and that drove his wife but we understood that. that was the history that he thought about. we were talking about some issue and suddenly he's talking about gary cooper in high noon. that's not a divergence. he's saying let's do what's right. it may be dangerous but let's leave the honors to others. he talked about grace kelly. he's not talking about some lady from monaco. he's admiring a woman who sticks with her husband no matter what. ..

i wrote about facts, not what i believe. >> of course in the first administration he gained -- after he went into training after the assassination recovery inch your 70s, that's no small accomplishment. we do thank you, tom, for this special look, and as he does say, it's a very fact-based, very interesting focus on a period of the president's life that we don't often see as clearly. we do thank you again for coming to join us, and thank tom. >> thank you for having me. [applause]

>> up next, author and think tank president, arthur brooks. the former french hornist, tunnel social scientist, talks about his research on charity, happiness, and free enterprise. the head of the american enterprise institute is the author of four nonfiction books, including "new york times" bess sellers by gross national happiness" and "the road to freedom." >> arthur brooks, where did the phrase, gross national happiness, come from? >> guest: the phrase comes from the government of beaut buttan, who 30 years ago read the process of economic development was great, would pull millions of people out of poverty. people wouldn't starve to death but instead of counting happy money had he had the idea of measuring the amount of

happiness people head. he start an index crawled gross national happiness. that's where the expression comes from. >> host: what did he found? >> guest: that divisional measured of economic growth were great, and kind of a predeterminant for living a good life but weren't sufficient. so some of the things of cultural integrity, family view us, being -- values, being able to maintain one's faith in god. these are the things people need editor a flourishing life, and developing countries had a lot of lessons for the rest of us. >> host: can you measure happiness via economic success? >> guest: no. you can find some predeterminants for having a relatively good life but that doesn't get you far enough. there are really four things that can led us to happiness. and they don't involve money per se. let me back up for a second, peter. one thing we find is when people are poor, and they have

deprivation and they're deciding whether or not to pay for medicine or food, they're less likely to be happy. some of the most miserable countries in the world are place where people die of starvation and preventible diseases. downs get beyond basic subsistence, the four things that bring happy in the are faith, family, friends, the work. those are the things with ha to keep in million those are part of human flourishing. >> host: from your book, this is a book about america's happiness, which is to say the number of americans who are happy versus those who are not. can we say that the united states is a happy country? what's your answer to that question? >> guest: the answer is, generally, yes. there's so many indices which country is happier tan the other and they're generally not reliable. part of the reason is different cultures answer the question differently. so just getting a survey, how happy are you? you going to fine that countries

with germanic languages answer the question different with than those with romance langes. it's really that ridiculous. that said, you find that the united states is a country largely of immigrants and strivers and some of the people that are most optimistic about their lives. it's pretty fair to say the united states on balancees relatively happy country. that said, happiness has suffered in recent years, and in part bass of the recession in part because of the great malaise that a lot of people are feeling about optimism about the direction the country is going. that is a real opportunity for policymakers and leaders around the country to try to chang the direction we are going. >> host: should our politicians make us happy? >> guest: our politicians. no hour politics don't have a responsibility to make us happy, and thought history the politics that have called themselves the purveyors of happiness are usually the worst dictators. the american secret is not that leaders make us happy.

it's that they help to us be able to pursue our own happiness. that's the key. that's the reason that faith, family, friend, and work, are so important because they're part of the pursuit of this elusive goal of happiness that politicians can't give us. >> host: from "gross national happy possess." differences are happier than liberals own reaction you right, is primarily one of surprise because virtue hill everything about the politicked of happiness turns out to be at variance with elite intellectual opinion and what i thought but the evidence is the evidence. >> guest: indeed it is. when you find that the intellectual elite in -- around the world, not just the united states, is relatively hostile to organized religion, tells us that traditional family organization is the bad deal and that it's just kind of keeping people down. that community as we traditionally understood it is a force for repression, which we

often hear, and that work, work is something that we should actually do less of. what we need is more leisure time. it turns out all of those pieces of advice, all those philosophies are wrong when it comes to having the happiest life. >> if you ask me how you could be happier and i told you to vote republican or go to church, you might justifiably tell me to go jump in a lake. but if i told you to give to charity, i would for -- i would be giving you excellent advice. everyone can give and give more today. each and every one of us can afford to dig a little deeper. giving to charity makes one happy. >> guest: it's true. it's true. there's a lot of evidence on this. but we don't have to dig very far in each of our own lives to think about cases in which we felt happier by serving others. the most miserable people are the people who are most self-conscious, people who are most inwardly direct led, serving their own purposes and

not thinking about others. the fast way to break the cycle of melancholy in your life is to stop focusing on yourself. this is a common -- this is not any philosophy. this is what the research indicates. there are a lot of really interesting studies on this, and some of them i love. cases in which people are -- that you study the happiness of high school seniors where you have a natural experiment. kind of like a drug experiment, treatment and control and half the kids just play board games and the other half are randomly assigned to help little kids with their homework. the kids helping the other kids are happier after the experiment. one of my favorite experiments recentry, kind of related, university of liverpool, where the researchers asked men to come into the laboratory with their significant other, their wives or girlfriends, and they said, okay, here's the experiment. you need to walk from one building to another. that's that simple. with your wife or girlfriend. they say, fine.

when they're halfway through there's an alleyway and a panhandler came out and asked the man for money. then when they got to the other build they asked the map how much money he gave to the panhandler and then asked the woman, how much are are youached to you and there was a correlation between the more money you gave to the panel handler the more your wife likes you. >> would chev give to panel hasn'ters. >> guest: absolutely, on the way home, and your wife will like you more. >> host: political extremeis. you write that they are happier on average but you also write that there is evidence that people with extreme views affect everybody adversely, because they're less comp passionate than average, less honest, and less concerned for others. >> guest: yes. the think about political extremism -- i wrote about this in the "new york times --" people with extreme political views are not troubled by the

idea that somebody else might be right. it's actually hard to be secure in your point of view when there's a possibility that your philosophy is wrong. political extremists never enter tape that possibility. so the result is they're more secure tend to be a little bit happier. the problem if you're not willing to entertain the possibility you might be wrong, you're not going to humanize other people who don't share your point of view. we all deserve to be able to have a world view. we deserve to be able to say, this is right and this is wrong, i think, but it's the right thing to do to be toll rapt of other people's point of view if if you're not you'll have an easier time in life and maybe a little happier but spreading more misery around you. >> oo when you talk about the concept of flow, in gross national happiness, what would you mean by that. >> flow is a state -- it was first described by the great psychologist, a philosopher --

actually a social schoolist who teaches at claremont graduatant in california. at the university of chicago, and he wrote a book called "flow." and his research looked at the state in which people are in the zone. when they're doing work that is not too easy but not too hard. they're challenged but not overwhelmed bay task that completely engages them emotionally, cognitively, psychologically, even spiritually, and hours turn into minutes. i bet you have had experiences where you say, three hours? are you kidding? that's what we're doing here. we're going to say, i can't believe it. it felt like ten minutes. that's the state of flow. when you're doing just what you're supposed to be doing and the hours fly by. >> host: so translate this talk of gross national happiness and the u.s. is a happy country into politics. >> guest: well, politics -- it's a funny business when it comes to gross national happiness. the job of politics is not to make us happy people.

