen. that's all coming up tonight on the tv in prime time. remember you can always follow the tv on twitter at twitter.com/booktv. we send updates about the week and of course on the weekends when we have 48 hours of programming on c-span 2. thanks for being with us this evening and here's michael steele. >> it is a lot of fun to be here. it is a lot of fun right now as it can imagine in washington and around the country on the heels of what has been one of the most profoundly important elections that i know i've seen in my lifetime in massachusetts. in the way of turn scott brown

and taking back the people seat as he put it. [applause] incredibly, incredibly important. so we're having a lot of fun and it is a good space to be right now. just as this is a good space to be in, i had the incredible honor of visiting the reagan ranch and to be amongst the things of his life. he and nancy flies together. and it was just wonderful. it is just a great energy that i get from that and i got from that. and so it's down to be able to share that and his legacy and certainly what it means for us going for it to is a real honor. i really appreciate the young america's foundation and inviting me here to be a part of this. andrew is right, we spent a lot

of time over the years working with the various groups that come into washington or a visit around the country. it is such profoundly important work. i was in the boardroom before coming down and i was struck by nothing fancy. the young persons foundation is that young americans are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise and traditional values. and that is such a powerful statement and it is part of the underlying thinking, if you will that i tried to capture in the book right now. a lot of folks in washington are all hyped up about this book and i don't really understand why. it speaks to some of the core things that we believe as conservatives and those

republicans. and it speaks to them in the context of reagan, but most importantly in the context of how we began to trust in the faith of the american people, who if you haven't figured out right now weren't too happy with us. and of a good reason not to be. but that's part of the past and that's part of, i think also, the process of healing and recovery. and so i took on the idea of the 12 stars because i think it was an important part to get to recovery. so that's kind of the background to look into into the market before doing really well want to thank wendy mccaw for her sponsorship of this speaker series for 2010. what a wonderful gift to the community into america to have the voices that have come through here and i've shared with you and have broken bread with you. get out there so people can really see and hear what conservativism is in the 21st century and some of the things

that we face the challenges and the opportunities. so wendy, i know she's not here but i did really want to thank you publicly for her work with the foundation, certainly to members of the presidents club and the rawhide circle. i won't even go there. i do think about that because i'm from the east coast of rawhide means something completely different. usually what you have after your mothers don't spanking new. [laughter] i didn't understand, but it works. certainly to ron robinson, the president of the young america's foundation and to andrew who was a great guy this morning and helping for me to get there and you see. it was raining and started to heal and it was just perfect. [laughter] it was perfect in the sense that

president reagan was speaking to me and just letting you know that the cloudy days may be a part of what you do, that the sun does come out. and when it does, you better be prepared for it. and that is a lot of -- in my experience in public life, dealing with the clouds and the noise and the floods and all the crazies stuff that goes on, but knowing that the sun will come out and things will get better. i was always stuck by the quote, may you live in interesting times. last night and they don't get bored schnoor interesting than what i've seen over the past year. a friend of mine pointed out that was actually occurs and i could see that, how that could be the case. with the reality of it is living in interesting times enables us and empowers us to do some interesting things. and allows us to go beyond our comfort found in go beyond the things we think we know, to explore new avenues of new

opportunities. so, for this afternoon, but i want to do is kind of set the tone, since we are living in interesting times, i thought it would be important to set the tone of the debate differently with a quote from frederick douglass. who once noted, i glory in conflict that i might hereafter exultant victory. now i've always liked that. and i like to i think primarily because as a roman catholic african-american conservative from washington d.c. -- [laughter] my whole life has been conflict. [laughter] so i get that part of it. i really do. but today, in this hour, what conflicts us is not the ups and downs of elections. or rather the very nature of conservatism in this post-reagan era. what conflicts us is the vision of the conservative movement, its radical nature and the

unique challenges and opportunities that come from both conflict and victory. and you've seen that played out in small measure over the last few years, certainly the elections of 06 and a weight and even as recently as own night in virginia, new jersey and now in massachusetts. but no great band has ever been achieved without overcoming obstacles and no quality is more indispensable to that process them the ability to press onto river city. in other words, to persevere. so when these very interesting times, where we have to confront conflict in order to obtain fake or he, we must persevere, we must find a way to make all of that date and all that work. now the first thing i noticed about perseverance is that it comes more easily to the optimist. as a young man, i was struck a

ronald reagan's unwavering optimism and sense of hope. for me, that sense of our best days lie before us, was captured in the phrase, mourning in america. now that was 1984. but i think by now, a lot of people feel and i've come to believe that it's more like lunchtime in america. or even dinner. in other words, our best days are behind us, the sun is setting, the day is done. as a young african-american male, growing up in our nation's capital, such optimism moved me to understand the power of perseverance. the power of perseverance. and be able to put into focus that we are often touched and indeed moved to action, not by the great figures of history, but by those whose names are now written in the history books,

the names that don't appear on your nightly news, but the names of individuals who live in our neighborhood, and our communities, indeed live in our very homes. such is the life of maebelle. not maebelle is just one of many faces in america who struggled to raise a family, believed she could provide for her kids, more than she herself had received. she was one of those many faces who believed in writing the history of this country, not in its history books, but instead on the hearts and consciousness of the individual of the community. so that the promise of this great nation would become its truth. she grew up the daughter of sharecroppers, had to quit school when she was in fifth grade to work in the cotton fields of south carolina. she married a man who abused her both mentally and physically than he himself would die at the

age of 36 from alcoholism. she would go on to work in a laundromat for the next 45 years of her life and the moshe ever made was $3.83 an hour. now despite the hardships that come from limited resources and certainly limited opportunity, maebelle had an extraordinary sense of the possible. she did what it took to stimulate the economy of her household. she did what it takes to make sure that despite all the hardships, things that needed to be done, raising the kids, providing for the family got done. she made certain, as she put it, that it would be she and not the government to would raise their kids. it would be she and not the government would provide for her family. and she did a pretty good job because today her daughter is a very successful pediatrician and her son stands before you as the chairman of the republican national committee.

[applause] the power -- the power of a maebelle is a power that we all witnessed every single day. and it is why what we fear the most right now, stripping away that power from maebelle, the power she feels that she has two raise their kids the way she wants, to provide for her family the way she wants. strip that away from her is why the fight right now when this country for freedom, opportunity, the very things that this organization are trying to impress upon young people to appreciate and understand about free markets and free enterprise and the value if evilly and community

matters. maebelle's life embodies perseverance. the struggles and challenges of our time would hold opportunity for her children. and while her story, like so many bars, contain many hardships, she also found a way to turn her hopes for her children into action. her desire that tomorrow would be better for us than her for her mental more than anything else. she made sure her kids to the value of hard work does in school and in the workplace. she made sure that we could think of ourselves here and she made sure that we had a good education. she made sure we knew right from wrong. she had are behind in church on sunday and in the classroom on monday morning. she understood the value of america and the future of her kids. through the remarkable example of her life, my mother was the first person who taught me about fiscal discipline, the value of a dollar, budgeting, and most importantly, how thoughtful

investment, when coupled with hardware can provide empowerment in opportunity. now, lord knows by those individuals in the united states congress can't figure out what the sharecroppers totter with a fifth-grade education figured out a long time ago. how to create wealth within a family, how to create within a community. while her bank account may not have made her rich, she was rich and purpose is every day she found a way to turn her hopes into action. maebelle was never discouraged by the trails at the moment the cash he knew that they would pass and because she was in it for the long haul. she was going to work it out. and that is the power of perseverance. i remember as a young boy of 17, 1976, first timeout get to vote on november. i turned 18 in october, got to

