the greek debt crisis economist called the european union a organization that presents a unified response to the crisis. gordon gray a former ambassador

also participated in the conversation. this is an hour-and-a-half. >> hello. welcome to the atl3 welcome to the atlantic council. i ron the transatlantic relations program here. i want to extend a welcome both to those of you that are here in our audience and also those that are watching on c-span. this panel was organized with our business and economics program as well so i want to thank the team for their help. in the last two years it seems europe has been synonymous with economic crisis within the year rose on one country after another seems to go through either a banking crisis or a sovereign debt crisis, and sometimes both.

numerous forecasts will break up and have been made as well as some that even the european union will be its end. we've recently raised the specter of the 1930's tide of economic crisis. a knowledgeable and very involved experts disagree about the future. we hosted here at the atlantic council a couple of weeks ago until recently he was the ceo of deutsche bank, and he expressed confidence that europe will make it through the crisis with the year rosalynn intact. the same week we hosted the former french finance minister and now the head of the imf who was arguing for a much more urgent approach saying that time is running out to avoid this becoming a much broader crisis. the governments have responded to this crisis with a series of new fiscal policies and institutions.

we have new rules on hedge funds and other forms of financial interaction that are believed to have caused some of the crisis. we have the so-called six pack new measures designed to return discipline to european debt and deficit levels and the establishment of the european stability financials of becoming european financial stability facility and the european stability mechanism to provide emergency funding. we have enhanced banking supervision and putting the new agency in london. the fiscal compact which reinforces the six-pack is now in the process of being ratified and that no one under discussion like banking supervision to the point perhaps of banking unions and the utilization of debt. but despite all this the crisis persists. indeed as one phase seems to

ease, one country moves away from the brink and another comes to the floor if not crees the next day it's been and perhaps even france. the market seems unconvinced that europe will succeed. on one level the crisis is surprising. the year rose on as a whole has some strong economic fundamentals. the deficit as a percentage of gdp is only 2.8 per cent as opposed to ours in the united states at 8.7%. the debt as a percentage of gdp is not far off, 87% versus 70 or so but as countless observers have noted, fiscal decision making is still based at the national level. the health overall figures not a very wide range from estonia where the debt of only 6% and denmark, actually not in of the year rose own, but germany, with

a deficit of two to 3% and 60% debt to ireland, greece, italy, portugal with a debt as a percentage gdp over 12011. as a result, for two years now the crisis has ebbed and flowed while dominating the discussion both within and about europe. it's dominated elections and a government crises in spain, france, portugal, the netherlands, italy and of course greece. that brings us to today. even if you've been following the crisis from the beginning, the last six weeks to a month have been particularly harrowing and uncertain. we have a new french president and parliament now arguing for a different tack for europe to take. one that is less austerity and more growth. least that is the rhetoric. we have a bailout of spanish banks with growing concern expressed about italy and yesterday moody's of course

downgraded 15 banks some of which are large european players. above all, of course, the greek election perhaps i should say the greek elections since we've had two of them so close together, but the one this past week was a no victory for those that support the bailout. we now have a very tentative coalition, but they've also made clear they want to renegotiate their arrangements with the e.u. and it's also become clear they've basically lost two months in terms of implementing the reform that they promised earlier. we now also face a series of meetings, finance ministers that yesterday heard from regard the need to do more. today, angela merkel of germany, italy, france and spain are meeting, and next thursday and friday will be the next european

summit where we are hoping the key decisions will be made. to discuss where we are in the crisis and what the future may be we have an excellent panel and i'm going to introduce them in reverse order. she's one of the top lawyers and most importantly for this panel with the u.s. representatives to the e.u. in the last administration. he also is atlantic council board member. a senior research fellow with the european foreign relations based in berlin. she has worked with the the think tanks in germany and it's one of the most prolific commentators on the politics of european integration and the franco-german relationship. dr. jacob has been a research fellow at the peterson institute for international economics since 2002. from denmark he's written extensively on workforce issues and pension reform both in europe and elsewhere and for the last two years focused on the crisis in european economic

reform. let me start with jacob come and let me ask where are we now, how close are we to the edge of the cliff is the european economy? >> let me start by quoting president obama when talking about this and say that the area if you get the diagnosis of the crisis right is doing just fine. what i mean by that is there is no doubt that the area faces a whole host of crisis. the banking crisis and a number of countries, competitiveness crisis across the southern periphery come and we told you about a fiscal crisis and a number of countries. with the overall diagnosis of the area is suffering from is an institutional crisis. it's the sanctioning crisis of the design of the euro area itself, which as it was created in the late 1990's is a flawed

design. it basically does not work when you have a major financial and economic crisis as we have right now. what that means is that it is fundamentally a political crisis that europe is facing because it is about the process in which national sovereignty and deep national sovereignty of the kind of national sovereignty over banking regulation and fiscal policy that the government were not willing to hand over in the 1990's are now in the process of being transferred to the area and it's important to understand that this is not a cooperative game. as economists we can all sit down and say look, this shouldn't be very hard. we can all agree with is the optimal approach. but, the basic reality is because we are dealing with the

handing over of national sovereignty, which is the commodity that no government even in the area will ever part with voluntarily, you basically need the level of the crisis that was seen right now for this process and this is also important to understand that the design of the area would leave a place of the beginning of the crisis have fled sovereignty over banking and fiscal issues which are the key policy levers in a financial crisis of the national level. it means that the crisis response is fundamentally dictated by one single element which is that of political moral hazard. it is moral hazards that dictate when you are unlikely in the united states when we passed

t.a.r.p. because congress is a sovereign and european council was not sovereign. it cannot dictate the policies of recipient government for such bailouts which is another way of saying that the bailout will always be partial. they will always be conditional, and those of you that believe that europe would ever put together a fully credible big enough fire wall that will not happen because if it did happen, it would have very direct - adverse effects on the incentive for the spanish and italian for instance of the parliament's the pass the kind of reform that are needed to reverse a where we are in a crisis right now is we have already had essentially this moral hazard dictated process basically relies on political

brinksmanship which means we take a crisis and you go very close to the edge of having a disaster and a disaster that of the video craze is a disaster, which is of course the collapse of the euro. you go up to the edge to basically coercive the other players into giving you concession so it is basically a theoretical exercise if you like and the main players here are the core governments led by germany, the european central bank and the peripheral government and occasionally the rest of the world through the imf. we saw this in may, 2010 with the first allows we saw it in august last year when they squared off against the spanish government. we saw this very clearly in december last year coming and we are in the process of seeing it again right now.

it's essentially a repeat it a game of chicken that's being played out. the response is very clear that germany and the ec will never agree to state that they stand behind the euro because if they did as i said they would be subject to a moral hazard but don't make any mistake. there is actually plenty of political willingness to do what is necessary and in the case of the european central bank there is also plenty of financial firepower. so there is a fire wall for those that are concerned about these issues. it's called the european central bank. what i mean by a fire wall is consider that to date to the european central bank has fought only about three per cent of the act will share of the area gdp in the form of the security

market purchases and the cover the bond market programs. what that means is that if the pc had to buy a trolley and euro debt after that process they would only own about 14% of the area gdp in all right out assets. that is less than what the federal reserve already own, and it is much less than what the bank of england owns as a result of quality is easing. so you should ask yourself is it really credible that they wouldn't want to do this and have the area collapse? i absolutely believe that is not the case. but again, this is a non-cooperative gain that relies on the repeated game of chicken to coerce the government into handing over the national sovereignty to the new institutions but it's actually a

lot more stable than what is perceived or misperceived by the financial markets. >> are you arguing that this is a bargaining game and one can see that, but one also sees the market's constantly raising the stakes. the market seems unconvinced that there will be a resolution in the end. we also hear from economists that for example the spanish bank bailout eventually will add to the sovereign debt and raise this to a dangerous level and that spain's bond purchase is being done on interest rates that are unsustainable for them. so, i mean it does seem like there are serious economic positions that are being taken that can the e.u. constantly ratchet up and meet those or is there a point where the whole

edifice comes down because the economic fundamentals are not there? you mentioned the ecb but there are fire walls on what the ecb can do not only politically given the german view, but there are limits. so, it's sometimes said that if the europeans had gotten out in front of the market this would not have cost as much. it would have been over quickly. do you agree and are we coming to a point beyond which they cannot recover? >> there's no doubt as i said earlier if you had done this as a cooperative game and got a head of the market it would have been much cheaper. no doubt about it. but as i said, the reality is that it's not possible for the government to hand over the kind of sovereignty that would entail. that's the problem. that is the process that we are

in a. do i believe in the case of spain for instance think about what is about to happen. first of all, and this is an illustration of how this works. spain denied that it had a serious problem because it had discovered ability to do so. then finally as it became increasingly clear that they were in a bind a couple of months ago they decided to begin digging the european central bank to buy his bond so that he could finance the debt himself. the ecb said no. finally the spanish government were forced to hand over the kind of offical bank sector bailout including the conditionality etc..

so again, it is a bargaining game. what has just happened today which i think is actually even more interesting is the fact that we are now finally getting to the point where the spanish government, rather than actually accept to pay the full bailout is thinking about imposing losses on bond holding which again is very painful because many of the bondholders are basically his political supporters in spain. but again, it's the choice between the will to have more sovereign debt or in pos losses on your political allies? so this is a game that can go on with respect -- there is no doubt of the real macroeconomic cost to this. but i take the view that it is

not yet at the point of no return. i believe in the mainstream forecast for economic growth in the area which suggests the overall recession this year and a turnaround in the second half of 2012, 2011, 2013, and this in my opinion given to longer-term handover of sovereignty in this process is for lack of a better word collateral damage the volume personally willing to pay for this. understand that of course an administration that has an election in november may feel very differently about that. >> thank you. you've been a longtime observer of the french relationship and we now have a new french government. they've had a couple of meetings with chancellor merkel. he came to office with a

different approach to the eurozone crisis. the franco-german relationship in the past although difficult with nicolas sarkozy was the key to what was happening in europe and the decisions that the europeans made in this crisis. do you expect them to have the same strong relationship, will they work this out? what does this mean for the meetings that we will see both today and then next week? >> thank you. i happen to be optimistic because my argument is that the franco-german works best for europe effectively it disputes. we have seen sarkozy that is between two people and a name and was actually very bad for you. it was very bad. and was that not only because they took a very is wrong decisions on the private sector

involved which -- i am sorry for the microphone problem, but essentially, when you have the franco-german you don't give ownership to the smaller countries and the smaller countries need to struggle on the process between the two polls coming together to find the space of the place of the european compromise and i think that this has been largely overlooked. they've been what he would hear from whomever they would just be set up because the moment you have the great symbiosis' it starts to dictate for the other and it's not good. whatever the fight will be coming and coming you know, there's a lot of struggle between banking and european and france today but the very fact that there is fight and strike and political struggle i find this very positive. i'm confident that there will be

compromise, and it's the best that you can see. be reminded that we have this role of the franco-german engines. if you look closer at the 90's and see the match making you see what happened in '92 and whether we place them or not. i was pretty close to politics these days. anything -- there was a book to give you the title there was a book written the 90's and france by a journalist how france and germany made the euro and they have a compromise that works for europe, so that we will see a compromise along the lines of this and we see a pretty interesting which is germany as a political union and france a

banking union and basically germany can live more -- we can do more moves on the banking union, we can do that little step into the neutral position of debt but please be aware of the fact of this requires into losing the reality in the political union and it requires a quantum leap french need to get. i happen to have been in the office and 92, 94 when we did this paper it was all there. the german argument about the political union is a very old argument. so all of those that want to go back in history and read the 92, 94 times, this document has it all. everything that is now out in terms of we need to improve the european commission and get it directly elected a president so it was all set in the 90's the french didn't accept. i think today the need to accept a little bit of this.