that's a very dangerous thing. stalin was called the per seer of happiness. thesaurus nobody in the 20 income center, save hitler and a couple of others who created more misery and deep -- the deep moral malaise that was such a transgression across the 20th 20th century, so when politicians claim there's a problem, but when they talk about giving people the pursuit of happiness, creating the conditions for the per -- pursuit of happy is in, it's a uniquely empowering -- it's the secret to the great american life, giving us the ability to pursue our happiness and that's what politics should be talking about. that's the reason opportunity is the most important thing that politicians can be fighting for today. >> host: traps late the concept into a policy. >> guest: the policies we should be working for are getting people to the starting line. what should we be talking about with respect to education? making sure that people to

bottom have the opportunity to get ahead. we should be thinking about policies not that redistribute money such that everybodying have the same amount of money but rather that people can work so they can be rewarded on the basis hard work and merit. these are the opportunity society policies that lead the pursuit of happiness. >> host: in your most recent book, the road to freedom, how to win the fight for free enterprise, you write that increasing income equality as a social goal means either you don't understand the evidence or you think it is desirable per se to punish people at the top because they are rich. there's no way around this fact. >> guest: indeed. my view is that the problem with income inequal today is senate people are living in poverty and it's an avoidable error. it's something that is a rich society we can avoid. the way not to worry about it, however, is on the basis of equalizing income so that people have the same amount of stuff. that's materialism.

materialism is tyranny wrong on the right and wrong on the left. but when the president of the united states or a politician or business leader or anybody gets up and says the greatest scourge of our society is income inequality, he is saying you, petitioner, because you have less than someone else, are victim of society, and that's to reduce you to what we often call in my business, home hoe economicus. that's disstops you and a disservice to our sew sow site. >> host: reading more, added up, the evidence is clear, america has already effectively slipped into a big government social democracy. about 40 cents of every dollar americans earn goes to the state? that true. 40 kens of every dollar goes to the state. the size of the government has continued to grow. virtually without pause. and the result is that we like to tell yourselves that we're not a european democracy but the

truth is we are. we have redistributive tax code that is more progressive than most our european allies measuring in terms of the people who don't pay anything. you see regulation that is on par with the regulatory regimes of the big states of europe. the difference is that americans still don't consider themselves to be european social democrats and that's a really encouraging thing. the reason i'm optimistic is because we may have the economic characteristics of-under european cousins bun don't have the mentality, and this gives us at least a possibility for a way of escape. >> host: how do you square that? that we like government programs and we don't like big government. >> guest: well, it's the american -- the basic american zeitgeist, the philosophy that we are ruth individualist. the problem is government has worked like a ratchet. so, when big government programs and social welfare benefits

come, they almost never go away. they're very, very hard to get rid of. the main area of government spending that is redistributing in this country is entitlement, as everybody watching. doesn't matter if people are conservatives liberal, 70% of every dollar goes to government goes to the special spending programs, entitlemented, social security, met care, medicaid. the problem is we haven't been responsible as a society about a way to rein in these programs in a way that won't beg gar our children-won't make it harder for my kids and grandkids and yourses and everybody else's out there to have the same opportunities you and i had because we'll be spending so much money. with the stillover benefits as well of the united states not being able to take its rightful place as a leader among nations. all of the oxygen in the government or -- will increasingly be devoted toward the special spending, the suboptimal socially and

internationally and that's the big problem we face. >> host: again, translate that into a policy. how do you reform these programs? >> guest: the first thing we need to do is we need to have leaders that lead as opposed to leaders that follow. if you're putting your finger in the air and saying, tell me what the opinion polls say, people don't want social security reform-can't do that, you're being a follower. you're actually not being a leader. what leaders do is that they can actually induce sacrifice, they can help people in a country. they can help citizens to see something bigger than themselves. great leaders can take a country to war, the ultimate sacrifice. if we can go to war when we need to, we should be able to reform entitlement programs and make the sacrifices as a society to protect america for future generations. okay so how do we do it? practically speaking speaking we need politics who have policies that will reform social security and especially met care and medicaid, which we know how to do in a way that will cause some

temporary discomfort among certain interest groups. but where those groups will be empowered to be hourly in charge of saving our country. now, there's specifics on how to do it. we can talk about how to count inflation differently and change the formulas so that people are not retiring at 65 and 67. they're retiring in line with the demographic profiles of the american public, where we allow states more latitude and how they use their funding, where medicare is actually not a system that is completely open-ended and where people are responsible for seeing the prices of medical care and making the decisions on the basis of that. that's the basis of good policies, where we can rein in spending and americansening take care of their own before i gobbles up the american bring. >> host: george w. bush tried social security reform ten years ago. >> guest: yes. it's a tough thing. nobody expects it to be easy. if it were easy it would already be done. but there are ways to do this.

ronald reagan did this in a bipartisan way to help reform and save social security for a long, long time. how would we do it? just a couple of basics 'we don't count inflation in the right way. we actually have an inflated social security benefit stream. we need to take care of that. people are retiring at relatively close to the same age as when the social security system was implemented decades ago. yet they're living for decades longer. that's an obvious actuarial problem. you and i are going to live to be whatever we're going to live to be, let hope, 85 or 87 or 88 years old, yet we're retiring at 65. something the public can't maintain and we have to reform that as well. >> from road to -- the road to freedom, the job of a social safety net starts with an answer to this question: what is an unacceptable standard of living in america? in my view, youite, it is unacceptable for someone in america's wealth society to go

without access to basic medical care, sufficient food, and basic shelter. pretty uncontroversial, i think. >> guest: you'd think, wouldn't you, yet we have lots of people who are not going -- who don't have basic access to those things. these are effectively unforced errors. we're spending more' more money yet we have lots and lots of people living in poverty. so we have to deal with is in in a way that transcends politics. the first thing to keep in behind for my friends on the right, declare peace on the safety net per se. the conservatives should be the ones fighting for a reliable safety net to those who are truly indigent. my friends on the left, we need to talk about the safety not not extending beyond those who are indigent and remembering a dignified life has to attach work to welfare. if we can decide on these things, the safety net is the greatest achievement we have ever encountered and is responsible -- the free enterprise system which created

so much wealth for our society. the safety net is a wonderful, good, and moral thing and we should fight for it, but it should be for the indigent, attached to work, and reformed in a way that doesn't waste money like we're currentlywaying money. we could be well on the way to solving these problems. >> host: this e-mail came in from a viewer, as a society we appear to be mad for big programs. why do you suppose we don't do trials of these programs first? >> guest: we don't know how to do that very well. we have a tendency with -- i mean, let's back up. the philosophy of public administration, the philosophy of government, is that if we just can get experts running things, if we can get the people who really understand, and we spend enough money we can solve the problem all at once. that's wrong if you go into business, that's wrong if you look at finances, wrong if you look at any other area of society. people don't have the conceit of thinking the smartest people will be able to solve something

they've do trial and error. they look at markets. they do pilot tests of programs and business ideas that's what venture capitalists and entrepreneurs do. yet government works in a different way. almost as if i can just get the equations right and have enough trillions of dollar is can solve these problems. that's the wrong philosophy. the reason to our i'm ors such a smart question. the reason is because government is designed in the wrong way. we need the same philosophy that entrepreneurs use to figure out how to dominate a mark. we need humility as opposed to big government, once and for all final solutions, which simply don't work in and waste money. >> host: let's follow this up with another e-mail from bill. when i look at republican leadership, i am reminded of the saying, be bold, but not too bold. do you think the new congress can take some bold action to help us all and what is the most important action they need to take?

