i'm all for it. leave him alone. [laughter] now, who does the president she can to be the -- select to be the supreme commander? november 1943, it's getting a little late in the day, it's about time he decided who he supported to be the supreme commander for the liberation of europe. in cairo he summons george marshall to his suite, just the two of them. and as marshall described this meeting, the president beats around the bush at great length, ad nauseam, before he gets down to what he wants to sew marshall -- to see marshall about. and be he finally just says what do you think about the supreme command? now, george marshall hungers for this command, as i've said. this would mark the capstone of his career. and any general worth his salt wants to be a battlefield commander, not a paper push or. pusher. but he's also a monumentally modest man.

what does he tell the president? he says, i'll do whatever you say, whatever you think good for the country. at that point the president indicates that their meeting is over. marshall rises and heads toward the door, and just at that moment roosevelt says to him, i wouldn't be at ease without you in washington. george marshall knows that he is not to get the supreme command, and it goes to eisenhower. eisenhower after the war is viewed as the liberator of europe. he's elected president once, he's elected president again. george marshall, a truly great man, his image in the public consciousness has dimmed seriously since that period. let's talk a little bit about, perhaps, the most flamboyant pirg in the u.s. army -- figure in the u.s. army and maybe all the armies engaged in world war

ii, general george s. patton. george patton's a brilliant battlefield commander, but he can be a terrible, terrible human being. nevertheless, fdr holds him in very high esteem because he's impressed by the boldness, the dash, the package nation of a george patton -- the imagination of a george patton. so just before the campaign in north africa in which patton will play a very serious part, the president invites him to the white house. patton is an old cavalryman, and the president says to patton, george, are you going to slap tank -- excuse me, he said, are you going to slap a saddle on that tank of yours and go in with your saber raised? he just finds patton a fascinating character. they have a very cozy chat, and afterward the president writes a memo longhand describing this meeting, and he wants this memo

deposited here at hyde park among his papers. and he ends it saying george patton is a joy. not long afterward, patton gets in hot water. it's during the siciliano campaign. he goes -- siciliano campaign. he goes into two military hospitals in sicily, and he slaps two shell-shocked g.i.s. when this story is revealed, there is a huge cry back in the united states for patton's scalp. the president nevertheless sticks with george patton. and when he is asked by a reporter about the patton incident, slapping of the g.i.s, the president doesn't answer directly, he answers as he often does, with a parable. the parable here of the relationship between lincoln and general ulysses grant. and he points out that the president was criticized for elevating grant to such high status because grant was known

to be a drunkard. abe lincoln looks at this winning general and says, well, let's find out what it is that he drinks. [laughter] patton is viewed, essentially, in the same way. patton is like a star athlete who breaks all the training rules. he stays out all night, he gambles, he winches, but he wins ball games. and this is not a player that fdr is going to bench regardless of the furor created over patton's activities. i think at one point in patton's behavior during world war ii occurs at a point when his forces have driven across france. they've now entered germany. and patton knows that his son-in-law -- an officer by the name of john waters -- is a p.o.w. held by the germans in this camp not far distant. so he orders a rescue mission in

which 300 men approximately are sent as a forward group to go into germany, reach the walls -- breach the walls of this camp and snatch his son-in-law. colonel waters. as a result of this mission, 25 g.i.s are either killed outright or presumed missing and presumed dead. very expensive price to pay for trying to rescue his son-in-law. and that mission does not succeed. one more centurion i'd like to talk about is general omar bradley. bradley when the invasion of europe takes place, d-day, the normandy invasion, has half of the forces under his command in the south and the other half is

general bernard montgomery. eisenhower has shown very great, good judgment at giving this command to omar bradley. and you have this irony. at the beginning of the war, bradley is a subordinate of patton. but eisenhower sees that omar bradley might have the same battlefield dash and boldness that patton has displayed, but he sees him as a better overall manager of men, manager of command. so their roles are reversed. patton now becomes a subordinate to omar bradley. there's an interesting interlude between omar bradley and the president. it's just after the sicilian campaign, and the president knows that omar bradley is back

