telecommunications act? >> guest: you know, that's a good question. you know, because often tames you -- often times you do need -- you clearly need the buy-in of an administration anytime you're going to do a big reform bill, and tom would clearly be an addition, walk sort of the spokesperson for that and sort of from the administration evangelizing the idea and encouraging congress to do it. you know, my sense is right now the current landscape is that the stars aren't aligned for a major reform bill. there's been talk about reforming the video marketplace. it's been a long time since congress really got its hands, you know, back into the video marketplace. the '92 cable act is now, you know, over 20 years old. so, you know, i think it depends. i think if he, you know, that is one way to sort of leave your mark, is to sort of be seen as sort of central to getting congress to agree on a major reform bill. >> guest: i would just say very quickly, i think tom would be great at it, he would relish it

except for the that is fact that probably wouldn't get done during his time and soak up a lot of capital. in other words, people will stop doing things, stop investing in certain markets for fear of or waiting for something else to happen. and i think he would view that as not a good thing, so he's just going to focus on the commission. >> host: and that's the last word on in the "communicators." blair levin is former executive director for the fcc, former chief of staff at the fcc. justin lilley, former republican counsel to the house energy and commerce committee, and one of our regulars here on the program, paul kirby, "telecommunications reports" senior editor. gentlemen, thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider.

>> coming up next, a look at a joint effort by labor groups and employers to preserve private employer pension programs. after that a live discussion with former commerce secretary carlos gutierrez and former mexican president on migration and economic competitiveness in the u.s., mexico and central america. then a forum on the political situation in egypt two years after the revolution with a look at the country's political crisis and its new generation of leaders. and the senate returns at 2 p.m. eastern from a one week recess for general speeches followed later by votes on the internet sales tax bill and legislation dealing with flood protection and water supply projects. >> mrs. grant was also interesting. you know, they had had this extraordinary roller coaster existence.

for most of their lives, ulysses was regarded as an abject failure, unable to provide for his own family. and then in almost no time at all, suddenly he was the most popular man in the country, the man who had saved the union on the battlefield and then president of the united states. >> julian loved her time in the white house. she said in her memoirs, it was like a bright and beautiful dream. quite the most wonderful time of my life. so i think that gives you some idea of how much she enjoyed being first lady and how she felt that her husband had finally achieved the recognition he deserved. >> be part of our conversation on julia grant with your questions and comments by phone, facebook and twitter life tonight on first ladies at 9 eastern on c-span and c-span3. also on c-span radio and c-span.org.

>> now, a discussion about a joint effort by labor groups and employers to preserve private employer pension programs. their aim is to change current law to give plan managers more flexibility. one proposal would pool employee contributions into one fund instead of individual retirement accounts. this one hour forum was hosted by bloomberg government. [inaudible conversations] >> okay. so now is our panel discussion, and, again, you have their bios. they're sitting out of order from the introduction i have, so i've got to make sure i have everybody right. so we're going to start immediately to my left. everyone in this room, i'm sure, knowed randy defrehn, he is the

executive directer of the national coordinating committee for multiemployer plans, and i think we have some feedback which will be eliminated. he has 35 years of experience working with this issue, and you're going to hear from him directly in a moment talking about some of his recommendations that he's been working on with a lot of other distinguished people. all right. our second person that we have here is cary franklin, and let me turn over and give you a brief summary of cary. so cary is an actuary and a managing consultant at horizon actuarial services. he's been working in this business for other 30 years, i guess there's a common theme here. by the way, and all soon to be pensioned. [laughter] >> we hope. >> so, yes. so we all have a personal interest in these issues. i'm sure many of you do in the

audience. so cary has been a frequent speaker at events like this and is an expert on the technicalities of pension plans, and we're glad that you could show up and talk to us. next perp is another person who i have had the pleasure to know for, what, 20-plus years. earl pomeroy was a congressman from north dakota, and before that he was insurance commissioner in north dakota and head of the national association of insurance commissioners. and to my knowledge, he has been the only member of congress who has also served as president of the naic, so he knows insurance. he knows congress. and now he is, um, senior counsel atal son and bird which is a leading law term both here and atlanta. and finally we have norman stein, formman's been with other -- norman's been at alabama, he is one of the leading academic experts in this area, and we're glad to have you

here, norman. okay? so we're going to start with randy, and randy as many of you know has been working with a group of management and labor over, what, couple of years? >> yeah. >> all right. so he's going to describe to us sort of like the impossible task, all right? he's got multiemployers, he's got multilabor unions, and they all recognize that they have a major challenge which is to preserve the soundness of these multiemployer plans from now into if not eternity, at least a long time. and he's been working with in this group quietly for two years, and he has been the de facto chairman of a commission that has examined this problem and come up with some recommendations about what to do. and so i thought we would kick this off by asking randy to talk a little bit about this very

complicated process. we heard the word complicated from josh probably about four or five times. describe that and then give us some highlights and relations. >> certainly. thanks, bob. thanks for this opportunity to be here today to talk about this important work. as you correctly said, this has been an interesting process -- >> can everybody hear his mic? >> no. >> not working? >> well, now, it was -- it's working now. now it's working. >> okay. >> speak up. >> speak up? nobody's ever accused me of not speaking up. i think josh did a good job in setting the stage for the situation that we were trying to address. we had as a community, the multiemployer plans really are very broad based. you hear a lot about the trucking industry and the construction industry, as bob hoover pointed out more than half of the plans are in the construction industry. but about a third of the

participants between, beyond those two with industries, though, multiemployer plans are very pervasive throughout the economy. the entertainment industry. my guess is you part of a multi-- you're part of a multiemployer plan if you're a member of the entertainment industry. >> we're not entertainers here. [laughter] at least we try not to be. >> i understand. but the retail food industry, the health care industry, service industry. you can go on and on and on. and what our process was is to take a look at the current situation of the plans. josh mentioned that the last significant piece of legislation that was passed was in 2006 with the pension protection act. pension protection act has a hook in it though. at the end of 2014 the multiemployer funding rules will expire. they will sunset. so there's a natural process to go back and revisit our experience under that law which changed -- [inaudible] posed new funding targets to try to improve the funding status of these plans.

and so that was a natural lead to try to find out, you know, what kinds of recommendations were there for modifications to the law in light of recent experience. so as that was going on, of course, between 2006 when the law was passed and the end of 2008 we had a very significant event, plans that had in leading up to 2000 had been so overfunded, about 75% of them, that they had to increase benefits in order to protect the deductibility of the contributions had started to recover from the first economic contraction in the early part of the century. by 2007 they were about 90% funded either on an actuarial or market value basis, and then came 2008. which hit the plans in a way that it hit everything else. obviously, those of us with 401(k)s were seeing it much faster with the daily val weighs, defined benefit plans

tend to use smoothing methods that defer the recognition of some of those losses. but the bottom line was they faced the same kind of challenges because they were broadly invested in the markets as any other financial institution. the median return in 2008 was a negative 22.5%. if you assumed that they were going to have 7.5% gains in that year, the net result was they were about 30% behind where they expected to be at the end of that year. that plus some new financial reporting requirements developed since that time really provided some impetus for us to look beyond simply what kinds of tweaks should be made to the pension protection act, and we decided it was time to reach out to the community, and we contacted the unions that rely primarily on multiemployer plans for their retirement security and their employer counterparts, other large employers that have

been part of process and active on the political plans of the year. we reached out to some plans. and we created this condition, it's called the retirement security review commission. because these are, multiemployer plans are a creation of the collective bargaining process. we take both of those parties, labor and management, to agree on reforms if they were going to get enacted. and so we spent, as you say, about 18 months in active discussions. we had about 42 organizations that were involved on a monthly basis, a couple days a month full time. and the, it was quite an interesting process. as you can imagine, there were times whenever the opinions were pretty strong on both sides of the table. but what you might not understand is some of the positions that were taken from one side were what you would expect from the other. i'm very proud of the way this process progressed. i think that the people who were

in the room approached this from not an adversarial position, but from a problem-solving position. and the results, the recommendations that you see reflect that. they broadly fall into three categories; preservation which deal with the kinds of technical corrections that should be recommended to congress based on the experience of the pension protection act, the second is remediation, remediation being in recognition of those minority plans that josh had discussed that will eventually be headed for insolvency for a variety of reasons, how would we address those to minimize the effect on participants, and then, third, innovation. are there new plan designs that could be implemented that would allow these plans to provide the kinds of long-term retirement security for workers in the future? >> can i ask you just one follow up?

in these three categories, i mean, we could probably spend the whole day talking about each one of these categories. i'm just interested in the innovation bucket. >> okay. >> are give me some examples of sort of some innovative ideas. are they crosses between d.c. plans and db plans? >> to some extent. one of the things that we were looking at and one of the things we kind of reinforced as we went through the process is the people thinking in terms of defined benefit or defined contribution and focus on two primary object is, to insure that workers would have a reag retirement -- regular retirement income and to reduce the liability for employers currently discouraging participation and preventing new employers from coming into the system. defined benefit and defined contribution plans structured have their a own advantages and disadvantages, and as a result in looking forward we were trying to address the

shortcomings of the defined benefit system in terms of having all that liability on the employers but not going as far as to say we're going to shift the entire liabilities and the investment performance experience onto the participant. as a result, there are a couple of things that the commission came up with. one is a broad recommendation. not working? try this one. okay. you got it. how's that? >> better. >> okay. [laughter] one is that the lobby restructured in a way that encourages more innovation by plan sponsors in order to meet the unique needs of those particular industries. >> but the law would have to be changed. >> the law would have to be changed in some ways. there are some innovative structures that are currently permissible and have been adopted by some plans. the commission came up with two distinct recommendations for modifications. one is a -- but they were very

clear in saying these are not considered to be all inclusive, but are illustrative of the kinds of things that can be done. the first is a variable defined benefit plan which has a, which is currently a dg plan under the -- db plan under the current law and would follow all of the rules, funding liability, minimum funding requirements. but it's structure inside a way that provides a minimum benefit, a for benefit, if you would, calculated at a lower interest rate assumption and then the investment performance above 1% or so above the assumed rate of return as a buffer against bad experience. ..

>> part of the commission's experience and part of our process was to reach out to other systems and other countries that have multi-employer plans, jointly managed between labor and management, but don't use withdrawal liability as a means of preserving the plan. we talked to representatives of the canadian system, the swiss system, the finnish system and the dutch system. what we learned is with the exception of québec, -- [inaudible] a mechanism for funding their plans. so the new model, the target model would require contributions at a higher rate than what our plans are used to. we would reject those contributions to come in at about 120% of the projected actuarial cost to buy the would be a plan that would limit the employer's liability to that

contribution. just has a defined contribution plan would. this model is one that would be, could be considered by groups, primarily groups that are to the point for a variety of reasons, specific to industry or specific employers. current defined-benefit mall is no longer acceptable, and this new model is a much better alternative than current defined contribution systems. a couple reasons for the. one, and this is why the code would have to be change. the benefits are pooled, and benefits paid in an annuity for. there is no individual. no hardship to should be shunned. it's just operational it would

look just like the current system. but as i said the contributions are limited of the employer's exposure, and that puts additional pressures on the trustees to manage the plan, assets in a way that reduces the liability, or the exposure of the participants to the kinds of market volatility that we've seen the past few years. it would require early intervention as the plan drops below the 120% funding you get from having your minimum contributions to take it to that level. rather than get into all the details on that, we would simply say this model allows greater flexibility to deal with the market variations, not dissimiladissimilar to some thes we've seen proposed in other public forums, including senator harkin's proposal, for example. but that's kind of the general

direction we are headed down. >> let me switch and ask you, earl, i think one of the question i was going to ask is how important it was to our plan, so we will not worry about that. josh made an excellent statement about that, but you just heard josh talk about the situation about how good or bad the situation is. do you share his view that roughly 100 out of 1300 -- just give your thoughts on the so-called remediation part of the problem as opposed to all the plans. >> what i heard, so important from josh, the director of fermented imports of find -- to find insurance plan, means to those who are the beneficiaries. i was in congress during the

period, three directors -- looking after the fund like they're running a little insurance company without a view to the broader retirement policy in this country. and i think congress has failed to see pension in the context of what you americans need for security in retirement? without question this shift a defined benefit plans, defined contribution plan, responsibility and risks all on the employer, the responsibility of us all on the employee has been dramatic. there will be tens of millions of baby boomers experiencing less of the quality of life, less economic security in retirement as a result of this shift. and congress has just sat by and watched it happen right under their nose. [inaudible] the coalition of employers, organized labor withh a stake i in the multi-employer process has not taken that

approach. rather than just tried to say we can't do with the old model, we got to let it all on the employees. that is not the way in the end fashion the best policy going forward. it's got to be one of the few. this is another thing congress can take lessons about. they have different views at the table and to try to come up with a consensus about two guiding principles. first, there will be a plant that at the end of the day provides cash flow to workers in retirement are really important, critical. on the other hand, changes are needed. technically described by randy at the upshot of it all is we're going to rebalance risk because risk lays it all on the employer and the fact we have it today it is not working, it will not work for the future. something that doesn't work for employers utterly doesn't work for employees, or beneficiaries. we've seen us and the rest of the defined-benefit world, terminated, moved on. we would have been much better

at some earlier point for congress to call timeout, let's get together at what needs to be rebalanced so we can make these work going forward. what this commission did. and so i think innovation that would be allowed, the goal of it is to have new entrants into the system. employers not providing something for the workers to give assured cash flow in retirement, they will want to provide those plans. they will have a risk level for the employer that is manageable so they can do it. on the other hand, you mentioned about the portion, i call them terminal ill plans, what we can do, a couple things, and denial. let things go along and they'll end up in the pbgc or later. benefit level will collapse. pbgc needs funding of. i view that as unacceptable risk for the worker.