>> guest: bill, smart question. will they be bold enough? that's a -- i want the answer to that question myself. i think a real opportunity to show a new direction in leadership, to show kind of a new right movement. they didn't earn -- let's think about -- what was the signal from november 4, 2014. it wasn't we love republicans. the last time looked at gal one polling the favability of republican is nine percent. i think north korea is like 11%. so, nobody was saying, we love republicans. no i heart rubs on the bumpers as -- i heart republicans on bumpers. they earned to try new thinged and show leadership and that requires boldness. i understand the conservative tendency is to say, don't throw a long ball down the field. keep it a running game. but now is not the time for that. now is the time for aspirational leadership that douse different things. what's the most important thing

that conservatives can do? the single moe important thing is a new approach to poverty in america. now, there are other things critically important, also critically important, foreign policy that brings back aggressive international optimistic spirit to american foreign policy which we have large lay lost but a because we have been in a foreign policy tailspin trying to not have foreign policy. that's a mistake. we need education reform, criminal justice reform. a long list of things, but number one, for republicans can have the opportunity in the next two years to distinguish themselves, is to become warriors for the poor. to say, i don't even care how poor people vote. this is our opportunity to do the right thing for this country, where the bottom half has effectively been left behind by the economic policies of the past civics months -- sorry -- six years. they have effectively marines 150 million americans at the bottom with less opportunity,

less optimism, less aspiration. that's what we need be able to turn around by having a bias for working people and poor people. how? we need to have policies that reward work and expansion of the earned income tax credit that makes work pay. actually this is a wonderful thing to do, to show common cause with the american public that's trying to get back to work. with an expansion of energy policies, not just so that oil companies can make more money, but so that we have more energy in this country and more jobs and we have better climate for energy self-sufficiency and independence in these countries. the optimistic type programs and all really come back to a preference for the poor. that's what conservatives need to do. that's number one. >> host: good afternoon, and welcome to booktv's "in depth program" our once a month program, one author, his or her body of work, and your calls.

>> if you can't get through on i spent 12 years as a

professional horn player. i was a classical musician. this was my dream. had no aspiration to become a think tank president. what little kid says mommy come when i grow up want to be the president of the conservative think tank. i wanted to be a french one clear. i was able to do the. i play chamber music and a bond of in the barcelo symphony were spent several years. that's where got married was when i was living in worse alone. at the end of that time i went back to college and finish my college education by correspondent when i was about

30. it'it's a nontraditional path to being a think tank president. truly un-american path and virtually everybody watching today has some peculiarities in the on background. this is not so special. i left a music after that and would graduate school and got my masters in economics of my ph.d in public policy. graduated when i was 34, became a college professor at georgia state university for three years and at syracuse university for seven years. the syracuse university has a wonderful school of public affairs, top rated school. it was a privilege to be there. i loved that. it was a great joy. and i came to aei at the end of 2008. i became president at the end of 2008 where i've been ever since. >> host: why did you leave music? >> guest: i left music because i was, i felt an almost physical need to use my brain in a different way. music is great. i love the music.

i still listen to great deal of music. most of how i see the world is formed from experience as a classical musician, sort of the spiritual side of aesthetics. the sense of how i appreciate beauty. this comes from a time as a musician but i realized there was so much more in the world of ideas. my father was a college professor, a mathematician editable arts school in seattle. my mother was a painter, an artist. i have satisfied the aesthetic side and i was interested in develop the intellectual side. i also had been influenced by a lot of thinkers. here's the weird part, peter. when i'm still a musician of reading the work of james q. wilson of urban crystal, milton friedman, charles murray and thinking this is changing how i see the world. it made me into a free enterprise advocate as a matter of fact, which is completely contrary to my background. my parents were very nervous about this. but what i found, i noticed

there was this one institution that all of these thinkers were involved with which is a place i'd never heard of before called the american enterprise institute which tie together this moral sense of what a free society looks like and how we can executed through the free enterprise system and american leadership. it was so positive, optimistic that the this boundless understanding of what human dignity can be and how can be our gift to the world. i was attracted to it naturally. there's no greater joy every day and he actually out the helm of this isn't stationed by pure serendipity. >> host: you used the word moral throughout your writing. moral arguments for free enterprise. >> guest: we are moral people. people are moral animals. it's very interesting to note when people are expressing the deepest sentiments, they talk about morality. at the lowest talk about materialism. they don't talk about money. they don't quote the data and statistics.

they talk about what is right, right for them and write for others. if we fail to make moral case of the things we most deeply believe we are not making the best case. this is what's been wrong with the conservative movement for a long time. conservatives have dominated the material case to their point of view. conservatives have talked about the fact that capitalism, free enterprise, american greatness is the best way to bring the most material abundance to the most people. that's true and that's good. the question is why does that matter? why does it matter? the answer is because it is deeply good and moral for people to be able to feed their families, to work with dignity come to support themselves and to live in safety and freedom. these are good moral things to do. not good material things to do. remembering the why of our work always brings us back to morale the. when we lose moral language were using the language that is written in our hearts. this is what we deserve to be able to do. this is what americans should expect from leaders is to to the moral stuff they are made of.

>> host: in "the road to freedom" -- where did that come from try to what of the greatest economies is friedrich hayek. friedrich hayek who was at the university of chicago who is involved in and tanks on washington, d.c. knew the end of his life wrote a great book called "the road to serfdom." "the road to serfdom" basically says the way we're going or with central planning, government control, scientism which is his word for this conceit that people in government can solve human problems once and for all, that this is going to lose to the kind of servitude, both moral and material servitude. that's the philosophy that led to the central planning regime that ruled lives of hundreds of megs of people in the 20th century. look out in the west. look out and supposedly free countries so these things can come to you little by little by little to "the road to serfdom," the positive outburst of that is

"the road to freedom." what do we need to do to get to freedom? hayek book is more important better than mine but still it's my little attempt. >> host: in the book come in your book "the road to freedom" the right big governments codependent wife is the corporate cronyism. >> guest: yeah. this is a real blind spot for republicans and conservatives, the idea that if it's good for business it's good for america. it's simply not true. particularly in modern life. what you see, i live in washington, d.c. i like to tell audiences other than washington so they don't have to basically. it's not a really healthy environment necessary. one of the things that's most disheartening about washington is this will to power that people have in the way they exploit it by wiring the system to the benefit. some of the worst offenders are corporate interests that are able to change policy and legislation and government leadership to their the way you solve that is not having so much power for

bureaucrats and politicians to do that. that's the reason the codependent spouse of gig boston is corporate crony system that gives some people benefit ted expense of people around the country. not in washington. >> host: so is that a call for massive tax reform. >> guest: it is a call for massive tax reform. a call for massive moral reform. for people to be really outraged and see clearly what is going nonthis country. you remember two or three years 0 and the "occupy" demonstrations, "occupy wall street," "occupy" k street, main street. there will demonstrations all over the country. consecutives like me were tending to say, well, so ridiculous, they're just angry about the free enterprise system. how ridiculous. they were right. they were wrong in their policy prescription, less free enterprise. that's wrong. we need real free enterprise. they were right in the diagnosis of what its wrong. the wasn't enough freedom.