in washington briefly, and he summons him to the white house. and they discuss the sicilian campaign. and then suddenly the president starts to tell omar bradley about this extraordinary project that is taking place out in the sands of new mexico, and he starts describing the manhattan project, the development of the a-bomb. bradley is amazed by this because at this point even officers above his level, officers like eisenhower and mcarthur, don't know anything about development. so he assumes that the president has just been carried away for the moment, goes back to europe to continue the war, never breathes a word to anybody including his superior, eisenhower. that this project is advancing in the sands of new mexico. which will produce an atom bomb. on the subject of the bomb,

there's a misconception that i would like to clarify. after the war president roosevelt and ari truman -- harry truman were criticized for the use of the bomb. the charge is that we would not have used the bomb against a white nation like germany, but we would have used it against a yellow nation like the japanese. however, during the battle of the bulge the president is very concerned about the heavy casualties. before the battle of the bulge is over, 19,000 american g.i.s will die. so roosevelt at this time calls general leslie groves to the white house. groves is in charge of the manhattan project. and he tells groves that he wants to use that weapon. groves is rather surprised and explains that they are nowhere near ready, it'll be months

before they even test the atomic bomb. but it's very clear in my mind that roosevelt had every intention of using it as long as the german resistance couldn'ted at the level that it did during the battle of the bulge. interesting thing about roosevelt's centurions is that the team was very stable. the people that he put in charge of the military at the beginning of the war were still there at the end, a time when winston churchill was firing generals left and right. so i would have to give a very high grade to fdr as the recruiter in chief. the figures that he selected still resonate in history; marshall, admiral king, admiral nimitz, dwight eisenhower, hap arnold, and it's hard to quarrel with a winning team. by the time of fdr's death in april of 1945, his battles have

essentially been won. cruelly, he does not live long enough to see the defeat of germany which takes place just shortly thereafter or the defeat of the japanese. but when we consider the impediment that he bore, the polio that made of him a paraplegic, the suffering and pain that he went through, the heights that this man rose to as commander in chief during world war ii can only be described as heroic. when liberty-loving americans all over the world needed a giant, fdr stepped forth. in my judgment, the president ranks with the immortals, he ranks with washington, he ranks with lincoln as a great president in time of peace and as a magnificent commander in chief in this time of war -- in time of war. thank all of you. prison -- [applause]

>> we have time for a few questions if you want to come and line up here. you need to line up, ask your question to joe so that c-span can catch your question on the microphone. >> winston churchill has frequently been criticized for meddling too much in the actual military planning in considering himself a military planner and leader, and that's always contrasted with roosevelt who, as far as i know, left much of the military planning to his generals. could you make any comments as to why roosevelt took a path in military decision making that seems to be quite contrasting from that of churchill? >> this is true that the president left the day-to-day conduct of the war to his

military figures. but he was the strategist in chief. he made the big strategic decisions. it was fdr even after the united states had been attacked by japan and and the american people were seething with rage against the japanese, e made this initial strategic -- he made the initial strategic decision that our first objective must be to defeat nazi germany. was he realized -- because he realized that the defeat of nazi germany would ultimately bring about the defeat of japan. but the defeat of japan would never insure the defeat of nazi germany. another major strategic decision that he made in january 1943, casablanca conference, he surprised everybody by insisting that the war must be terminated in only one way, and that is by the unconditional surrender of

our enemies. major strategic decision can, very much criticized in quarters at that time. so throughout the war while he does not meddle with the generals, he is our strategist in chief. any other questions? >> thank you. what about the story, i think it's actually a fact, that the president of the philippines actually gave mcarthur a quarter of a million dollars while he was in our army, and some of his subordinates also got like 25, $30,000. is that true? >> the only thing i can say about the point that you've raised is that you were off by a quarter of a million dollars -- [laughter] president quezon even after his island had been invaded came through on a deal that he had

cut earlier with mcarthur, and he got a half a million dollars at that point in the war. another question? >> mr. persico, in world war ii you mentioned all men. in today's war there are women there. the only female that you mentioned was kay. why was she picked? you know, i'm looking at it from are mamie eisenhower. wasn't it a bit embarrassing? why was she picked as a female? >> it was interesting to me that after ike gets the command to invade europe, he's the supreme commander in europe, general marshall -- who as i pointed out if my remarks was death on any kind of hank can key spank