you know those pbgc multi-employer guarantees are insufficient. we also know that there's a political question to what extent congress will fund that pgc guarantee. so if there's something that can be done that allows the earlier intervention for purposes of benefits of preservation, we got to look at that. and that is the future of the plan in response to the smallest portion of this marketplace. 10% or less, six to 10%. where you can get in there earlier and basically put things on a stable path going forward that superior by any measure that pbgc guarantee. >> so just continue with this come as a former member of congress, and you know the institution, wonder if congress is going to adopt essentially a plan that randi talks about? >> this is one -- when i was in

congress, it was my goal to be a knowledgeable -- the most knowledgeable pension guided. that was a low bar. [laughter] >> you must have been the only one. >> there wasn't a lot of sustained interest in kind of master the technical development of pension to get the public policy right. at i see something different now. senator harkin is chairing the health committee in his last term in the congress, has made this a priority on the house side. chairman john kline have spent an extraordinary amount come in my opinion, very constructive time trying to get his hands around the. recently i was in a ways and means working group session not participating in a ways and means member this time but in relation to my work with ncc mp, and pat, congress than from ohio chairing the working group spent two hours really into the weeds

of multi-employer plans. i mentioned how i think this is an all time record. but it does reflect, congress know something needs to be done. i think they have a better sense as baby boomers are expressing their anxiety about how these 401(k)s fall a little short of what they hope. they're looking for ways that you could come up with something and that preserves this guaranteed cash flow future. so i'm singing interest in congress. we've got just the product because this is a consensus product. it's not a union product, it's not an employer product. this is and i will be lose profit. this is a win-win product from people who try to work through a problem, put a lot of time with it and came up with solutions. i think congress will be very interested. >> so is one of the reasons of congress have a chance of doing something is because this plan doesn't entail any taxpayer money? >> i'll tell you, congress like

self-help an awful lot. a lot of it is federal help, federal help, federal health. this is self-help. and done so in a way that balanced soap health --'s help help package. those are essential elements. >> cary, let me turn to you. you're an actuary, and you've heard this discussion. i'm sure you're for me with a kind of lessons, legislative reforms you were talking about it is that enough? is that all we have to do is have congress am a change of budget rules and then everything is fixed? or something more required? >> i think beyond the legislative proposals, everything that's in the nccmp proposal, good solutions there. but i think it's important for plans to look at what they can do themselves independent of regulation. there are a number of plans that got through the 2008 crisis unscathed. can everyone here me?

which we learn from 2008. i have seen a number of plans that, despite the fact that they were 30% behind where they expected to be at the end of 2008, they still do not need to make any changes. they did not need to reduce benefits. they did not need to increase contributions. how did they do it? they managed to have a prudent management that allowed them to build cushions in the funding that basically saved for a rainy day. and plan for adverse experience. it was difficult as randy talked about the fact that the run up in the market at the end of the '90s created a need for many plans to increase benefits because of the deductibility rules for multi-employer plans were much lower than they were for single employer plans. but yet some plants still managed to address that, and that the prudent management fix i think it's important for labor-management trustees are overseeing these plans were possible to develop policies

that basically, almost telling clients to stay ahead of the law. it's important we need the safety net. that's what this proposal does is provide excellent safety net. but for the vast majority of plans, the 95% of the plant that would be okay, there's things they can do to control their own destiny. i think it's important to say they do that. >> i want to ask your question, two questions. you can take them in either order. what do you think the impact of these kind of reforms are going to be on retirees, actual people? and then the second part of this plan is, is this going to require any increase in contributions? excuse me, in premiums paid to the pbgc as part of this sex? >> taking the second question first, the real question isn't whether congress will increase

premiums from where i sit there are two serious problems premiums are separate right now. i think $12, ma and you compare that to a single employer plans where it's i think $42 with a very good premiums that can go up to an additional $400 per participant. $12 is a bargain, and it's a bargain that is creating problems for the pbgc, and it's a problem that is also related to very low guarantee level for multi-employer plans which are much, much, much smaller than those for single employer plan. pbgc ran some numbers and found that if the premium o were increased to $120 by 2012, theye would be no deficit of multi-employer program. and that's a big increase in percentage. but it's not a big premium if you're thinking about what it

would be purchasing, which is preserving the safety net. and there are probably some innovative things that could be done for the tax code. you might also be able, although i haven't thought about this in great detail and tell about 15 seconds ago, you might actually be able to have some participants share in the premium costs, paying them directly so we won't have crisis for some small businesses can't afford dramatic increase in premiums. along with that is premiums were increased you might also be able to increase the guarantees somewhere, which i think, 11,000 something is not a whole lot of money to live on, which even with social security. i want to also, the first question i want to preface my remarks by saying that i think the commission's recommendations are really important, it's a

very thoughtful report. the organizations that i talk to, that deal with retirees, are concerned about aspects, the tools, the deeply troubled plans would have would permit immediate reduction of retiree benefits to no less than 110% of the guaranteed levels. under current law if you're retired now, you get major benefits unless the plan actually runs out of money. and one of our concerns with the commission's proposal is that, commissions proposal talks about the problems with voter population, but the reductions in benefits are left to the trustees and most plans, not all plans, the trustees all have a legal duty to be participants.

but structurally, the way trustees are appointed raises the question of whether the primary goal is going to be to try and harm the retirees as little as possible. and the pbgc under the proposal does have the ability to review and past judgment on -- pass judgment on what the plans recommend in terms of benefit cuts. but the pbgc's role is limited. it's basically to the trustees use their discretion, and the one thing would like to see, the people that i work, generally work with would like to see in these recommendations is some clear voice to the retirees that independent of the trustees. so that the concern.

>> this is a follow-up. the unions though, part of ranges coalition, the unions agreed with this. so they must have felt that there accountable enough with the retirees. retirees. >> there are two things. one is that the unions, some unions have retirees, many, many don't. minions also legally bargain for employees, not retirees. so there some concern that the unions, it's not that bad people who want to hurt retirees, but i think a lot of unions are going to be more concerned with, and rightly so, that's their job with their current member them with her active employees. and also the help of the employees that are employed by them. you know, so -- >> did you want to weigh in on

this? >> there's one overriding goal of this blanket and that's benefit preservation. not reduction. benefit preservation. that our plans, we will have to rework some things, in order to preserve benefits well above the pbgc guarantee. and substantial improvement over the pbgc guaranteed is a bottom line on when one of these would even be undertaken. i think that as the process goes forward, this is the commission report that is now being drafted into the language. so all kinds of time to make certain that we are attempting to the vulnerable population issue. but let's not have that part of the discussion overwhelm all the other discussion. first of all, 90% -- of those we were taught not substantial improvement over pbgc guarantee protection for vulnerable population. so in the context of the overall problem, i mentioned that

because you know, this is the kind of thing that can stop us dead in its tracks in congress. something bad might happen. i don't know what to do with it. i do nothing. but doing nothing is the worst course to do when you've got plans getting irretrievably into the pbgc realm where benefits collapse and pbgc is an adequately funded. that's the worst thing you can do for the vulnerable populations, and everybody else. so we got to balance -- we've got a balance proposal that balance is substantially the goal of preserving retirement security in retirement, 10.4 million that are relating to this plan. that's an awful substantial part of the population that we need to be concerned with. and i think in addition to that, this consensus approach shows that you can balance risk, you can deal with conflicting

concerns and come up with a path forward that represents just plain old common sense middle-class the way we need to do it. stop it dead in its track. we are fortunate when they got this level and put in a measured middleground response. >> cary, let's talk about this. let me ask you -- [inaudible] >> you did. as you responding to this, i want to throw one more issue on the table because norm also issued this. do you think raising issues -- premiums have got to be a part of the issues because i think it does. to follow on with what both norm and earl were talking about in terms of real quick were stored. this is a plan that we are brought in to help about targets ago. it looked like the plane was headed for insolvency. it was a construction industry plan. that plan would've been able to merge with a larger healthy plan according to the healthy plan,

if the week plan was able to cut their benefits to everyone by 25%. so everyone would get 75%, they merge and a healthy plan and that would be fine. we met with the pbgc back in 2001, long before josh's time, and they told us unfortunately there's nothing that can be done. we showed the pbgc what it's going to cost them, something like $200 million. nothing could be done. the plane went in solvent. pbgc is now paying the benefits, and every participant on average is getting 40% of the benefit. if this proposal that the nccmp is working on had been in place back then, it would have saved this plan. there would've been some benefit reduction but less than half the reduction of what happened. >> norm, i'll get back to but i think randy wants to say something. >> i just wanted to clarify a few things. i think norm is reading commission is a perhaps a little misleading.

earl mentioned, what we are trying to do here is, carefully evaluated the current status of pbgc as a safety net, and their own numbers indicated well before the last report came out that they were operating in a pretty significant deficit, 1.8 billion in assets, 7 billion liabilities. those numbers can be extrapolated and given made larger by some of the other plans that are not contained in their projection because it's not by the window for budgetary purposes. the bottom line is, the pbgc is headed for problems. they have, when those assets are gone, the gao has recently given an estimate that the current benefits guarantee can be less than 10% of what the statutory guarantee would provide. they provided an example of a person who is 35 years of service, who is currently

receiving $2000, the plane were to become insolvent, that person would have has been said reduced to $1251. but once the pbgc becomes insolvent, because their only income flow would be from current premiums, that guarantee, that monthly amount would drop to less than $125 a month. now, granted, they guarantees and a single employer system and the multi-employer system are quite different, that was intentional. in a single employer system, the pbgc is the insurer's first resort. if a company fails, there's no one else to pick up the liability. but in industries like construction where the our employers who were created for the purpose of building a building, you have a joint venture, that employ a mix conurbations and then it's gone, it's understood that there are employers who come and go, just as employers go, the remaining employers pick up those liabilities. so pbgc is the insurer of last

resort. to give you an indication of the difference between the two systems, in 1980 when the multi-employer guaranteed system was set up, there were over 2200 multi-employer plans. covering about 8 million people. now as josh says there's about 1450 on their books that cover 10.4 million people. you think, wow, seven of those plans have failed. actually only 63 plans of ever received government assistance from that system because there's been an enormous amount of merger activity during those years where plans that weren't as strong were able to be brought into plans that were stronger. that's another feature of our proposal. we believe there are some additional tools that could be given to pbgc to help the process as well. but the fundamental problem, and i think the thing i wanted to correct about what norm has said, the benefit reductions that are being contemplated

here, and earl said it correctly, it's benefit preservation. if a plan is headed for insolvency, the ones that are going to go to the pbgc and those fantastic numbers i just cited would be the result, why not instead of requiring the plan to spend all their assets down on the current participan participants, and then having nothing going forward, why not allow the trustees who know that's happening, were all reasonable measures had been taken, to ensure that the plan could survive but it still projected to be in solvent, why not allow them to have access to the tools that their mandate to impose when they get to insolvency, if that plan can pay, reduce benefits only to the extent necessary to preserve solvency, if it's a 5% reduction, that's all they can take, b. would preserve the benefit above what the pbgc would provide, 110% numbers in

there because it would allow a broader net of plans to potentially take advantage of this process, and c., it would allow the plan to be preserved for future generations, keeping the people in this audience the employers, from having to be hit with withdrawal liability in the event of a mass withdrawal. and the last thing, of course is for everyone of those plans to be preserved and remain solvent is less -- less risk to the taxpayer, to the pbgc. this is win-win-win win. each of the constituent stakeholder groups would benefit from enactment of the proposal that was laid out. >> norm, you get a chance to respond. >> first, it's not win-win-win editor tyree who is in a plan editor tyree who was an apprentice as a 20th horizon before insolvency and your benefits cut from 37,000, 12,000. to me, that is win-win lose. and i'm not, i'm not by any

means opposed to cutting benefits. i think we have a desperate situation. we have a phone call just yesterday from somebody that change the plan and he read about the commission, and he said i was told that i would save, that i would be paid if from the plan would run out of money before i died. and i will continue getting my benefits. now, the problem is that we might have to cut retiree benefits. i think everybody has to share in the pain, but there are many plans that are covered by, that will continue for 15 or 20 years under current law, if current law is left alone, and retirees would be okay in that situation. one of the constant themes pension law, pension management allows one of years has been when there's a problem, the first person to protect is the retirees. and that's clear in the

allocation scheme in pbgc. it's clear, if you look at plans going back to the late 19th century or early 20th century which made provisions for retirees to pay benefits before anyone else. and our concern, again, the commission was made up of unions. it was made up of employer groups. it was, it spoke to experts, but pension the right system was a part of the commission and our concern is protecting, protecting retirees in the process. we are providing better protection in the process. the commission's recommendations with the trustees are going to be asked to do is make determinations. there are multiple factors of the trustees to consider. i teach law students, i don't think any of my law students

would have a problem drafting a report that had almost any conceivable effect on retirees as being the only way out. and pbgc is not permitted to change those recommendations unless there is clear and compelling evidence that abuse their discretion. what i think would make the commission report, or the commission's recommendations far more better for retirement groups is they felt they had hao have an independent voice in the process to at least get people focused on their particular issues. and there is a difference. if they plans going to run out of money in five years, retirees should be grateful for the commission's report, from their individual economic perspective because they do do better. but when these plans are not projected to be in solvent in 15, 20 years, the person who spend the most if you look at

change from current law to present law, are the retirees. and that's, that's our view. >> you can take that and i want to open it up for questions. >> slightly different view. retirees represent on the commission by those the reps at both active and retired workers. and we want -- we don't want of something where those retirement, whenever so protected, the 35 euro trying to make all his payments driving to work today, paying an extraordinary amount of wage contribution into the pension that he knows will have benefit collapse down to pbgc level because you can ride on the calendar when this is going to happen. we don't do anything for that guy. we hold the other guy completely 100% -- i don't think that makes sense. there's ways you can balance entries, and throughout this commission report it found ways to basically balance risk in acceptable ways.

we are completely committed to making the ultimate language drafted gives 100% assurance for vulnerable populations that their needs are met. that's what congress is going to require. >> i have got a question, but i'm not going to monopolize the discussion and let you guys don't ask any questions. we have mics that are available. where the question. the only thing i ask of you is stand up, tell her you are an sort of who you represent or you even not represent anybody, just say you are on your own. we have a question back there. >> i'm john turner, and i haven't read the proposal but it sounds like that, it's like an alternative proposal would be,

if a problem exists, that part of the adjustment would be that employees -- would be allowed. so you have a proposal for the employers contributions are capped, and they have no further liability. but if an adjustment needs to be made, that employee tax deductible contributions could be part of the adjustment. i think that's not part of the proposal but could you explain what you think about adding that? >> randy? >> that really is a part of our proposal. you have to think about this process here. with the bargaining parties do is to negotiate a wage package. the package includes all form of compensation including contributions to the benefit plan, pension and health benefit plan. so if you think about from that standpoint, while these employer contributions and employers are ultimately on the hook if you don't meet your minimum funding

requirements, the employers look at it as this is part of the wage package that they would be receiving in their pocket if it were not for being contributed to one of the benefit plans. so in essence what we have here is an employee funded program. so what we're talking about, these are pretax contributions from the employee. but the employee looks at it, this is all my money that's going into. employers have a different view. i'm not disagreeing with that, i'm just saying when you talk about in terms of allowing employees to make additional contributions on a pretax basis that wasn't really part of what was being considered. >> okay, question over here at. >> my name is mike, -- i'm with the mta group from colorado to

the thing that i look at with multi-employer plans, well, i'm in the plumbing and heating industry, and i look at it from the standpoint that this is a spiraling deal. because of the unfunded liability situation, we cannot get any new contractor to sign agreement. i think that's the one thing that everybody in the whole process has forgotten is that anybody who has a liability of four or five, $10 million, who would ever sign an agreement? and i think that's a part of the situation that i've got to commend you guys are doing what you were doing, because we're not going to get anybody to sign agreements with those kind of liabilities. and it's just a spiral that goes downward. >> anybody else? earlham? >> you've got a fund. the more participants in the fun, the health of the patient.

you've got a deal where nobody is doing, you have an unhealthy situation. so we've got to reallocate risk and get people signing up or. we will have a better fund as a result. risk delay for the employer but more risk for the employed because you've got to get a healthier fund. >> we have a question right he here. >> richardson california. i represent mechanical contractors. i like to go back to the last comment nor made about the pension fund being projected the last 15 or 20 is rather than making adjustment on today's retirees ever lie on the credentials of the panel to explain and clarify to me how that differs from congresses approach to social security. because we all know social security is going to go broke until about 2035, so they don't do anything until it's too late. if we were to make, i'll use the actuaries exams from it were to make a 5% adjustment today, we don't run out of money for 60

years. the because now we're going to not run out for 20 years we don't take any action, doesn't it make more sense to make it 5% adjustment today than the 40% adjustment in 15 years, or a 60% adjustment in 20 is? >> first i want to make clear, and maybe, maybe i haven't, i've been more subtle than i should. we are not, i'm not saying that retirees should be held harmless but i think retiree benefits have to be cut in these really deeply troubled plans but i don't think there's any question about that. and in some cases come in whatever the plan we saved them we think retired benefits may have to tighten up with a substantial. what concerned about is that the process which those decisions are made where we are talking about possibly cutting someone's benefits by 50 or 60% or 70%, that the process considers the pains of those people who are

out of the labor market who don't have other options now versus other types of pain. and that the pain be minimized to the extent possible when a singer shouldn't be paying and less uptight about the workstation that i do to give advice to the pension rights center. but we've heard from retirees who are very concerned about this. we do think that pain has to be shared. we think that make this hard decisions now. you can make these plans healthy again. and in some cases we think the pain is going to be just all the way down to 110% of transport guarantees. but we do think that the current report makes it too easy to not consider whether other alternatives available that might allow someone to get better benefits.