the system was gamed against ordinary people but powerful corporate and increasingly the government interests because increasingly we see the government per se is the biggest special interest that is warping american life and giving special privileges to people in power. people in government themselves. so, occupy ouch wall street -- "occupy wall street" was quite correct in that there's something deep he wrong and unfair. what the prescription and less government. more free enterprise pushed to the bottom, recognize the safety net is the basis equalizing the systems so people can get a leg up. >> host: are you a scholar, an administrator, a fundraiser as profit aei? i'd like too think all three. i was a scholar before i came to aei. got my ph.d working in 0 nonprofit organization in the arts and that's what i did most of my research as well as on happiness when i was at syracuse. when i came too aei, my job is

to promote the brilliant work of my colleagues. my heroes. my intellectual heroes were at aei. michael novak. charles murray, the people that were working in the american enterprise institute. now my great privilege is trading in a good part of my research agenda to be able to promote that of others. the biggest part of that is raising the funds that we need to support an entirely donor-driven organization. we get zero dollars from the government. since 1938 we have taken not a dime from the u.s. government. we take all of our funding from -- we accept our funding from our investors or private individuals who want to city a better america. the real privilege i have is i can go out to donors around the country and not all of whom are wealthy and say i can do million. -- i i can do magic. i can take your little built of money and transform it like --

an expression of your values marks freedom, more fairness, live up the poor, protect our nation. you have to start with ideas. we're the sewers of idea and it's my privilege to be able to take somebody's money and help transform that into an expression of those values. i was a donor before i came to aei, by the way. >> host: arthur brooks is our guest. let's take some calls, eugene in nottingham, maryland, you're first up. >> caller: hi, guys. i'm enjoying this confidence. i have -- just want to piggyback what he said earlier in regards to tying work to welfare or federal programs. i also believe -- i discussed this with friends do-should be a term or time limitation on these programs similar to unemployment. six months if you have not been able to improve your financial situation or six months you have to show due diligence on your part, resume, job applications, education, something on your end to show you're trying to improve your situation and if you are showing due diligence, maybe it

can continue, get a continue-and. bly of that putting a time limitation on programs chill provide the necessary fire under people to get them to get up and just be more active, pro-active in their own improvement. and i wonder what mr. brooks thinks about that. >> guest: the, gene. a great observation in point of fact there were two elements of the welfare reform legislation in the 1990s that these worrieds that came out of eii scholars the welfare reform idead that were signed into legislation by a congress and president who are not paralyzed by fear, willing to do bold things, was really wonderful, bill clinton and the republican congress were able to do. the two things they did was number one, they required work as part of welfare, and number two, they had time limits. now, within reason. there's certain people that simply are not going to be able to work and a safety net is going to take that into account and also you have to guarantee

that there are certain things they can do with respect to learning how to work, being in substance abuse programs or actually having work programmed that the government can backstop. once you put those guarantees in place you're absolutely right. we're work requirements and time limits are smart policy. >> host: ooh bo from palm dale, california. you're on booktv. >> caller: hell he there, mr. brooks. i have a question regarding your earlier mentioning of a western democracies. in europe, social democracies. you mentioned the negative context as if they're infected bay disease, whereas in fact these countries, they do have quite a few of these countries in fact have a high gross domestic product per capita, and high gross domestic happiness per capita than the united states. what is wrong with social democracy in europe? in your opinion.

>> guest: thank you. there are lot of studies that compare happiness between countries, and so your point is that there are some studies that show that, for example, the nordic social democracies have higher happiness per capita. higher happiness d indiceses and also the happiest countries are mexico and brazil and some of the happist countries are united states and canada. so that's not uniformity on the studies. the fairest interpretation is not that if you want to be happy, move to denmark. you can try it but i don't really recommend calling the moving company today. i think that the way to measure that, given the fact that people answer it differently is to look at happiness over time, and the uniformity between communities. when you find certain communities really happy compared to others, then you're going to see that difference is something you should deal with. when it comes to per capita income, you fine that as a general matter the united states

is more prosperous than virtually all of the societies in europe. so, for example, sweden, which is held up as a model of reform a lot of really good things, sweden is in per capita income and services is poorer than all but three american states. now, again, i don't care and i don't think any of us should care because money is not the deal here. once you're above the level of basic subcities -- sunday sis stance, and above lower middle class levels where people can take care of. thes and families. i'm saying the united states is doing quite well for prosperity per capita. what we need to think about is our values such that we don't slip into the mall lays southern european and periphery countries in europe, and increasingly the mainstream european economies are falling into, too. most european countries are going the wrong way on happiness and the wrong way on prosperity and i think that in america we should decide we don't want that. >> host: area code, 202, 748, 8200. if you police in the east and

central time zones, 748-8201. if you live out west, if you can't get through on the phone line wed have various social media ways of contacting us. we'll put those up on the screen. william, boca raton. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i'd like to take exception to what mr. brooks referred to as the old fashioned -- when i say old fashioned method of giving charity. he claimed that this little woman looks up to the man who gives more. first of all, i think that if she wants to, she can give just as much because we're equal, not unequal. and i found some inconsistency when later on he said that when he is asking for money, he goes to the widow. now, i know that women live

longer than men but i think that he's got to look at the marriage or the partnership as equal rather than the little woman looking up to the man. i'd like his comments. >> guest: i'm not sure what lillian -- what you're referring to. the truth of the matter is i agree with what you said. i'm not sure what i said that led you to think that. i believe that there is equal moral worth between all forms of giving, that charity is critically important for all of us, those who are rich and poor have an equal moral obligation and privilege to be able to give. the truth is, and i've written about this extensively in my research, that the working poor are more generous as a percentage of their income than any other class in society, and they have a lesson for the rest of us and this is critically important. you also find that women tend to be a little bit more generous than men. they tend to be happier than men. they tend to live longer than men.

so, hill yap, my guess is -- i'm just going to take a stab -- you have done a lot of things right and you yao'll be rewarded for and i thank you for weighing in. >> host: she might heave been referring to the phrase when you used the words the widow's mite. >> guest: a bib do-biblical afraid. the widow that gives a tine from fraction because she is poor have the same moral -- as the prison's crown. th puts his crown toured the -- the widow gives her mite and is giving something equally important, more important. so i think i was making lillian's point. >> host: in your first book, who really carolina the suppliesing truth about compass newscast. conserve tim yourself, write that people who texas the foot should re distribute income -- t again -- people who think the government should redistribute income more are less likely to donate to

charity than people who don't think so. this is nothing more than substituting political opinions for private dove -- private donations. >> guest: i was shocked on this. i expected people who expressed greater come, for those who hey less to be bigger givers but you don't find that to be the case. the more likely you for say that the government should redistribute more income to people who have less, the less likely you for give away more of your own income. in other words you have a systemic substitution of political opinions for private charity that shouldn't be the case, in my view, and again i don't begrudge anybody their political opinion about restriction from government. may not agree but i understand and it i think people should hold it since searly. what is -- sincerely. what is a problem is saying i voted for politics who want to redistribute my money. see how comp passionate i am?

we still have a responsibility to aalleviate need. they're not substituted. complimented. >> host: you criticize fdr and his presidency. saying that charitable giving went way down once government programs start if goading up could that also be the effect of the '0s and the fact we're in an economic crisis. >> guest: snow doubt that is the case. but you find a couple of different things. when income goes down, that charitable donation goes down, that certainly has been the caissons 2008 in the united states as well. but you also find that what we call crowd-out. when the government does more individuals do less. this is not an argument for the government not doing something. so we shouldn't -- i don't anybody who is watching to misunderstand me and think we need to get rid of government programs wholesale. i'm sale it's a call to moral action from individuals to not be crowded out. our privilege is to be a table to take matters into our own hand, notwithstanding our government and that's a key to our own quality of life and

improving the quality of life of others as well. >> host: jeff is in cyprus, texas. you're on with arthur brooks. >> caller: yes, mr. brooks. stating to the four criteria of happy nose, faith, family, friends, and work, i would remind me of a great quote by russell kirk, who said that if you want to have order in the commonwealth you first have to have order in the individual0s soul. i'm wondering whether increasing gross national happiness depends on a restoration of traditional conservativism which russell kirk was the founder of, and whether you see anybody on the horizon right now that is capable of facilitating rather than obviously making this pursuit of happiness a reality. >> guest: thank you, jeff. why i love c-span, you can have someone call in and quote russell kirk. it's great.