>> what does this say though? you are making the argument that there is a path to this relationship, which clearly there is, but what does it mean for the future? there have been a lot of predictions that the e.u. may fail if it does survive it will be smaller, it will be more of a core. do you believe that there is this saying if you will among those of us that watch the e.u. that out of the crisis comes more, not less? is this the exception? >> i think it is true. this came last tuesday which was a big study group proposal for more europe, the document which was an interim report because he consulted with of the like-minded ministers of the political future the documents by the way shapes in the way a

new space european system has launched. it is a power position in the european system with a different set of the parliament, a very different type of schambra and so on and so forth which is what they call europe and more political and i think this is really important. if we come back to france and germany, at last what france and germany to succeed now in the very brief i think they need to achieve and view the social contract for europe. this is what it is about. and i think that this whole social contract has two components. one is to fix the state market relationship under the european level and the other is to fix the labor cabral relationship with in europe. france and germany's should succeed because they come from very different socio-economic conditions, then what actually nothing would empower them to have a pretty good consensus model most of the countries can chime in and i think this is what they both know. of course this is now pretty

disputed, but i think that they are aware of this and again it is a game but we see a little progress on this. >> there in the midst of the economic crisis is a very uncooperative game. i think the term that you used. is this the moment to be talking about the ground political design and? one of the things i have been hearing is we will see a permanent division between the north and south. it seems to be somewhere in the middle. but, there will be a very different europe going forward in terms of the division's perhaps even the threat of some domestic extremism in some countries given the economic crisis. certainly when i was in europe early this week and talking to some of my north european colleagues, they didn't see much of a future for the south of

europe with them at least in the bureau's own so is this the moment to be thinking about this? >> the one discussion is that basically everyone is saying you need to distinguish and the architecture that is one for the of the discussion they want a very bold shuffling of the european architecture which would pave the way i know that this is hard to explain but for the germans, if there should be the neutral position of what ever kind this means a fundamental research of the european institutional system including change. this is a given and the other countries i think should come along because the negotiation game is if you give up something of that then perhaps germany doesn't a banking union of some sort i think this is the game. many reasons i do not want to detail here so on and so forth

because the mutual was asian means the national budgets of remedy coming you need to rethink the democratic system of direct and a different way and that is a game changing moment. i think to understand the other countries to go along with their thinking of the game changing moment and then we may think about that this is one thing to defend when understand, and the other countries have the discretion to distinguish now will this architecture of plans from the german side. the other is to be very brief from this. there is no core europe they've en talking about the germans and so this is i think this would not fly. it's nonsense, right? of gingrey france is taking point and at some point will need to decide whether it goes not south but if you sweat frank and germany the economic for 50

years holds true so you don't see politically strategically the sort of currency union which is constructed and germany and in a transatlantic perspective completely absurd. so france hopes, and this is why this actual arm wrestling between france and germany is of importance. and i feel like the french need to come along because in these studies taken a long first. they went to the political union and they didn't give them to us. they can get set look for the step, be quiet for the political union. the french are getting at to give you that one sentence if you look at the system of the european union, last or yesterday's discussion was the discussion but in federalism and intergovernmental was on. the french were intergovernmental etc depue's at

tomorrow's discussion my thought is executive versus parliament and then you have the french sort of executive versus the german parliament terry thinking and this gives you i said france and germany to come along on a different for europe but also need to come along on the design of a political system that holds true for both so we will need to merger the presidential tradition was the parliament in tradition of the germans. ..

but also, perhaps more importantly, why is this important to us? way we here in washington talking about this? president obama thinks it's important that the year is through move forward and resolve this crisis. what is your argument about whether this is important or not? ell, we have two economies that are heavily integrated. very few people know the extent of it. it's 40% of world trade, 50% close. 35% of world gdp. they're hugely integrated and we forget. when i first went to brussels i was given a dinner by our ambassador, tom korolev sni

walked in. it was so friendly, very distinguished. belgian came up and send so quick to meet you, where are you from? fm from washington d.c. they said no, nobody's from washington d.c. were you for a really from? he had to me. i said to what do i owe this show of respect? he said because we own the third line and you've been very good to us. is the largest in the market chain in south carolina. i didn't know that. i grew up there. this is where we bought our food. a lot of us don't know this kid there seven or 8 million jobs depending on the investment from the other side. i think many of the bmws, the bigger bmws the european drives are actually made in spartanburg, south carolina.

during many regulatory disconnects that should be a total -- should be one internal market. the european internal market still is not finished. that is one of the key is that is two-year 87 internal market. we shouldn't get very uppity about this because it wasn't until five years ago we shipped wine in the state. and we still can't do that very well. so we have our problems, too. we shouldn't be throwing rocks because there's things we need to do, which they can help us with. but the two economies are really, really intertwined and it's not so much better banks would fail if some of their banks would pull back. it's not bad. it's not necessary that the exports would drop, which on the margin. is the overall picture of investment confidence. what the europeans want now from

us is almost the first priority but by the germans and overemphasizing what they want is a more focused look i'm regulatory harmonization of mutual back nation. quoting and the guys of the free trade agreement between europe and the united states is not progressing very well. but a way to see what happens. i was disappointed to see it's not a good idea. it's not really a good idea. so i hope that we all can get it forward. why is that important? it is important because if europe cannot find the key to the kind of.com innovation we are used to come the facebook, google, then we sat fair. we separate may suffer. we both came to rid of the innovation or gdp growth on both sides, we are going to be 2% may

be lucky. no one will be complaining. if you're poor or 2% or 3%, there wouldn't be a problem there. what are the difficulties? you can trace the price of bonds in germany, depending on the progress of monte. he had a competition and commission. you can trace in tandem with progress or lack thereof of reform program through the italian parliament. now, what to me is the key about this? is sort of a trick question. when i went to january 2006, how many people know this? who is the sick man of europe when i got there? germany. germany's growth was slower than greece, spain, italy, whatever. what happened? what do they do?

and they did this under schroeder. he never really benefited from it. this is not the first time. president bush claimed that the banking system. last in part because they've been content had a great one. but that's life. that's just life. but germany responded very, very well. the key part of the reform was then adopted or go into effect until january 2005. in 18 months january with the classes if europe. and in a way, what was simplified, if we can do it, there's nothing unique. if we can do this deregulation, a little clinton labor law reform from the start of the mcsherry, relaxing the rules on the hiring and firing, we can do that, certainly you can do that.

but he's given up and so the price goes up but the bond. or the interest goes up when he gets on the notion to eliminate the requirements without any court approval. i said this to one of the more liberal judges in the d.c. circuit democrat. he said you cannot do what to italy? said you cannot fire anybody. you cannot fire anybody without a court approval, without my approval he says? he said that's insane. while it is insane. today we learn in "the new york times" that the european court of justice has ruled that if you get sick on vacation in europe, you get to take your vacation over again. it used to be that if you got sick before a vacation you could postpone and take it over again. i've got it right here. if you get sick during vacation time you get to have it all over again. gee whiz, what a great racket

that is. in any event, i hope you get sick and obvious. so what we need, i think is to take a look at the things that make germany a 65. there is an absurd to try to do this with our help and cooperation that would add to the men i think europe would be under a whole lot less pressure if they had a whole lot more growth. >> thank you very much. i do recall conker junker once saying that we european politicians know exactly what needs to be done. we just are not to get reelected once we've done that. >> take your lumps and if you're like schroeder or bush 41, maybe won't get really good, but you're treated well by history. >> i think what we have heard is a different view of the year his

own crisis. one that looks at this as a bargaining enterprise and a not very pretty or nice one, but one that requires two were paired with a franco german relationship that does better when there have been arguments. and we have politicians who commit political suicide in order to get these reforms through. so of course no one in the current crop really wants to do that very much. so it is not -- it is not a very cooperative environment. it is not an environment where everyone can simply make a rational decision and move forward. but we do have disagreed in the case of the economy pushing people for a wired. debt levels, deficit levels pushing decisions to be made. action events at the well.

we at the meeting next friday, which we hope will have some decisions. i'm going to open this now to the audience and i think we have some microphones here. so yes, that's right. and please say who you are in your affiliation. >> chris blavatsky from manufacturing plants for productivity and innovation. >> can you stand because you're hiding behind the person. >> i hope the rica and yatra in extremely high regard. in fact, i think these are some of the best brains that the euro atlantic community has these days. i read their stuff in value by writing very highly. i hope he employed by challenging their views today. on the one hand we've got a game of chicken trying to subtract sovereignty, which is given to

any group of countries. on the other hand, we've got a conflict that your rica sizes are most needed in order to advance integration. so what we have is that delay is a conflict that is needed in order to deepen the integration to avoid the conflict. you have a conflict that is supposed to amanda conflict. i think a search for the solution we have, an inability to concentrate and on the second best is causing the crisis we have our markets are not convinced the first pass is achievable, the second best is not attempted or spilled out in this in between great area is causing this crisis that keeps going. why do we have to have the crisis in order to solve the crisis? why can't we sat back, climbed down and accept that plan b, spelled out to the voters and the price that the diminished

credibility, weaken the credibility to malign and build what is viable? i'm sorry i can't put it any other way, but i'll finish that. >> is there a plan b that would work and that is some band that everyone could agree on? i mean, europeans are often accused of not finding the big solution, that we are not going to wake up and suddenly see that the crisis is over, the rather muddling through. and let me add to that for you, jacob, the timing issue, too. how long does this game take to play out? how long would we be better off having last update time distance to get to the goal and be able to have some pain, a1 of some kind? george soros who made a lot of money for the speculation and investment had a speech about a

month ago where he gave europe three months. >> he also said last year about three months. >> two weeks last year. >> there are others as well who have said this. >> but what's the timing? is very second last? >> i think we have to be clear that this is second best. as i said, if we can have a cooperative solution, it will be much cheaper and much quicker, but that is not possible because of the sovereignty issues involved. so we are in a second best solution here. and with respect to the timing issue, well i guess the way i view it is perhaps slightly broader. because remember what the european of the year of era is trying to achieve ensuring to unify a continent from the bottom up by voluntarily pooling

sovereignty from the union to a new century being created. that is infinitely harder to do than the way consonants are normally be unified, which is of course through military conquest. i remember that in the united states we have states versus federal discussions about who does what, who pays for what, these types of issues between the center and periphery goes on all the time. it is essentially the same that europe had. the same discussion about it here because states rights issues. in europe they call it the principle of subsidiaries. but it's essentially the same thing. what is different is of course that europe does not yet, in my opinion, how the center that everyone agrees will hold. now i believe it will and we in

fact have crossed the point of no return in the sense that it's going to bemuch more expensive for everyone involved to dissolve the european union and go through the process that i here depict out and were also talking about. so what we need to do is catch the threshold where markets are essentially convinced that the center will hold. once that is established, we can go on forever to have the states rights debates internally in europe. when will that happen? i think that is a very good question. we clearly in my opinionated thinking union. look at it big step towards that next week. we clearly also need partial debt neutralization, which is something i believe can be achieved, you know, maybe in the five to eight year timeline.