>> [inaudible]. the way that this proposal might, like congress, issue and there's something very important to be said for coming together and trying to mediate the differences of approaches. and that has not been the case with congress. you're absolutely right that earlier attention to a long-term solvency issue driven by actuarial science, the earlier the intervention, the more measured the change to fix it. but what the recent progress has been, president bush proposal, that wasn't acted that wasn't a consensus proposal. that was very much a partisan, once you proposal. out right rejected by the other side to the politics around security have been extraordinarily wide high. the parties have not been able to leave the politics at the door, stood at the table and work for a solution.

what happened to this commission? employers, organized labor, sit at a table for 18 months and they come up with a proposal which as you read through it balances risk in very measured ways. and that's why i think this proposal could be a guide to congress in terms of -- >> we've got to work together to get these things solve. >> a lot of a severely troubled plans, the plans that are in trouble, that's not true in every case but there's some correlation that plans with relatively rich benefits, high benefits, plans that's been everything they had on maximizing the benefits, are the ones that are heading for the most trouble. again, not true in every case but it may to a large extent. so really what we are looking at in some of these cases is bringing the benefit level back to the appropriate levels where they showe showed them, franklyo again have a prudent policy to be able to stabilize to say the

plan. it's important, and i agree with what earle said the it's so important to we are always looking at it as much as possible. we can't predict the future but we can understand the sensitivity as if we get this return is said that return what might happen down the road, and the sooner you take action, to correct these plans, the last painful the solution i is and te easier it is to fix the plan. >> we have time for one more question i think but am i right? or do we still have time for more than that? we have more time, good. you're telling me one more. okay, one more. [laughter] all right, i do what i'm told. we have a question or over here. i think what we'll have to do is i think the people that can't get the questions answered we'll have to talk to the panelists afterwards. go ahead. >> i'm jim estabrook and i'm with the law firm of estabrook and cooper. i work with the ncaa great deal.

randy, or cary company you can address the problem. because as we look at the construction industry plan, most of them are insured. one of the issues is the investor return. that seems in many respects to be the biggest driver for the performance and the plans cover. can you go into more detail on how the commission's plan and some hybrid plans of going to hopefully alleviate some the problems we're trying to get that actuarial rate of return of seven to 8% every year which also may go to address the ability to continue to pay the benefits of retirees? >> that's a great question and a for joint we don't have a lot of time to answer. that was one question i want to ask before we went -- >> let me give a quick answer and i will turn over the randy but i do think on these hybrid plans going forward, the idea is you're not going to take as much risk to fund the benefit for the future. and that's going to create some stability so we avoid the

volatility of contributions that we've seen in the past. it doesn't necessarily go take care of the fact that we do have these legacy liabilities, unfunded liability that exist to date, that we still need to fund and probably still need to try to get with seven or 8% which i would believe is achievable in the long term. i think too often people take short-term views of investment horizons and we're still looking at 30 plus year horizons. but i think over time if you take some the risk out of these plans by going to one of these alternatives, beginning to have a less risky investment policy that gradually, over time, will stabilize the system. >> you get the last word spent i would just like to echo cary's comment about what the long-term sustainability, using current rate of returns but this was the focus, should you reduce the current rates of return to

something that is a risk-free rate, which by the way i don't think is -- what the fed has been doing the last figures. >> every one of the groups would ask him and we went outside the normal massive characters to bring in other pension policy people, we brought in a congress that we talk to people in other systems, and some the biggest investment houses in the country, and edwin said at least 7%. seven to 9% with one exception the only set up to seven. goes a long term numbers, 79% is sustainable. and again you have to look at this over a generation. we are not really looking at it in terms of what you've seen over the last 10 years, -- >> just a minute or two left in this program. see it in its entirety at a website, go to c-span.org. we're going live to the national press club for discussion on migration between u.s. and mexico and central america nations and its economic impact. former u.s.-mexican guatemala officials are releasing the

regional migration study report providing recommendations for approaches to migration, competitiveness and human capital development for the u.s., mexico and central ameri america. >> this has been an effort that has -- over two years and it is trying to sort of rethink how the relationships, relationships within the region, including the migration relationship, but perhaps even more importantly the development and growth within the region. this way the region can compete more successfully in an increasingly difficult and competitive global world. might come better, much better over the next decade and beyond. the key words here are regional and migration. we need to do something, and in

order to do so we actually started by looking at the migration status quo. its causes, its consequences, and then we tried to peer into its future. but we did so through a regional lends. long-term solutions to the problems that have divided parts of the region in the united states can only be found in the region, and the united states is part of that region. and for migration in the future to be a matter of choice, not desperation. and in order to make it a non-issue, same way that migration from some in other parts of the world are nonissues, it seems to us that it must be overwhelmingly legal, orderly and safe.

and we also think that in the future people who migrate within the region must increasingly have the skills and qualifications that can help them succeed, can help their families and households grow, and can take the migration issue as an issue off of the policy and political agenda for the region. of course, getting there from here requires an awful lot of work on all of our parts. economic growth must be sustained, political stability, and enduring must be enduring. the rule of law must develop even more routes. social development must continue to grow. borders must have integrity, and we have dealt of course, they

must be dealt with more efficiently. and we need to do this together as neighbors. and personal security must become the first priority of governments in the region. we can do those things individually as countries, as people of differing countries. and i'm certain that we will do so, but i think that we can do it together as the region. and this is really what it is that this migration, regional migration study group has tried to do. it argues that investment systematically in the region, and building of human capital can produce a better future for all other people for the region. in a competitive world that will require much better prepared workers.

what we are going to do today is we are going to have almost a parade of important people who have invested an awful lot of their time and their political capital. to address this issue. we are going to start with president who will have a video which will play in about a half a minute. that will be followed by secretary carlos gutierrez who will speak to some of your recommendations of the report regarding immigration reforms here, but always thinking that immigration reform must get in to the lifeblood of the region, rather than simply do something that the united states has to do. his remarks are going to be followed by vice president eduardo stein, who will talk about some of these key issues

in the region. and in this first between these remarks were going to have -- doris meister and i think i saw andrew, andrew selee who came back in, to sort of pick up some of the comments that they would like to make. then we're going to hear from ambassador jones. he has had a great deal of experience on the key issues of the report, not just the u.s.-mexico relationship, but a key interest in education. and then we are going to hear from the we is rubio, of course we all know, he's one of the public intellectuals extraordinary in the region. at the end of this, an hour or so of presentation, i will try to sum up a little bit and then open it up to questions. once more, good morning and thank you very much for coming.

>> dear friends, i truly regret that the long-standing commitments do not allow me to be with you for today's presentation of the final report of the region's migration study group. -- [inaudible] i want to express my deep satisfaction for the work done. this report is of enormous relevance can not only for -- [inaudible]. when the study group first met in 2011, little did we know that towards the end of the work crisis, circumstances would

change drastically for the better making the possibility of significant immigration reform in the united states more likely than it has been in many years. given the robustness of the policy recommendations contained in the report, the publication now -- [inaudible] what promises to be a hopeful period of debate on this issue on this important subject, and a significant body. i am confident the participants in the debate -- [inaudible] to map adequately the profound economic, demographic and societal portions that are reshaping our region comprised of the united states, mexico, san salvador, guatemala and

honduras. the society has made great strides towards developing and -- [inaudible] collaborative approach to migration in human capital development that can help build a stronger social and economic condition for our region. our deliberations of washington, mexico and central america, along with your research -- [inaudible] 20 background reports intended to produce recommendations, and understanding of all the ground legal, economic and social reality in this incredibly diverse parts of the world. they need to balance policy initiative with real issues and intellectual -- we have tried to give practical answers to the

fundamental questions of how can our nation's elaborate to ensure safe, legal and orderly immigration flows? and how can they teach work forward -- supported by people i've met demanded by the labor markets. the study group's final report, above all, seeks to promote that we benefit each of the countries as well as the region collectively. but not to advance in the country over the other. the overall region, one thing is clear. getting migration policy right, -- [inaudible] in a fast changing global economy. i am hopeful that the documents today for your consideration will earn a place as an

important reference in the ongoing debate that it will help government of the region to execute sound policy on migration. labor markets and human capital for the sake of their own national development. i express my deep gratitude to all of my fellow commissioners for the committee guidance, in particular to my esteemed co-chairs and friends, secretary carlos gutierrez and vice president eduardo stein. of course, i want to recognize the great work done by the dedicated group of experts and supporting staff for migration policy institute, and the invaluable intellectual leadership divided all of long by andrew selee, and demetrios papademetriou. let us now work out report, the extensive -- [inaudible] and

make it an influential tool to advance the cause of good immigration policy, for growth and development in our countries. thank you very much. >> doris? >> thank you very much, dmitri, and i should say thank you, president zedillo. one of our three chairs. you know, president zedillo started us off in a way that he typically has done in his public service as well as his work in this endeavor, and that is i really touching on the key themes in a very coherent fashion. because this is been an effort that is very expensive. we are talking about very big things here, very long-term commitments and efforts.

but nontheless, things have to start somewhere and sometime, and these very important issues of how migration really fits within the broader context of well being for each of our countries as well as for the region over all is what it is that we have tried to get our arms around in begin to point to in this effort. now, president zedillo talked about the fortunate elements of timing, timing definitely fell in a way that we would never have been able to anticipate when we began this effort several years ago. but where the time is concerned, i do want to stress that we all realize that what it is that is going on in the united states at the present time with immigration reform and immigration reform debate being

again after many years on the front burner is something that the united states does have to solve domestically on its own. we are very much recognizing the individual characters of each of our countries and our political system. at the same time, what ever it is that we do in the united states on immigration policy and on fixing the brokenness of immigration system in the united states, whatever we do will have critical implications for the region and for our relationships within the region and for the future of all of our countries in north america. ..

>> immigration reform in the united states. he's continued to remain very active and interested in the issues within his party as well as nationally, so we're very pleased he's opinion part of this effort, and -- he's been part of this effort, and i'm very pleased to introduce him and ask him to come to the podium at in this time. secretary gutierrez.

>> good morning. let me just start by saying this is the perfect moment to be talking about migration and more broadly a new vision for greater prosperity and competitiveness in the region. this week the senate will begin by marking up bipartisan legislation that the u.s. very much needs in order to make the u.s. immigration system more responsive to economic conditions. and labor market needs. and very importantly, to make the u.s. more competitive. i want to emphasize one thing, that is immigration reform will create more jobs for american citizens. and i will repeat that. immigration reform will create more jobs for american citizens. as you know, president obama's just returned from a meeting with presidents of mexico and costa rica in which he and his counterparts emphasized the enormous economic and human interconnectedness of the region. they agreed to move forward with

a number of education initiatives that are also in our report. we believe there's a lot more to do in the future. first of all, we have 52 million individuals of hispanic heritage living if the united states -- in the united states. 36% were born in another country. of those hispanics who were born in another country, around 14 million, a little more than 14 million were born in mexico, el salvador, guatemala or honduras. that means that three out of four come from those four countries. persons born in these countries make up a bit more than 35% of total immigration, the total immigrant population and a little more than 4% of the total population in the u.s. some of the recommendations that we make in our report are in the senate immigration bill. and we certainly hope that they remain there as the legislation makes its way through congress and to the president's desk.

we believe that the immigration proposal that has been started in the senate by the group of eight is very positive. it's the right thing to do, and we need to move forward. we are looking beyond this legislation. we are looking down the road 10, 20, 30 years and looking at the changes that will happen in our region. and making certain recommendations beyond what is in the legislation. and i'll give you a few examples. we recommend exploring small pilot programs in which the federal government could work in partnership with states and localities to create special preference visas as part of vetted economic development plans in areas of the country that are depopulating and wish to attract new workers. for example, detroit where the city has lost 25% of its population. at the same time, the study group believes that any new

program or visa should include incentives for what we call positive circularity. that is, encourage back and forth movements that allow migrants to pursue opportunities on either side of the border following the ebbs and flows of demand. today we think of immigration too one-dimensionally. there is only one path for immigrants, and that is either you go for citizenship, or you're not a real immigrant. we believe that the future is a lot more about strategic circularity where people spend time in a country in a given job with special skills that that country needs, and then they can circulate back to their country. and that is more of the future that we foresee looking down the road 10, 20, 30 years from now instead of a static, one size

fits all. not everyone wants citizenship. what people do want is the opportunity to grow, to work, to contribute and to make the region more competitive. all of these measures should be reviewed on an ongoing basis by an independent, nonpartisan federal agency tasked continually with assessing labor market conditions and making recommendations to congress and the executive branch on adjusting visa levels. finally, let me just say in 1970 mexico -- mexican women had on the average seven children. in 2010 a number's a little bit higher than two. so there will come a point in the not-too-distant future that mexico becomes an immigrant-receiving country. very different to what it's been over the past decades. so we recommend that mexico,

guatemala, honduras, salvador also update and modernize their immigration systems. we also believe that we should all have a shared accountability for border security and enforcement. thank you. [applause] >> back and forth here. well, secretary gutierrez has given us some of the key ideas that have to do with the u.s. immigration system and then what the possible feedback p loops or resonance for those changes would be within the region. i think what we're trying to stress very heavily in this work and in this report is really changing the incentive

structure, changing the dynamics of migration in the region so that migration is an issue of legality, it's orderly, it is based on principles of fairness. certainly, it's safe as compared to the perils of the way migration takes place today and in that way there is a respect for rights and a basis on which to observe and enforce rights. but the point that was made about positive circularity, and i like that term, "positive circularity," as compared with simply circularity is one that i want to really emphasize in terms of the way in which we could look at a different future, because the way that we've understood circularity typically in this country and in the field of migration has been seasonal circularity.