key -- hanky-panky -- he cooks up a reason to send ike back to states. he's been separated from his wife, mamie, for something like a year and a half. and he sends him back ostensibly to have meetings with the president and other figures, but he mainly wants to get ike and mamie together for a while to make sure this marriage survives and it doesn't interfere with eisenhower's command of the other forces in the europe. any other questions? >> all right, mr. persico, thank you. but it did not answer my question. [laughter] >> i was always concerned about the this decision in the pacific command where after the gawptless surrenders, but at that point they then expand the command further down, and when wainwright vendors -- surrenders, he loses over half a

million men, places they haven't even begun to fight. who makes that decision to expand? >> well, mcarthur assumed that after he was plucked from the philippines that wainwright would carry on almost to the death. wainwright sees his forces essentially starving, outmanned, and he surrenders nothing like the figure of half a million, but he surrenders them. and mcarthur publicly says thereafter that wainwright carried on a heroic battle to the very end, but as he makes clear to his inner sickle, he is -- circles, he is outraged that wainwright surrendered in the philippines. anybody else? >> time for two more questions. >> i want to play off the relationship further between fdr and mcarthur. was fdr uptight about mcarthur? was fdr inherently hostile towards mcarthur? i mean, i ask this in a certain context. when the japanese attacked pearl

harbor, the commander and chief of the pacific fleet, when the japanese attacked the philippines, mcarthur was not only plucked -- as you put it -- out and taken to australia, he was given the congressional medal of honor of all things for his role. what can you elaborate on? i realize it could be the subject of an entire talk, but what can you elaborate on in terms of the relationship, the psychology between fdr and mcarthur and perhaps particularly in terms of mcarthur's inordinate compulsion to retake the philippines? >> well, as i pointed out in my remarks, the two men circled each other like wary lions. mcarthur, i think, behaved with a considerable amount of disloyalty and a lack of appreciation for the fact that the president rescued him in the

philippines, gave him this very important command even though mcarthur was driven out of the philippines, and the president undoubtedly as we try to read his mind is saying this man is a military peacock, he's filled with arrogance and hubris. but in the long run, he's a great soldier, and i'm going to have to depend on him. >> i was wondering how would you compare roosevelt's ability to manage or deal with his generals as compared to, say, lincoln, or would you say roosevelt was just luckier in his recruiting abilities up to a point where, for instance, lincoln until he was able to get grant in the place? >> well, the only thing i could say here which may have some relevance is abraham lincoln is facing these choices for the first time, and some of his appointments failed like mcdowell and several others

and that roosevelt was a student of the civil war, a very clean student. perhaps he learned from lincoln's experience, and he was, as i say, a recruiter this chief of a remarkable team. these people are there from pearl harbor to the japanese surrender aboard the missouri in tokyo bay. >> so his background like in the navy was the difference, do you think? >> more military experience and, as i say, more knowledge of history. >> let's give a hand to joseph persico. [applause]

together my book is only 300 pages. it changed my view about the rain process. i am really glad i did it.

i am really glad i did it. it was such an incredibly important issue and number 2 from a competitive standpoint i couldn't believe i was the only one thinking this way and writing this way. and felt very alone during the state's issue. this is making controversial, there's nothing controversial about it. deflate filed for bankruptcy and is not that controversial but topic anymore. what this does for the country and social divide, class divide, raise divide is enormously important for people to learn about and do something about.

dirksen senate office buildin >> host: when did you do your best writing? i am obsessed with writing process? running your from which you are the ceo of, cranks out of original stuff not related to your book, when did you forget that in? weekends and mornings 4-7, what was the witching hour for you? >> guest: i thought this process would be easy and i would work with those riders and turn my research over to them and they would create a fantastic story and it would all work out well. that did not work. what i ended up doing, just kind of bombing out critical mass and shaping that critical mass and calling it and calling it.

just getting all the volume is down for what we wanted to work with and many of these are not commercial seems, very important to me in terms of what we did on policy. i have all the research done, it was getting into a story that worked. and the mutual-fund of hours, john berger had written a story about fortune, a key in and helped me at the end and helped so enormously, helpful and fun to work with and it was easier to edit someone else's work, he invented my work and not would at his and it was the blender that created this book. >> host: you got indoctrination into journalism. >> guest: welcome to journalism, welcome to writing, this is the stress, the stereotype of the