so that is the timeframe that i would be looking at. but that doesn't mean that in the meantime we cannot have it quieting down of the sovereign debt market, the sovereign bond market stability because essentially the way the ecb works, the political function of the ecb lancets balance sheet every time his steps forward towards european integration. and i would expect that quite frankly to happen. >> ulrike come the second best plants in what does this look like a tree in france and germany and if they agree on something, do the other countries who are not so much part of the initial decision-making process is the second best for them? i wish you say about the incentives to compromise and particularly chancellor merkel

or has a rating of somewhere between 55 and 65% consistently since the beginning of the year. >> second-best in the sense that politics is out of the possible and i would agree. the question was more or less how i want to rico along with this half pregnant situation and i think the better has shown a couple of speeches just in recent days but she says it would take five years to overlay the physical institutional setting appears the best writers to go or today that most of the things that have been more or less out of sight would be conveyed into the real institutional treaty were. don't forget that we have no elections at the 2014 a budget, said the opportunity will most likely be sized to do something of a fundamental work in the institutional fatah, with respect to this question will also probably respect at the

european fractions which whether we can work on transnational parties. don't forget to january 2014 actually 50 years and i'm deeply convinced that france and germany will take the opportunity to do a huge leap unpolitical integration with the symbolic setback to. i think what has been for the smaller countries as i don't want to say if they don't have much oth choices, right? i mean, you know, the smaller countries are the largest benefit of the europeans, yet they don't have the european foreign policy that benefit from the european energy policy that is fed from a strong set so the smaller country, signed as they have ownership in the first time and i'll be very important to have an institutional setting.

let's face it. i don't like discussions about federation said it longer and i don't like the united states of europe because it's too much compared with the united states. i like european republic because we will need to have a moment. the european republic resonates plenty of our values, most of the european countries are republics, right? and i think there must be something like creative political thinking and then i am convinced there is a lot for the smaller countries. >> do you want to comment on that? >> this all sounds vaguely familiar. i used to save another so that they are, you know, take it from us. where the old country. you're the new country. a lot of states older than greece, italy, belgium, even germany. where the old country. this is not an unfamiliar thing

were going through. many europeans say cosh, why shouldn't germany pick up the dead the way hamilton dead in 1789? well, he did that one of his form when there is a huge debt crisis in 1837, when the states bent on canales and got overtaken by the railroads. so that would belly up to when you bail in washington said no. and therefore we cannot send 39 or 40 state allies budget constitutional provisions, which has helped a lot in this country. so we have seen this movie before. and i also used to say brussels needs to get stronger before you get weaker. either parliament has to be more

representative or the president of the council has to be publicly elected. there has to be this element of it, which has got to be added. the french are going to resist this because the french -- i have to be careful how i say this. i have to be careful how i see this. my experience was that the french really knew how to run the european union. i used to say to my british friends who dominated, the english be the principal language of course and the press been so good at this and so articulate and i see speech in english friend, you really do dominate the commission, don't you? they say no, no, no. [inaudible] and i think they're losing some of that. this is the problem, the french don't want their -- their secret

he heine sees power diluted anymore. but a lot of the united states if we were to be more integrated in terms of our economic regulatory relationship. so i'm putting a different spin on what you're saying, but the french to have to come along on this. >> let me just very quickly on this issue at the polling of the sovereignty, it is very important to distinguish between a timetable for the fiscal union and the timetable for the thinking union because banking unit has a quote, unquote political advantage you can pull sovereignty and a bureaucratic technocratic institution much like the european central bank to oversee it. you cannot do that with fiscal policy because its own inherited politically. you need to create a political institutions are the fiscal union, which will take the timeframe we talk about.

so i actually do not believe that thinking union is that far away. i actually believe are very close. >> ulrike. >> i think we'll have one with the proportionality between pulling the sovereignty and pull enough, in this case, not that, the contingent liabilities is what we're talking about. >> a question here. can we get a microphone here. you have one. >> i'm at the atlantic canceled. first i want to thank and congratulate the panel for a very lively and provocative series of comments. i want to march the discussion however long the lines of the headline i remember reading years ago in london and stress the mail that red channel five to cut in, cut off. we're looking at this in isolation if europe and there's a lot of other moving parts, let

alone the collapse of the new greek government, what happens in syria and iran and the supreme court decides to rule me affordable health i.t. or they do come you can imagine what's going happen to the stock market. there's a whole series of misogynist things going on but are not considered considered the most powerful incidents. i wonder if the panel might address some of those and how they might be done with it all. >> so, at first it that you're going to actually ask [inaudible] >> so much broader than not. >> this has really dominated the discussion but do you amount of leadership time has been phenomenal. why don't you start. >> i think there's a very easy, and in the ways that answer. we are trying to shift a system and then a centimeter away from the others, right?

and we are doing this that jacob mentioned, but if you shift the system and in a centimeter from the others about gaining ground, then the risk is obvious they are in u.s.a., so let's face that appeared at by the way in convinced that markets are going to certainly will succeed and go for what i call if european republic, but your point is a valid point, which is which you don't price and have been made if the unknown risk because we try to price the normal respite we don't know about the unknown risk. but we don't price then has a lot of unintended consequences and we haven't seen that as send movements very good intention of management lets you other consequences, which were unintended, but brought on other difficulties. so, is there any chance i think we just need to have that in mind. we are dealing with risk and

unintended consequences and we just need to be careful and there is a problem because the problem is that we will, if all of this goes right, we will be basically keeping a whole political system under strain for the next five years to come to put it lightly. they stand on political elections and how you have been irritated and over surety -- poisoning the atmosphere, right? in the new poisons intellectual things. so this is a risk, i agree. but again, any chance out there to be careful? >> i think the other issue as well and i'm not sure if you included this, but as we look from here, from washington, there's a discussion about the pity to asia and u.s. policy is the year is on making europe partner that is less of a partner for the united states in

addressing global issues and in no way that we are seeing -- europe has seen an international institution such as the imf, world bank, et cetera. is this something that from an american perspective, as we have to think about it tearooms of europe's capability to act elsewhere, not necessarily militarily, but the diplomatic stand. >> i feel embarrassed, we honestly always talk about the u.s. going down the toilet and how many 20 years and listening to this in europe is still alive and i never saw the uso actively comment dating and looking on your unlike now. i mean, i am not an nyu fellowship in new york or the whole cities about europe in germany and trying to get the political economy of europe. i think that this country is just reacts her size in all its brain and thinking about europe

and realizing that we are the utmost important partner on her for the united states. and you have stakes in what is happening. and this is one of the best sort of unintended consequences of your crisis. >> you want to comment? b. macinnes, i'm sort of a broken record on this. this discussion, you just don't read anything. joseph shockey had a great piece today before yesterday and i encourage you all to read it. make sure you have copies here. [inaudible] >> at the stars of economics, stars that you can say the internal market and if you don't have that end you can't do the

things they were talking about here come the meet the economic growth and that's where the real opportunity comes from. and i just want to insist on not. if we don't, they came as bad as the business europe in the leading german financed day care, business figure. if we in europe don't interact together with common values, different as they may be in some respects, if we don't do it, he shall drive right through the whole team is going to be lost. so what happens between us in europe is really critically important for the future of the world economic warriors. if we don't get our act together, we don't have to gather say except fully.

>> let me bring in another voice. >> hi, catherine houser the transatlantic business dialogue. my question really was about the role that the u.k. will play in all of this. i think what americans think of europe, we naturally think of the u.k. and most of our exports go to the u.k. it's the country companies export to, the first relationship we have with them and i'd be interested in the panel's thoughts about the role or troubled the u.k. may cause analysis. >> jacob, july 2nd economics? >> i think this is first and foremost the problem of the u.k. quite frankly. because i think that what she will see as increasingly i know that there's talk, but in the

long run, because says a week ago i've actually been part of the european integration, presidential integration, but i think in the long run i feel very confident about that. and i were to say, you know, if you think about my fact is, poland is a member of the group that we should mention in the beginning. so this is very much not, you know, it e.u. 15. is everyone and basically. you know, one is out of office in the czech republic. you know, who knows what the czech republic will do a member into a situation of 2016. so in the long run can i think

unfortunately the politics of the u.k. is almost certain to keep it out at the deep sovereignty issues. how that is going to be squared away with the city particularly of course the financial markets is about the city of london is a really good question. i mean, i guess i have some faith in the fact that it the end of the day, as this actually came out a couple weeks ago and a euro skeptic think tank been europe had a report on what should the u.k. do with it? and they actually came and said -- these are the people who are eurosceptics, seen at the end of the day, the u.k. had more to gain from the inside than outside. so i think they will remain a member of the e.u., but whether or not it will be more sort of a special relationship that is the debate, but they will not be part of the core in the long

run. >> the camera government has been quite concerned about their ability to have influence over regulation from financial service is obviously because of the city of london. do you think even though that is not a year as some competency as a single market. decisions made at the whole of the e.u., rather than the here is some level. do you think they will be able to protect, if i can use that word, their interest in financial regulation? >> certainly they do it for the narrow political reasons that david cameron chose to stay outside the fiscal compact. i think it was a very thing he did because he basically chose to have a couple of good headlines in the daily mail and the other tablets rather than think about the decisions about financial services in the internal market already taken by

qualified majority, which means that in order to protect these things come actually means allies in the european union already. and i staid not a fiscal apartheid that is not a way to gain a lot of friends. he made a strategic threat for short-term gains. but they ultimately succeed? i think they will because there will be allies for traditional open market that the u.k. is associated with free trade. also because the u.k. is not associated with financial regulation anymore. so i think there's room. >> go ahead and then brief comments from you both about the audience. >> let me ask a question of you. what is the principal dispute between london and brussels over financial regulation?

>> me? >> jacob already buddy. >> no, no, no. >> they aren't like that, that's true. i don't think we should like to be there. >> what you think it is? >> i think i know what it is. when we had joseph appleman addresses, he cxr, right? the issue is probably all things that the issue is that the brass want to have less regulation and brussels. inuit think that you would be wrong. with the press wants us higher capital stands for british banks, which the europeans don't want because they want british to do my in europe on the british taxpayer has to pick up the tab if something goes wrong. so there's a tug of war, that a

subsidy in your argument. nobody in america knows this because the press doesn't report it. i'm just going to repeat, europe, england wants tighter. you could say tighter regulation? deregulatory thought has higher capital regulation. higher capital regulation they don't have to do you have to give regulation, but that's at england wants. higher capital standards like we have over here. the economy doesn't want to do that. and i'm going at some length on this because the regulatory details really matter and they are also really boring. >> thank you for that. >> i just want to drop a little vinegar into the wine of your 27. i would rather argue that this bush cuts itself and wait a moment of what i call an institutional game change, right? in which we fixed the institutional nature of the system in a way we can probably not go with unanimity they are,

somebody in america time at america targeted rhode island to the moment and he dropped out. so we will not do the institutional game change waiting for the irish a certain outcome of whatever, right? of the game change cannot come on british traditions. unlike airgun and will not always be for you guys, right? that is not to say that no one wants the u.k. abroad. very important country, city of london. when push comes to shove, my argument would be the german government would be more decided to go to the testament of 27 with the hope that those who want to join them, but at the conditions of the year 17 of the pope will do that in the u.k. can do it if it wants. >> thank you. >> i saw a question over here. if we can get a mic.