people coming for several months, picking crops, going back, remittances flowing. and all of the things that go with that that have been by definition very difficult. because that kind of circularity tends to create a very unequal relationship between employer and worker. it tends to be workers who have no other chances or choices in their own societies, in their own communities. and a great deal of the discussion and talk about migration has not focused on the difficulties that surround that traditional form of circularity, what happens in home communities, the difficulty of enforcing the rights of workers, the kind of circularity that secretary gutierrez is referring to and the kind of positive circularity that is envisioned

in this work and, i think, in the way that many provisions of the current proposed senate bill outline is a circularity that is really more in the realm of mobility. mobility that has to do with a range of skills, economic needs and human capital, capabilities that cross the skills spectrum, choices, movement and opportunity for people that are based on their own growth and on the growth of economies where it is that opportunities exist. so that one of the things that we hope will come out of this work and one of the things to which we are committed at the migration policy institute and the wilson center is to use this work as a catalyst among our countries for developing the kinds of training programs and

the kinds of work force and educational investments that will allow for positive circularity as compared with traditional circularity which has tended to be limited and, um, ultimately does not contribute in nearly as full a way to broader development outcomes as migration could contribute. so with that as an additional, you know, dimension to what it is that we're talking about here, i'd like to turn to our third co-chair, vice president eduardo stein, who served as vice president of guatemala. and we're, i think, all happy to say has been in a less formal way returned to service for his current government where he serves as an adviser and has been very deeply involved in bringing the next generation of guatemalan leaders forward.

vice president stein. [speaking spanish] >> one of the strategic elements that as a study group we wanted to put forward at the very beginning was how to move away from a gatekeeper's approach and go deeply into a network approach. because we could not tackle the problems and the complexities of migration agendas in this region with the sole perspective of how to control the flows. and also because we could not approach them, and that's

another perspective in the richness of the report only from the perspective of migration specifically. what we needed to look at other issues as well. however, the other, quote-unquote, issues are so complex in themselves as well that it's like walking barefoot on broken glass. and that's why the efforts that the differential elevens that were -- different talents that were summoned to work at the study group tried to approach this whole set of perspectives from a very detailed study of what had happened in the region in the recent decades. secondly, what was changing in

the region in the recent years. and i want to quote a few lines from the summary. the longstanding assumption that mexico and central america have an endless supply of less educated workers for routine, physically-demanding and poorly-paid jobs in the united states is becoming less and less accurate when it comes to mexico and in the years ahead with right reforms for push of central america. for much of central america. so i want to begin as well by emphasizing that the countries of central america face a unique set of circumstances. we have some important success stories to talk about today, but for each success we also have to recognize an ongoing challenge. first and foremost, i want to point out that there is no one

simple story about central american development. indeed, our countries are highly interconnected in many ways, and we face a number of common challenges and opportunities. migration being just one of them. but that said, trends are uneven within the region. for example, guatemala has been experiencing a relatively high gdp growth since 2008. and since that great recession in addition to continuing strong population growth. compared to, for example, el salvador's recent experience of lower gdp growth and very low population growth as compared to honduras or guatemala. just to give you an idea of what i'm talking about, 30 years or

younger is 70% of the population of honduras or guatemala. so we are very, very young countries with very, very few opportunities for sustainable job. the most important thing though is our ability to generate those opportunities for our people. indeed, there has been promising job creation in economic sectors such as hospitality, agriculture and coal centers. however, all of these countries confront a common challenge: creating enough formal sector jobs with benefits and wages that can sustain families. with the idea in mind that south eastern mexico and all of central america concentrate more

than 30 -- i'm sorry, 13% of the biodiversity of the world just in panama specifically, there are more birds species than in all of the united states and canada put together. the trend in not only cob serving biodiversity, by taking advantage of it for export purposes has taken hold in guatemala, honduras and salvador. and in controlled characteristics of greenhouse methodologies, 10 meter by 100 meter facility can give way for a good sustainable financial of a five to six-member family per year. and yet less than 30,000 he can

tears are dedicated to that kind of it can logical advancements -- technological advancements in these type of productive efforts. fewer people in the northern triangle now live in extreme poverty, it's true. but for many families this is because they are receiving remittances from their relatives abroad rather than because they are earning better wages. and perhaps most importantly for what we're talking about today, educational attainment has risen in central america. of but we are all aware of the fact that we need to improve the quality and the relevance of education at all levels; increase student retention in secondary schools and expand access to high quality postsecondary educations for

those who qualify. but in particular we all need to pick sure we are giving -- make sure we are giving our students the tools they need to succeed in the real world. this means general communication and critical thinking skills as well as the specific technical and, yes, english-language skills that the modern labor market demands. english is taught everywhere in central america but only in private schools. i also want to point out that after dramatic increases in insecurity, homicide and other violent crime over the last five or six years, homicide rates in guatemala and salvador have finally begun to decrease recently, since 2009. as we all understand, violence

both reflects and is fueled by institutional weakness in high levels of corruption and impunity in our countries. so we know what we have to do in order to do better by our people. the challenges and the opportunity for both the regions' peoples and its governments is continuing and strengthening political stability, economic, social and institutional reforms and, of course, working closely within the region to offer alternatives for migration to our people. in the study group's long-term us have, migration will be -- vision, migration will be a real choice for them rather than a necessity. but until we get to that point, migration will have to continue to be part of the answer.

and we need to work together with our partners in the region to make sure that such migration is legal, orderly and safe. guatemala and el salvador were taking important steps on judicial and police reform. it is slow, it is difficult, it has proven to be complex and cumbersome, but it is crucial work. in honduras for other reasons, the police reform is facing daunting challenges. tease are the long-term -- these are the long-term solutions that will help us all not just as individual countries, but also as a region to instill confidence and trust in our public institutions, to create real incentives for everyone to follow the rule of law and in so doing tackle the very serious crime and security challenges

that are most destructive to those who have of the fewest defenses against them. just one simple note about my own country, guatemala. close to 60% of guatemalans belong to 22 different linguistic groups, postally of mayan origin. mostly of mayan origin. we as a country and we as a society have had a longstanding policy in place for 400 years already of discrimination and exclusion. so this is another dimension perhaps to guatemala, but still very important to overcome because they, indeed, have every right for citizenship within their on country. their own country. we've also made great strides to

working together with the region. the study group has noted with approval mexican efforts to work more closely with guatemala by issuing temporary border-crossing cards for those who wish to visit, shop and work in southern border communities. we encourage mexico to continue to consult closely with its neighbors to the south like it did in developing its recent migration legislation as it comes to terms with all that this important role entails. mexico, indeed, has already become a receiving state for hondurans, guatemalans and salvadore rans. although the northern triangle countries face difficult road ahead in surmounting these challenges, what we want to underscore today is that though each country must continue to

address its own internal issues, it is now more important than ever that we continue to build trust with each other and with mexico and with the united states and commit to cab rahtive -- collaborative measures that can help solve these regional problems. lastly, we believe that the next phase of a regional relationship that is already strong starts with the acknowledgment that the united states, mexico and central america, and central american countries, sorry, can shape a future in which working together brings benefits to each other and to them as a whole and to the region that are much larger than the sum of individual efforts. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, mr. vice president. let me acknowledge quickly the director and deputy director of the wilson center's latin american program and director of the wilson center's mexican institute and six or seven board members, a member of the study group as well. let me, as you have heard already, i think, from numerous speakers, we are generally the study group is generally very supportive of what's going on in terms of the immigration debate in the united states. i don'ti don't think that when e started this we could have planned the timing better. most of the domestic reform in the united states has already been picked up in one way or another in the current debate, and hopefully this report will have something to say in communication with some of those discussions that are going on. but i have to say, study group members have been very enthuse yeasing about what they see -- enthusiastic about what they

see. we have a strong sense, the larger questions of migration were only begin -- we're only beginning to come to terms with. we tend to think of migration as part of a problem that needs to be solved either in u.s. law or in mexico and central america by stopping people from leaving. but i think the central argument you'll find in this report is that migration is actually a central part of get i haveness and -- competitiveness and job creation in all of the countries in the region. and in the long term how we choose to manage this, beyond what happens in the u.s. immigration reform debate, beyond specific changes that may happen in mexico or central america is how we come to terms together across this region in managing migration will have a great deal to do with how he create jobs in the -- we create jobs in the future in all of the countries. this is a long-term question, it is something that will continue beyond the debate in the united states, and it's something that will continue beyond specific debates going on now in mexico and central america. you will hear next from luis rubio, one of mexico's most

insightful commentators, academics and thinkers. he will talk to you about the growth of the middle class and the changes in mexico. let me presage that by saying one of the things that makes this debate possible now, not only do we have a debate going on in the united states about immigration reform that is very positive that is something we can be hopeful about, but also in mexico and central america as you heard from vice president stein and you'll hear from dr. rubio, things are changing very fast. you have a growing middle class in mexico, growing education levels in mexico, steady economic growth over time. you have a containment of violence, which is a step forward, and as vice president steven says with every step forward there's a new challenge, and you have a huge drop in authorized migration for mexico. all of these speak about the changing country next door and changing countries in central america. and this is a fundamental part of the piece of why we can have this regional conversation now together with the fact that we're having a serious conversation in the united states about our own legal reform.

luis rubio. >> good morning. thanks, andrew. as the report emphatically establishes, the u.s. immigration debate on reform is clearly a sovereign concern. but it should not miss the changes that are taking place south of the border, and that might be critical for the competitiveness of the region as a whole. these changes have had an enormous impact on the rapidly changing patterns of migration in the last several years. not only in the numbers, but also in the type of migrants that move, where they go to, why they do so and, in one word, the past is very different from the present, and it will be very different from the future. as to the changes, the most important one is the one that andrew just mentioned which is that mexico is rapidly becoming

a middle class country. it is no longer the poor country of old even though there are many poor people in the country. and less poor people means or people with more dispose able incomes to do other things, people who are more content, people who have better ways of dealing with their normal challenges of life are people who have less incentive to migrate. the middle class has grown for many reasons, but above all for the following, first, because there have been financial stability which means lower interest rates, which means an almost virtual zero fiscal deficit and very low debt. because trade liberalization has meant for mexicans that the proportion of their disposable income that they spend on things like food stuffs, basic staples in general, clothing, shoes and the like has come down

dramatically. because they are no longer bound by domestic producers limited by no competition. nafta has helped to strengthen the economy, creating much better-paying jobs. it has also contributed in a decisive way to the competitiveness of the region, particularly in critical industries for the u.s. like the automobile industry like electronics. remittances have lifted the incomes of many mexicans, but particularly in the rural areas where everybody used to associate rural peasants. today there is an emerging class in those areas. and not less important, political democratization and legalization have transformed the overall picture of the country. mexico's also undergoing a very dramatic demographic transition which means that the population growth is much lower. it also means that living

standards can improve quite more rapidly, and inevitably, that means there will be an impact on lower migration eventually. in one word, there has been an extraordinary process of change in mexico, and as we just heard from vice president stein, in the region many general. none of this, of course, reduces the size of the challenges or the daunting nature of some of them, particular wily in areas like security, the -- marley in areas like stability and the rule of law and accountability. as mexico has decentralized politically, it found that its police structures, its judicial structures were lacking and were incapable of dealing with the most fundamental challenge or responsibility of any government which is protecting the pop haitian. population. equally important are the challenges posed by weak governance and poor accountability. as the country modernizes and its government works towards

establishing itself as a source of authority, mexico could become a critical partner in making um gration reform -- immigration reform successful. the government in mexico committed to the rule of law could become a natural source of regulation of migratory flows. and this is the crut call point. changing mexico is altering reality, and a more functional structure of governance is being built. americans, i believe, need to see mexico and its central american neighbors as reliable partners in the long-term development of the whole region. and this is, ultimately, why it is all about competitiveness which is the point being stressed in the report over and over. all of this would make economic growth and people movements all successful and legal -- [inaudible] thank you. [applause]

>> [inaudible] >> thank you very much. it's been a great pleasure for me to be a part of this study group, and i feel a little bit today like when i was in congress, i had a colleague named moe udall, one year ran for president. and this one political rally, he was the last speaker among many, many candidates, and it was almost midnight by the time he was called on to speak. and he started his remarks by saying everything that needs to be said has been said, but not even has yet said it. and so i have the privilege of being the last speaker, but i think what i've been asked to talk about is something that's been mentioned, but it's not been everyone sized as much as i think -- emphasized as much as i think it should be. if we're going to have a competitive region in this global economic area. when i left mexico and visited with president clinton, he asked what should, what my advice was

in going forward and what should be done. and my comments were that if the enormous democratic political advances in reforms in mexico and the very positive economic reforms that have taken place, if they're going to be sustained and strengthened, the most important thing in addition to the rule of law, the most important thing that they and all of us can invest in is education, health and infrastructure. and the most important of those are -- is education. i met with many of the, particularly in southern mexico, the other half of the mexico economy that basically was left out of nafta and the benefits of nafta. and i met with various individuals. and without exception they, what they wanted most in life was a better life for their children and their grandchildren. and they recognized that the way they achieve that is through education. and they were not getting it at that particular time.