vote in november, so back in september, august, trying to decide, i want to be republican or democrat. and my mum's a democrat. she is a roosevelt democrat. alright, my my death a democrat. and so she raised me to appreciate that i had the mind to go out and learn foreign decide for myself what i want to be. and she pressed me hard on that. don't be a democrat just because i am. don't fall lockstep into a mindset or a way of thinking just because others are. show she instilled me a great deal of discipline. but independent spirit allowed me to go and discover a named ronald reagan. and it was his voice i heard in that campaign that sounded so much like the way my mother raised me. when he talked about an america that would be better, when attacked about opportunities, but he talked about the power that comes from individuals, not

from government. so i go to my mother and say, hey mom, i've decided to become a republican. well -- [laughter] the idea of going out and doing that was great. the actual doing of it, however -- [laughter] was a whole mother conversation which began something like lord baby, why would you want to do that? so even to this day, they're still moments where i think she's trying to recover from that and get me back. but she understands and she still understands why i did what i did because of how she raised me and what she passed on. that legacy. and i really appreciate that legacy more than anything else. there was a great moment in 2006 when i was running for the united states senate, election night and sitting on the edge of the bed with my wife and watching the returns.

as in all elections, it starts out great. we've all been there. the first precincts coming and anger 52 -- 48. what can the rest of the present come in and you're like okay, that's a little bit different. so i'm watching all the hard work. i'm much in the election slip through my fingers to the united states senate. and i'm frustrated and angry at my wife is sitting next to me very quietly and very patiently, taken all the same. and listening to me. and after several grants, what is very clear that going to be the united states senator from maryland, i turned to her and i go, so what do i do now? and you know, spouses have this way of putting things in perspective for you and are very supportive. and she turned to me and she looked at me and she goes, well, i think you better get a job. [laughter] that's it?

and then she got up and left. and there i sat, lost an election, better get a job here at the one i took out of that moment was something that my mother had taught him that i learned and listening to reagan and that my wife brought home to me in a very real way, persevere. this too shall pass. to get through it. don't be overwhelmed by it. don't let it break you down where you can't get out. and as i reflected on this book, now i wrote this book actually before the 2000 election really got underway. and because of publications and delays in all that stuff, it turned out and god works in mysterious ways that i've been updated to capture some of the realities of the 2009 election. but the core of the book really

focused on this idea of a party that had been beat down, a party that a busted play, a party that had fallen away from conservative principles that define it for generations. but now was faced with an opportunity to move forward, to pick itself up, to not be overwhelmed by the circumstances. ronald reagan understood the importance of connecting to the maebelle of america to think that inspired us and policies that restore the strength, pride and prosperity of this nation. he did the unthinkable. he helped emeriti embrace conservatism in the core beliefs of the conservative movement. he made it cool to be conservative. and that opportunity afforded to him, enabled him to then change the course of this nation, to put it on a pathway in which it appreciated prosperity and opportunity, where it appreciated our role in the

world and our fight for freedom, not just here but abroad. but since then, america has chained to a has changed, too. but what we believe has not. what we believe has not. in the words of austin powers, we now have an opportunity to get our mojo back. [laughter] to be relevant in this century, in this hour, in this time, to engage in the debate of the big ideas and the small ideas, to fight for those principles again and away that empowers the maebelle of the world because they know there is someone standing there helping them provide for the next generation. a thurgood marshall said, we don't need to pull ourselves up by her own bootstraps. but every once in a while it's nice to have someone bend down and help you.

and that was what reagan understood, that while we espouse the principles of freedom and independence, every once a while it's good to know that someone is going to be there to help you, lift your left, not do it for you, but to show you how, to give you the tools. in the times that we live in right now, what is the cry from the american people? don't do it for us. give us the tools and let us do it for ourselves. so whether it's health care, whether it's job creation, whatever it happens to be, the cry that we hear across the land is we can do this on our own. individually, we are strong. together we are stronger. but it all of that is not government's job or go to kind of shape that outcome and to

create that pathway. i think conservatives now have an opportunity to reaffirm to the american people the core belief that government should be limited so that it never becomes powerful enough to infringe on the rights of the individual, that those taxes that we pay, you know those little pesky things that come out of your paycheck. that they be kept low so that individuals may keep more of their hard-earned money. the business regulations should encourage entrepreneurs to take the risks necessary for innovation and development and growth as opposed to using those regulations to be businesses into submission. some just talk about change, folks. but what we believe in what we know about the resilience of the american people, double underscore the real change this nation needs is that it is the individual that will stand america up. it will be the individual that will help america prosper.

it is the individual that will keep us strong. our work is not done. but in some respects, in many respects, our work begins anew. not in a sense of starting over, but starting with a different perspective, a 21st century perspective, focus on how to make the hopes of tomorrow by reality today. now you've heard the mantra. hope is on the way. keep hope alive. hope you have a nice day. [laughter] but there comes a point where hope doesn't get it done. there comes a point where action is the core of what must have been. and that action is what worries people. is that government action? or individual action? and that is the debate that this nation faces right now. and whether you see the results in massachusetts or in virginia, new jersey. as an example of the american

people answering the question, there are many more opportunities for that question to get answered over the next few years. not in partisan terms. but in truly american terms. what is this great nation all about? what is its strength and where does that come from? it is one of the guess that ronald reagan, i believe, left us when he described this nation the way she did as assigning city on the hill. the aspects of that is that the light that emanates from that till is a powerful light. and the question is worded so i come from? it shines not because of government, but because of her people. that light emanates from that till from its people, the difference between prosperity and poverty is not government,

its people. the difference between ownership and control by government is people, not government. and ronald reagan i think understood to put that in its precise context as he possibly could. so like reagan, when he was 17 and today, i put my faith in people, not government. his spirit reminds us that the promise of america is the promise of endless possibilities and it was that spirit that drew me in, too. it is that spirit that recognizes individuals as the catalyst, the action point, not government. but what i think future fights over the wall in control of government will be about.

the optimism in the hope that emanates from such possibilities i think enables us to persevere and empowers us not to give up on ourselves and certainly not on this great country. next your nation will celebrate the centennial of president reagan's birth. between now and then, we have an opportunity to reignite his vision of america, to remind ourselves of a nation that it is morning again in america, a morning break with possibilities, the morning of the day representing the rest of our lives, as men and women and is the nation. but president reagan said it better than i ever could when he said, we've got to quit talking to each other and about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers that we have ever been, but we carry the message they are waiting for. this is your time.

this is our moment to carry the message america is waiting for, to be the light of this great nation once again, to lift up this beacon, this grand wacky wonderful experiment we call the united states. and do it in a way in which reagan would be proud. certainly we all know that he would expect no less of us if we are true to his legacy. and true to what he left behind for us to do today. so right now is our moment. right now is an opportunity for us to be something better, different, but very familiar. and that is the test. are you ready to pass that test? are you ready to do what is necessary to hold that light up once again and show america and

show the world's its morning? thank you. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] now i guess we have some q&a, the fun part of the program. >> my name is luis and i just want to thank you for coming to visit us. my hope is that we don't celebrate reagan's great deeds, but that we celebrate the heart of the man because it was that humble heart that chopped wood, shoveled manure, clean toilets and did not see himself as president of the united states.