>> i'm scarred areas, member of the atlantic council, but until recently was running the european office of the lucky one for the last 10 years, including an ambassador gravest error we had several interesting adventures together. i want to thank the panel for an interesting discussion, but i have a concern that i'd also like you to think about addressing. on the sudden we have these institutional discussions about visualization and loathing paper in treaty changes in site. we assume the governments of europe can actually do what they say they'll do. and i am concerned that especially through southern european governments are going to be forced to say they can't implement. and the greeks really reform the states that her?

cannot reform the labor market, which was mentioned? can the spanish get the regional government to not run deficits? there are political problems that are very brief and cannot be solved by dictation from brussels. do you share that concern at all? >> i think in many european discussions this has come down to are the germans pushing everyone to become germany to be blunt about it. and whether some of these long-term institutional fact is that many of these other countries can change. ulrike, what do you think? how much room for diversity will there be in this post fiscal compact? >> i am with you that the inertia on the ground is enormous. if you look closer at germany, for instance, we also are now having the awakening after these great rescue about life.

for instance, lehman is instead it is high capita as greek. so very huge regional inertia things here at work, same in spain, same in italy. and i give you another point, which is my biggest problem, how would make the software, transnational democracy. if you want to take really crucial decisions on how to spend your money and you want to take this together in a collective deliberation process and you don't speak the language, it's not so easy. and this is why we are heating up the price, busy germans versus lazy creeks instead discussing who pays for the crisis between london or the great harbor worker and you could see sort of different policy schemes with trans socialists but the greek workers rather than having france and

the great discussions. you understand my point. i don't know. i think the reality is to be a little bit of a reality check here that if you look at elections as a look at populism in europe, we have something like it to be 7% and most of the european countries. what i mean by 37, 35, is in terms of populism come you can measure you have an average populism, late in the populism of something like 37%, left and right pulled together. that is obviously most often the regional pressure and goes against the more group argument and the intellectual constraints. so that is my point. the rest is the economic argument bush is how much diversity we can allow them to your land economy and i hope we

can end this discussion. if we win this discussion, we have on the future. not all of germany is rich. something like 40 to 50 to 60% region. but still we have a solidarity concept here and we don't compare trades, expert figures. so if we could intellectually have the european system and understanding one aggregated economy to less wealthy regions rather than doing the negotiation genes, fiscal transfer, then i think we would've won the intellectual change. i'm not saying we are there, but i'm saying it is much more about the number of regions. i think we'll be able to recognize that not everybody's equal and that we need to accept

poor and rich regions, that the periphery cannot perform as germany, that you cannot build industries on the greek islands like you have in germany, gas, and everybody can be different, but we are still one and united argument can fly. that's the work we will need to achieve and is a big work. it's a big work. >> i don't know, my first reporting was if you didn't catch a greek eurocrat citizen before noon, it's too late. she never had trouble reaching anyone in germany. i'm sorry, let me just read a couple of figures from jaffe's article. got the decade of the euro, labor cost, take into cat east germany with 7%.

italy was 30% in spain was 35% unit labor costs. that's where it begins and ends. >> jacob, how much diversity can make it it and is it the transfer you're talking about? >> i think eventually you will get there, but anything there is a very important distinction i would make, with whatever the european fiscal union looks like will be very different than that of the united states because the euro area in almost any conceivable shape or form i can see the am very optimistic, remember, that will not pass a sizable federal budget like in the united states. and the reason is actually quite simple. it has to do with people

self-identity. because the fact that europeans continue and self identify as french, germans, belgians, but the point is that she will only accept to be taxed at the level in which you self identify, which means that they make this point, when europeans are much more willing to pay taxes than americans, that is true, but not at the continental level. the willingness of americans on this follows the argument that should the u.s. is the old country here, the willingness of americans to pay federal income taxes such are the willingness of europeans to pay taxes to brussels because that is very close. so what it means in the long run is that particularly keeping in mind the public during europe are larger than in the united

states and the overwhelming amount of public spending is going to remain at the state level, much more so than in the united states with the pravda pricing power and the federal government has been directly in the form of governments to the states. the system in europe will be very different. you will have the money raised and spent at the regional member state level. but then i will stand and you have some sort of -- that is why there is the focus on fiscal rule, basically how you spend the money you yourself are a staff member state level. so i think there's quite a lot of room for diversity within the system because it's necessary, because it's not the possibility of a large 10, 15, 20% of gdp

federal budget. >> so i am going to ask the questioners on the panel to be a little preferred because we are coming down the end and we have several questions still out there. so there's someone right here in the front. and that is why in the back there. >> thank you, ben carliner from the economic strategy institute. thank you for a discussion. i think there is a fairly compelling description of this being sort of a high-stakes game of chicken over and over again in the european union. given the stakes of the sovereign issues involved in the banking union, it's not hard to understand that. given the time frame people are talking about in setting up a fiscal union, my question is how credible is it that the ecb can keep the pressure on because it seems like the ecb is a key institution that is keeping the

pressure on sovereign governments here by not stepping in and being a lender of last resort, not doing more quantitative easing. and if, for example, imagine a scenario where french southern bond yields start to rise because the markets get a little bit worried. it is hard to conceive that the french would accept that and they wouldn't say the same time you've got to do some things. and so, how much administrative court is there among the board members of the ecb and can they maintain pressure? >> i think also, how much longer can analysts like ourselves continually be wondering if this is the week that the crisis will be filled? >> well, as i said earlier i think the actual firepower is quite a lot higher than what is generally perceived by the market. and with respect to what they would do in the case of the spike in french bond view, i

think it would be very -- then we would go back to the issue of conditionality beek has you wouldn't have a situation we are to recall what happened in august last year, when the issue was whether or not they would find vanished in italian. this is a not very secret that there. this is a list of stuff to do. the same thing would happen, where essentially they would be met with some degree of six licit input of conditionality in terms of whether they should enable market reforms or whatever in terms of those virtues. it would be in my opinion that the repetition and gains majority saying. i think more importantly, this also goes to the market psychology. what she needs a high is the

market circumstances in which a conversion trade is once again seen. and what that entails is when you have data, markets markets are all the same going to converge. they're going to fall. and that again is continuing to pump me to have and convince the markets at the center will actually fall because once that happens, then the markets will actually help you in the way that they hoped quote, unquote, the european integration much too much in the run-up, you know, in the early years of the european war the economic and monetary union were of course there is successive convergence because it basically lead to complacency at the policy level. so the point again is he the guy to reach a certain threshold.

another sort of divergence will actually come in my opinion, converge. i think the ecb is perfectly capable of that. >> let me go away to the back of the room and then we will lump together another question here. yes, okay. i've got the last question here. go ahead. >> and then beheading at american university at the peterson institute. i want to thank the four of you for an interesting and this morning. to follow up on ulrike's points about the transformation of european politics as we move forward from here, which i thought were very intriguing. in particular, i want to ask you a little bit about the development of trans-european movements because i think these are going to be an important complement to the kind of institutional transformation you discuss. and to put a fine point on it,

i'd like to ask you because they think you can look more closely than most of us have. i'd like to ask you about the cooperation between the french socialist party. i had that from my standpoint, the challenge for them has been to come to agreement on what to ask as the quid pro quo on moving forward with the fiscal compact and the stability treaty doesn't seem to me that they've come to much of an agreement this. i have been disappointed that the spd has gravitated towards the transactional task, which doesn't help the fiscal union in banking union forward in my view. i wanted to ask you about the basic, the fundamental cooperation between these two parties and some of the negotiations between them over the last couple of weeks. thank you. >> let me quickly get a makeover here. the final will be done in the

front. >> i wanted to ask whether panelists believe they think the market share of the implicit concern and scott harris is very good question about the distance these countries can go to reform. after all, even in some of the core countries, germany and africa, maybe there's a limit to how much reform you can have tiered if that is the case and markets asked themselves the same question. that's from there we had a close call in greece. does not argue for something very big pretty quickly along the line saber redemption fund, which did work very well with the federation and the constitution. >> up in the front, final question. >> thank you. european union delegation to the united states. jacob, do you have a represented situation where the valuable -- the main value is the transfer of sovereignty? now, i wonder whether they

should be better representrepresent ed as a zero-sum game because and if they sign a positive sum game, but we've also resent or perceived non-income. this is based on some perceptions. for instance, benefiting more from the e.u. -- [inaudible] the point that germany faces, per germany faces, the issue of the unit labor cost has been diverging and cannot diverge again, the last two years or three years has joined. so, don't you think clearly the perception is related to directions of the democratic

growth? i think in the end, when she was agreed that leaders realize the nature in the end actually find the solutions? >> d. want to finish with that and then we'll go over? >> very quickly, i would like to share that. i don't think that doing this game is against the description. there's no doubt about that. but when i talk about, the idea that you have to have the game of chicken unfold. but that's more of a cross-section of event. and i certainly agree that as an end state and i also agree with what you said but you know, these diverging labor costs and

unit labor costs we refer to earlier are rapidly converging and we should also be careful not to have too much of the unit labor costs because they do not actually represent actual export and many of these countries, so they are not equal. they do not dictate national competitiveness. so i think i'll stop there. >> d. want to comment on the other pan-european political movement? >> perhaps i should have said the same friend the air that is a beautiful cathedral that is under construction for 600 years but it's actually very beautiful. anyway, it will never be finished and what it is finished, they will start onboard construction. the crisis in the wait is over.

it is mixed up with craters of construction work on this construction work is now taking on the political construction work on economic construction work and therefore thinks sort of one will be a reseller but i think the commitment from the german government has said german government is committed to do the very point of the crisis and each step of the crisis are very necessary to prevent and markets have understood. i'm at the very necessary as in the given moment might as well be in a weeks time. and it was three weeks later, it might be the retention fun. but then you couldn't go commission. so that is how i see it. we are already in the thick architecture figure. to be more precisely, i think there's another misunderstanding here, which is its much more

german than it is socialist. and i wrote a title with my colleagues, which i call the longshot and i try to average economic thinking with respect to certain mainstream international thinking of a classified ad. i'm much you can see in this paper is that even if you come into socialist german democrats come if they would still be for stability and not be on the french growth argument. there's still think that stability assist and you don't go for the german force. so of course it is in no way wanted to show solidarity, but did not want to just go for voters on the fiscal contact. they just wanted to negotiate some element of the fiscal contact because the fiscal

contacts which -- she needed to about two renegotiates some point come which actually did not have been. but it makes you understand that the chairman -- we have elections next year. but will change up elections in germany and we have a majority? the answer is that will not change much. even with less coalition, which i think it's a race not likely, you want to gain changes in the german mindset of how this crisis is to be solved and you will be hearing the same messages that stability stability, structural reform, and no debt finance growth and so forth. ..

i want to thank the panel. at the jacob started by pointing out that the crisis is a political animal and a political disagreement and i think that

the range of topics that we've talked about from the future political construction of europe to the building the political building of the united states just demonstrates how accurate that was. i hope that you'll have found the view of this crisis and as a bargaining enterprise if i can put it that way to be helpful and understanding of what is happening in europe and this evening we will have the ultimate game in europe where we hope it won't be too of cooperative which is the football match starting in a couple of hours. so we will all be watching and seeing how that comes out as a metaphor for the future of the eurozone. thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] this was something swept under the rug and kept from not only the american people but the mexican people as well. there are hundreds of mexican citizens that have been murdered

as a result of this that the only thing they knew outside of the government program was guns from american gun dealers were going into mexico causing all these problems when the government was sanctioning fees bills and sending them into mexico. next conservative women discuss how women are portrayed in the media and treated in the business world. panelists including commentator buchanan and christina hoff sommers talk about how women are affected by public policy including the new health care law. the clare boothe luce policy institute pointed this form for >> i am the director of the clare boothe luce policy

institute. i want to welcome you all here this afternoon today to hear from our great panelists about the war against women. as the nation's premier organization for conservative women the policy institute seeks to promote leading conservative women and prepare them for leadership. we do this through a unique program and even to like this one and help students bring conservative ideas to their campuses. our campus lecture program includes great conservative women like they buchanan, meshaal mulken and some others you'll be hearing from this afternoon. if any of you are interested in bringing a conservative speaker to your campus or learning about other ways to combat your college or university please call us at 888-891-4228 or visit our web site.