to the credit of the peña any yet toe government this year and the bipartisan support of the congress in mexico, they passed a major education reform act, and i think it's going to have a significant difference in the future and the opportunity for mexico going forward. there have been some improvements in education in central america, no question about it. but when you look at the region as a whole and when you compare that region particularly to the area of asia which for decades now has emphasized education and quality education and relevant education, we're not competitive. we're not competitive as a region, and we should know that. so we need major education reforms not just in central america and mexico, but in the united states also. if we're going to, if we're going to be competitive in this global economy. and the study group calls for that. not only in primary education,

but also in education at a higher level in areas of science and technology and engineering and math mathematics. we are woefully short in what we ought to be if we're going to be the most competitive region in this world. and that's the opportunity we have to give to our children and our grandchildren. that is the most important thing that we can do in terms of creating a better quality of life. now, if this, if our congress, the u.s. congress through stupidity or irresponsibility or a high degree of partisanship fails to deal with the immigration reforms that are pending up there now, this issue of immigration or migration is not going to go away. it's going to be with us for a long time here to come. but if we seize the opportunity as i think we can and we will, if we seize the opportunity and give a particular emphasis to the role of education not only

the education in the basics, but the education in the relevancy, how does it relate to the needs of global economic needs at the present time and how do we train and retrain our young people and our workers for that to take advantage of that opportunity, if we were able to -- if we do that in u.s., mexico and central america, we will be the most competitive region in the world. we have the natural resources, and we have resources in human resources. all we need to do is to fine tune that and give them the education they need. so it's been a pleasure to be a part of this, and we look forward to your questions. thank you. [applause] >> it's almost unbelievable that not only has every member of this panel stuck within their

time frame, which is remarkable to me at least, but they also punctuated the most important elements of what the report is all about. the report is focusing on the future. but we cannot get there from here unless we all apply ourselves in the areas of the members -- that the members of the panel discussed. education and, as the ambassador mentioned, quality but also relevance. i don't want to make too many people unhappy here, you know, but perhaps we ought to consider that we may have enough ph.d.s in political science or international affairs. and perhaps we need many more people who are engineers and scientists and mathematicians. in fact, the two presidents of mexico and the united states

have an agreement that focuses on these kinds of occupation. you've heard president she dee owe and secretary gutierrez and, of course, vice president stein make extremely important points about what it is that we need to do now, begin to make the investments now that will take us to a different future than the one that we have encounter ored in the past 20 or 30 years. if the essence of this report were to be reduced to just a few words, the words could be change, opportunity and hope. change requires us that we look at things the way that they are. not the way that they were three years ago, five years ago, twenty years ago. we have to look at the extraordinary changes that have taken place in so many countries of the region. if you look at education rates in mexico and el salvador and, of course, guatemala and

honduras and how much effort they are making, if you look at the kinds of investments that have been made, if you look at the effect that nafta has had in the relationship with mexico, half a billion dollar in two-way trade. and if you think that this is an impressive number, let me give you two numbers that are far more impressive than that, particularly for the united states. almost 44% of that total trade is u.s. trade to mexico. no no other country -- in no other country, in no other bilateral trading relationship do we approach anything like that. in fact, most of the other bilateral trading relationships that we have are extremely heavy on the other side. what they sell to us. over 40% of every product produced in mexico that comes to

the united states, 40% of the content of that product is american. the comparable figure for canada is 25%. everything else is further down the line. these are extremely important changes, and most people are not aware of. you know, we have made up our mind perhaps all too easily about what the region looks like, what the opportunities might be, and we focus all too much on the challenges. and the challenges are real. no one will say that they are not. and you heard them here. public security, the security of individualings, a critical element of governance, of good governance. the institutional reforms that need to continue to be made, the commitment to the rule of law a needs to get, to be deeper and deeper. economic and social development

that we need to focus on more and more to make a true commitment to. all of those things will be taking place. but the study group has focused on the opportunities. the opportunities that have been created because of changes that have already taken place. and the biggest opportunity we see is to start thinking together about what kinds of skills, how can we equip our citizens, each country doing it on its own but also thinking laterally, thinking within the region. how can we equip our people? this way they can succeed. when our people succeed, the country grows. when people really want to hold on to their middle class status, they make demands of their government.

they create opportunities for investors. the more investors, the more purchasers, the more confidence, the greater the opportunities for our country become. and when those opportunities begin to spread, the region profits. this is not going to be easy. so the last word that i mentioned in this part of my remarks is hope. we're all hopeful that those things can happen. we think that the elements, the ingredients are already there. we just need to work hard at them. i think we have political leadership now all across the region that can make and pursue, make a commitment and pursue that commitment as we move forward. ultimately, if human capital is the ultimate resource as we all

say it is, let's hope we believe it, if indeed it's the ultimate resource, let's try to make sure that we build that resource up and that we're committed to a better future for the region. thank you very much. there's an awful lot more in the report. too many words perhaps. but it is done in a smart way. you can read the executive summary which is really a complete record of the report and the recommendations. and the recommendations touch on all of the topics that have been raised here by this superb panel. this has been a great opportunity for us at the migration policy institute, and with our colleagues, andrew and cindy over there, we have been very proud to work with them and produce this particular report. thank you, and now we'll open the floor up for comments,

questions, etc., etc. doris? [applause] >> all right. we now revert to the stage. no more up and down. and open the floor to questions, but i want to just underscore what's been said in a variety of different ways. many of the people in this audience are people who follow migration issues and, of course, we have come to this think a migration lens. but one of the paradoxes of all of this and one of this things that's difficult in the terms of policy and action moving forward is that what this says and what we know is that solving our migration problems and harnessing migration for more positive effects in all of our societies requires moving well beyond migration into many other policy realms, particularly

education training. but this is really cross-cutting from the standpoint of how one mobilizes societies and moves an agenda like this. so we really are, as dmitri said, taking a stab perhaps with too many words, perhaps in some way cases more general than needs to be, but really trying to push the envelope into the ways in which migration connects within our societies with so many other endeavors in order then to create the dynamics and feedback loops that ultimately create a much more positive migration picture. questions? the microphone will come to you, and i'm going to ask you for the microphone to come so that you can tell us who you are and your affiliation. over here. >> hi. my name is mario hernandez, i'm

the director of public affairs at western union. i work with a lot of immigrants here in the u.s. and internationally, in mexico and central america. and i would like to raise the issue of immigrant entrepreneurship. secretary gutierrez talk about the circularity and how immigration reform will create jobs here in the u.s. and how important it is to create economic opportunities back home. so what i d immigrants -- immigrants are entrepreneurs. and not only workers, but i know a lot of people who have come here to the u.s., and they are creating jobs in new york, chicago, los angeles and many places. so i think that the issue of immigrant entrepreneurship should be encouraged, promoted and supported. but secretary gutierrez also

mentioned that many people are thinking about going back home, and these immigrants are after spending some years here in the u.s., after saving money, they want to create jobs in their home communities so that diaspora investment should be something that should be promoted, encouraged and supported. and if you have any comments regarding this, i would appreciate it. thank you. >> yeah. i think everything you mentioned is, is right on target. you know, when we had a legal system for immigration that was right for the times, we had to go back a long time, there was a lot of circularity. and very positive circularity. people would come and work for several years and then go to, go home with a few dollars, perhaps

some new skills that would be applied in that economy and would be of benefit to the region. today circularity has almost stopped because our legal system is broken. people don't want to leave because they may not be able to get back in. so all of the unintended consequences that you can imagine are happening today because our legal system is not working. that's why the first step is immigration reform, and that's why we support the senate bill, and we think that needs to get through as quickly as possible so we can have a foundation that we can build on. but i agree with what you said and very good points. thank you. >> let me add a couple of data that may demonstrate the point that secretary gutierrez just made. you know, until the 1950s over

50% of the people who had immigrated to the united states had actually gone back. so people do not always come work here, bulled families here -- build families here, retire here and die here. part of the reason that in the last 20 years or so we have seen a pattern that is moving more in the direction of what i just said -- come, stay, etc., etc. -- is because we have an immigration system that does not really look very favorably upon mobility. it blocks people in whether it's the border, the hardening of the borders, or for that matter the visa system the way it exists. this is not going to change dramatically. we're still an immigration country. our narratives are all about people wanting to do all of the

things that were discussed. you know, including retiring here and dying here. but increasingly, a small but growing proportion of immigration is going to be more like mobility immigration rather than immigration immigration. and i think what the secretary was very articulate and insistent on including in the report, and the report i think does a good job of discussing this, we have to create opportunities for people to actually go back, invest some of their savings, fail and still be able to come back. i mean, ultimately, this is what you want to create if you're going to think about the opportunities and the advancement of the region. >> andrew, i think you wanted to -- >> let me adjust a couple of questions to mario's question and to what dmitri and the secretary have already said.

one is i think if you look at the numbers, there's a disproportionate amount of small business creation done by immigrants in this country both by well educated immigrants, high-tech, all of that, but also by less educated immigrants. there is something about immigrant entrepreneurship that has worked in this country, and it goes back, you know, it goes back decades if not longer, and it continues to work. immigrants are disproportionately likely to go out and start small businesses. if you look at patents, immigrants play a role in this. on the returning side, and i know, mario, you've been involved with some of these experiments, there is a growing number, and this happens organically of immigrant organization particularly in mexico and el salvador who support small business creation back home. people have invest ld, they have saved up $20,000, $40,000, and they've invested in their small communities back home. some of these fail, some of these succeed, but increasingly

there's a movement towards organizations doing this, um, in mexico we've seen support from some states and the mexican government to actually try and support these initiatives as well in ways that allow them to become sustainable and allow small businesses to look for new marks to figure out how to get registered legally. to there's a -- so there's a lot we can do in this country. we've seen some states try and encourage small business creation by immigrants. there's a lot that can be done in mexico and central american countries in terms of helping immigrants here actually be successful when they invest, right? and make sure that these businesses actually plus up. not going to change the whole economy, but it may change small towns that have no other opportunities. and in addition to that, you have the circularity question, how you figure out people who have actually come to this country and worked for a while can go back home and then plug themselves in productively in their chosen profession in the mexico, guatemala, honduras and el salvador. so that's something that all of our countries need to think

about together. but there's some huge opportunities. >> one more thing about circularity. there are a million u.s. immigrants in mexico that are also part of circularity. they're there for two years, four years, six years, they come back to the u.s., and they also come back with new skills. so it works both ways. >> i think -- oh, right here. >> good morning. i'm jill wheeler from the hispanic access foundation, and thanks for such a fascinating report. and can i'm very interested to hear more about how you see some of these recommendations being implemented, what areas -- since they are so complex crossing agencies, countries, where do you see the most potential, and where can civil society leaders support and take action around the implementation of these recommendations? >> all right. dmitri, you take a shot at that. >> are yeah. you will see that the report because it has to be a

conservative report meaning we do not want to be talking, you know, up in the air in the rarefied part of the atmosphere so that people say, well, this doesn't make much sense. we have identified three or four areas, sectors, if you will, which have been growing and will continue to grow, we think, throughout the region where each of the countries of the region can be making sustained investments. and they're, you know, air sectors that make an awful lot of sense. for instance, the entire health delivery system. we're not talking about doctors, but we're talking, you know, from nurses' assistants to nurses. logistics. everybody wants to move produce and products throughout the region. and we need to do this efficiently, and we need to do it in a way that product or produce gets from point a to point b, however far it is, very

expeditiously. advanced manufacturing, mexico is producing more engineers today, i think, than the united states is. so these are areas which are all investing, and there is an enormous advantage to us to begin to think together about how to invest smartly on that. the way we do that, we suggest, is by having some pilot programs initially where some of these people get educated and trained to common standards this is very difficult to do. that's why we suggest we start with pilot projects. but we have already identified some unions, universities, etc., who are really keen to try to do that. so i'm sorry about the noise. so the whole idea there is to begin to demonstrate through

policy projects -- i'm not doing, i'm not moving at all -- [laughter] through pilot projects that this can be done, that mutual advantages can happen, and i will stop talking because maybe as i, you know, punctuate my words, you know, the microphone is unhappy. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> also your question dealt with what's the next step and what can you do about it. i think you start in this country with the immigration bill that's pending before the congress. finish -- and there are ngos and private citizens and different groups like that can play an enormous role in moving that along, because all of those who have been negative on any kind of immigration, enlightened immigration policy you can be sure are up there now, are going to continue to put pressure on members of congress, and so you have to build a political -- [inaudible] to give the other side of the

story. i think in the other countries, central america and mexico, the same kind of political action needs to be taken. and in mexico, for example, the ngos when i went there as ambassador had zero effect in influencing their government. and they felt they had zero effect. now i think it's much different, and so expressing yourself to your government and encouraging all the governments, as dmitri said, to start coordinating, build these pilot projects, this issue of english language which we also emphasized in the report is not that we are trying to enforce glush on everybody else -- english on everybody else. the fact is english is the language of business, english is the language of investment all around the world. and if you rig narnt in that -- ignorant in that language, you're going to not have the same opportunity. to -- so putting pressure on your own governments is very,

very important. >> [inaudible] >> yep. this is one of the typical areas in which we need a regional understanding of how the problems are evolving and what the solutions that are working are working in particular circumstances. and even if dmitri doesn't like political scientists for what he said before -- [laughter] we do need a very high level of political dialogue amongst not only our governmental officers, but also amongst the people who can delve into the solutions. and let me give you just a simple example. in the so-called war against drugs -- and we're trying to move away from this type of concept -- the emphasis on

interdiction that that the united states has placed on the rest of the region implies a burden on domestic budgets in many countries requiring loads of money with dubious effectiveness in different areas of security controls, money that could be dedicated to education, to infrastructure, to health services, etc. so we need to share amongst ourselves strategic visions and how to better allocate our resources although each country responds to very specific domestic pressures. >> hector? >> i just want to add one example to build on what dmitri just said. if you take the example of a

nurse or a nurse's aide, we should be capable of insuring that the education of a nurse in mexico, that those standards fit the requirements of a nurse in the u.s. and if we have a shortage of nurses -- which we do -- then there has to be a mechanism whereby we can work together to have that positive circularity. because the nurse may stay for four years, go back to mexico with new skills. and that's what, that's how we foresee the future and the kind of collaboration across governments. >> mr. ambassador, did you have a question? no? okay. here in the middle. >> thank you. my name is sylvia --

[inaudible] from costa rica. i came all the way from costa rica just to be here today. i work for an organization in costa rica called the business association for development, i'm the director. and there are similar organizations in all countries in central america. we're doing corporate/social responsibility, and we think migration has all to do with being responsible with society. i'd like to know what are the plans, or better, are there any plans to share and discuss the report's conclusion with the region? and not just governments and migration authorities, but also with the private sector and civil society? because we really need to take this discussion and in this approach to our countries. thank you. >> well, let me begin that answer, and then i think maybe dmitri might want to amplify it.