writer is so fraught. this is it. and at the end, a lot of work yourself and i commend you for that. >> guest: the easiest parts were getting the interesting stuff, the hardest part was writing anything about myself. entirely uncomfortable about that. i had gotten a number of offers to write the book absent a financial crisis. i have no interest in doing that. i wanted to write about it and john forced me to put some stuff in about myself which i was very uncomfortable with. >> host: i read a lot about my own child in my book and that was my favorite part to write. i am more of a narcissist, i don't know. i think we have a question over

here. >> new research, did you come to a conclusion about what transpired, loans collapsed in 1970s. and personal experience why is it happening? >> guest: the savings and loans crisis was caused by regulatory reform which allowed them to open in the commercial real-estate market and become much more concentrated real-estate. hold point was to promote home ownership, on steroids. what came from -- the second or third chapter goes through an exhaustive analysis of the history of housing in the united states and we are the only

market in the world with the 30 year mortgage. why do we have a 30 year mortgage to make monthly payments lower? does that make any sense? probably not. it goes through all of that. you also see, i happen to go into parts of -- from the mid 90s to 2007, so much financial consolidation and regional banks and in the 80s when the interstate banking law change you have so much consolidation. big banks, when they were financial service supermarkets, not only originating product but also selling products and selling products around the world was a lot easier than originating product so they started buying more and more. look at marrow or ubs during that time, it wasn't enough to

be the biggest originators of mortgages, they would buy other people's cities the same way and that is a preview of what happened in thes and 90s, the biggest difference between those periods was leverage, two or three times the leverage in the 2,000s during the economic crisis. it is short and sweet. short. the housing crisis, we are not out of it. it started in 2006. >> do you think we have done enough to ensure the financial crisis won't happen again in the banking system? >> absolutely not. you have one friend which is on the consumer side whereby over 30 -- 32% of americans have either no access or limited

access to the banking system. 20% of americans who once had banking relationships, credit-card relationships, mortgage relationships have been kicked out of the system. imagine 20% of people, their kids have a system that forces the shadow of lending markets. that slows down the system to a snail's pace. what has caught up for that or made up for that is the commercial lending market, the junk bond market which is out of control right now. and i don't think that the impact is going to be to housing because you look at the severity issue versus frequency issue which was the housing industry but you have bubble's all over the place in single lending markets and the bond market and the u.s. bond market that are going to be problematic and the single biggest problem is how we

wean ourselves from a low interest-rate environment that has gone on far too long. >> right here? question? >> if you were -- i don't know if you have an opportunity to follow up with the 60 minutes peace but if you were given such an opportunity without editing what would you like to say? >> my 16 -- my 60 minutes interview was 90 minutes and i think they aired three minutes of it. so i said what i wanted to say. i don't have control over their editing process for the focus of it. hopefully i have given the -- some sense of what is important to me about this which is so much bigger than one specific market. so much of the american economy,

the homeowner's experience, children, people living on retirement benefits, a factor in that. the questions she was going to ask me before the interview, it is an important narrative, it happened, if people actually watch the interview they would get a sense of what i said as opposed to reading something that was said about me saying something in an interview. >> in your book you make much of the fact that states and the central portion have low death, no taxes and lower spending. i am not sure they are going to be growing faster in the future because the need to foster

education, innovation, infrastructure, immigration. back in the 1870s at low taxes and didn't go anywhere. they are more like an bolas. >> i would give you some numbers that would disprove that. if you look at from 2008 to 2009 to today the texas economy has grown over 14%, north dakota, 44%. all the central regions have grown at exponent of other parts of the country and what you also see is the first move which is companies moving into these areas you think about 60 years ago and this shouldn't freak anybody out because every 15 years the u.s. economy goes through an economic transformation which is a great testament to how brazilian the u.s. economy and americans are.

the u.s. economy has never been lower mobile. you can choose to live places. you don't need to be on a riverboat system as you did in 1600, 1700, 1800, you don't need to be by a coal producer. is much more mobile. we talk about the influence of the energy revolution, think about california tech companies, so many of them have built in facilities around austin not because of energy but because it is is easier to do business in texas. california has become so prohibitive to do business in. states are competing more aggressively than they ever have against each other. businesses, what i originally thought in 2010 i was creating,

no idea i was going to write about, and investors and businesses to see and compare and contrast where they would want to invest and build new facilities. it is absolutely happening. more and more support of the fact that the growth is overweighted to the central states versus coastal states. the point about education is taught on. so you have areas of the country that have low high school graduation rates, don't have the infrastructure you would want for businesses but they have the highest revenue surpluses that are directly going into investing in those specific project. if i were to attract you to my state, say my state is wyoming,