>> the first panelist, cristina hoff sommers as of the american enterprise institute. before trinity 89 issues a professor at philosophy at clark university where she spanish allies in morrill theory. she is the editor of vice and virtue in everyday life, a leading college ethics textbook and is also the author of postal feminism and the against boys. her latest book co-authored with the aei colleague is called one nation under therapy four. hoff sommers has appeared on numerous television programs including 60 minutes and "the oprah winfrey show." she has also made appearances on the daily show on comedy central. she has lectured and taken part in debate on more than 100 college campuses and we are very glad she is here to join us

today. our second panelist is karen hamed of the national federation of independent business, small business legal center along with 26 states that the supreme court against the health care legislation. karen has argued passionately on behalf of small business owners and their rights to own and operate a business. as an associate she specialized in food and drug law and for congress and federal agencies. she also works as an assistant press secretary from oklahoma. she received her b.a. from the university of oklahoma in 1989 and her jd from the george washington law school in 1990. our next speaker, lala mooney is

an activist against the oppression of the cuban government. her family were put into prison in 1961 following the day's biggest to the family was able to escape after two months and made their way into the united states and eventually settled in the d.c. area. she now travels to cuba on a yearly basis to visit her relatives and friends and takes clothing and medicine to the local churches. she has appeared on nbc of univision and has also been covered by such like the frederick news post and other hispanic publications. she has four children, one of whom, alex is the chairman of the republican party and is now retired and divides her time with dedication to cuba. she got her bs from psychology and master's in psychology and

the community counseling in maryland. our last panelist who will be joining us shortly is the former u.s. treasurer and author bay buchanan whose extensive career in policy analysis, campaign bus and her outspoken defense of the right to life makes it one of our most inspirational campus speakers. she began her political career as the national treasurer for ronald reagan, presidential campaign in 1980 and 1984. this position catapulted her into her distinguished career when she was appointed the youngest u.s. treasurer in american history in 1981. until recently she was a political analyst for inside politics on cnn. she has also appeared on numerous television programs and talk radio shows. it is published author her most recent book is called bay and

her boys on expected lessons i learned as a single mom and a native of washington, d.c. she has a master's degree in mathematics from yale university in montreal canada and has further study the several jet ever cities including the university of new south wales in australia. in 1981 she received an honorary doctorate of law from stanford university. she lived in virginia and is the proud mother of three sons. at this time i will invite our panelists each to speak after the last panelist we will have a q&a session with all of them. if you will join me in welcoming them now. [applause] >> good afternoon. im christina hoff sommers from the american enterprise institute and it's an honor to be with the clare boothe luce institute one of my favorite organizations i urge you to join us and support it in any way that you can.

for the past few decades i have studied the influence of the n american culture with a special emphasis on academic culture. today i'm going to argue that feminism is dysfunctional, that in my view the cause of the women's emancipation is deemed damaged by the contemporary women's movement and the little time i have with you i kept track of it no more than 15 minutes, no more than 15 minutes i will explain my think it's doing more harm due in good but first i just want to say a few words about my background in the early 1990's i was a feminist academic standing and my course of clark university was crafted with women's studies and by philosophy to previous studies for feminist journals invited to feminist conferences. all that changed the mid nineties when i wrote a book

called who stole feminism and the book was strongly feminist but i rejected the idea of american women were zero pressed for the most part i said feminism had succeeded and was a great american success stories by the 90's american women were among the freest of a liberated in the world. it no longer made sense to speak of women as an oppressed class and yes there were still problems that men have problems to and for each sex there was a mix of sort of burdens and benefits. it wasn't easy to say that women were doing worse than men it was a complicated mix. in the book i try to show the women's movement that feminism had been hijacked by gender war eccentrics and i do mean eccentric. one colleague in particular had changed the name of her seminars

to ovulars. she didn't like seminar because it has a male power don't even think about it when i read it i thought what is that word ovulars. and i would go to the dictionary and realized she needed up, but i also realized she wasn't kidding. she was serious. when who stole feminism was published i would receive some mail from the colleagues but not much. for the most part the establishment was unhappy with my book the did not appreciate my plea for moderation, and i was quickly subjected to a colorful array of insults for my heresies many feminist leaders and academics at the time believed that americans were, american women were living under patriarchy and they did not appreciate my denial of that fact and i would call the ??? jury traitor to my gender.

on one occasion they refer to the two female in person years. i'm not a female in impersonator backlash or trader. william is a philosophy professor, former now with a respect for logic, thinking, rule of evidence, and i hope i have a strong sense of fairness and i believe it is my by used words logic and reason and fairness that be at odds with the feminist establishment. i'm going to try to back it up. if you have had a feminist speaker at your school go to one of the web sites, the national organization for women, the national women's law center, the american association of university women it's unlikely you're going to see a celebration of a quality feminism comes celebration of

anything. they are very negative and he have a long litany of fact way it's about how the women are still held down and held back in american society. i consider myself an equity feminist and the quality. i want for women but i want for everyone, fair treatment, no discrimination. on the other hand, on a accept the fact the sexes are different but equal. i don't insist on equal the outcome i want equality of opportunity. most of the feminists are in the mainstream women's organizations are not the equality feminists or equity feminists there were glycol gender feminists. most of them believe that women are -- this was developed in the 80's, this theory of the sec's gender system the idea is that we are a free institution in this society bears the impressive patriarchy.

churches and schools, even language itself has to be liberated from this oppressive system and one feminist philosopher described it very vividly she said the sec's gender system is the system by which she said we are all born bisexual and then transformed into male and female gender to moonbeams one destined to command, the effort to obey. i read that to my husband and he said which one commands and obeys? but we are all just born kind of gender mutual human beings and then the system social conditioning it turns some into little boys and little girls to address them in blue and create gender which has been posed from outside. now i just reject this view i don't argue the gender is entirely, of course they are a

cultural influence. it's obviously a complicated mix of biology impairment. if you see that on some campuses to gender feminists it is active as i said at tennessee. i hasten to add there are some serious scholars in women's studies most apartments include their fair share of the non-ideological academics that offer straightforward courses sometimes wonderful courses in women's psychology of history and literature but ideologically fervent, statistical challenged hard liners set that tone in most women's studies departments. all that you've ever seen and if there is an apartment that decides the stereotype, let me know. i would love to visit them. then by the way, conservative women, moderate women, libertarian, traditionally religious women left out, not at that table. it's an unwritten rule only the women from the radical left have the right to interpret the lives of women they have a whole body

of scholarship developed from a very, very narrow range of views and opinions and so forth. on many campuses young women are in a patriarchal society where girls are shortchanged in school, robb of their self-esteem and adolescence and then channeled into low-paying fields once in the workplace cheated out of 25% of their salary they face an invisible barrier and all sorts of forces that hold them down and keep them back and out of the higher echelons of power. now this picture just doesn't fit reality. it's distorted. the false claims the support that have been repeated so many times. they've taken on this aura of truth. at many times i will be looked in on the campus in some young women have had one too many courses in women's studies and it's as though they have been

deeply drank the kool-aid. they are genuinely intelligent since the from socially conservative young women that they have come to take on this grim feminist world view as absolute truth and most of them seem to be aware that there could be reason contrary to what they taught in their class is. i recall to be a recall speaking at the college and there were -- while i was talking there was a whole group of young women knitting nervously and some of them will wiccans from denmark. i don't know if they were protesting. they may just like to knit. i don't mind wican she changed her name to stock. she's a leading wican. i don't want her to cast any spells. she says she only cast of good spells. but anyway, and there was a

hectic discussion with them and the feminists and so forth afterwards. so, one woman defended her major and she said it taught me to love my body. as a philosophy professor i suggested there was a rather weird a goal for a college class. it's nice to love your body i guess, but what was the point of that class? anyway, she was mystified. another young woman was appalled by suggested the free-market have afforded, the free market had afforded and created the conditions that made feminism and women's emancipation possible. this one young lady was just horrified. how can you say that capitalism has helped anyone? and i was amused that afterwards i thought maybe they enjoyed having a lively debate i found out afterwards they went to the young woman that invited me and had provided a forum for hate

speech. that's a philosophical debate. but over the years i have looked carefully at feminist standards claims, statistics, just choose any subject you would like to the eating disorders, violence against women, pay equity, education. what i have found is that in most cases, not all that in most cases, these statistics are wildly distorted. egregiously, perfectly wrong. i don't have the time to go through the long and sorry and twisted tale of the feminist misinformation but anything you read in the textbook feet to say take it with a grain of salt. here's the thing. just as i think young women are harmed as they take these courses and become better and increased the world because they

are oppressed that's ridiculous to take young women and change them in this way. this cannot be a legitimate cool but there are these gender feminists many from the 70's and 80's who were still very bitter and eager to transfer the state of mind to the students. i think that's wrong and i also think it's very bad to disseminate so much as misinformation. i will just give you an example of false information so much of that i saw today professor jesse klein has written a book about bullying in school and she writes it from a sort of hard-line feminist perspective she had a number of statistics and i recognize them almost all of them standard distortions but one of them she said dating violence is another step on an escalating continuum of behavior by which boies the missiles and traditional masculinity demonstrate their power over girls. so i look at the rate of dating violence and she was writing

about high school i went to the cdc, the 2009 study of youth risk behavior grades nine through 12 and what i found is distressing but it said 9% of girls and 10% of boys report being hit, or physically attacked by their boyfriend or girlfriend. it's not a problem she described but by reported that we in her book, she gives people first and a greeting to men. some of the statistics cycle eight statistics they create bigotry or miss gentry. i became a feminist in the 70's because i didn't like misogyny. i still do not and i know there are some out there and i don't tolerate them. on the ever had there are some just as bad as rejudice. we need both words misogyny and