and we just won a huge election and we won it because our people, myself, saw an arrogate democratic party. but the reason why we have an arrogate democratic arty is because we have an arrogate republican party. so i would have to see how that is going to change with our party. >> selenite. [laughter] but i believe it has. and, you know, the nature of some folks in washington that the way i started to answer that question will be news because there are those who don't want that change. there are some who like to wallow in the muck of past accomplishments are what they believe our past accomplishments. and what is oftentimes lost is

coming you've heard this phrase before, the will of the people. but it's a real name. and we've seen a now expressed very, very loudly and three elections. and my sense of it is that in large measure, many, many republicans and conservatives out there are working toward the same goal. looking back an understanding pass the state, but not dwelling on them and not beating ourselves up to the point where you can't move forward. but understanding that in order to move forward, you have to at least acknowledge and accept the role that she may have played in some of the things that we are now confronted with. in the commitment that the american people are looking for, i'm sure yourselves as well, is are we going to get the same old same old or is this going to be different? show us how. tell us how.

and that is a very unique opportunity. and not too many political parties or candidates really get a chance to do that. to go back to the american people and laid bare, you know, how they have mistyped in the past, but have a better sense now of what is expected of leadership. that contract with america in 1994 meant dumping two people and it still means something today and when they saw this wholesale merchant way from those principles outlined, those ideals that were laid out in that document, people take it personally. it would be as if your own kids started to reject the very things that you raised them to believe in sort of try to help them understand and meet the commitment to them and them to you that this is part of our family. so that sense of rejection was very strong and still is for a lot of folks.

my hope and certainly the work that i try to engage with with the leadership around the country is to understand that and move forward with a different renewed perspective about how we reengage with the american people and restore the faith, that trust and our leadership. and i like what i've seen so far. and it is certainly in massachusetts, new jersey and virginia. and there's an even better opportunities that lie ahead. so hold on to that faith. don't let go of it. but keep everyone honest. because again, you don't give second chances often in politics. and i think the american people are giving us an enormous second chance to reengage them and to stand yet again almost foundational principles that have defined us for generations. edwards doing that in the thick of them. yes, sir?

>> mr. steele, i too would like to thank you for visiting us. it's a great honor to have you here. i name is robert olson and from an hour and a half of the coast. with the results of the recent elections both the november in this week, i am more optimistic than i have been since probably the 2004 election. and so are many people who think as i do. we are so optimistic that i'm concerned that we have become overconfident and complacent. they are too many people that are already declaring the next congress after the november election as ours. so i guess my question is, what can we all do, both u.s. the leader of our party and assess the rank and file to make sure that we maintain our edge and don't let overconfidence lead to something that we don't want to see come november? >> that's a good question. as you've probably read, i got in trouble because i was -- i

mean, it maebelle raised me to be a very pragmatic guy, very honest. i tend to tell people exactly what i think, which i've learned at the start people don't necessarily want you to do. nor do they want to hear it. but of course that doesn't stop me. so that someone else's problem, not my necessarily. i really believe that this november, we will do incredibly well, given the candidates that we're beginning to see emerge and who are already leading in races around the country. how that ultimately ends, i don't know yet. they're still races were individual candidates haven't decided. we don't have, you know, it declared candidate at all. so there's still a lot of factors there. and that's been my only point is i agree with you. i don't want to put the cart before the horse and make declarations that i can't back

up. now someone told me, well, you are the party chairman. you should be a cheerleader. and i went, no, don't look good in a skirt or the white pants, no. my job as party chairman is to be the leader and to be honest and to be thoughtful and to be deliberate and to layout a strategy that will achieve the goals that people want. winning elections and helping the people regain its footing with the american people. you can't just wipe away what happened in those six and 08. i mean, that wasn't a repudiation of just normal course. it was an outright rejection by the american people. i know first-hand. i was a candidate in 2006 so i know that firsthand. so you just don't get up because people are upset with the democrats and obama and say well, they're going to love us. now, if you've been listening to

the american people, they're tearing you very clear a pox on both your houses. if you do not understand what this is about -- [applause] if you do not understand our frustration and our anger and if we don't understand that frustration, that anger, and if we don't know what this about for them, we are damned to make the same mistakes and to repeat those mistakes and that is not something i want us to do. so i'm very excited. i'm working very hard to go out and get good candidates. i have this enormous sense of the opportunity had the best. and everyday work to achieve the goals in state after state after state of winning elections, bringing principal conservative leadership to the front of the room and leading with that, not running away from it, but leading with that and trusting the american people will like what they see and what they hear. so far where three and zero. so i think that that pragmatic

approach works. a smart approach works, doing what is necessary on the ground to lead the groundwork for those candidates to run, to help them take their message directly to the people and not have a filtered through the national media for the local media, who have a whole separate agenda. that's part of my responsibilities that i try to uphold every day. and so do forgive me if i'm not out here doing the round roc every single moment. i don't think that's what you want. i think what she wanted some someone who's looking down the road and see where the real opportunities are, going towards those opportunities and seizing this opportunity so that we get the wind. and if we come out where we've got more at the end of the day that we started, that's good. but the reality of it is we are in a very different ball game than we were two years ago about four years ago. and there's a lot of hard work to be done and i'm committed to

getting it done because i want the majority. but when we get it, i want us to keep it. i don't want us to lose it again. yep. yes, sir. zero, there you go. >> thank you for coming. i almost feel like i asked for the mic to sing because you pretty much answered some of the biggest concerns i have. i think what happened in massachusetts needs to register with the republicans because they didn't witness. the independence of massachusetts won it. i am from massachusetts originally and they know what drives that state and it certainly isn't the republican policies. i think that it was a wonderful thing that happened and i think you put your finger on something. the people in this country have said they're not happy with either the democrats or the republicans. and if the republicans behave like they've done in the past,

the recent election will have meant nothing. i was reading "the wall street journal" a few days ago and it was an article in their bed talked about how american people were disgusted with both parties. i think in fact what they're disgusted with his politics. and i think the message i got out of that wall street journal article said that the republican party has an opportunity to rally around a central theme and that his term limit. and getting those people in washington that are professional politicians, not interested in what happens to us, but what happens to them, but parker m., degree, the bipartisanship that doesn't exist anymore. this partisan nonsense where 100% of the party goes in one direction and another party goes in the other direction. somethings wrong with that philosophically.

and he was the leader of the republican party has got to hammer that home so that the people who are running under your banner, and i happen to be a republican by default, i came here for massachusetts and couldn't find a democrat. all i found was socialist and communist. [laughter] [applause] but i sincerely hope that the message got across from that election in massachusetts. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] yeah, very number of points that i could start with on that one. no, i think you're absolutely right. i really do. i think that "the wall street journal"'s point is a good one, that we do have an opportunity here is like any that we brothers and and it's not just

about term limits. it's about a whole lot of things. what do you believe in what are you going to fight for? starting with what are you going to do? that was what she believed that you're going to fight for, what you're going to do different from what they are doing and what they believe needs to be done? and that is for us a real unique spot to be in. again, i go back to my earlier point. you don't get second chances in this game too often. and the american people are looking at us and saying, okay, here's a second chance. show me something different. show me something that i haven't seen before or that i don't expect. because what i've seen up till now is not what i want from republican leadership. and i go back to my point that my opportunity as chairman is to galvanize within the core of the

party, grassroot activists, men and women who believe fervently as i do and what this fight is about and why were we can do as republicans is part of a broader conservative movement in the country can do and must do. 40% of the american people now self identify as conservative. that's a big number in the age of obama. that's significant. particularly when you go back and look at the results of the 08 election. he would not think that 40% of the people coming out of your way to would identify as a conservative. but what happened? they began to see policies unfold, decisions and get out, decisions on health care, decisions on how to deal with the economy, jobs. and they realized, i think a little bit more conservative than i thought it was because i don't want any of that. so now we have a chance to come in and fill in the blanks, based

on principles that are foundational, the fact that we believe free market should be free so that wealth can be created not appear for government, but here at the grassroot so it can be invested and spent and saved by individuals within the community. so that, you know, drew here can go out and build a business and hire my 18-year-old son when he gets done for the academic year. give a brother something to do in the summertime. that's what this is about. and if we lose that momentum that's been generated by the visor they've trained for in virginia and a chris christie new jersey. we won new jersey for goodness sakes. and then you're going to slingshot up to massachusetts. not beyond the, i don't even have to go back a year. i can go back a month and i bet you 90% of the people in this room would not predict it tuesday's outcome.