going for the governor's meeting, they will attract your business because i won't charge you income taxes. i have a state of the airport, state of the art schools because it spoiled the rigid because of all my natural gas exposure. it is kind of a redistribution of opportunity for the u.s. which is pretty romantic if you want to look at it that way. >> two more questions. the woman right in the back. >> a question about clinton, the golden glass, glass-steagall, he took it out, why won't they put it back in? >> the question was about glass-steagall. >> why not recreate glass-steagall as recreating glass-steagall? i don't think it is happening in that kind of black and white

fashion where you direct laws that separate commercial banking and consumer banking. what is happening is in a very different way it is happening before our very eyes. one thing, a former fed president of kansas city is a big advocate of having financial institutions specialized institutions and when they were specialized institutions we had the best financial system in the world so financial capital markets has been one of our greatest exports. not everyone may agree with that but what is happening now is you have capital requirements that are keeping stirring banks out of business so you are effectively doing it the hard way and banks are fighting with the regulators to fan mail. i don't know that it is the best possible situation, but we are going in that direction. the banks don't like it.

what you don't have on the flip side is ready to live -- very successful about getting big banks to get smaller. what they are preventing is the small banks from getting bigger. what we need is equilibrium. >> one more question right over here in the middle. >> do you find politically -- they're trying to enforce their rights against consumers post foreclosure crisis or post credit card crisis and if so, is that going to replay with states going into default, financial institutions who have relationships with states are

competing with pensions to get a discount on -- how do you think that will play out politically? >> that will be really messy. i have written extensively about how dangerous the regulators have been with financial institutions from the standpoint of consumer credit. the 2009-2010 the card act completely eliminated lenders's ability to price risk. and you are not a public institution, you won't take the risk so you have seen $2 trillion of available credit lines taken out of the system. that is not constructive so these are credit lines taken out of the system. not the $7 trillion of loans that have been charged off so there has to be a happy medium. what has happened is the worst type of unintended consequences whereby the shadow lending industry that is outside financials and under state

regulation, not see if the b or the fed, is emerging and people are getting credit, like the series displacement, in one door, another opening another door and charge very differently. more regulation which is driving consumer lending to a less regulated market and it is dangerous and unfortunate, drives me nuts. in terms of what happens with the states, the municipal-bond industry is the sleaziest industry i have ever seen in my life and i covered the banks for a long time. it is dirty, it is opaque, there is corruption associated with it all the time. so what is happening is the big

banks, a lot of smaller players and big players that have been in this industry and what ends up happening is the banks are well capitalized enough that the states and municipalities are going to sue the banks. if you remember a few years ago, five years ago, milan, italy, bankers, because we did not know what we were doing, we were not as sophisticated, jefferson county had close to a billion dollars settlement, we did know what we were doing and that is probably half true but if you have a tightly controlled market with very little transparency, it is the bees' nest oral or net's nests for a or net's nests for some really nasty lawsuit. >> a lot of discussion about who

will run the federal reservelaw. >> a lot of discussion about who will run the federal reserve when ben bernanke steps down so who will be best for the economy? >> probably tom corner. >> it is an excellent presentation. thank you for doing this. books are for sale and we will have the authors sign books appear in the center so if you come up to the middle. we will see you next week. >> now on booktv cris beam examines -- >> 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend.

>> i have been trying for i guess the last 20 something years to stop riding books. and i keep -- i totally get it that i work for the ancestors and sometimes i will feel very free when i finish something. i remember finishing their color purple for 30 years ago. just weeping in july, okay, i am done. i have had that scenario with myself many times, thinking i am done. so this book, i want to read from the question in the road and i wanted to read a little bit about how that came about. how did i come to think of the life that i lead which is -- when i am not on the road

somewhere, is so quiet, so meditative, so contemplative, so happy with me and my sweetheart who is a musician. one of the ironies of life is i love quiet so much that i fell in love with the person who plays trumpet. life is the same with you. life is always telling us who do you think is in charge? did you write some dream that you imagine that you are in charge? i will just show you. so this is a very short introduction to this book, the cushion in the road. i learned much from dallas fought. it has been a comfort to me since i read my first poem which was sitting quietly doing

nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. to me this is the perfect poem but there is also from that tradition, a wandering home is in the road. a wanderer's home is in the road. this proved very true in my own life much to my surprise because i have such a home body. i love being home with my plants, animals, sunrises and sunsets, the moon, it is all glorious to me. and so when i turn 60 i was prepared to bring all of myself to sit in a meditation room my prepared long ago and never get up. it so happened that i was in south korea that year and south

koreans agreed with me. in fact in that culture it is understood that when we turn 60 we become ay. perhaps this is not how koreans spell it. this means we are freed to become once again like a child. we are to rid ourselves of our cares especially those we have collected in the world's and to turn inward to a life of ease, of leisure, of joy. i loved hearing this. what an affirmation of a feeling. i was already beginning to have. enough of the world's. where is the grandchild, where is the cushion? i began to prepare myself to withdraw from worldly for a. i sat on a cushion in mexico

with a splendid view of a home made stone fountain with softly falling water, of perfect suiting backdrop to what i thought would be the next and perhaps final 20 years of my life. unlike my great great great grandmother who lived to be 125 i figure 80 is doing really well. and then a miracle seemed to be happening. america, america was about to elect or not collect a person of color as its president. my cushion shifted minute lead. then too, an unsuspecting gift what the radio on and i learned that bombs were falling on the people of malta. a mother, unconscious herself, had lost five of her daughter's. didn't i have a daughter? what i have wanted to lose her

in this way? was and tie a mother even if reported leet imperfect in that role? my question began to wobble. i have friends who became eggy and managed to stay eggy. i envied them. the years following mike 62 birthday were about teaching that i could become like a child again and enjoy all the pleasure and wonder of child experiences but i would attempt to maintain this joy in the pacific view of the actual world as opposed to the meditative universe i had created with its coaming, ever flowing mountain. my travels would take me to celebrations in washington d.c. where our new president barack obama would be inaugurated.

they would carry me the morning after those festivities to faraway burma, myanmar which would lead to much writing about this. and a lovely trip along river. and happily people who smile at with smiled upon. they would take me to gaza and much writing about the palestine/israel impasse. to the west bank, to india, to all kinds of amazing places like for instance jordan. who knew? i would find myself raising a nation of chickens in between travels and business to lead people in oakland, would acre, up my cushion, often the peace because of my attention to the deep suffering in the world, sometimes seemed far away.

i felt torn. condition i do not like and do not recommend ending in a dream it came to me. there was a long asphalt highway like the one that passed by my grandparents's place when i lived with them as an 8 and 9-year-old. my grandfather and i sit on the porch in the still georgia heat and count the cars as they whiz by. i would choose blue or black. sitting on cushions of sorts, a suppose, the two of us because ours could go by and we were perfectly content. perhaps that is why in the dream the solution to my quandary was available. there in the middle of the long perfect we straight highway with its slightly faded yellow center line that i had known and loved

as a child by rose colored medication commission. directly on the yellow line, right in the middle of the road so what do i believe? that i was born to wonder and i was born to set, to love home with a sometimes almost unbearable affection but to be lured out into the world to see how it is doing, a love all larger home and paradise. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> who is to say what the cleveland clinic is doing has anything to do with obamacare? madame president, the answer to that is who is to say? the cleveland clinic is to say. spokeswoman for the cleveland

clinic said, quote, to prepare for health care reform, cleveland clinic is transforming the way care is delivered to patients. she added the $330 million would be cut from the clinic's annual budget. >> we know there are things that are happening right now that we are getting paid less by private and public pairs. insurance companies are paying us less, medicare paying us less, sequestration had an affect on hospitals, the nih funding decrease in, had an affect on our research and so we had to decrease our costs still further. and all of this goes into trying to change how health care comes together. it is not one single thing that did it, not one single pair, not one program buttonholes series of things we're doing, starting

back 5, 6, 7 years ago and culminating in the changes better so significant in terms of what we are going to pay that we have to be even more stringent. >> cuyahoga -- cleveland clinic head toby cosgrove on the future of medical care in the united states tonight at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. now on booktv cris beam examines the foster care system of the united states. be author reports on how children are moved throughout the system and profiles numerous kids including the group aging out of foster care and what that means for their future. this is a lawyer under an hour. [applause] >> it is such an honor and so exciting to be with my old friend chris talking about her