in the first place, the report is being translated into spanish, so it will be fully available. secondly, we will be doing a trip to the region. we will be going to mexico, we will be going to central america in the next two months or so. exactly for the purposes that you outline. this is a discussion that needs to happen throughout the region, and it certainly needs to happen within central america and within mexico. so we will try to be a catalyst for that. we'd love to see you afterwards. and we very much see this as a, as a document and as a conversation starter on things that need, ultimately, to be owned by each of our societies individually and then collectively. dmitri, do you want to add? >> yes. this is a superb comment, and i don't know whether i'm sorry

that, you know, you had to fly all the way to hear from costa rica, but thank you for it. but the business community is a critical element in this, in crafting some of the report. we had in mind clearly what the europeans call the social partners. worker organizations must participate in this, the business community must be integral, not participate in this, integral as we move forward on this. and stakeholders of all types, including civil society or particularly civil society, must do what civil society at its best does well which is hold governments and the other actors accountable, push for the kinds of things that goths and the -- governments and the business community and work organizations know that they have to do. if we are going to move to the

future that we have in mind and that the report proposes. >> i think i saw another hand at this same table, or maybe it's here. okay. >> good morning, everyone. >> a second. here comes the mic. no, it's fine. >> good morning, everyone. my name is dustin, and i worked in older adult services in southern california for the last ten years, and i thought it was real interesting to hear the statistics in guatemala and honduras, how the population, 70% is over the age of 30. there's an aging tsunami in the united states where our population's aging very quickly. i was curious as to what the population looks like in mexico and kind of maybe what you guys have looked at as far as what opportunities there might be and how many of these older adults kind of go back and forth between mexico and the united states and other countries. and just the second question, a brief question just out of curiosity, i know in professional soccer you see a lot of, um, a lot of mexican national teams scouting players, latinos here in the united

states and vice versa, you see a lot of players switching national teams. so it seems like maybe they're a step ahead in seeing individuals going back and forth. just curious if you looked at that on your study. >> sports has a way of doing that. [laughter] would you like to comment on that? i'm sorry, secretary. >> quickly, the demographics in mexico have changed dramatically. the population growth or the birthrate is slightly above what demographers call the, you know, fertility replacement rate. so there will come a moment, a time in the not-too-distant future where we will not have as many mexican immigrants, and mexico will have to become an immigrant-receiving country. also strategically looking at the skills that they need in order to be able to grow. that is a tremendous change.

and that's why part of our recommendation is that these countries also modernize their immigration systems to get ready for that future. the other positive side of circularity, because we call it positive circularity, we believe it is extremely positive, is that we're also mindful of the so-called brain drain. so that's why we say an example of the nurse, you know, we don't want to take every nurse away from mexico, but it would be great if, you know, to the positive circularity if after a period of time they went back to mexico or guatemala, salvador, honduras with more skills and contributed to their country. again, positive circularity. >> luis? andrew. >> two issues. the report emphasizes something very significant that secretary

gutierrez has mentioned twice, and the notion of circularity has not existed largely because it's so difficult to come pack to the u.s -- come back to the u.s. that nobody wants to leave. so that has created enormous incentive for people to come, bring their families and stay whereas if they are only coming to work temporarily, temporarily might mean a year or two or several, but they have the certainty that they can go and come back. then they have no incentive to bring their families. and everybody can remain back in their place of origin. so the issue, the big issues that are being discussed and have been discussed in the last couple decades in the will no longer exist if that process were certain. the other point that i'd like to drive out, and i think that's what the most innovative part of this report is that it is taking the region as a whole, it's looking at overall economic development, how can the

economies of the region complement each other so so that everybody wins as a result? and that means introducing significant changes and reforms not only in the issue at hand in the u.s. in immigration reform, but also in the areas that have been emphasized and mentioned here several times in economic development, in growth, in the rule of law and accountability in governance, in the other countries. mexico has daunting challenges in establishing the rule of law in dealing with the political decentralization that started 20 years ago because, nonetheless, not build the kind of institutions that need to exist for a decentralized society to operate. those kinds of things have to be worked out, and that's the kind of thing that the report emphasizes, and i think that's why it's such an interesting and -- [inaudible] concept as a whole. >> let me just -- sorry. a clarification, and i apologize

for my mismanagement of the english language. today with nicaragua have a demographic profile in which 70% of the population is below 30 years of age. whereas salvador has curved down their fertility rate considerably. sorry. >> let me just add one thing to your question. of the roughly one million u.s. immigrants living in mexico, probably a majority, a very large percentage are those who are live anything retirement there. and they're doing it for a variety of reasons. but that is an e enormous industrial economic opportunity for mexico and central america in the future. but that requires skills not only nursing skills, but also skills and new technology in delivering health care and things like that.

so you have first in the united states an aging population, you have in mexico soon to be an aging population, and you have the needs there and the cost of health care is getting larger and larger. so there's going to be more of a draw introcentral america, and -- into central america, and that's going to be a major economic opportunity for that region. >> over here. dmitri, did you have something you wanted to add? >> yes. i don't want to take the -- okay, let me just say three things. the one follows exactly on what jim said. you know, people very often think about talent and still in zero sum gains. this is a a possum gain that we're -- positive sum game that we're promoting. the examples are in nurses. not only because the united

states is aging, but because before mexico knows it, it will be aging. mexico is at the end of its demographic transition. two things are happening. not only will fewer and fewer new workers be entering the labor market of mexico, but more and more workers will be leaving it as they age out of the work force. these people will need nursing services, and that's extremely important. but because of the way the health costs have been going in the united states and mechanics coe and other parts of the world, one of the greatest opportunities that i am sure smart people in mexico have already figured it out is to actually provide in strategic locations also to medical services. not just for the agent. the same way that people today

go through all different parts of the world. they go to india to have an operate at a cost of one-fifth or one-tenth of what it costs to do so in the united states. and often they're operated upon by people who have graduated from american universities. the world is changing. that's what we're trying to emphasize here. that is why english is important. that is why common standards are important. that is why we have to be thinking in in the very near future at a time where mexico and us are likely to be competing for other workers from the region rather than us worrying about mexicans coming to the united states to work outside of legal frameworks. and mexico is already an immigration country and on its way to becoming a significant immigration country. if recent history around the world has taught us anything, it is that what used to take 30 or

50 years to happen which is a country leisurely becoming an immigration country, those things now take 10, 15 years. once the opportunity -- in other words, once all the basic ingredients for a country to become a major immigration country occur, and mexico already has most of them, countries actually fill up with immigrants seeking the same kind of opportunity. the mexicans have sought in the united states in the past 30 or 50 years. >> okay. we're going to have that have to have been the last question, i'm sorry to say. so we'll unviolate the rest of you who might -- invite the rest of you who might want to ask questions to come forward after the event, and we'll have one-on-one conversations. wu aisle going to turn now to andrew to give us a concluding sendoff. >> thank you to doris and dmitri and everyone at the migration policy institute for all the

work in putting this together. on behalf of the wilson center, it's been a privilege. and let me say special thanks to the members of the study group. this was a very dynamic group over time. we had two processes going on. one was the group coming up with all sorts of ideas on what needed to be researched and the research going on and then bringing this to a close of thinking what are the recommendations here which is what you've seen today. so there's a great body of work if you haven't seen it yet, go back and look at some of the research reports which are really stand-alone exercises that deal with some of the specific issues in the report, but also look at the report itself that really brings some of the cutting edge issues here. let me finish with a few of the words that have been spoken by the panelists here. let me start with hope. this is a moment of hope. opportunity is a word that you heard several times. this is a time where demographics are changing in mexico and central america, economic prospects are changing, perhaps violence patterns are changing, it's less clear. but it is a moment of hope and

opportunity in those countries not without challenges, as we've heard from some of the panel u.s.es. it's also a moment of hope and opportunity in this country. it's a moment where we are talking about these issues. and it is a time where there's hope and opportunity to think together cruttively about how do we get beyond migration as a problem and begin thinking of migration as an opportunity to enhance our competitiveness and to create jobs in all of these countries. positive circulation, you've heard from secretary gutierrez several times, the notion that we can actually create positive circularity among our countries. some people will still immigrate, and we want to be an immigrant country, but also positive circularity that allows people to come and go and perhaps develop skills along the way. economic growth, and i will come back once again to hope. this is a time where we can start having some of the big conversations. yes, we will be for the next few months embroiled in very specific conversations in the u.s. congress about imuation reform in mexico -- immigration reform in mexico and the central

american countries. there are specific discussions going about real challenges that people face and real challenges for policy, but this is a moment of hope and opportunity where we can begin to think big. hopefully, this report puts some ideas on the table that are creative, that are a little bit out of the box and that are worth a conversation within this region and that we're only starting to have. so thank you again to co-chairs and the members of the study group, and thank you to all of you for attending. [applause] ..

>> after the egyptian revolutiof president mubarak. last year a chechens elected morrissey -- egyptians elected president morsi. in america foundation love him s at 12:15 eastern time. and congress returns today after a weeklong recess. the house will work on bills under suspension of the rules and on wednesday the house will host a joint meeting of congress to hear from the president of korea. also on the agenda in the house, a bill allowing employers to grant comp time instead of overtime hourly workers. you can watch the house live on c-span. here on c-span2 we will take you live to the senate floor at 2:00 eastern a senators plan to work

on internet sales tax bill which would allow states to collect sales taxes for things that state residents purchase online. a vote is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. for more we talk to capitol hill reporter. >> host: gautham nagesh, what is going on in the congress when it comes to online sales tax? >> guest: just before they left for the recess the senate keep up legislation that would allow states to require that online retailers charge a sales tax for purchases, even for people who by out of state. essentially an online retailer here in d.c. would have to charge a sales tax for, say, michigan when someone from michigan bought a product from them online. >> host: isn't going to pass tragedy it looks very likely it will pass the senate. we're almost certain of that because it has passed closure twice and it has about three quarters of the chambers of support. the house has -- they're still

resistance. the house leadership is not fond of tax increases or anything perceived as a tax increase. there's concern about the invitation of the bill itself, how difficult it would be for online retailers. but i think it's fair to say this is something that has momentum, it's going to get a strong look. if it doesn't happen this year i think it's something we could see in the next year or two. >> host: what is the name of the vehicle or the bill that they are debating? >> guest: it's called the marketplace fairness act and that's part of their income of fairness. they say between online retailers and brick-and-mortar retailers. mike enzi, lamar alexander and dick durbin and senator in the particular has been focused on this issue for something like a dozen years. this is something that's been around since the mid '90s. senator durbin is a very passionate. in the house would've represented steve womack, a republican who is also very strongly of the bill.

>> host: why steve womack, a republican from arkansas. is there a wal-mart factor? >> guest: wal-mart is very strong in favor of this bill as most retailers. the road right now is that you have to charge the sales tax. if you have a physical presence in the state. wal-mart has stores in most states i believe and so, therefore, they have to turn to online sales tax for every state essentially. amazon.camazon.c om used to go oppose this are heavily. they have seen their physical presence increase and they've had to charge the tax and more states. best buy, big retailers, they are already collecting sales tax. they believe they're at a disadvantage to online retailers that don't. >> host: is this considered a revenue bill? wouldn't that have degenerate, start and house before god debated in the senate? >> guest: that is a point of contention that the small group of senators who opposed the bill who include mostly senators from

states that don't have the sales tax currently. they have tried to introduce some amendments that would cause a blue slip of the bill and, therefore, it's a bit technical but essentially senator durbin has framed this as not a tax revenue bill. this is essentially an administrative bill that states the authority to extend something that is already giving. the argument is the sales tax is not new, consumers own sales taxes when they buy products on amazon.com or anything else if they're not charge. most consumers did not remove the sales tax as they're supposed to when they file their tax returns, that doesn't change the fact that you're. that is the contention of the sponsors. we may see that up in the house if the opposition coalesces. >> host: and gautham nagesh, what are the arguments against this bill and he was leading that charge? >> guest: as i said the senators from the state's that

do not have a sales tax strongly oppose this and that's a pretty broad coalition. senator baucus who was the finance committee chairman, he says his committee was bypassed with this bill which is somewhat true. senate majority leader brought it directly to the floor rather than send it to the regular process. however, as i said, he opposed the bill. montana does not have a sales tax. senator wyden of oregon has also been strongly opposed to the. he's from the more liberal wing of the senate that he has framed this as forcing businesses to take over government responsibility, again oregon does not have a sales tax. he has sought some exception for those sorts of states and the retailers. the problem with that, senator enzi point2.com if certain states are not forced to comply, then by all likelihood those states will become the center of online retailing because everyone will move there where they do not have to charge a sales tax. >> host: is there any estimate of the revenue that could be raised? >> guest: $23 billion is the

number being thrown around. that money would be sales taxes that are out of their not being paid to that would go to states, counties, localities, whoever collects sales tax is. >> host: are there still companies that are not charging sales tax on internet purchases transferred absolutely. i think it's fair to say most companies, big companies, big retailers to answer the majority of online purchases. maybe not the majority but gradually an increasing number of online purchases have sales tax assessed. however, most retailers still do not, they are not required to, especially when selling out of state so they generally only collect from purchases and state. >> host: what about international purchases trigger international purchases, there are some things like the vat and other countries which resemble a sales tax and often we purchase things physically in other countries you can apply to have those remitted at customs. it really depends on these things are not enforced uniformly. a lot of countries don't have a

sales tax. there is an argument online retailers will move abroad. that's a valid concern and we could see enforcement on that and also. >> host: . the senate bill is expected at 5:30 p.m. eastern time. cq roll call wrote about the bill this morning also saying that it's expected to pass the senate by a wide margin but that it faces uncertain prospects in the house. supporters are hoping for help for majority leader eric cantor and judiciary chairman bob goodlatte whose home state is counting on revenue from online sales to fund transportation projects. if congress does not pass an internet sales tax measure, virginia law requires gasoline taxes to go up by 5.1% in 2015. instead of the planned 3.5%. that news again from cq roll call. you can watch live coverage of the senate 2:00 eastern time here on c-span2.

the house will be an admin with live coverage on c-span. spent a discussion on news coverage of mass casualty events. this is from an event hosted recently by columbia university school of journalism. reporter stockeu lessons learned from columbine and virginia tech as well as at sandy hook and the boston marathon bombings. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> we are at the last panel of the day where does the story go from here? we're going to sort of opened the conversation to new perspectives, new directions. where does the story go from here locally, for newtown, the danbury area, connecticut. where does the story go from here for the nation? where does the story go from here for reporters? had to rethink about individuals

and families and communities? where she would be looking as journalists? what kind of choice is should we be making for ourselves? wide open panel. we also as has already come up a few times, have now overlaid on sandy hook, another crisis, that in boston. we'll talk a little bit about that. so just to introduce everybody briefly, i'm not going to take too much time. i want to maximize the time for discussion. might immediate right is dave cullen. we have a copy of colons here today. dave cullen who is the author of "columbine," "the new york times" bestseller, which reflected a decades worth of reporting into the background and aftermath of the columbine school shootings. and one more awards than the

courtesy. i will say that dave cullen is a dark center offer a fellow. as is beth macy from the "roanoke times." i think i first met the best in the aftermath of virginia tech shootings, which she covered for the paper and is going to bring some thoughts on what the long-term picture looks like, and long-term trajectory from that. she's a families beat reporter othe report ofthe "roanoke timee has worked since 1989. columbia university, raise reporting prize and she was a 2010 fellow in journalism, nieman fellow at harvard university. she also now is working on a book which when it comes out you just all have to buy. candice kane, next to her, jd ph.d, imposing letters after her name.