and it's absolutely right. the whole idea that markets can do good things for us and free enterprise is outstanding -- i believe these deeply about they're a predeterminent for that is properly ordered human morality. markets have to come after morality, and again, different people -- people will disagree what the morality comes down to, but if we rely only on markets also apostlessed to the moral sentiments we're going to be going in the wrong direction, the same way you can't say a car makes you a better person. a car is a means to do so just as markets are means to do so. so, hour do we need to deal with senate we need politicians and policymakers and family members and community leaders who say we need to lead properly upstanding, moral, ethical, lifestyles such that capitalism can be a good thing for us as a society. adam smith said this in 1759 owrote the their riff hoff moral

sentiments. 17 years before the wealth of nations, his great book about how we understand classic economics today. the theory said we have to be able to earn freedom as a society on the basis of ethics. he came back to the book and said it was his greatest book and he was wright. the book that everybody should read you. need properly ordinary morals, well-ordered lifestyle and at that point if we do this together, free enterprise can be an unbounded net blessing for our society and setting us free and giving us more prosperity. >> host: rony, north carolina. hi good afternoon. as a small businessman i've been concerned about the momentum towards a higher minimum wage. some places, a living wage, which is almost ruinous to some small businesses. i was wondering what your take onit is and is there any movement or enough way we can get rid of the minimum wage.

>> host: what kind of business do you have? >> caller: i have a dog daycare but my wife and i have had remodeling businesses, paint crews, floor covering. we kind of have a lot of different businesses. and i've never myself paid a minimum wage. other i've always start people above minimum wage but some of the numbers we're talk not would put a couple of my businesses out of business. i cooperate happen ill. i found a lot of people do really well at first, give them a chance and they can make raises quickly, and some people just wash out right away, and if you have to start everyone at $12 to $15 an hour it would be difficult. >> guest: lonny-great point. let's talk about it from the perspective of the real problem with the minimum wage. i decent think any of shoes

dispute the fact you should be able to support yourself through honest work and be able to support your family. let's all agree to that. the question is how best to do that. the problem with the minimum wage isn't even just what you say, which is that it hurts small businesses, although it does. the biggest problem it hurts disproportionateie letter portions of the population. today you find that in minority communities among young men unemployment is 36%. it's just terrible. it's a scourge inside these communities. who are the people who are least likely to be hired and most likely to be laid off when you increase the minimum wage? the answer is young minority men. an empire cal fact. it disproportionalitily hits the people we need help the most. how do you take that on? when i hear studies that say increase the minimum wage by 15% only have a destructive impact of two or three percent on jobs.

that's all concentrated in particular communities and you can't soak that up with welfare. everybody one-halving understands that welfare is not a substitute for work. welfare checks can't substitute for paychecks in terms of human dignity and opportunity and building one's life. that it a fact. the question is, what are we going to do to meet the cite cite tieron that people should be able to support. thes in hon work, that the member wage increase doesn't do it and hurts certain pop legs. the answer is you need the policies that make work pay. for those who are real policy wonks, a gray policy is an expansion of the earned income tax credit. for those who are not policy wonks i want to caught you and let's talk about what the policy does. a government subsidy where you -- throughor tax bill you get a tax credit where you get bail clay check from the government that augments the wage that you earned. so you have a job, you work if you're below a certain level the government will top up your wage through your tax suns di --

subsidy. right enough it's something that families can get ahold of and it's a really successful policy. the problem is that single hen, the people who need it the most, don't have systemic access to this policy and we need to expand it. don't increase the minimum wage and foist this union oklahoma small beens beens and force thee most vulnerable out of the workers and. let's have a wage subsidy or earned income tax credit expansion that will make work pay for more people. i know it costs money. and conservatives might be rolling their eyes and say these guy who runs aei, talking about spending more government money. that's what want the government to do. that's what we should want the government to do. not the boondoggled and wastes of mon right now, we should really help people to get ahead. let's just do it. >> host: larry tweets in to you, arthur brooks, with regard to charitable contributions, and they write their charitable moneys off their taxes, poor pay

the taxes instead. >> guest: well, the way that the charitable deduction works in america is that -- in 1917, in the charitable -- the tax code, the congress said, look, we have these public goods we need pay for. if we are going to have people pay taxes and people are going to be giving money to charities that provide become goods let's have a public private partnership and allow people to effectively designate their tax bill towards the private charities they're paying for. not one dollar for one. it's by the amount of their tax rate that we're going to let them write it off. it was kind of a moral contract between the governments and citizens. it wasn't just a loophole or a work-around, and ever since then there's been this sense that private citizens should be able to designate some of their tacks through tax deductibility to that. it's not the case it's being paid for by poor american. poor americans pay virtually no

income taxes, at least at the federal level attempt they pay a lot of other kinds of taxes, social security, and they pay property taxes and they pay consumption taxes but those aren't the taxes you can write off when it comes to your tax deductible contributions. the tacks largely paid by people on the top half and that where the taxes come from into well, paul tweets in as well, are you the arthur brooks who writes a cowl almost for the "new york times." >> guest: yes. and i'm so grateful to do it. it's been a wonderful experience to write for a different community and a different paper that the free enterprise movement has been associated with. it's a real privilege to do. so short answer, yes, i'm the same guy. >> host: michael, another tweet. and he talks -- well, how do you reconcile corruption and influence destroying the free enterprise system? corporations are not people. can you dress that argument that

is going on, corporations are not people. >> well, corporations are technically not people. they don't have a soul. the whole idea of personhood is that -- but corporations have a legal designation and that's really what we're talking about. nobody should support in the idea that corps should have special pours and special privileges, that corporations should have undo access on governments, and in point of fact the way that we set up the system where enormous government which is metastasizing all over the place, without being politically justified, whether we have just through pure bureaucracy, more and more power that can give privileges to companies and unions unions ando well-organized vivids with special power, all of should be resentsful of that because that hurts ordinary american. people who can benefit. we live in washington, dc, powerful friends but we shouldn't even be able to.

that's something we should all agree on right and left. that's got to stop. >> host: jonathan, milford, connecticut good afternoon. you're on. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm wondering if you can comment on america's incarceration rate relative to other nations, the rise of privately run prisons and how this impacts happiness in america. thank you. >> guest: thank you. great question. criminal justice reform should be a major component of the new conservative agenda over the next two years. criminal justice reform is an area where we can make big strides in improving fairness and having a better opportunity society. right enough it's not just that we lock up too many people elm we lock them up for the wrong ropes. the movement toward al concern testify sentencing, alternative criminal justice methods, everything from drug courts to getting read of three strike laws-this is the way to go and conservatives should be at the van garrett of making -- van garrett of making it so. very encouraging when in

conservative leaders were writing open letters the governor of texas for a stay on the execution of a profoundly mentally ill man. that's the idea of what the conservative movement that -- a conservative heart should be able to recognize, is really the wrong way to go. no matter what your views on the death penalty, that is something where we can recognize we are going in the wrong direction. so i think this is a big opportunity for a better criminal justice system and a better conservative movement. >> host: and steve in west haven, connecticut. go ahead. >> caller: i think you're just great but i have a comment on -- i'm a great believer in term limits and you don't hear too much about that because they don't want to give up their cushy jobs and people argue that you lose all that experience if you have term limits. that's pure nonsense. and i think they should be callable every two years, and that way you -- problems you

have today would disappear through term limits, get rid of these and get some of the money out of the political arena. campaigns are just ridiculous. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you. the term limits have been coming up for a long time, and the technical aspects of them, the constitutional aspects of them are something we don't want to address. there are some constitutional difficulties with the idea in the first place. at the state level they've been relatively successful. look at florida. where members of the florida house are term limited out. even the speaker of the house is a great young political entrepreneur, will weatherford, a real leader. he has been term limited out. they're serious temp state level there can be a lot of good thing ooh thing that is a force for good is a commitment going in from politicians to say, i'm just not going to stay very long and to be held to it from the get-go. i think the moral persuasion

from private commitments can be every bit as powerful as simply a law for it so we can understand the moral fiber of people and what their intention is to be with respect to citizen politicians. one quick thing. i don't think their jobs are that cushy, frankly. if have become pretty good friend with members of the senate and house, and those men and women work like crazy. they have to deep two apartments and i have to say -- i know a guy, friend named raul acts -- a congressman from idaho. can you hajj going home every weekend? he is a patriot and wants to help save the country and if he is watching, which i bet he is not -- i hope he is -- he is saying, cushy job in are you kidding me? ... ing cushy job, are you kidding me? but i think that your point is a good one.