and when i said, well it's massachusetts, he's trying, god bless him. [laughter] that you had a candidate who didn't give up because he believed something and he brought that something, those police to the table and he shared it with the people of massachusetts. and he said what they're doing now has not been good for you and what i'm willing to do with two things. one, i can't hear it to be accountable as the leader when i go to washington and two, i'm going to washington and i'm taking you with me. very different conversation with the people of massachusetts than the one favored before. that is our moment. we are the party that is not afraid to account anymore. we want to be held accountable in our leadership. and when we go beat, we we want you with us because we have our

faith in you the people, not the institutions of government. and i think that's a very powerful argument in its one i think getting back to this gentleman's question will allow us to achieve the goal of taking control of the congress this year if the people have the faith in us that when we get it will do the right thing with it. yes, sir? right here. >> german steel, thank you for being with us today. my name is chris garcia i am a student at pepperdine university. along that same idea of communicating with americans and getting them to understand what our principles. i think most people here would agree that the republican party historically has a problem communicating ideas to the american people. i've come up with an idea of creating something very simple to pitch to the american people, something i like to call the

three r's. number one, you respect everybody no matter what their race, religion, creed. we believe in traditional values that goes along those lines. number two, you're responsible for or actions of them include self accountability, free markets, not relying on the government. in the third would be weird for it. but he american dream and i think that is the mid-american strong. what you have as far as the idea to pitch to the american people, some kind of a simple cut even marketing strategy that's going to say hey listen this is what made america strong, the republican party, where the party of the american people? >> well, look at my camera, as you just did. last night [applause] you just did here. what we have to realize, folk, is that i got a title, all

right. let the juice right here. this is a right here. what are you sitting down for? stand up, man. [laughter] i'm the chairman. don't sit down until the chairman says it down. last night now my point is, my point is that we look around and we look to someone else, you know, who's in leadership to lead. and the one lesson that i learned in the course that i've been on since i was a young man and certainly at the time i spent in monasteries in augustinian to reflect on leadership, i've concluded very simply, this is how i lead. i'm always prepared to lead, but i'm never afraid to follow. and a true leader is someone who's never afraid to follow someone else's idea, someone else's leadership. because what happens then if people see that and they say wow wow, he's giving over or she's giving over leadership control, control to someone else.

and that's very powerful. that's something that reagan did so well, when he recognized and others their ability to lead in this moment. he didn't have all the answers, he never pretended to have all the answers. quite frankly, i don't think he wanted to have all the others because then that leads to something else, something else not very good. he just did others in their ideas. as for the fact that you've stood up is the first step in leadership at the fact that you've laid out some ideas is the second set of leadership. and the third step is your ability now to convey to everyone else the validity and the importance of it is you are trying to do, by your nature, but he argues, by your experience. all those things come into play and empower them to trust you because you are willing to step up and step out and say hey, i've got some ideas. so i like the idea of ms chairman i say we can do that.

the question becomes how do you then take what you've talked about and put it out of the way so others can follow on college campuses, in your community, amongst her friends. that's where the opportunity lies. a lot of folks tend to look at a a particularly dumb republicans have a go, well, could you come over on saturday and and stands a decent doorknocking forth. and that's great, important work than you got to get done. you don't have to ask permission to read anymore. you're a part of right now. so when folks say you are the future, no you're not. you were there right now. so if we don't recognize which you can do in your leadership, we're going to lose. we're not going to regain the strength we had in the past to the because it's your generation is making different in this time. and if you don't believe me, how do you get a barack obama as president? he struck a chord in the inspired a generation of young folks to get engaged with the first time in a long time.

now what's happening? the kool-aid is wearing off. [laughter] and they're waking up and they're saying wait a minute, unemployment among twentysomethings is that 20%. i can't get a job, the prospects are paying for college education is dimming. all these realities are beginning to atone. they've never seen double-digit inflation. they've never seen unemployment, they've never seen gas plants, they've never seen the future we know as past. and they are about to confront that and there will be be someone like you who will help guide them through it. and that's what i want you to know. but you are already in power. uid is, the fact that you been able to capsulized the three r's away for your generation to appreciate what this grand old party is about, will enable us you to make this a grand old party, a party that embraces not just its past and legacies of the great men and women like a reagan, but its future in

individuals like you. >> that's very encouraging. thank you. [applause] >> alright. this gentleman here, excuse me, this gentleman here is the standard three times. so can we help a brother out over here. >> thank you. i have a very simple question. the view from the rnc on california and are good senator boxer -- >> time for her to go. >> amen. [applause] >> let me just say that, you know, without revealing a whole lot of stranded seeds here because i know our friends are watching -- california is going to be very important to us this year. and we are very excited about the prospects both at the gubernatorial and senatorial bubble. we are excited about the prospects of the congressional

level, legislatively. well folks have been focusing on all the crazy noise that comes out of washington, but the republican party and who shot john and who's not an element whose his pic in a fight, we have been very quietly and very methodically building layers and layers of support networks, grassroots organizations and opportunities to be competitive in a lot of people don't expect us to be competitive in. i am tired of this party taking the position well, we can't win there so we won't be there. and i told for political operations and all the other adjunct departments within the rnc that there are going to be races where everyone is going to scratch their head and say why argue over here in this race? you're not going to win this race. because at some point we have to plant a flag of a party and say we want to compete your even though we know we're going to get our clocks cleaned.

were going to lose this race but we're going to compete year because the people need us to. and it's about time we do that. [applause] test case, new york, upstate new york. while everyone was focused on new york 23, all right, and losing their minds over what happened in new york 23 and they should because that was the biggest cluster you know what i've ever seen. it was crazy. should not have been here should not have happened. but while folks were focused on new york 23 congressional districts, guess what we did? we went to county executive races. because we one fathi election and so the point is when you go and engage in our prepared to compete, when

you are prepared to go after the ground you might not get it right now. you might not get the next time that there will come a point when you will. so whether it is california or new york, wherever it happens to be where we've not been competitive before, our goal now is to be competitive, to get good candidates to run to support the candidates and make the investment necessary for them to win. everyone else i said before wouldn't have led by steny one to invest in massachusetts. they wouldn't have advised to invest in new jersey because while republicans just don't win. at some point you have to stop believing the old thinking and stop doing it the old way and take the risks necessary to compete. and i and the chairman that is prepared to do that. i get beat up for its sometimes the that is fine. throw the rocks and stones at me and meanwhile i am letting my guys and those-- go ahead and

win. that is the goal here. that is the goal here, is to put ourselves as a party in a position where we can be competitive and we will be competitive in california this year, trust me. trust me. [applause] i thank you all very much. and thank you so much. this has been a lot of fun. i have enjoyed being here. i have enjoyed being in the spirit of reagan and certainly, being at the reagan library last week and to be here at their ranch this weekend to be here with all of you does my heart good. and it is so nice to know that so many people still give a about this great country and are willing to fight for every day and i'm just honored to be one of the soldiers that has been picked out in chosen to go down a particular path into my best to make sure we can win.

thank you so much and god bless you and god bless america. [applause] >> our special primetime booktv continues on friday night with a discussion about rachel carson's 1962 book, silent spring.