missing tree. the misinformation is everywhere and it's routinely passed along to unsuspecting young women and investors them and needs them to policies but i do want to take on probably the most durable false statistic in the american policy debate to show how poorly we are by the feminist establishment. they're in love with the statistics they will never let it go and it is a claim women are cheated out and paid 23 cents for every dollar men are paid for the same job. the 23-cent gender pay gap would is that figure? it depends how you calculate but roughly 23 cents. it's the difference if you look at the wages in the united states working full time and all women and you do the average turns out there's a 23-cent gap and you've got nancy pelosi and

the leaders just of an arms they are not green to stand it a try to pass the act and put an end to rate this will not stand. the problem is when any have competent economist looks up the pay gap the immediately see that you have to take -- men and women are somewhat different and women have a slightly different relationship with the work force, for example, women may have different majors in college. the inter different fields, they were different numbers of hours per week. the work different hours per week, and the 2012, this was last week in "the new york times" it was about doctors and this was a quote female doctors

are more likely to be pediatrician's than cardiologists. they are more likely to work part time coming and even working part time even those that work full-time work 7% fewer hours per week. they are more likely to take extended leave. it is a difference between women and men but you will have the feminist groups like women doctors are paid considerably less with the same work. they don't do the control. i don't see how they are well served by hyperbole exaggeration, misinformation, sorry for the hon. i'm going to end by mentioning a game that i think captures maybe everything that's gone wrong with feminism it's called gender bias and it's actually sort of fun. we may want to play if leader with the help of a large government grant from the national science foundation as activist feminist lawyer and her team at hastings school small do

fallujah a website called the gender bias learning project, and the centerpiece is a el niño game. to win a female scholar is supposed to submit tales about how some male colleague mistreated her or stereotype her or misperceived her in some way, some injustice narrative. the site includes animated videos demonstrating bias and in one episode emeritus three obnoxious scientists sitting together sort of conspiring about their obvious superior colleagues and they refer to these as hobbies, i can't say all these words. according to the professor, she says our site is fun and funky and it's based on science. it's based on the 1970's ideology trumped up by statistics and a contentious set of readings then she says this is on the animated video it's

better to be a bitch than a doormat. well, who wants to be either? why did the professor and her like-minded colleagues, how did they manage to run off with feminism? my message today is to take back feminism, reform it, correct the excess, insist moderate and conservative women be given a voice, and then set about writing the next great chapter in the history of the quest for freedom to read this section is over. thank you. [applause] that's great being with you all here today. i think it's wonderful clare boothe luce does this for you. i don't recall this when i was

on the hill and into reset because i would have enjoyed that. yes, i run the national federation of independent businesses. i'm going to talk about our health care to lunch today. i'm going to be a little light in our discussion on our actual legal arguments to the extent you all want to discuss those since we are awaiting the discussion. the right to be left alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. this court from the supreme court justice william douglas could just have easily have been written by one of the 7.8 million women small-business owners in this country today. according to the u.s. census in 2007 the women own firms accounted for 28.7% of all businesses in the u.s..

women owned firm's employees 7.6 million people generated 1.2 trillion field. another 4.6 million or 17% of the non-farm u.s. businesses were equally owned by men and women. these employed 8.1 million persons and generated 1.3 trillion in sales. like all small business owners the women started their business to have freedom. they wanted the freedom to do the kind of work they enjoy their way and on their time schedule. according to a recent nfib survey, the recession was hard on the women owned businesses. about half or 49% of those that are still in business have lowered the real volume sales, lower the real volume sales today than they did in 2007 before the recession began. as the country work to get back to better time it's the small

business owner that holds the key. after a brief recession, small business has led our nation to recovery. as you can imagine over the past several years, people like you, people like your boss have asked small-business owners what can the government to to help you create more jobs? and their answer has been almost universal coming get out of our way. yet here we are on the cusp of one of the most historic decisions in the supreme court history that really deals with this very fundamental principal of how big we want our government to be and how much we want our government to control our personal places, our business choices, how we use our hard-earned dollars. our fin founders have a war to secure the freedom upon securing the independence they sought to protect our liberty by enacting the constitution with the explicit purpose of limiting the power of government.

they believe that limiting federal power, buy limiting that they were preserving our individual rights and ensuring our future prosperity. but in the past century the have seen that those freedoms and the constitution gave have been shipped away bit by bit, and quite frankly at the end of the day because of that, because we do view this health care law as a great crossroads if you will for what our federalist systems, what power congress is going to have over all that is going for word will ultimately be. that is truly why they did join the 26 states and its challenge to the health care law two years ago. at the time of course it was viewed as very frivolous yet we just saw the court devote over six hours i think it was actually six and a half hours of time to argument at the end of march and that is the most we have heard in oral arguments

since the landmark cases of miranda versus arizona and brown v. board of education. we really think that our challenge is a humble one. if we win, the only law that is impacted is the affordable care at. however, if the government wins, you are going to have a new world if you will in america where there will be essentially no limit to what the congress can require all of us to buy or do moving forward and that really has been something that i've seen as i talk to reporters in the lead up to the decision has been increasingly validated a disturbing to me as we well throughout this two-year process at every chord with it was the district court, one of the three courts of appeal or the supreme court listened to the arguments

the government cannot answer the question where it will end. they cannot answer the question what can the congress not require us to buy if this health insurance mandate the individual mandate is upheld that is what is so fascinating to me watching the argument firsthand. i say that because we were really dismissed by so many that just assume congress could do this that the government could require us to buy these things and to see so early on in the second day of argument on the individual mandate the government be challenged by all the justices. some truthfully that are more sympathetic to the helping to try to bolster them but the best they could come up with is this whole argument that everybody is going to need health care at some point it's unique. it's different from everything

else. so basically we are going to give congress this one chance. why we have gotten and i think you've seen some good writing on this in the last couple of weeks why we keep going back to the example but you will congress can require everyone to buy brusquely if they can require you to buy insurance is because of this health insurance market argument in my opinion. how we eat and whether or not the exercise and take vitamins, all sorts of things affect our health and if you open the door and say and the health insurance market or the health care market, you know, everybody is in that everybody has to buy health insurance you can easily get to the next piece. you see this in new york right now looking to limit the size of your fountain drinks and that sort of thing. it is not a reach to see the narrative developed on the next congressional agenda of with the

one that we do because of the cost behavior on the health insurance market, the health care market, medicare, medicaid you name it. but small business owners i represent care about the oncoming texas and all of the bad mandates riddled throughout the law. that is what gives them the most interest because for them like i said before, they want the government out of the way. they don't want the government meddling into their business and this is the most intrusive they have seen the government today and it scares them because they don't know what's next and quite frankly you are here and you know employers are already regulated heavily enough. our issues have not changed and i don't know, decades. it's taxes, regulations, costs of health care and this law hurts all of those on the

regulatory component that also just gets to the freedom. they've seen the regulations, in effect because the congress knows it can regulate employers and so this individual mandate they think it keep our store. on that i would say on the ten years that i've been at nfib is if you're a business owner you are a business owner. it's not -- your business isn't defined by your gender at all and the problem every business owner faces again our taxes, regulations and health care costs and it doesn't matter whether or not you are in man or a woman because those are all issues that impact the bottom line and your ability to meet payroll and stay in the business this is a timely topic for you will because i do think that there is no difference for the business owners.

we represent men and women alike and we share these concerns equally. as far as the health care decision itself, again, we do expect obviously that the decision is going to be next week. there were four issues the court was asked to consider the three separate cases, so it may would be a situation the release one opinion and the next and those would be the individual mandates i think coupled with the antiinjunction act the deal with both of those issues at the same time. the act on the first day there was a old tax law that prevents all of us as taxpayers from suing the government over tax penalties that we think are unjust until we've paid them and the question of course was was the penalty attached to the mandates we buy health insurance or a penalty as i'm sure you saw in the coverage after it was very humorous when alito challenged the government

because they said the antiinjunction act argued the government doesn't bar the lawsuit at this time and alito said o casa de you're saying it's fine and tomorrow you were going to be saying it is which it isn't coming and there was a nice for my perspective awkward moment from the government. but that is the threshold question whether we can bring our lawsuit at this time and yes it did seem to me like the justices were very skeptical of this whole taxing power argument that the government was offering you've seen the coverage as much as the putative was very -- i've gone back and listened to the government really did get a sound rolling if you will from the justices on where the limits were coming and i think that at the end of the day, however that opinion goes, the limiting principle ? congress can or can't do going forward i think is definitely going to be at the center of that opinion.

obviously we hope the individual mandate is solved and that the congress can't require you to buy any product that even if they allow it to go forward, i would like to think that they are going to articulate some limits to a congress power that are easy for people to understand and go by going forward. and then finally, the last we have the whole question this will also i think the really interesting also to see how the court split on this. what happens to the rest of law if the individual mandate falls so if we are fortunate and the individual mandate does fall, will it be cleaned decision on what comes next? and by that i mean where you're just been to have a majority opinion with some conferences but as far as on the judgment yes it should fall or no it shouldn't. five votes here, for votes here and you've got them for the reasoning or three or got

helpless for opinions that cobbled together you get to the five votes then you have to figure out who did they need to get the vote so we know this is the opinion we care about going forward. by that there was a case if you years ago was a property rights case, and was a plurality opinion and what happened is with kennedy they were able to get the five votes but he didn't sign on to scalia's reasoning on how to get their. so it was really kennedy's opinion that the end that controlled. so there will be interesting to see whether it's part of what you are just the street or down -- up or down. finally the of the medicaid issue they will be considering and answering on whether or not the congress can basically give it or taking it.

you either do everything we say when it comes to medicaid or you lose all of your medicaid funding. but at the end of the day, small business owners i represent very much for all you their freedom and this case is about freedom for them and they are very helpful they were ultimately prevail on this lawsuit and i am sure all of us will know the answer of this time next week. thank you. [applause] >> it is an honor to come and speak to you as a guest at the clare boothe luce policy institute. i've been trying to find a microphone that takes care of my accent.