>> host: i would like to hear the opinions on the appetite of americans for libertarianism today and whether or not we have a chance of moving that we as a society in the near future perhaps over the next 30 years. >> guest: libertarianism has been a political favor by about 3% of the population. that isn't to say there are not elements of it that people like a lot there are elements on the political left that are pretty appealing. but it hasn't really expand all that much for a few different reasons. one of them is the traditional libertarianism has been relatively unsympathetic to the way that we from the national security policies. they tend to be relatively popular. so i don't know what the future of libertarianism is going to be. i think it's incredibly important that they played an outside influence on the direction of the country. whether or not they can grow

into a kind of movement tha s i think it's incredibly important that libertarians play an outsized influence on the philosophical direction of our country whether or not they can grow into a kind of movement that per se has political force i'm not sure. my friends at the cato institute are terrific at turning a 3% movement into something that looks like about a much higher percentage of political influence. >> host: from your book "the battle" how the fight between government and for enterprises shape america's future what is the 7030 nation you're talking about? >> going into 2009 in this country and in the middle of the traditional free enterprise country. i don't mean that in a critical way. some people agree with that in some people don't agree. i'm talking as an analyst at this point. looking at the data you find sympathy for the free enterprise system is size about a 70-30

propositon so you can find people that are willing to question a lot of the practices in our country and willing to let the government provide more of a safety net and solve some of our problems or methods like stimulus good or bad in times of real economic crisis but where are their hearts? and 70/30 proportions their hearts in traditional society towards free enterprise. this makes a point that you made a little bit earlier. there's a conflict here. we are becoming a democracy but emotionally we are 70/30 nation. that could look like a sort of detachment from reality but really what that is his opportunity. if our hearts are in one place that our country is someplace else waiting to follow our hearts. what is a mean to be society that reflects their deepest values? the system is the reason our ancestors came here. yours and mine are not steaming

into new york harbor same thing.i'm finally in america to get a better system of forced income redistribution. they were here for the freedom. they were here to be rewarded for their hard work and that's the ethos we can get back one is written on our hearts and a great majority of americans we want for self and her kids and especially for the poor to get them the freedom and opportunity to lift themselves up. >> host: are we unique as a 70/30 nation? >> guest: we are pretty unique. not entirely and i have great hope for all kinds of parts of the world. i just said 10 days ago i got home from india. i tell you it's totally inspirational. it's my favorite place to go in the whole world. i spent as a research on the book i'm writing now i spent half the day in serape which is a huge slum just like the middle of mumbai. the famous place. this place you will see misery and you are going to see beggi

begging. you're going to see depression and idleness rate you see poverty at the thing that strikes you the most is busyness. you see work. you see people who are working. i'm not a guy whose job is sorting used toothbrushes to recycle. you can say he shouldn't have to do that. the point is he is doing that. that is the kind of ethos that you would think of as what your ancestors from the united states are doing it i want to sort out poverty and don't get me wrong it's important we have greater prosperity for the whole world but let's recognize prosperity for the whole world started with the american model and now we are seeing it as american values faith family community and work in other parts the world and that's something we want to inculcate. that said this is a country that showed the way and the country that should still show the way to the rest of the world. >> host: dawn from fall river massachusetts.

>> caller: hello. i'm reading david stockman's 700 page book the reef formation of the american people and american capitalism and it really skewers the new deal roosevelt johnson especially nixon and reagan even bush and the obama and bernanke. i was wondering if you could give a short book review of this because he really takes off on them. >> thank you don. stockman is a brilliant guy. he is as smart as anybody i have met quite frankly. he has a strong point of view in the book we are talking about is a 700 page volume. it's really worth reading because he has such a strong point of view about how we are selling out the future and step-by-step by step we have gone in the wrong direction.

we have worked in this ratchet toward social democracy. this is a point that i think is understood -- undisputably true that we can make with data. this is something that the right and left should agree on. the question is whether or not it's bad and whether or not it's necessarily the downfall of america. this is where the arguments are going to come in. actually it's a good thing the government is doing more and we are soaking up more gdp government services because this is how we can have a civilized society. conservatives say it has happened but it's not necessarily the case that it has to happen and furthermore the safety net per se is a good thing that is written along with fdr and lbj and policies we have seen along the way. there are a multiplicity of views. i recommend these books because you will learn the polar views of today. >> host: robbie post on our facebook page mr. brooks in briefly mention one of your answers that the u.s. should

reform their foreign-policy. would you please expand on that and explain how and why foreign-policy should be modified and what effect it may have on the willingness the u.s. may directly or indirectly have? >> guest: foreign-policy is such a difficult area and it's much easier to talk about free enterprise to be sure but there are -- how america is going to be give to the world. let's talk about how they are saying and this will give us a sense of how we can reform foreign policy. if you want to understand how american foreign policies change the world believe it or not look at china. china has pulled 650 million people out of poverty. the answer is not central planning. the answer is not the authoritarian regime. it's not the nightmare of civil rights problem they have in the country. it's the movement toward capitalism and particularly

toward trade and trade with the west and especially with united states. what is made that possible? in no small part it's made possible by open ceiling to the global commons. it's the pacific has not been run by militarism for the first time in recent history or even over the past several centuries. that is because of american military power. the idea that americans will uphold the global commons is not just about the just about american interests and in so doing it helps set people free around the world. we need a foreign policy that understands if we are the hyperpower we have to act like one. a hyperpower has to be able to be militarily sound capable have a strong foreign-policy understand we are a unique nation and be willing and able to share our values with people around the world who are ready to absorb these ideas. that means intervention sometimes. that means a sense of internationalism but most importantly and i know some people disagreed with neither

foreign-policy. it's simply not okay when we have a chaotic sense of leaving from behind. that's basically a foreign-policy of hoping the problems will pass. that's not going to get us where we need to go. we need a foreign-policy and the ideas i laid out in the beginning or the basis for which we should be able to do that. >> host: arthur brooks is our guest and is author of several books on public policy. canton catskill new york. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. mr. brooks to questions if i may. i would like to hear you defend the social security tax if you can and i'd also like you to comment on the fact that here in northern pines both parents need to work in almost every situation. all the friends that i have every couple has had to have both parents working.