>> coming up next, booktv presents "after words," an hourlong discussion between a guest host and the author of the new book. this week nobel prize-winning economist joseph stiglitz talks about the 2008 economic collapse and its effect on the global economy. professor stiglitz argues we need to change the incentives in our system and government oversight is required for the economy to function properly. he is interviewed by lori wallach director of global trade watch. she is the co-author of "whose trade organization?" a comprehensive guide to the wto.

>> host: hello. we are here today with professor joseph stiglitz and he has got a new book, lori wallach-- "freefall" that describes the way of a gun into the current crisis and critiques what has been done to critique that it lays out some of the bigger picture of remedies that we need to address in the debates we need to have in our country to move forward to a more stable economy that works for more people. so, thank you very much for the opportunity to share your book with folks on c-span. is a very interesting reading and i wanted to start out with the book starts out, which is sort of the path to this disaster, how we got into this, and the first section of the book describes it and it is a lot of things people are kind of aware of. , self-interest to deregulation of the financial sector pushed four, the fed not paying

attention to a bubble and in fact as you describe helping to create it, but the thing right about that i think most people haven't thought as much about is basically the issue of the incentives. you talk about heersee eo pay in executive pay but it is more than that. telesale little bit more about that. >> guest: let me for synthesize fight is so important. economists disagree on the most everything but the one thing they agree on is incent this matter alinsky so, it is a very natural way for economists to think about the world. what went wrong in part were incentives that the individual level at at the organizational level, the level of the bank, the financial institutions. the banks always talk about the importance of incentive pay. what we discovered in the middle of the crisis was that was seysure raid come up because they got high taiba and their

performance was good. they got taipei with their performance was bad. so, it was clear that that was partly a charade. but, it was worse than that, because they were designed to encourage short-sighted behavior and excessive risk-taking. short-sighted behavior in the sense that it was on an annual basis, not on long term, five, ten year. not in terms of how well workers were doing or how well, what the firm was doing in a broader sense, creativity, how what was compared to other firms. if the stock market would go up, they would do well. so, it was very much shortsighted, and designed to encourage excessive risk-taking. >> host: this structural incentives are interesting about the short-term risk-taking.

>> guest: it was incentives not only to the individual but the organization, so you have things that were too big to fail. what does that mean you were too big to fail? it means that if you gamble and you when you walk off with the proceeds. if you gamble and lose, the taxpayer picks up the tab. so what are you going to do when you have that kind of asymmetry? you are going to gamble with your money because it up nothing to lose. it is not real capitalism but they call it capitalism because you socialize the losses, you privatize the gains. and the point i try to emphasize is when you have that kind of capitalism, it is not efficient and it leads to the kinds of problems that we have. in fact i joke with my students and say if we hadn't had a crisis, it would have meant that caller theories about incentives would have been destroyed.

so, the crisis actually vindicates what we have been teaching but unfortunately it a lot of people are suffering as a result. >> i have this vision as i was reading the first half of the book of adam smith and david ricardo sword of raleigh in their crazed because it is not supposed to work they take the risk and you lose and you are rewarded. that is not the basic principle we are supposed to have an capitalism so i am wondering what you think the role of economists, people in your own profession particularly in government policymaking positions was in helping to create those bad incentives but also you describe a lot about how they miss seeing the bubble building. they helped create the bubble, greenspan. tell us it little bit about that. >> guest: well, as i tried to analyze who was to blame which of course is the question everyone wants to know, unfortunately i have to say the economists come in for some share, other economists of

course, but they play a role in a number of different ways. there were some economists that for pointing out markets don't always work, that there were problems with the information, particularly in financial markets in their things called externalities' where people have the consequences of their actions that affects other people for which they are not compensated. pollution as an example. so there are lots of market failure says mccolluch npf got a much better understanding of this market failures but unfortunately, you also have the predominant view of economics, forget about all of that and it became almost a servant of financial markets and others who wanted, who gained from a free market ideology, the notion that markets were self-correcting,

always work. we should have known that that was observed. we had the great depression. markets did not work. one out of four americans were out of a job and for a long time, so we know historically that markets often don't work but they forgot all that. they talked about the new economy that somehow we were different, but the only thing that was different is in some sense was maybe our hubris, that capitalism has had these of send bilmes since the beginning, with one exception and that is really interesting. the 50 years after the great depression, where we did learn the lesson then we created regulations to try to restrict this kind of bad behavior and they worked remarkably well, not only in the united states but around the world. there was one period in which there were almost no crises

anywhere in the world. once we started stripping away the regulations, and didn't put in new regulations to reflect the changing economy, the knit derivatives and things like that, once that happened, we started having crises again. more than 125 the last 30 years. so, this is not a surprise. i was the chief economist of the world bank and less of these crises go from one country to another. this is only give might say the second crisis in the united states. we have the s&l crisis and 89 but this is the biggest crisis in the world and therefore we feel and we know it this time and our taxpayers are paying for it whereas taxpayers and other countries. as i say economic theory, economists have a lot to blame in the sense that they forgot about these important experiences, and what economic

theory had explained the way markets work and unfortunately when they often don't work. >> host: the book is very useful in explaining what i think of this the cauldron some of which the freefall was brewing, a different sort of problems in the economics profession and the big trend towards deregulation and that incentives, but brought all together one of the things i think you make it very compelling case for is that this was a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster in this is really important because they think of how many times many of us, myself, watch on television and economists come out and say this was the 100-year storm, this was a fluke of nature but you make a compelling case that it was actually a creation of man. >> guest: very much so. this wasn't something that happened to the financial markets. it was something that the financial markets did to themselves and the rest of our society. and you could see it brewing and

you could see their errors and logic that led to it. for instance in here again we talked about the role of the economics profession. pervade this idea that markets for our royce it vision pandith they are always efficiency could have bubbles. if you did nav bubble do it gnat to do anything about deflating the bubble so greenspan could feel comfortable in saying, there may be a little frothed but nothing for us to do anything about, and went on to say if there is a problem much better to fix it after-the-fact. he did not say how much it was going to cost, and how long it would take to fix. but there was a party going on, and their regulators did not want to be a partypooper. particularly because they

couldn't believe that markets could not take care of everything, and again, it is partly a problem they were going to have to pay for the cleanup. we were. >> host: equal described the follow-up in the book and i'm actually going to look at some of the particular statistics because when i read it the way i felt about it in moreso after the massachusetts vote, the details of the fallout from this man-made disaster are like a footnote that describes their rage of a lot of americans across this country, red and blue and different demographics. 58% of the population is currently employed which is the smallest percentage since 47 if we hear the timbers sent employment and when you look at it from the perspective that is a stunning figure. millions of families have lost the value of their main assets and lost the inequality who has been hit because with the real estate deflation for working

people the house is their big asset. income and equality at the height not since since the robber barons age in the book is filled with some pretty startling descriptions in the fallout. you describe that situation in what came after is the major economic war between main street and wall street and here is the question. wall street keeps messing up on their own measurements. they are not doing well. i think they keep winning. and that gets to sort of what happened after all of that damage was done by certain players. how does that come to pass? >> guest: one way of thinking about it is the financial markets weren't very good at doing their main task, which is managing risk and allocating capital but they were very good at managing political capital, and they spend a lot of money and they have got a high return. they first got a high return

from deregulation and made a whole lot of money. they then got the hair return in the bailouts. that bailout terms were very favorable and the congressional oversight panel looked at for instance when we were giving them money, we got back securities. the securities that we got back at the time they were issued were worth about 67 cents on the dollar so weak that she did. many of the people doing this were former investment bankers. if they had been working for private that they would get been fired but they raise the question, who were they working for? but now they are getting a different dividend from those investments. they are successfully resisting pressure to reregulate them, not to go back to the old regulation we had 75 years ago. the world this change but we need a regulatory structure appropriate for the 21st century.