>> there's a app for that i think. >> technology has not advanced so much so i appreciate your understanding whenever i mispronounce you can tell on your fees' is because generally 19 again this pronouncement i see all these faces a smile. [laughter] as you know, as she said, i was in prison in cuba, my whole family was in prison in cuba, and what is not often said is this is when the bay of pigs invasion took place. and what is not often known is it field. everybody in america knows it failed but the history books don't tell you that fidel rounded up 100,000 prisoners all over the country. they went in buses and came to the house. everybody goes to prison. so, that already gives you a flavor of what i'm going to tell

you today of the system you heard they take you up and throw you in prison for anything. what really a lot to cover to issues that are very important to women, prostitution, abortion and suicide. and i'm going to start prostitution with a story, a real-life story. this young man was a student, a friend of my son went to cuba and as he was walking down the seashore where people meet, this woman approached them and said would you like to have sex with my daughter and she pointed out to her daughter who was only 15, about 15. the man was horrified because he didn't have any money, so he said no, no, no pity the than the woman insisted, then she

said would you like to have sex with my younger daughter who is only 11 and he pointed out to her. my friend says he just couldn't believe it, he was horrified. he said no and he walked away. this is the picture that you find today in cuba. it breaks your heart, but you have a situation. you say prostitution or the mother and the father and the family is in to the business. it shows you how hard and the thinking is in cuba and how they have the lack of morality. to make it even worse, in a public speech, fidel castro brought about cubin prostitutes and he said they are the best

educated and the healthiest ones in the world. and i was talking to a friend of mine that travels to cuba constantly, and he said that's what makes it different. prostitution generally is known by women who are very poor that have no other means, but in cuba the prostitutes were the engineers, architects and the medical doctors. why do they do it? why do they have that need to go that way? and then it has gotten even worse. so now it's prostitution with children and homosexuality and all kinds of evidence. and the government looks the other way, let's it happen or even support said. to the point that even after fidel castro expressed his

support, the group of women use made a declaration that being a prostitute was being patriotic, was bringing foreign currency to your country so this was the youth group in cuba. the second thing now i try to bring why do some of the women do this? what is the situation and how much does hunter have to do if it? i'm going to is distribute now -- do they already have it? hear the speakers talk about statistics and miscommunication and handling.

in cuba it is different. the problem is lack of knowledge. so, after talking to a lot of people, cuba has a racial card. so if they give you the card, your function is that you can have enough food, right? so one day, finally, i got it down and i made a drawing. deutsch you'll have the drawing with you? this is the famous cubin mccardle to beat the -- card. this is supposed to maintain you for a whole month. as you can see this only lasts two or three days. after that, you're back to hunger. it's a free interesting phenomena that people don't understand when they see cuba. how the government controls you through ponder, to control food. all the food, there is no slow business they are trying to sell you everything.

it's in the hands of the government. so, you have this food you go to work and that work they give you some lunch. but that's how they control you. so there's all kind of walls about things you cannot do. this is not enough 80% of the food that you eat you buy in the black market. so the moment you go in the black market you are violating the law. so all the cubans get that in the morning how many highlight today and how many i by late. so this is an interesting concept. the person that is constantly breaking the law is constantly scared of the police. some, many times journalists go to cuba they don't see any police. people carry the police inside their head, inside their heart because there are so many lawyers that they are breaking

that they are scared. so when this professor explained to me by a understood. for a lot of people what you have to do is when you judge journalists and college professors that go to cuba and go to the tourist places and the hotels and everything and they don't grab the reality of what's going on. maybe the secret service to put to good cuba. [laughter] i know some very good secret service man but i figure i have to put a joke in here. [laughter] finally, there's more issues that go with the desperation. we talk about women. not many people talk about how well women are doing and how many rights they have come and how many good things they have

come and they totally don't see this part. and actually, when i was invited to talk about the war on women, i said it's a little bit of a hard word, but that's what it is in other words the woman is the center of the family, the woman is the one that decides all these things. i did some research about abortion, and at age 22 she had two children and for abortions and you hear constantly some people say probably every single woman in cuba has had an abortion. as i went to the statistics understudies and sure enough, in the whole world there are two countries that are the highest in abortion, vietnam and cuba.

this is from the statistics provided in 2002. sometimes it's not easy to get your hands on the statistics. so, then i meant to ask about suicides. i have met some people whose children committed suicide, and sure enough, there is. the studies show cuba has the highest rate for women in the world. and also, not even that, the highest rate of completion of suicide. you know, you've heard that suicide generally more women attended but more men carry through. here when men have the highest completion of suicide. so why ask you or the cubin women better off? is the system helping them?

what i beg you in understanding statistics and understanding cuba is the lack of knowledge and the newspaper people go there and they are liberals. they see with a one to see and that gets complicated by the fact that the cubans don't know what they don't know. they don't have a basis for comparison and they also cannot speak. they don't have the freedom because this is the last thing i'm going to tell you. there is all lynn cuba that is felt all of danger paucity, your lawyer. that means of the government or anyone else, police or whatever, thinks that you might be a danger to the revolution, they can throw you in jail.

the law of the and generosity is the new full-year. thank you so much for listening. the conclusion is prostitution in cuba is rampant. it's explosive and it's scandalous. please, feel for the cuban women that while yes, the have had other benefits, the of the center of the family and they are in a desperate situation. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. these ladies here have a major net advantage over me. on in the world of politics. the deal with facts.

that's such an advantage. i deal with with the press throws at you and you say where did that come from? war on women is just right to that point. but this is the key in politics and it's important for you to realize. you may have heard this. i was taken aback when i heard i belonged to a party the last 30 years had been an activist in this party only to find out we had a war against women during this time complete shock to me in fact so much so i felt like when the first question went to mitt romney during one of the debates where george stephanopoulos decide whether he would out of contraception and thinks the states have a right, i had the same reaction he did. what? why are you asking this? is their someone trying to count all contraception? but it didn't matter. he just kept hammering at and hammering at trying to get the governor to see something that could be used against him later.

but clearly this was not an issue that i have heard anything about until george stephanopoulos. no woman either party or a lot of debates on the left half of the suggested that we were going to take away the contraception. but this year we are going to do it. it's nice to know these things. the key, and this is what is important as a kind of give you a few minutes to discuss is that it doesn't matter in politics if it's real or if it's true. all that matters is that there is a perception that it's true. that's what we deal with is the perception because the voter receives the this particular party or this particular candidate is against women, wants to undermine and take their freedoms in the right. they are not going to vote for that person. the one to go back to the period women didn't have these rights the you're going to be hectic and it doesn't matter to them

whether it is true or false what matters is that they can sell this to enough women and that's where we are today. i'm going to give you a little example of what's happened so you can get a taste for the swing to happen in the next months. when the supreme court ruled we were pro-life if you were against abortion, on the early days they were for abortion. they were pro abortion. after a few years they were making a lot of ground way because who is for abortion? so they changed the words to be pro-choice. they managed to get a high year road. they were pro-life which was a positive. when they went and started talking about their entire movement as pro-choice, they picked up enormously because people started saying that there

was something that i would. i am for women and are they able to sell it that way? the words are key. there's no mistake the words war on women was thrown out there deliberately. they had decided but i think the mistake is that the to get too far. the democrats to get too far and that is the second point when you are dealing with perceptions it's the spin of politics. you take a kernel of truth or some kind of a fact and spin it enough so that you make a case in the case comes back at the end. you've got that colonel that you keep going back to that's true so take for instance, if you go too far it fails to read the argument there and you've seen it, james carville made that point earlier he and his team but the obama campaign ignored it. they said early on you are out

there he said some months ago you are out there saying the economy has turned around and it's going well. that's not going to work. don't go there. well, they ignored it and we heard last week that the private sector is just fine and even democrats were reeling off the ship. he said why did he say that? because his campaign was going to try to sell 4 million new jobs in the last x number of jobs for years so things are moving in the right direction and pull a few facts and then miss benet that things are on the right track don't throw anything off not because things are moving on the right track and things are going to an improved. the problem is they've lost jobs in the three and a half years the man has been president that it's hard to convince people things were okay. gas prices are shooting up everyone is having kids coming

home. that's not the right direction kids are moving back, especially when they have children. so they backed up with the facts and i am debating out there and constantly hearing from their service 4 million new jobs. 23 million under or unemployed people what is this 4 million but they stick to it. but the underplay their hand when it came to the economy and now they are backtracking because you can't convince people of something that they know every single day is not. they are worried about their job or the fact some loved one has no jobs and they've been looking for 16 months and there is little hope they're terrified their own companies might lose contracts.

than at at times you wouldn't get a fair opportunity to make your case. you always knew that. but thicks have changed now and until we have fox, and we have rush lots of radio shows. we're well aware of the disadvantage always have been and we've turned it a lot of the corn ena with are a lot of advantages now. however, the media, by very definition is supposed to be the kind of -- an institution that kind of keeps honesty in with the elected officials and candidates and movements to make certain they're honest about what they're presenting. people are getting the facts. that's why they're gone overboard. it's ridiculous. the war on women, for instance, this is what happened. basically, there was a federal

assault on religious freedom. when it came to deciding catholic church and the religious institution we're going to be forced to pay for abortion and contraception things that are against the religious beliefs. and, you know, there's no way this is going to survive the supreme court challenge. this is anything clear in the institution this is. they wered adamant they're going to do this. and of course it would be the feminist would love it and the liberals would love it and they'd be rallying around the president. we made the case in our side of the party and other constitutional scholars and said this is outrageous assault on the religious freedom of institutions and individuals. you can't do this. well, within a few days, we thought this is terrific. we're pointing on this. witness a few days, the next thing i know we had a war on women. we were going after their contraception. and this is not outrageous. you are going to take

contraception away from women. i and i thought, how did i get from here to here in a matter of days? days? there was no longer any discussion. i would try to get in others talk about religious freedom. that was boring. let talk about the war on women. it was the proposition you go on conversation. gregory had it perfectly. he had an interview with john mccain he said do you think there is something of a war on against republicans. not a suggestion by democrats, and let's get democrats on ask how they can make the case a little overboard or not. let's make the presumption and have the republicans defend themselves. so we're defending ohsings saying no. what a ridiculous debate. we lost days. they win in that one. not for one reasonable and only one reason. we're not talking about the most important thick to women. and that is the key.

that is the key. all right. this is the politics. they need the women to win in a november. not only do they need win tend to vote more democrat. we have to do the math. they need to do they need win well. they need to win big. so they decided, okay, we got to go the women and make certain we strip women off republican. we have to strip them. this is key to us. and so they came up with the war on women. make republicans look outrageous. outrageous. and that's where they went. now, i'm going to take a little credit for something. this is the week where i'm trying to figure how i was going on toftion talk about at first amend and now i'm sitting here saying thirty years i've never had a woman saying why are you trying to take contraception away. i don't know what you're talking about. i'm having a hard time making the case.

and the romney campaign, when whom i work, they called me said we have new information. i was on conference call. they were talking about research they've done. of all of these people more people lost jobs under obama, 93% of those who have lost jobs are women. 93. i said -- excuse me, stop did you say 93%? 93 percent of the jobs lost women account for them. i thought this is a beautiful thing. not that i want to see women losing jobs. but this little nugget is going to turn this argument around nicely. the next day we had a conference call with a number of the press, there was three of us speaking on the conference call. former senator spoke first and i spoke. i have said listen, if you want to have a real discussion on a war of women. you should high tail it to the white house. do you know they have problems

with how they pay their women in the white house, the staff. the second point is, women account for 93% of the jobs lost. under the man and his policies barack obama and his policies women are losing jobs 400,000. the most of them. that's what happened. well, then some local efficiented officials. every single question of the immediate ya and nbc and big times "new york times." what was the number? what was the number. i say the war on women head over to the white house. they're the ones that have, you know, do i think it is an exaggeration. do i think they have britished established a war on women? ? of course. not let's talk about the real war. economy, jobs. what do you think i care about most. keeping the job, taking care of our kids. and like wise married women you think they want to see the

husband lose their job or they job. they now how tough things are. how about kids? they aren't worried about graduating kids and having hopes and dreams? you don't think they're concerned over 50% of them are not getting any jobs that require any kind of college education. they're not using all the trying and in addition they have huge debt and moving home? you don't think is this is a concern of women. they are undermining the -- they basically show nomples disrespect for women if they think women are more worried about some phoney war on their contraception, more than the economy. they have it all wrong. and that is the key. they know that think have a problem on the economy. they know that women are suffering. they know that small business women know they can't stay alive if they taxes going up. regulation continuing to increase. they know they are in trouble. they need to be able to take

care of their families and husbands need to do the same. that's why where the strongest argument goes. respect women. the poll joes overwhelming. doesn't matter male or female. three issues in this election, economy, jobs, access spending in washington. it's obamacare. those are the things that we're worried about. we win on those. but the i saw a new ad. obama ad, we'll close with this. it's on women. he comes out the president and has picture of very attractive picture of the president son of a single mom. father of two daughters and he cares about bill. the first thing he did was sign the bill that gave equal pay to women which was not equal pay for women. it was existed. it was given the ability to sue more easily in the workplace.