>> guest: the social security cap. the work of my colleague andrew biggs works for "the wall street journal" and one of the things he helps us understand is that social security cap is not to make the tax more aggressive. it was set up by fdr originally as a forced savings program not as a pay-as-you-go redistributing program. the whole idea was senior citizens at that the time were disproportionately indigent after they retired. their working lives have expired. they were not able to work so their incomes weren't -- incorrectly and economists identified that insufficient savings was the culprit. he said let's take the first part and impose a tax on it. they will put it away in their name. we are not putting it away in their name. we are partying it away but the idea is ripe for savings along

the line of what fdr was talking about. it's not a tax, it's a tax that makes sure everyone saved a certain amount and everybody has a base amount and a formula disproportionate to your income. the second question about the income in every household to structure the economy is changed a lot since i was a kid. you have more rewards that come from higher education and the result is to work you don't have high education and you don't have an educational attainment level that is following the new economy. he will be making less per hour. this is a structural change. this is one of the reasons i believe typically when people have little kids that we should have been in -- earned income tax credit soap working poor can make ends meet without taking second and third jobs. god forbid having two people on public assistance. we need to find better ways to

create human dignity and then we need a long-term solution to improve capital in the country. the truth of the matter is we have a public education system that's suitable to the 1950s. when my parents were children and if you do that you are going to be left behind. we need an education system that is choice and innovation and understands we need to improve people import permits disproportionally. this is a huge struggle for the country. let's have policies that make more pay right now and policies that improve human capital in the medium and long-term. medium and long-term. we do that we could solve some these problems. >> host: arthur brooks is there a politician out there who is speaking some the ideas you are espousing? >> guest: there are more and more in the good news is i see a lot of the state and local level that are aspirational. they are visionary along these lines. the key things that politicians have to have if they want to get these things right is the why of

their work and the base of the person they're trying to help the most. what we need in america is at left and right that are more pro-entrepreneur and -- we will see a lot of these ideas. we won't hear the left and right saying no i have a better idea on poverty reform education reform regulation and how we can create more jobs than have the energy boom. i want to write about to be fighting over it as opposed to not effectively colluding to ignore poor people which happened in the conversation we have today. i see a lot of people who we will see on the national scene. >> host: and the names that you want to name? >> guest: i just named one. bill weatherford in florida and a lot of people in some of these states. go to texas, go to florida and arizona. you will find places where they have nonconventional views. some of the president then she

candidates are interesting. the governors running for president on the republican side. they're willing to wind up -- i like a lot of what we are seeing. some people that might get in the race a guy like mike pence interesting stuff going on in indiana. you are a hoosier cities brought -- you are probably watching what he has going on. john kasich and bobby jindal. obviously people are people so you can't say 100% is great that these are people that have some pretty interesting ideas. >> host: david e-mails and the survey research has shown that some traditional democrats voting groups tend to be more risk-averse than others ap. this makes sense he said senate democratic economic policies often feature protection. >> guest: if you offer people more security you will find that you will attract people who like security. there's nothing weird about

that. there's a deeper consideration which is when people are poor they have, the stakes are higher on losing what they have got. so they will be a lot more worried. if you are living paycheck to paycheck it won't take much before you are homeless and you will care more about policies that will make you more secure. this is the reason the right has to be more serious about fighting for reliable safety net for people but not to worry about that. they can avail themselves of the system of opportunity. there are politicians that are very good on the someone of the best people i've heard on this issue is jeb bush. we have talked about the right to ride with a safety net that can take care of a lot of the security concerns. then think seriously about an opportunity for poor people. >> host: the national review in a couple of different essays put part of the blame on eric

garner's death in new york on the fact that new york regulates the sale of cigarettes. >> guest: sure. we talked a little bit about criminal justice reform. i think i see a lot of conservatives and liberals coming together beyond that. it's too simplistic to say that eric garner's death was due to a cigarette tax. you can find these weird secondary and tertiary causes. what we do know is that right and left people are coming together to talk about the way the police are trained and everybody regrets that. one more point on any of these cases because i don't have answers but i will tell you if we as a society have more opportunity for everybody including the 36% taking care of the 30 per 6% on climate problem for young minority men we would have a lot fewer of these types of problems. opportunity is the key to solving a lot of these problems. >> host: the next call from

cheryl in claremont california. hi shero. >> caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. i just have one question. what specific structural policy changes can be implemented so morally and ethically all people will be treated like they would like to be treated? >> guest: i wish i could say here is the one policy that would make everybody understand every single person is a child of god. i wish i could do that. the reason i can't do that is that's not policy. their policies need like equal treatment before the law. that goes back to the founders. that's language from the declaration of independence. it wasn't even brought to full fruition until he got rid of slavery in their right to vote and we need to make data more for reality. fundamentally that's not a policy question. it's a cultural question. fundamentally we need cultural

and moral renewal in this country. and tell each one of us is a warrior for true equality, until each one of us understands every person as a child of god and equal in the eyes of god we are not going to get the job done. what i would suggest is that our listeners, our viewers and each one of us we consider ourselves to be more revolutionary every bitty -- every bit as much as . >> host: tom, good afternoon. >> caller: thanks for an excellent interview. i was wondering in your happiness index you mentioned we are all animals and he said animals didn't have a soul. >> guest: the elements of a happy life are family can make

in life and you can interpret faith however you like. the truth is when i look at it empirically i have traditional faith as a roman catholic but you can interpret it according to the data which is to say traditional and nontraditional faith brings happiness to people. the key thing is not ignoring the transcendental forces in life. not becoming a pure materialist. that is what matters the most. i spent a lot of time in india. people were deeply satisfied with their lives. they are religious people with a different religion than i have. what i would suggest is the social scientist it's very difficult to ignore the transcendental elements of life but in doing so you focus way too much on materialism. one of the things i write about is easy formulas for happiness. a formula can't that comes from modernistic light that tells us

how to live the good life is wrong. the formula is to use people in love things. that's exactly wrong. a good life is one where we'd love people and only use things. to do that you have to have the transcendental -. >> host: from your book "the battle" house for enterprise will shape america's future the poor man who believes he has successfully created something of value would be much better off in a rich man who has not served his success. the big problem is not unhappy people have less money than others. it is that they have less earned success. >> guest: earned success is one of the key concepts. it's one of the recent honest work work is critically important in human dignity. if you fall below subsistence all bets are off. it cited list people up is critically important. anybody who says it's okay to be poor, i had this friend a guy

named howard. he used to be the superintendent of schools. he was saying at an aei event people say money doesn't matter it is they are always rich. point well taken but once we get above the level of being able to support her cells it doesn't bring happiness at all. earned success the feeling you're creating value in your life and die in the lives of other people and that's it. what can they do to make it more possible for people to earned success? what am i doing today to give people a sense of worth so they can create human capital? they have a job or they can support their families and where their skills and passion gimme. don't dismiss their jobs as dead-end jobs. dead-end jobs and put them on public assistance. that is the wrong thing to do

because that was a way of success and away from happiness. >> host: preston in denver colorado. >> guest: i just felt the need to share on your facebook page some thoughts in the defense of government. i hear a lot of kind of the demeaning of our government. and people like ralph nader think that actually is big business that is the major problem right now. and also, regarding his assertion that we don't have a foreign-policy, i think we have one. we had a worse one under bush and a lot of the aei scholars were supporters of the invasion of iraq and i think they owe the people of iraq and apology for devastating the country and i was wondering if you had a response to that.