in my mind, that was part of the real debate of what we should be doing at that critical moment. were we going to try to go back to 2007 before the crisis? the financial system was over, 40% of all corporate profits were going to finance. credit card fees that were extracting as much money from ordinary people as they could. you know, modern technology would allow for an efficient electronic payment mechanism that cause pennies to transfer money from your bank account to the merchant. get they charge 1%, 2%, 3% for doing that. these all are reflections of the failures of the 2007 regime that we don't want to go back to. we had as they say a financial

sector. we had to bring it down to size. we forgot it is a means to an end did not an end in itself, but when we brought it down to sizably chevette fast the question, what did we want from the financial sector, what parts should be may be some expanded, venture-capital, the kinds of firms that finance google lendee of the new dynamic enterprises that the finance the small and medium-size enterprises and that create jobs. the good job creation. but what do we do? we let 140 of our smaller banks go bankrupt this year. but we poured in money to the big banks. whose focus has not been on lending. its focus has been on speculation. when they came out with the high returns everybody looked at, where were they making the money? trading. it was not from lending.

and they still live making money from lending. lending has been cutting back. >> host: they have got small business by the neck. >> guest: it is getting worse because a lot of small business lending is based on collateral. collateral is based on real estate in what has happened to real estate? we are going to be facing even more difficulties going forward but when we were pouring money into the things we didn't ask those questions. where we wanted our society, our financial system to go and the results of this is the wound up with a financial system, we were talking before about incentives. economists sometimes call it moral hazard, the risk of the kind of risk of gambling. it has gotten worse. >> host: one of the things i recall from the book that i thought was very clever is you talked about how we get too big to resolve things because of too big to ignore campaign contributions and if you look at

this whole situation and billions being poured into those things that got bigger as ever as a result of the response, with americans having lost their households, without any help, you basically come to the conclusion from your book that in some ways things have been made worse. it was it that situation but the way the response was done made it worse than it had to be facing a bad situation. one of the things that struck me as you talked about the failure of the bush and obama administrations were rank amongst the most costly mistakes of any modern democratic governments at the time. in what ways did responses make things worse and what still is salvageable? i'm talking about the initial responses, not the reregulation of the original bailout send emergency measures? >> guest: let me first give a broad perspective. the banks in the financial system had wasted money. if we had all this capitol we could have spent it to create

jobs, to create new enterprises. we did in. we put money into houses where they shouldn't have been and people that couldn't afford them. then we have the crash. going forward the question is, how do we best use the resources that we have? there is no reason that we have to underutilized resources. we made some mistakes, now going forward, go forward and use what resources you have a fully. but what have we been doing? not using their resources foley. that is why one out of ten americans are in the unemployment but actually the number is much worse. one out of five americans will who would like a full-time job can't get one so one out of five is a serious problem. you look at some demographics like afro-american youth it is almost one out of two. said these numbers are startling

and horrifying. if we had done the right thing, we could have used this money to help americans stay in their homes rather than the millions who have lost their homes. we could have used the money to stimulate the economy to create the jobs but what did we do? we pour the money into the banks. when we did our welfare reform in 1996 for the poor, we said if you are going to get welfare, you have to do certain things. you have to go through training and when we put the banks on welfare we said, no it would be bad for the banks that we put in the conditions on the banks, so what did we do? >> said do whatever you want, we trust you. >> host: with my money. >> guest: we trust you. duckett that record. would you say, we trust you? what did we do? what did they do with their

money? they did what their incentive said they would do. and this comes back to the theme of incentives. they paid out the money in bonus is. they paid up the money in diffident said in the book i try to explain why that was. why it was so predictable. but of course if they were paying money out it wasn't money that was going to be lynn's to create the jobs. it wasn't money that was going to be recapitalizing the banks and make them able to lend more in the future. now, the interesting thing is that we have over that period, we are, congress and people are so angry that they won't give them more money africa we are doing it indirectly, surreptitiously. they can borrow money from the fed at a low interest-rate, landed on at a higher interest-rate and led it to the government that no risk.

both the difference is profit so we are recapitalizing in a way that will diminish the growth of our economy because it is not unique lending and we are giving them money without any constraints so what are they doing with the money? they are asking, where is the highest return? where is the highest growth? emerging markets. so now we have a double problem. americans are unhappy because they are not creating jobs in the lending is weekend being constrained but the emerging markets are kathy because we are about to create a bubble there, and so they have managed to get everybody to cause problems to every economy around the world. so brazil has said no, thank you we are going to try to make sure that you don't rush in with your hot money to lead to a bubble. we so what they bubble can do a

we don't want that, thank you. >> host: it is very interesting. i hadn't thought of that is part of the solution, this solution that didn't work causing more pain because one of the things the book describes which it think is useful for folks in this country to understand is the role of the u.s. and exporting, both erratical deregulation modeled beville so then the crisis in the contagion worldwide, and you describe some of the instruments like the international monetary fund, the world bank conditionalities imposed on developing countries to deregulate, to liberalize their financial set-- sectors and the world trade organization was used in a similar way or the u.n. commissioner report describes the problems with that. now we have those institutions and rules imposed and then we have the worldwide crisis as a result. what is the worldwide response that is needed as far as trying, because we have exported a

crisis and it comes from us, what is the u.s. role in the global role in dealing with the global nature of this crisis? >> guest: let me first talk a little bit about the global consequences. as you said, we exported our deregulation philosophy. we also exported our toxic mortgages and in a sense if we have exported so many of our toxic mortgages, about 40% of them, the downturn in the united states would have been worse, but we made, we exported our problems and we have no created a global crisis. this crisis has a very clear made in the u.s.a. label. one of the consequences of that has been that it has undermined you might say our credibility, our role of leadership because people use to turn to the united states and they would say, we ought to imitate american

institutions, american policies. ginna what you were doing is what they said. they don't think that anymore. and, that in the fact that they should is growing and the energy markets are growing much faster than we are is really leading to a new gib lights sade geoeconomic, the geopolitical balance and you see that's in the onus with with some of the emerging markets are responding in global negotiations. they are much more reluctant to listen to the preaching. pn amendment sector of treasury would go to china and say, when their fingers and say you ought to liberalize your financial markets like we did, and they have a robust debate in those countries. they said, note thank you.