and then obama, believes in fairness for women. like we don't? yeah. excuse me, but dc not war on women. it's fairness to women. that's where they'll go. go back from the war and the fairness. where we have to go is back up to policy have undermined women. trying to make a living take care of themselves trying to get their hopes and dream and have the hopes and dreams and possibility for them in their own lives and lives of their kids. that's where we go. we win. let me tell you, this is going to be tough five months. they need the women you can expect every possible accusation against republicans at every single stage we don't support women. we want to undermine war or suppress the freedoms, rights and every opportunity we have. it's ridiculous.

they have overplayed their hand. they may do it again. i see the fairness argument. i think we can play them one on one. the key is to go back to the economy and hit and hit and hit it. we will be able to help women the next four years. be able to look guard to the future and the future for their children. thank you all very, very much. it [applause] we have time for question and answer session. if you go to the microphone. you can line up. give us your name and where you go to school before you ask your question. okay. my name is tailor, and i go to mc state university and i'm a been intern with the policy substitute. and my question has tow do with the -- [inaudible] act and i was wondering for you can give us a little bit of your

insight toward that? >> yes. [inaudible] is this on? well, this act is was introduced i think four years ago. and who could be against paycheck fairness until you read the small print. it's predicated on the assumption women are -- the reason women earn less is because of unscrupulous employers. it dismays me to see the language there in the bill. there's no evidence of this. any responsible economist who looks a the the wage gap sees there are innocent explanations who have nothing to do with mean spirited and unscrupulous employers. so what is the bill ask for? well, as they said, we already have laws. we've had laws since the '60s

against discrimination wage discrimination. if you try to pay jill $.76 for the same job. and give jack $1 jill can take you to court. it is the women's group to say the reason they are paid less is because of the legacy of discrimination. and so in the bill it says that employers are not only responsible for not discriminating we they cannot pay -- if it's paced based on leg say of discrimination. what does it mean? employers have no idea. i know, what it means having been a student of feminist economics for many years. the women's groups and some of the activists in washington think that let's say, for example, you pay universities, for example, will often pay professors in the law school more than they pay say professors in the school of swork. they will pay professors of engineers more than they will pay professors of education.

now there are more men in engineering, for example. than in schools of education. there will be a disparity of pay. now, most of us would say it's market driven. if you don't pay engineers a lot of money, they can get more in the private workplace. it's hard to recruit them. it's impossible to attract them without salaries. what the women's groups will say, isn't it part of a legacy where women's jobs say swork or education nurturing jobs are given less value than the jobs in se in business? and they could actually go to court and try to make the case. and they would have feminists, economists and activists there on the side and typically you'll get employers just wanting to settle the case and not go to court because it's so expensive. so it made it easier to sue for all sorts of nebulous reasons that hard line feminist truly understand. the last thing i say, the paycheck fairness act it's part

of the war on women the republicans prevented it from coming to a vote recently. the "washington post" came out again, the boston globe, the two senators from maine, who often vote for feminist issue, they were against it. senator snowe and colons were against it. it's not part of the war on women. it was a clever power grabby hardline feminist lit gators. i'm ashley. i'm an intern. i go to the pacific university. and the question is -- [inaudible] can you give us your memory when you first came to the states. say, you know, -- [inaudible] the united states is -- they don't want to live here anymore. can you give me some of your memories when you first came

here? >> all right. i'm going start with the -- [inaudible] i'm one of 14 brothers and sisters. i have eight girls and six boys. so the first apartment we rented, we would hide and make sure people couldn't count it. it was good. all the anemia our church helped us. and so i have to learn english and we were able to get ahead. ultimately, i married an american. i was the first one in my family to maryann american. my mom used to say you took a risk. [laughter] and my little children and four children, grandma what do you mean risk? later on, the good news we did

real well. it became the mayor of miami. he was the mayor three times. and then my son alex, which got e lekked to be a state senator at age 27. and i'm looking at all of you, and a couple of years, you could be state senators. and i'm torn in thinking if you were in cuba, you would have been part of the culture where the family thinks of you as someone that can bring money, you know. so let me leave you with that idea. i see your young faces and beautiful colors. the pain, of coming from a country where this is accepted, the mentality of cuba.

would put you in a different situation. thank you. >> hi, i'm jamie from the university of virginia. and i'm -- [inaudible] summer intern. and question is in regard to religious women. i think i remember reading that women in -- [inaudible] were religious than men. it's an important part of life for many women incoming myself and it feels to me like so in some cases has projected concerns of the religious women. specifically -- [inaudible] rebelling use freedom and who don't want to be a man and really just don't want to finance the sexually -- [inaudible] choices of the women. we want to worry about our own families and i wondered if you would speak to that in terms of the -- [inaudible] in terms of health care.

>> well, i would -- [inaudible] >> there is a tradition. a kind of lost continent and the hair anyones of conservative femme were not celebrated in women's history month. they were there. and they played a critical role in the women's emancipation. and francis willard in the 19th century was the leader of the christian temperance union. we think of temperance as outdated cause and but at the time it was a feminist issue because it was thought to drink was indicated in family vie legal conclusion violence and off the leading sufficient fran sit willard was able to attract a lot of religious women.

initially, it was not poplar cause. it wasn't there were so much that men were against it. many were. many women were against the sufficient rage. because of complicated reasons. i won't go into it. if you just what francis did with the vote women could protect the homes they clearly loved. protect their families. and she attracted mainstream religious women into the movement. and there's wonderful psychologist at the university jan yet who made the greatest progress when there was a conservative and progressive in the movement and they worked together. and i think that's a big problem today. we don't have a conservative wing. we don't have a moderate wing. we only a radical wing. the official voice of women is coming from the fairly hardline

left-wing feminists. and so we are being marginalized and silenced. they turned around and found a movement that mar beginnized and silenced the majority of the woman. to support groups like the clare substitute and organizations on your own campus. demand a place in the women's center and that you be heard and that you have a voice. there's a battle we have as i said, we have it's too important to be left in their hands. >> let me just mention add into that. i agree with everything. if you look at modern feminism today. the whole movement, it's driven by self. women need to do what is best for them. you know, if i'm not ready to have a child i shouldn't be made

to have a child. it's my right to do decide when. if i'm pregnant i should be able to abort. i should have opportunities. it play spues the whole idea if you're a mother, time at home heard you heard it from one of the feminist you never work a day in your life. they don't respect working at home moms. you need to be in the boric place. professionals higher education. it's all about me getting more knowledge, more information, more experience, more opportunities in the professional field. so if you look at religion, religion is -- honors service. that is where hay say the real happiness comes from. when you serve others being a mother you serve your children, family, your husband you're there to make life easier for them. and, you know, you get pregnant and you're not expected it's not time. you put your child first and change your life.

in order to make it that it womans. you have to take care of the child. you have to put them first. it's two different philosophies once you recognize that you listen to the femme nist. i saw on television and see the feminists and say you need to find time for yourself. put aside time for yourself. and i think, own space? i take a shower and the kids come! what are you talk about your own time? there's no own time, you know. and you're part of a family now and that's your time. so but listen to them and i think you will constantly see a very sell theme run through the arguments. that's with the religious fights it. >> thank you so much to all of you. [inaudible] and i'm going into the senior year at avai maria university.

[inaudible] my question was recently i read a book called manning up by [inaudible] it was interesting because how in the last twenty years basically the feminist movement everything they wanted had succeeded and you look at twenty to thirty-year-old women they're making more money than women. you have more women graduating from colleges and graduate schools than men. it seems like -- and you ask conservative women, it's saddeneds me that we have succeeded so well in the promotion of women's right. it's hurting men in a lot of ways. we're taking over. i was wondering thought abouting how -- it's hard to be people. it seems like worked really hard -- [inaudible] we are trying to -- [inaudible]

careers and it's interesting to trying to figure out what is the best path. >> i'll say that i think the big challenge for many of you college-educated young women is to be find a young man as educated as yo are. as you said, the women's movement has succeeded and i must say, many years ago, in the classroom, i was inspired by the youngs women they were ambitious and the better students. they were moving ahead. and i became concerned about how we're treating boys. and i looked at classrooms across the country and there's a lot of they emanate from the gender scholars a the the major university that treat boys masculinity as toxic that if you look at the way little boys play rough and tumble play. a lot of educators take a dim view of that. classrooms are it's a bit of an

exaggeration not much. they are run by women or girls and boys are there on sufficient rains. we see they are further behind they bear the brunt of a lot of bad policies. it would be one thing if it was a free-fair minded educational system. you saw the girl moves ahead. i see so many policies that have different impact on young men and no one speaks up. the reason is, there's a symmetry the industrially semity we have a networking of women's organizations you've never seen a jug or not marching in sirlly sol dahlty and monitoring every little bit of activity and how to affects womens and girls. what do the boys have? the monolist for the weapon, where are the organizations that look at the impact on young men. we have major efforts good efforts to strengthen girls in math and science. where the initiatives to

strengthen boys in writing, reading, and college attendance. they are nowhere. groups like the aawu say that's backlash. take away what we've given to women. they see it as a zerosome gain. most women don't see the world that way. we have male friends, sons, husbands, and their future is our future. we're connected. and again, that's why i say if we had more moderate conservative women in the women's movement we would assert that connection. but the lack of our voice has lead to the, as i call the complete imbrans in representation for women and men. [inaudible] my question is [inaudible]

[inaudible] where would you start to try to convince them and other [inaudible] perhapses that you have stories of friends or women leaders who started [inaudible] >> i'll take that. first of all, you yourself have to become mindful and assertive in your in what you believe. you can't let the fact that you're basically a conservative minority of tinny little minority on the college campus and be intimidated by that. you have to live your life as a

woman who truly believes in the country and all the opportunities available to your. but also believes in family and if you're religious you have those beliefs and then you have values and you live them. and you live them boldly and don't let people intimidate you. or say you can't talk like that. that's political my insensitive. i'm an american. i say what i believe. i've looked at the issues and this is what is important to me you become a leader in your own sphere i have found that, you know, i've given many speeches on college campuses and i get e-mails from people saying ten years ago we laughed at you and said television a nonsense. we're mothers and different kinds of era. and you were right! well, you know, that's not all bad. that's what you can do. you can let people -- you have wrong. obama is the best thing in the world.

400,000 woman lost jobs. make them think. challenge them. don't let them intimidate you so you become someone who they remember and four or five years ago when they can't find a job they think maybe she had a point or they're nor a job and the taxes unbelievable. my son is a law school student and he got a bonus because he are graduated. they made nothing. he's the father two of children. they live on loans. and it was $10,000 and he was very excited his wife was so excited to get pay. they $40 00. the rest went to taxes. he made no money. he said that's how it works. it's dividend or something. she is devastated. let me tell you, it happened to a few left-wingers and say what is the heck is this and they're going to be conservative when it comes to fiscal issues in matter short sometime. they want to make a