candace is the chief operating officer of cure violence, public health initiative in chicago which supports community-based and citywide violence prevention. if you saw the film the directors, you saw the fruits of cure violence is labor. on the streets of chicago, aiming to reduce the incidence of gun violence and all of the public health catastrophes that follow from that. next to her, my new haven neighbor, doctor stephen merrin's -- dr. steven marans. the harris professor of child and family dramatic, harris professor child psychology a professor of psychiatry at the child study center at yale. use the director of the national center for children exposed to violence. the founder of the child development committee policing

program which i first became aware of when it was a child witness to violence project. no? >> that's all right. >> founder of the child development committee please and program, a pioneer in collaboration between mental health and law-enforcement professionals providing collaborative response to children and families exposed to violence and trauma that occurs in their homes, neighborhood and schools. next to steven is the other, is kevin cullen, columnist for "the boston globe." he's been a reporter out the globe since 1985 on pretty much every beat you can imagine, cops reporter, legal affairs correspondent, foreign correspondent. he is really here for a couple of reasons. the proximate reason obvious is the events in boston within the last few days, inoffensive

brings us full circle, but kevin and i have spent a lot of time talking about another series of dramatic events. he covered the conflict in northern ireland and has a particular sense of how tragedy can play out in the long run. and, finally, last but by no means least and really bring the story home in a sense is jacqueline smith, the managing editor of the news times of danbury. the major daily paper in the town any adjacent to new 10. she's been a reporter current day of new london, the record journal. she was also city editor and assisting managing editor. she has a big pile of awards. she teaches journalism at our has taught at university of harper in southern connecticut state. and actually, jaclyn, i'm going to begin with you because this is your story. this is your local store and

your paper from the first moments that the word came out, make strategic choices about where to go from there. that's what we've been asking every day pretty much since december 14. where do you see the story going in newtown, and for your reporters, over the next few months? where d do you think we're goin? >> if i could respond this way, and thanks for getting the chance to do that, you remember this morning the lieutenant was talk about the need for police to corral journalists, keep us all together. well, that's not how we do our job. and i want to remind everyone that when we report that way, then we're at a situation where we are waiting every 90 minutes to get a feed from police. we're not going to get all the truth that way. we're just going to get the official statements. and so i direct my reporters, yes, someone to go to the press

conference but don't just wait for that information together to get out there and talk to people. and piece together the story. and sure, initially there were many items that were not correct, but i also want to remind budding journalists here that you keep are suing anyway. because even the police were getting details wrong. we saw that when affidavits came out, they were sealed and they came out two weeks ago. there were some items like at first we thought adam lanza was a teenager. he wasn't the things in the long run didn't make any difference but as you report, as the story develops and to move along, you get closer and closer to the truth. truth is always elusive. as far as where we're going, we will keep reporting the story on many levels. it comes down to people coping with an unthinkable tragedy, and we have to help the community do

that, too. we do it not just with the surface level stories, how to disperse the millions of dollars that have come in and all the thousands of teddy bears, too. but also how does the community redefined itself? you hear people and you can say we don't want to be known as this neighborhood tragedy people. we are newtown. we are strong. so the role of the paper is to help that and to keep informed, keep pushing and prodding. so that's the gated part of the story as well as the human part of the story. >> as you look at sort your editorial calendar going for the next six months or year, what do you think, not that we can always no, but what are you looking at as kind of a major markers? where should we be paying attention, things likely to come up over the next period of time? >> in june, we expect that the

investigative report will be coming out. the investigators have said they think it would be june, so we will be pushing and hoping that that happens. we would hope with that, as elaine mentioned earlier, getting information about the journals that adam lanza kept. there were seven of them brought out of the house. maybe something would be revealed there. so that would be one of the first things. there's always the anniversary stories but we don't really like that as a hook, but i think people in the community expect it. >> beth, let me turn to you. your paper was in a very analogous position in roanoke, right next to blacksburg, the major responsibility for being the local voice. talk all of it about where you saw the story going for the paper, for the staff as reporters and the role the paper played in the months and years after that. talk about this.

>> i can relate to a lot of what you say because here we were, we felt this was living in our backyard. i think five under satellite trucks and there's probably a little bit better than what you all experience because i understand it was really just one or two rows, everyone was really close together and virginia tech is a big campus. and also the families were all over virginia and elsewhere. there were lots of locales to go out to. maybe a bit more breathing room, but other than that the experience seems very, very italy similar. just a little bit about me. i have always been a feature writer for my 26 or so years and believe it or not i have never had to call a grieving family on the phone. people don't believe that but i never had to do it. so they after came into my editor gave me two names and i had to do, they just released the names. i had to do that story.

and i actually thought, if i quit i won't have to do that. [laughter] and i said to my friend who has done a lot of these, i took over in the corner and i said john, what do i do? he said call them up, tell them you're sorry and you want to talk. and by that point everybody was calling. i mean, the victim, the families that i got most attached to was a family in this community that we cover called narrow spit it's a very rural small town, 2000 people. and the community as the press came in and they found narrows and they found the house and they were parked up like in front of her house like train cars. that community just embraced her. they told the reporters to go away. i remember one of them, i found out later one of the men in our church went over and said to a "chicago tribune" reporter, i know you think you're from a tough town and all, but if you

go messing with tracy, you see what a tough town is. so that's kind of what we're up against. opera personally was calling these families. and i wrote the story that i could get. i've been there a long time. a bad thing about being in one place where longtime and being a reporter is you can't go out and get half-and-half in your pajamas in the morning. but when something like this happens, like you know some of you know. so that's what we did. we just triangulated. i had a friend who happened to know the principle of this high school and it turned out okay, the family didn't want to talk. they were getting ready for this funeral at the high school. he had been the valedictorian. he lettered in four sports. he was the life of the 10. it just gotten a full scholarship for graduate school and it just testified in his church that sunday, the day before. and so the media, i just happen to find a from a friend of a friend that that's what they're

doing. so i got the story i could get at every journey a long the way. about three weeks later i wrote a story about the engineering department and how they were trying to do final grades when eight of the professors had been killed and the graduate students. eight professors and graduate students. and numerous other students at how is it going to do the grades? by then they were willing to talk to me. so i just tried to go to every level to get them to talk when they were ready and not to have them when they said not to have them. our editors sent a great know, and i know you're the same kind of editor. this was -- i don't think anybody had slept. she wrote a note saying i know all these trucks are here and everybody is pressuring you all, but i just want you to remember they believ will leave and we ag to still be here and people won't remember if we got this first. they will remember the way we treated them.

and that was really a remarkable statement at the time, and it meant a lot. she'd brought massage therapist in. we were, maybe a week later, we were encouraged to talk to counselors, which i think some people did. i was talking to a friend of mine last night who lives here and is a cnn reporter and he was covering all this with me and that is going to the same kind of stuff, and he's now covered sandy hook, and he covered superstorm sandy, and he gets in very deep with his subjects. and one of the things he said that he tells people when he is trying to get them to be interviewed in the immediate aftermath is that when they see not the best case stories happened like sticking a microphone and a family that clearly doesn't want to talk, he said the action have to call a police over and then they don't

want to talk anybody. and he actually said to them, i'm not in the entity. i'm a person. and i thought that was like he was a very direct. like i've covered this kind of thing before. but i guess my advice going forward is, to get the store you can. and then also i want to talk a little bit about self-care which came up with it in the last, in the last session. and i think it was helpful that each of the families, like they didn't have to deal with, had to deal with all the media coming in, but because we had a signed family it helped a lot you just have to do with one person from our news organization and that seemed to help. i think, some of the advice i think some folks in your paper called and gave us just advice looking at. we got support, we got a care package in the mail from the people who covered the oklahoma

city bombing. we have somebody from your newspaper call and said here's what you should do, here's what you should not do. that meant a lot to people. but in terms of self-care, my friend at cnn was saying as he drove back to newtown county arrived here at 2 a.m. and he had a stored to file the next day at four and had to download is footage. and he said, and he hadn't slept in three days. and he said, he got a ticket for the train to d.c. so he could work on his story with his favorite person, his sister. he had to be with somebody who understood him and he had to be where he was safe. and i thought that was just really great advice. psych as if i could talk to the reporters who are covering this and looking forward, i would say take care of yourself and take care of each other. talk to your editor, find editor who will take your a levantine e-mail and respond to you by 11:30, and find the people who

have done this kind of work before and reach out to them. >> what kinds of stories did, as you got past that breaking news day and then ended up toward universes and so on, what kind of stories that seem to resonate for the community? what kind of choice is did that make? >> well, we had different teams. we had, mike was carved and mental-health. we have somebody in richmond covering what was going on there with the gun show loophole. it was very well organized. a story i did maybe six months later, i did a profile of the poet who became sort of the spokesman for the university. she did we are virginia tech. a real healing moment, the day after the shootings i believe. she hadn't been willing to talk at the time, but six months later she's willing to tell and

she basically said everything i'm including the controversial part of her story. she had been, she had been the theater teacher and she'd been the one that won him kicked out of her classroom because the other students were really uncomfortable with some of things he was writing. and so going back later committee somebody doesn't want to talk to you in the first three or four months, but go back maybe six was later. so she will recounting what it's like when she is kind of this radical poet. and the administration was very nervous that she was up, speaking and sitting next to president george bush. she said she gets into her soft, don't poke the president, don't poke the president. [laughter] >> those are the kind of things people don't feel free to share with you. and i think also people who say no, you, people change their mind. so go back later and see. you know, with respect.

>> we can come back to lessons from virginia tech. stephen, you have been looking for years now, families and community in the aftermath of violence, and you were supportive behind the scenes in newtown as well. where do you think journalists, what are the stories that are going to be important to be told in this next phase? i get the feeling it was wrong but even more so stuff on the agenda that should be there. >> well, the perspective i guess i bring is working directly with families and communities, not just newtown directly, but new haven and other locations around the country, post 9/11, with colleagues in new york city. post-katrina and hurricane rita, our team has been involved lots

of awful events. and i was thinking when i first went to newtown on the friday evening, that i felt like i was having a bit of déjà vu, because reminded me of going to jonesboro in the early 90s with the multiple satellite vans, et cetera. and as i had been listening today, i have been thinking about what is it that so particular, why are we even having this meeting? i mean, i think there are obvious reasons but they are enormously informative, and did some of what we've learned over the years. ..

>> that experience changes the way we think, the way our brains operate. and it's one of the reasons why there are so many normal symptoms that follow. and if we use that as an anchor, then maybe we can think about the ways in which as a country when we are hit by something that so unanticipated, so uncontrollable, so unavoidable and leaves us all feeling so terrified and helpless, why it is that we have such a difficult time and how our responses are a reflection of what we share. so the challenges, it seems to me, is something of a tension on

two levels. one is knowledge, we hope, is a tool for mastering, right? but what happens when we don't have knowledge and we don't have information because it's not available to allow us to master? it came up in the earlier panel when we were talking about red flags. we go to red flags, we go to diagnoses and, by the way, it's not just the questions the media asks, it's the answers that professionals give when they don't have data, but they're willing to give diagnoses and speculate. [laughter] which i actually find enormously dangerous. but why are people doing that? because if we have an answer, then we can undo the very nature of our helplessness and the very terror of being so out of control. but does it help us? and i would suggest the answer is, no. that what it actually does is allow us to sidestep or help us to try to sidestep what we're

all dealing with and sharing because we're human beings, which is the awfulness of what has occurred and the awfulness of our helplessness. so i do think that media plays an enormously important role and will continue to play a role which is we don't talk, we have a policy in our -- at yale in terms of our trauma work. we don't talk to journalists about the specific work we do in the community in which we're operating in the same way that as a psychoanalyst i would never talk to a journalist about a patient with whom i'm working. but what we did do, and we did a lot of interviews postnewtown as we've done in the past, is when journalists are asking how do you help parents, how do you help adults think through, anticipate and take care of themselves, how do they support each other, how does a community come together, i think this has been just such an incredibly important and useful role that

the media's played not just post-newtown, but in any event that we've been involved. where i think the tension is that there's something of a live wire effect. that is, that we are drawn, compelled to search for answers that help us feel better. not consciously, but aim to get us grounded in ways that can't be achieved. and so for those people who sit glued to to their televisions for days at end and are symptomatic, we tell them, turn your television off. the stimulation is not fulfilling the mastery function, it's actually rearousing the very circuits in our brains that keep us feeling agitated and vulnerable and keep us isolated from each other. so at one level there's a challenge about what is it that we're looking for while also wanting to provide as much

information as is available. but here's the other tension. what about the community itself? and what are are needs of the broader community, the country, and what's the impact of those needs being fulfilled on the community that is the most direct victim? and i'm not just talking about the families that lost loved ones, but the families of children who witnessed the carnage. what's the impact if we know, for example, that two of the most powerful predicters for recovery are identification, three, social support and return to normal routines and that the absence of those will actually increase the level of symptomtology and predict the failure of recovery, how do we square that with the media presence that was in newtown or

anywhere else for the length of time and the level of disruption that occurred? i'm not suggesting i have an answer, but i am suggesting it poses a problem. and to your wonderful, um, vignette about the assignment to interview a grieving family, it's the easy ones when we see reporters sticking cameras in victims' faces. but that one's a tougher one. and i was delighted to hear your solution. because being able to talk about what you knew about this extraordinary young man allowed you to sleep at night. and the idea is why is it that at that moment do we need to be asking a grieving family to tell us how they're feeling? i don't think we need to be critical of ourselves, because actually there are good reasons why we want to know and why these events stir up so much.