now they save much more loudly, and no thank you because we were worried. now we see how worried we should have been. >> host: i have notice for instance with the g-20 summit to have a global call for reregulation. we are going to ship the little bit back to the u.s. reregulation context but at the same time you have the international monetary funds for the arsonist being in charge of putting out the fire in charge of the instruments perhaps for some kind of a global mechanism in the crisis. you have that the world trade organization the united states pushing for more financial deregulation. those rules are ready as you have identified have to be reversed, the existing wto rules have to be locked into regulation so there seems to be this perverse notion of linney to reregulate but there still are these global institutions. you mentioned the need for a global institution to manage a

global economy and the sad news that thought is someone who knows wto is professor stiglitz, there is one and it is the wto and there is no regulation. how do you see the dynamic of internationally the give in the ship in the u.s. role which as you call it market fundamentalism did not work. how do you you see in this new dynamic that the new rules for a global economy are actually created? >> guest: one of the good things of the fallout from the crisis was the recognition first of all the g8 was elevated. you couldn't have global problems be addressed by a small club. how can you talk about global warming when the biggest polluter is in the table. how can you talk about global trade imbalances when china is not at the table? so moving from the g8 to the g-20 was a step in the right direction. >> host: the ghp in the club

of the u.s., adding in china, brazil and india just for our listeners. >> guest: there are still 172 countries not represented and that g-20 was a self selected club, no political legitimacy, no substandard-- sub-saharan african country of the then sub-saharan africa. so real deficiencies in the structure, but the other thing that was good about the g-20 was that it became a place where the leaders got together and unfortunately in the way the local governments too often works is it is delegated to particular ministries, particular cabinet level ministries though at the wto you have the trade ministers. at the imf you had the central bank governors and finance ministers and the secretary of treasury. what i saw when i was in

government or so when i was chief economist at the world bank that quite often those ministries have very little to do with the national interest. those ministries start reflecting special interests, as though the u.s. trade representative and trade ministries and other countries get captured by particular special interest. the finance ministries, treasury reflects wall street in the similar financial institutions and each of the countries. so, that is how you could have the leaders saying, we want, we need more regulation if we are going to prevent a recurrence and if the wto they are saying we have to push the agenda of deregulation even though we have had the biggest races in the last 75 years caused by deregulation and even though the

spread of that around the world was facilitated by capital market and financial market liberalization. this is a special interest agenda. i think in a sense, this dissidents has brought home the extent of capture of these ministries and the difference between what is in the national interest and what is going on in these particular international agencies. >> host: that is going to make a perfect segue because we have to take a short break before coming back to talk about the difference between the bush and obama administration approaches to regulation and also what can be done going forward. >> with their world as the imagination if you are writing fiction you could not have made the story up.

>> host: thank you for staying with us and we are going to go back to our discussion with professor joseph stiglitz and his new book, "freefall." we are just about to discuss the difference between the bush and obama approach to the crisis. in the book you talk about something a lot of people don't realize that some of the top personnel basically didn't

change. you talk about obama campaigning on change you can believe in but with respect to his economic team and to some degree the approach was more like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. what are the big differences between bush and obama to the extent that there are in their economic policy but particularly in addressing the crisis and what lessons did you take about the continuity of the personnel? >> guest: i think there was a clear decision to maintain continuity of the personnel and partly continuity of policies, because they didn't want, they were afraid it destabilizing the markets. the market's use this notion of fear all the time, and they say if you don't do this, they pointed gun at the congress and say if you don't give us $700 billion, capitols will fall

apart, and so they use fear all the time. and so they say you have to have continuity. and obama bought into that set of notions. now there were some very big differences even within that because what they did, bush did not want to do anything about stimulating the economy. there was a big big difference. bush did not want to do anything about mortgages and pouring money into the banks was like a massive blood transfusion to a patient suffering from internal bleeding and not doing anything about the underlying cause, the mortgages. so that included two big differences. the problem was the stimulus was not big enough and not well enough to sign. the continuity was, a third of it with the tax cut in the tax cut was what bush had done and it had failed.

predictably-- economist explained when you have the uncertainty you were going to save a lot but if you stimulate the economy you have to spend. and the area of the mortgages things were worse. the fundamental problem was that the bubble had broken. the problem was that the banks, the regulators didn't want to believe that they had done such a bad job. they didn't want to believe that there was this bubble. they wanted to believe that the high prices for the truitt prizes and we were just in a momentary moment of the irrational pessimism. and if we could just buoy up the stairs, say the right things, talk about issues, everything would recover overnight. >> host: back to like it was. >> guest: back to like it was part of the reality was we had

been in a dream world and the reality was this new world level of prices. that meant one out of four american homes were under water. they owed more money than the value of their homes. that would mean millions of americans were going to lose the value of their homes. the deal with that problem, you had to write down the value of the mortgage in one way or another. in the form of bankruptcy, there are lots of ways you could have done that but you had to do it because they didn't do anything about that problem and the result was in 2010 we expect somewhere between 2.5 in 3.5 million mortgage foreclosures more than in 2009 and 2008 so it is not like the problem is getting better. in some ways it is getting worse. some have been restructured but even restructuring has raised problems because a lot of the restructure's have added fees and with the new fees, people are more in debt.

the bang kandekore the profits from the fees. the fact that they are more in debt shows up in a problem further down the line, more may go into foreclosure but that is the problem that we will have to deal with the years down the line. so, these two key issues come up they did something much better than bush. you can't compare that to, but it wasn't what should that been done. >> host: it is very interesting because the other observation we have that i thought was very interesting was that the obama responded to the crisis in foreign since buying stability and maintaining both personnel and the same policies. you know that he is conservative in the sense of conserving the system, and relative to how he campaigned is a transportation of figure that he quote had offered an alternative view of

capitalism but their goal was to muddle through, and in part to throw money into the system, to shore it up. where do you think that takes us? >> guest: obviously it has taken us to where we are dealt with the economy hasn't recovered in a way that it should have. our national debt is much larger than it would have been had we done the right thing. but, you know when you talk about you know conservative, what is it the american tradition, there was one aspect of that that i found particularly disturbing and that is when they were pouring money into the banks, rather than going with the usual rules of capitalism, often wind up owing more than they could pay. they go into bankruptcy, it gets results. hugo and to bankruptcy and the shareholders lose everything in

the bondholders pick up the new shareholders. in the case of things we have a similar process. we collican subverter ship but what you do is shareholders lose everything and the bondholders, because the government has insured the depositors, sometimes it has to put so much money in that it becomes effective owner and then it reprivatize is. that is the american way. what is so interesting is that this whole process got captured by the banks and they said, that is the kind of thing they do in sweden and other countries but it is not the american way. but it was the american way. we did it in continental illinois. we have done it over and over and over again. we suspended the rules of capitalism to give more money to the bankers but not only to the banks, the bankers, bondholders and shareholders.

so, in that sense, the can we made things worse going forward because we changed the incentives. because it meant that they didn't have money to risk. government was standing they are ready to bailout the bondholders and the shareholders and if that is the case there is no market discipline so they were undermining the market in the name of the market. >> host: that said, that the observation is really one of the most perversely interesting ones and when you think of moving forward, you close the final chapter talking about how it all takes a near-death experience for a person to be basically forced to reevaluate their goals empire is so we have had something close to lay near death experience or as close as i wanted my lifetime thank you very much yet there does seem to be a sizable number of individuals, financiers, some of them have cycled into government

not only here but international agencies and other countries, pundits, some economists, some scholars who still seem hogan these presumptions that pretty much have been factually counter approved and keep countering the market is self-correcting and i am wondering what is it going to take if this didn't do it, to get folks to look at the fundamentals which in the second half of the book is what you are calling for. >> guest: that is right. i think there is a way of explaining this which is to remember how well some people were doing before the crisis in 2007. most americans were not doing that well. median income adjusted for inflation, that is the people right in the middle, their income in 2007 was lower than in 1999 but a few people were doing very well including a lot of people in the banks and a lot of

other people in our society but it was relatively few. will come of these people would like to go back to that kind of a world, so they have an incentive to try to say you know nothing vegas happened and it was something that happened to us. and of the way of thinking about it that fits in with your discussion with how we approach the problem, the plumbing has been clogged. and what do you do then? mccawley plumber. which plumber do you call? you called the plumber who put in the pipes because he is the one who knows where all the problems are. he created the problems, but if you call in that same plumber tealand plug declawed pipes you were not going to get a retro redesign of the plumbing system. he is going to say thank you very much in send you a big bill for the services. you are going to be angry and

you are going to say you should have had a better plumbing system in the first place. >> host: the profits are going to go up in the risk is going to go on to the rest of us. >> guest: exactly. the thing i think is really important for us is to have a vision of not only what kind of the financial system we want, but also what kind of a society, what kind of an economic system we want, and remember the finances is an end to itself and it is even true of an economy. it is a very central part, but you know if our planet doesn't survive because of problems with pollution and global warming, it is not going to do a lot of good to know that we had a high gdp, so we really have to assess where we are going, and say, are

we going where we want to go? one of my concerns about what was happening in the years before the crisis was that not just do we miss allocate-- the final chapters of the book talk about the connection between the financial system and the economic system and then envisioning what you want as a society making the economic system to deliver on that. before we get to that and want to just go back to the domestic part of reregulating the financial system because in the book describes the two phases, the immediate zero my god moment with the bailouts and he described very interestingly the use of the lehman collapse to sort of create almost a tear of zero mic of the world war ended you must do this now. after that subsided congress started working on in certain

federal regulators started on reregulating making changes to how securities, banking insurance would be operated so to try to deal with some of the structural issues, change the incentives. how is that been going? you said the test will be if what is on the table were adopted when it prevents, which happening again, how are they doing? >> guest: pretty badly. pretty badly. let me give you one example. the major change in regulatory structure is to give the fed more power. but,-- >> host: wait a minute. >> guest: they were the ones who were responsible. they didn't use all the powers they had to prevent the bubble. >> host: after helping inflated. >> guest: not only did they pump it up in that way but they could have done something about putting regulations, down

payments, one of their arguments was we only have one instrument. so they were responsible. here you have the agency that cause the problem, or at least as a large bearing of the responsibility and they say we are going to solve the problem by giving them more power without changing the fundamental structures, without changing the fact in the new york fed is basically owned by the banks. >> host: is this the the administrations planner congress's planner both? >> guest: actually this is so interesting it was actually the administrations plan and the house plan. the senate said this doesn't make any sense in the senate said we have to created this systemic regulator because the fed clearly didn't do its job. but even in the house, there is a great deal of skepticism about the fed for another reason.

one element of a democratic society is transparency. you have read about that, and the fed is not very transparent and it was particularly not transparent in what it did in the crisis. bloomberg winds, had to sue to get some information that it thought should be in the public domain. it won the suit and what did the fed do? did it disclose the information? no, it appealed. it said were not subject to the freedom of information act which is one of the basic laws of our democracy to make sure that citizens can no what the people who are supposed to be working for them are doing. we understand why no they did not want it disclosed. the asg bailout wit statementse.

the friend said of the loflin did not pay them 100 cents on the dollar. meanwhile in france they were settling these for less than 100 cents on the dollar. we got real. >> host: as you pointed out it wasn't treatment in the u.s. between different classes of interest which is to say 100 cents on the dollar but for the, because there is a contract you point out for the uaw working guys. >> guest: they had to redo their contracts. double standard. so, not surprisingly, the financial markets have resisted doing the kinds of things that need to be done. in the beginning of our conversation, we talked about the risk of too big to fail institutions. haven't done anything about that.

>> host: let's talk about some of that because in the book you talk about the glass-steagall sipe, but the idea of looking at the size and also looking have firewalls, said that for instance a commercial bank can be gambling like an investment banker and it doesn't look like compass is looking yvette sizemore of the firewall. >> guest: that is right and there are other things they haven't been adequately doing with incentive pay. one of the things people are very concerned about, incentives they lead to more risk-taking and shortsighted behavior. there is some regulations that are trying to move in that direction but moving very slowly. not clear we are going to get them through. part of the problem is in a regulation-- you can get something to look pretty good and then you start reading in sides of one of the importance

things was the consumer financial product safety commission that many of these products that were being sold to individuals were not a very good for their interest. they were good for the banks because they generated a lot of these. >> host: not safe for consumption. >> guest: we look at toys. we look at the food we eat but we say, you can buy these complex products and not even the bank is going to understand and let alone somebody who is a first-time homebuyer. so very important i thought to have some kind of consumer product safety commission. it looks like we may get one, but it looks like 80 or 90% of the book-- banks will be exempted which is a real problem. and they wanted to do just a mild thing saying everybody the wofford's a mortgage has to

offer at least a plain vanilla mortgage, no bells and whistles, clear and simple and everybody can understand because they couldn't even get that through, so on derivatives, aig, the derivatives cost as $180 billion. and magid what we could do with $180 billion for the what we are doing the again doesn't look like it's going to be adequate. we say we want more of the derivatives to be created on exchanges but we will also allow the over-the-counter, non-transparent, derivatives, but what with the banks prefer? where did they make their money? they make their money, they are not going to make money on standardized products that are creating competition because

competitive markets, profits get squeezed to zero. they like the nun transparency, but how to capital markets exercise discipline if they don't know what the banks are doing? so, the problem is here in this key ariel, again now does not appear as if we are going to be doing enough, and even when we look like we are doing the right thing if you look at the details, they are eve vista rating what the intent, what was needed. >> host: what are the five things are the three things that congress had better do to be able to really make sure we don't get into this pickel again and also to make the economy the financial part of the economy work better for people? abovementioned bankruptcy reforms, payments, an electronic payment system not controlled by

visa or mastercard. what would be the list of things they need that they do not. too big to fail. >> guest: too big to fail, doing something about derivatives, doing something about incented systems so you don't have people reported in ways to have excess risk-taking. you need to do something about ex-as leverage, a whole fri of other ways of risk-taking. they have the odds of 30-1, 40-1 leverage. the value goes down by two, three, 4% they are wiped out. what happened to real estate assets? they wyndham by 30%. they were wiped up multiple times so we shouldn't have been surprised. the thing about leverage is when things are going up, we make a lot of money. but from a social point of view, all the leverage does it shifts risk from one place to another.

it shifted the returned to the banks and shifted the risk to the taxpayer. we can't allow that. that is a really big thing that it the effects of those are within the financial sector the most important things to fix to prevent another crisis. but remember we want to do more than prevent another crisis. we want our economy to start growing so we want to try to make sure that we have the financial system that actually does what it is supposed to do. >> host: that was the key thing in the book talking about having a clear vision of what you want your financial system to do and what did your view with that be and what do we need to do besides trying to avoid it the next crisis to x the make it work going forward. >> guest: one of the points i tried to raise is and since this matter. incentives matter not just in a bad way that they have mattered in the past but if we have the right incentives we get the

right innovation. the innovation we have had has not been directed at improving the ability of homeowners to manage the risk of homeownership, you know, increasing the stability of our mortgage market. there were ideas out there like the danish mortgage bonds but they did not generate that these and they weren't interested in those things. so one of the things i think is important is that we get the incentives better aligned between society and what the private rewards are. i have enough confidence in the market. maybe i am optimistic here, but they will be innovative in ways that will improve and we'll be in our society. one of the things we clearly have to do is to try to encourage more lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, and that means a variety of ways

of doing that that basically right now, we encourage, do you know the obey we gave the bailout money was disproportionately and it went to the big banks. not from lending but from trading, so we should have done things that encourage that part. notice not too late. >> host: said the real economy gets the financing. caskill if the fed is lending money to the banking system let's say you can't use that money to speculate in brazil. brazil will be happier and so will our firms that get the money will be happier so this is a win-win. >> host: they needed just to be able to finance their operations. to hire people again, to build demand. >> guest: exactly so there things like this that we can do and we have done things like this and other countries have done