because these are the events that there but by the grace of god go thee. it's the terror that's struck in all of us. and lastly, the problem and the reason i raise thed the question -- raised the question earlier is wouldn't it be a silver lining or a potential growth curve if what could come out of a tragedy like this is that we pay attention, really pay attention as a country, as journalists, as people from all walks of life to the children and families and individuals who are affected by violence in this country every single day even if they don't look like us, don't live in the neighborhoods that we'd want to live in or talk or walk, etc. so these are the real opportunities, and they're also the opportunities to no longer just be helpless, but to then turn our attention to the fact that we have solutions to, as

jim was pointing out, the majority of the types of violence that affect the greatest number of people every day. >> thank you. and we may circle back and press you for some specifics on imagining what stories like that might look like. this is a good bridge to you, candice. violence does believe in intervention and action, and you've been watching not only newtown, but the national gun debate play out and all this sort of thing. what have you been thinking not only about where the newtown story needs to go, but where the narrative momentum of this should go? if news organizations, if individual journalists are looking to seize on this moment and help tell some stories that need to be told, what are they? >> thanks, bruce. actually, we don't work in the

environment that is, has been discussed today. and i'm sitting here thinking we're a bit of a fish out of water. and yet we work in the environment that steve just alluded to and that jim mcmillan talked about earlier. we work in those neighborhoods that are impacted every day. we had more than 500 killings last year in chicago. now, if a killing involved a child, it was big news. and when we got into wig -- big numbers, we became big news. but i can't tell you how many times someone is shot and killed, and there's no news pause it's just what happens every day -- because it's just what happens every day in so many of our neighborhoods. so we look at violence as a learned behavior, something that's reinforced by peer expectations and is not kept in check by the social norms of the community where it's occurring. we take a public health approach to it. we look at, you know, those people who are most closely associated with the violence and

try to identify, intervene with them, change the way they think, change the way they behave. we also look at events that lead to violence. and we want to interrupt those. and, again, change those norms and those expectations of the community that make it okay for those things to happen. you know, so it's a bit different, and yet i guess if we -- unfortunately, we've had enough of these incidents of, you know, in sandy hook and at virginia tech, start looking maybe there are some things where we can be looking for common elements there as well so that we can anticipate and intervene and do some things that would stop, you know, these from happening. but right now in cities like chicago, philadelphia, baltimore, new orleans, oakland where we're active, new york city, we're active in neighborhoods here, we do know that there are things that we can do. we can work with the people most closely associated with the problem. hiring people, if you saw the interrupters which is also on front line, you hire people who

often used to be the problem themselves. they're credible with the folks that are right at the center of of the storm. folks that, you know, really no one else can reach. and then we apply motivational interview, offer cognitive restructuring techniques. there's a whole set of things we train people to do. very intensive training, a lot of data collection. we've been very fortunate to have multiple evaluations now in new york, chicago and baltimore showing that we add value to the work that law enforcement's already doing. this is not a substitute for law enforcement. we try to get to people before they kind of cross that line. it should be -- they should be held accountable for their behavior once they do cross the line. and we're having good success. so, you know, it's -- when i look at the press and i think, well, what can the media do to help with programs like ours, they can tell our story, let people know that there's another way of looking at this issue. and we're not the only ones using a public health approach.

i mean, this is really, it's a across the country now. l.a., a lot of cities have embraced it, a lot of really very progressoff police chiefs -- progressive police chiefs have really endorsed this approach as well. and i would say that, you know, you talk about going back and correcting. it's interesting that, you know, i'm sitting with, i think, a roomful of responsible journalists. but we've been impacted by what i would consider to be not so responsible journalists, because they put the first fact out, and they don't do fact checking, and they don't go back, and they don't correct. and when you're telling a story of a program like ours, it's really important to get it right. and if you don't get it right, then take responsibility for it, you know? so -- >> talk a little bit about how embracing a public health understanding of gun violence has shaped the work that you do. what does that really mean?

it's easy to throw that around. what does that really mean? >> we do look at this as an epidemic, violence as an end dem you can. something that -- epidemic. something that behaves like an epidemic. it's chussers in neighborhoods, you know? if you look at all of your crime data, hot spots, clusters just like epidemics would cluster. and it spreads. it starts and then becomes ip february white house. that's when we talk about it's learned. it's obviously something i don't touch steve and he becomes violent if i'm violent, but it's learned. and it's picked up. because if this is the way people behave in your neighborhood, if this is what you see in your family, if you yourself have been the victim in your neighborhood and trauma, you talk about trauma, you know, it's not just the people that we work with, it's the participants in the program, it's our workers as well. talk about care, you know, everybody has to be very vigilant to make sure that we have a system of care for all the folks that we work with.

and it's something, you know, i hate to say it, but we were a little late to the game with that, you know? we've only more recently been paying a lot more attention to the needs of our workers. because not only are they traumatized as a result of the work that they're doing, but the history they bring to the job that makes them so successful at their work. so you really have to be careful. and, you know, this isn't work that you do in perpetuity. it spreads, it it can be contaid then in the same way. this is why we talk about interrupting transition, helping people think differently, learn different ways of responding. you know, most of the violence that we see that leads to, unfortunately, leads to shootings and often killings in chicago and in these other cities where we're working, it's not about gangs necessarily. it's about poor impulse control, poor decision making, you know, a lack of opportunities and not thinking about the brain not having fully developed, you know? and sensation seeking sort of kicking in. i mean, just all these things.

you can talk more eloquently about it than i can. but all the stuff comes into play. we look at someone, they look tough, they think they're tough, but they're really not so tough, and they're not so right-thinking, and we need to help them furring out other ways of coping. >> okay. dave, you reported on columbine as a breaking story and then spent the next decade walking the cat backwards and reporting the story. you've now been watching this play out for the last couple of months and, indeed, boston in the last few days. what have you been thinking as you've been listening today and as you've watched the events, the remarkable events of the few months? what's on your mind? >> el, two big things -- well, two big things right at the moment. one, because i always like to start with an argument -- [laughter] i don't understand, steve, i don't understand the idea that it doesn't help, if i understood

you right, to understand why. or did you just mean the victims it doesn't help to understand, to answer the question why? >> no. i was trying to, um, number one, the fact is that -- and i think we saw this recently with newtown, that one of the things that was happening in the first few days as was pointed out earlier was that there was a search for diagnosis. >> right, right. >> and, actually, it was quite destructive to those people who had children with asperger's -- >> oh, sure. >> the diagnosis that was being touted. but i think we continue to seek a diagnostic reason, you know, a clear, set reason of motivation in part -- and i'm not suggesting we shouldn't be intrigued by it, it is intriguing, and it is fascinating because it is so, fortunately, unusual. mass murder is unusual. and it grabs our attention. we want to understand. what i'm suggesting is that there is a difference between

trying to understand and driving to understand as though it will fulfill our bush to be able to predict and, therefore, prevent. >> okay, okay. >> so that's the distinction i was trying to make. >> okay. and i didn't -- sorry, i kind of didn't mean to pick on you. or -- >> i didn't feel picked on. >> okay, good. >> i like to -- [inaudible] >> i was thinking from the earlier panel, too, and i get this, oddly enough i get it mostly from psychiatrists and psychologists of pushback of some of what i do of not wanting to diagnose or trying to, um, well, to label these people as either depressives or whatever that might be, psychopaths. one of the nbc news analysts is always sort of railing against that. and i think it is really useful. i don't, i think we have to be very careful in slapping a

diagnosis, especially doing it too early and irresponsibly, of course, if we get it wrong, then it's idiotic. but also if we do it, we just say, oh, the person is depressive, that's why he did it, that's not much of an answer. but i do think it's usually part of the answer. and if we're going to really understand someone, it really plays a big factor. the two people that i followed for the last 14 years and two days, one of them was deeply suicideally depressive, and that totally played a role in the fact that he was apparently gradually brought into the sort of orbit of a psychopath who was very sort of, had one mindset, was sort of of diabolical and planning to do this horrible thing, and, um, and i think the sort of, the susceptibility, the dependability and the mindset of the deeply depressive person, that played a huge role in it.

i don't think you can understand dylan yes bold without understanding his whole mental state. and i think as long as we do sort of a rich diagnosis and look into them, i think that's one of the most important things we can do. and i also think to understand these en masse, that's the only way to go about it. and i've been sort of, like, surprised in my work to discover from talking to hostage negotiators and a lot of forensic psychologists that most of the school shooters or most of the mass shooters tend to be deeply depressed. and suicideally depressed. and when people ask me the big lesson of columbine, i feel the big, main unlearned lesson is we haven't addressed depression. and, you know, we shouldn't be treating -- we should be treating depression, because it's a horrible thing. but also there's a huge motivation or public drive after these events to do something.

and if we can channel that into something useful which happens to be relevant, great. and, you know, the -- >> well, and that's the, the last part is the spurious correlation. >> okay. >> and all i was suggesting is, look, i think it's intriguing, and i think your work is intriguing. and i think wanting to know details about something that is so horrific is part of the live wire phenomenon. we want to try to master by understanding. i don't have a problem with that. i'm very cautious, and i wish more of my colleagues were more cautious -- >> oh, yeah, yeah. >> -- about the level of speculation. but i also think that you've said two separate things. >> okay. >> we have a problem in this country because we do not designate the level of resources to the people who need resources across multiple areas of difficulty that are well identified, and when they are not identified and then ignored or they're identified and ignored, then there are lots of

problems that ensue. the problem i have is with, and many of my colleagues have, a problem with the idea of suggesting that this, the dynamic you were just describing is necessarily generalizeable and, therefore, should be the motivation, the idea that we should be afraid that this dynamic is going to lead to the next column -- columbine, the next -- that's the concern i was trying to raise. >> dave, let me nudge you on another piece of this. we're now in the kind of phase two after the story has broken but before someone has written the ten-year book. and there's a lot that we still don't know. as you look back on the press coverage not only the breaking coverage in which the trench coat mafia was gotten wrong and all that, but the first few months of coverage, what kinds of lessons do you think there are that can be usefully applied

either to sandy hook or boston to make the narrative that journalists are constructing now more productive to serve news consumers and serve society and our need to understand or move forward in some sort of useful way? what do you think the journalistic lessons are? >> well, i think the simplest lesson is pretty simple, which is to avoid drawing conclusions. now, we know that we're always going to get a lot of it wrong, and in boston we've seen it played out so much each day, throw out half of the things we learned yesterday, and we've got a new set today. and that's what's going to happen. i mean, we get things, details as they happen, and we try to like, you know, we report what we know, and then we figure out some are wrong. i draw the distinction between facts and conclusions. and facts have less the staying power than conclusions. because if i told you, if i asked you right now how many

people think here that it was widely reported that 25 people had been killed at columbine? who thinks that? okay, there were 15 killed. a day after columbine, everybody in the country thought it was 25 because virtually every newspaper in the country ran with that headline because the goofball sheriff got it wrong. we've got an educated audience, but how many people think columbine was largely about, you know, goth loners, outcasts from the trench coat mafia who went on a spree to revenge jocks? how many people believe that? okay. some of them -- [inaudible conversations] i'm setting you up. but when i do this at high schools, at all sorts of different audiences, like 90% of the hands go up. so most people still think that's true. that has staying power because narratives and explanations have staying power.

once we figure out, oh, i get what's going on here, we remember that forever. we remember 9/11 happened because osama bin laden, you know? oklahoma city happened because of what was going on with tim mcveigh. those kinds of things stay in our mind. spurious facts, details, no. the fact that the perpetrator, the name was mistaken the first day, that was horrible for that kid. so that's a problem because it really sort of screwed up his life, although his life as the brother was going to be screwed up anyway. but in terms of long-term impact, no one's going to misremember it. you know, that name is not -- those kinds of facts, they don't stay. and while, of course, try to get a big fact right and try to get it as soon as possible, there's much less lasting danger from the facts that when you start connecting them and drawing conclusions and putting a reason behind it too soon. and there's just one thing, that's it. sort of keep an open mind and keep like, sort of all these things out on the table as

possibilities. when we get the journals out, do they have any estimate of when they're going to release those? have they put any kind of date on that? >> a report will be released in june, they say. >> and the journals are going to come with that? >> i don't know. >> yeah. those can take a long time. i don't remember, but did we ever get everything from joe? i mean, something was mailed to nbc, but did every -- >> it wasn't all released. we had a big report by the governor's commission. >> those were redacted. >> yeah. and with columbine it took more than seven years. it was a court battle all the way to the colorado state supreme court seven-plus years after that we get the journals. and, you know, so it could be a long wait. hopefully, i don't think that's going to happen here. but it can be a long time. and we were shocked when, i mean, even though i was shocked after i'd spent years on it and i'd done profiles about eric being, you know, depressed and all these different things.

when i actually got my hands on his journal and i got a couple pages, and there's about 8 or 10 pages -- i don't know if you can see of just full page hearts like this, i, you know, i just could not believe my eyes. and nothing really prepares you for understanding how much love as well as anger was in that boy's heart until i saw page after page of this with, you know, i love you on them, and some had lots of little different hearts. and i really didn't, i didn't get him -- i mean, i'll never fully get him, but i don't think i really got him completely until i saw in this more than seven years out. so you've got to really be open to the evolving evidence. and at some point, you know, we may hear more from their parents, and then we'll still understand and, you know, help to rewrite chapters of my book. but it's never, it's never a complete story. >> many -- kevin, we're coming full circle. i mean, at the beginning of the day before you got here we had some reporters reflecting on the

sort of first phase of coverage when the wounds of newtown were really fresh. and you, for you and your neighbors and your city these wounds are still super fresh, and the information is still coming out. and yet you as a journalist have covered the long trajectory of suffering as well as the breaking news. you've been listening here as people have talked about some of the issues coming out. you're thinking about your column for tomorrow, you're thinking about what's happened over the last few days. where do you see journalists in boston focusing their efforts now, and what are you thinking about yourself and where this story needs to go for you? >> um, i mean, i spent the last week or so kind of focusing on

victims and first responders, and i think there's a intersection between both of them. i think first responders are victims. and i think that -- i knew it was just in my newsroom, particularly some of the younger reporters were very upset. god, i'm as old as dirt. i mean, i covered -- [laughter] i was in the northern ireland when 28 people and two unborn twins were killed by a bomb by the real ira. and as i recall, it was the first time i ever cried on the job. i cried when i found these two women that they actually walked arm in arm down the street, and then they were killed in the blast. and i knew one of the iuc commanders at the time. and he told me their bodies were fused together. i started crying. that's the first time i ever cried on the job. but i remember the day after i

went down to give blood, and i had to wait five hours with so many people there. but then i covered london. i was, i was in london within, like, eight hourings of the bombing -- hours of the bombing. and i had lived in london for four years and felt, you know, it was one of my homes, and i cared about it deeply. and that was hard and all that. there were more than 50 people killed in the 7/7 bombings. but this is completely different. and i think the difference for me professionally is that, um, i knew so many of the first responders. they weren't just, they weren't my sources, they were my friends. the first night after, i mean, i wrote a really angry -- not an angry, i don't know what the hell you call that, i wrote a column after the first that day of what it meant. it went from a perfect day. it was so nice out. the red sox won with a walk off, the race was going on, and

everybody walked down to the race. and i said the only thing missing was the lou reed song, you know, "perfect day." and -- by the way, you look like -- [inaudible] anybody ever tell you that? [laughter] so, but that is just, in an instant it was gone. and after i filed few -- my column, i saw the film, and i recognized some of the firefighters. i saw them. i saw sean o'brien, friend of mine. he was driving over the barriers to get to people. so i remember i'll go down to the pub, the firefighters who run always go there after marathon day. there'll be 30 firefighters there. so outside on the sidewalks my buddy joe finn, he's the captain of rescue one, deputy, chief of rescue one. and i said, joe, jesus, i said, did you finish? he said, no, i was half a mile away, they stopped