>> guest: i appreciate your view. there's a lot for me to disagree with. i'm glad you your point of view deeply however. on the question of iraq, apology is due to the citizens trying to bring their lives that have been since devastated by the lack of foreign-policy and the invasion of isis. that was an unforced error on the part of a non- foreign-policy from the united states. so i think all of the data support, but what i'm saying here, you can -- anybody can legitimately go back and forth. it had to be finished and it wasn't in a rush to get out and what i think was the lack of the foreign-policy. the the people or something trying to get on with their lives and their families as they an apology to the iraqi people it's because of that

>> host: preston mentioned he posted on our facebook page if you're interested in seeing what he has facebook.com/booktv he posted an article from government is good.com and one from slate as well. the slate article is headlined why are the coax investing in happiness? have you read this article? >> guest: i think everybody should invest in happiness. the forces of happiness in their life and it's great great that philanthropists are thinking about not just happiness but human flourishing. deeper things. i think it's great. i think george soros as well as david coke should invest in happiness because i think it is a worthy thing to have a good discussion as a country. >> host: every month we asked one author to come on this program can take your calls, take your e-mail comments etc.

but we also ask the author his or her favorite books in the biggest and biggest influences and what he or she is reading now. here are some of the arthur brooks answers. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ >> host: arthur brooks, one of her favorite people in the biggest influences, charles murray. >> guest: a scholar at the american enterprise institute who has written voluminously on so many different topics. he wrote the first book about welfare reform.

charles murray's work ended up going back to, you know, i think that we talked about this quite a lot. the book is called losing ground. it is written in 1984, and it basically made this one profound point. charles murray said the problem in the welfare system is not that it wastes so much money, which invaded rules the life of the people that we are trying to help by making them permanently dependent on the state. this is such an important point that people agree left and right and it is beyond contention at this point. he has a visionary ability to get some major ideas across and it is a privilege to be working with him. >> host: it was pretty controversy over when you go to the bell curve. >> guest: the essential point of the bell curve, the controversy is that these were some of the work that he did where he talked about the differences with respect to race, but that wasn't his central point. the central point that he was making is the class is

disproportionately starting to revolver out of the difference is people have in their ability to perform cognitively and that the class society is immoral and un-american and it's hurting the way that we are setting up our country. so that was the central point that he was trying to make in the book. the book that he's coming apart in 2012 which didn't look at race at all if looked at only the differences only on one side which was white america. the reason he did that was to not look at race and to say we are organizing in a way that is leaving the bottom behind. we need to bring the fullness of american society and opportunity. we need to do that more aggressively. >> host: numbers are on the screen if you want to talk to our guest. president of the american enterprise institute and the author of these policy books. who really cares, the surprising truth about the compassionate conservatism, it came out in 2006. gross national happiness.

why happiness matters for america and how we can get more out of that came out in 2008. the battle how the fight between big government and free enterprise will shape america's future into the road to freedom is the most recent account to win the fight for free enterprise that came out in 2012. you also list is in friedman and saint john paul to as some of your favorite people are biggest influences. >> guest: these are economical fingers if you think of john paul the great, john paul to the great pope. he's helped us understand a better rule today because he's been of the central figures about bringing down. as the head of the roman catholic church was responsible for reminding people around the world of human dignity was not consistent with communism.

what a baby catholics are not christians or religious people were not come human dignity as human dignity is human dignity. >> host: an e-mail from mark. the middle east is where the u.s. doesn't belong. since napoleon in the west is cause more issues than salt we can't -- we can't assist, now solved. >> guest: i disagree. i think the middle east come that people said that about many places in the world that are currently in the process of development of an democratic principles. people are a different point in the democratic process and to go into any part of the world and assume that the point of their development for capitalism the

same as we are today can be a mistake but to say some places don't have the potential to be able to develop policies that treat people with respect where minorities are not oppressed and we can have pluralism i think the it's a mistake historically. people would have said that about germany not that long ago. people would have said that about places in southeast asia that are in the democratic process now including the grand peninsula. i think we need to be careful about that. i think we have to have good policy but i also believe we need to be optimistic and confident about our american principles. >> when you hear rand paul talk about foreign policy what is your initial reaction? >> my initial reaction is rand paul says want different things and as a potential presidential candidate he has to be every place all the time. the idea of nailing down a

particular point of view is difficult but as a general matter i think my point of view is a lot more internationalist than rand paul's point of view is on that. i think i would like to welcome him to aei. >> host: has he ever spoken there? >> guest: not yet but i think he probably will. he's a smart guy. >> host: michael is sent a couple of tweaks and i'm going to combine his tweets because they are semi-related philosophically. for enterprise would allow churches or any organization to operate tax-free followed by the minimum wage is peanuts versus the tax loopholes for the rich. >> guest: the middle which is peanuts compared to the tax loophole for the rich. the problem is not that it's peanuts. the problem is that destroys jobs for the most vulnerable and we have a better policy for increasing their wages.

when it comes to printer price and religion that is inconsistent with what the framers of our policy believe. they believe their religious communities are part of a good society and therefore they are worthy of tax-deductible in the. that's the philosophy that motivated in the first place. >> host: alec and california e-mails we don't need term limits for politicians. we need term limits for abusive bureaucrats who join lifetime appointments. >> guest: i understand the sentiment. i am sometimes outraged as well. i know a lot of people who work for the government who have done so for a long time and they are faithful public servants working really hard. a piece of advice to the political right. one of the great things, one of the great errors the right has made his describing bureaucrats

as necessarily lazy as necessary incompetent as rent seeking. if you do that no good conservatives are going to go into public service and if you do that you will get a left-wing bureaucratic apparatus forever. i think we have to recognize public service is a good and dignified thing to do. of course there there are bureaucrats and there is waste fraud and abuse. there's a lot we need to do to reform it but i want more smart principled conservative people that consider careers in government so we can have a better point of view that is not simply another progressive constituency. that's one of the biggest problems america faces. >> host: your book wrote it to freedom is wonderful and i really appreciate your having produced an audio book area i commute three hours a day and listen to it twice. freedom comes first, even before

justice. >> guest: a three-hour commute i hope that isn't too many miles so you're not sitting in traffic and you get a little bit of freedom your self. there are a lot of people that honestly be the. but honestly be the. when you look at the american policy, the values they are basically three. exigency, justice or fairness and freedom or liberty. and the truth of the matter is that you can't load on one or more of these things. we want all three but certain people pay for some over the others. we need public policies that respect the different values that people have and we all want fairness and belief efficiency is a good thing but it's critically important. their voices tend to be on the

libertarian side. so understanding those differences help us to be a little bit more tolerant and people that disagree than people that disagree with us thanks for helping us read the book. >> host: you mention you are working on a fifth book. >> guest: it will be called the conservative park the whole idea is the vision of human foraging. a human movement that puts people first especially vulnerable people first. it will talk about the sanctification of ordinary work. it will talk about a new policy that a a policies for improving the lives of people that are poor in the cultural bias on the political right are people that are poor and it will talk about a better life for everybody for their families and happiness. this is what the conservative heart is all about and the conservative movement has fallen down by talking about economic efficiency and materialism too much. and thinking about how to share it with more people than how to be more pluralistic pluralistic in our view is and how more

explicitly moral in our language about id. and opportunity is the way to go. so i'm hoping to have some sort of an impact on the policymakers and on the citizens and bring us all together around these humanistic values that can lift other people up. >> host: so you are leaving after four books. >> guest: basic has been very wonderful to me, but i that i went to or collins mainly because my editor is adam bellow can use the son of the great author. he is one of the most storied editors in the movement. and i always wanted to work with him. >> host: john in new york city you are wrong with arthur brooks. >> caller: thank you very much to c-span and mr. brooks i appreciate your views especially on the poor. two quick questions. do you ever still play around with both mozart come and number

two, you hear politicians talking abut the need for tax breaks for the job creators and then the ball straight journal reports on how many large corporations like wal-mart can have their employees don't make enough to live on and they have to go on public assistance and food stamps and i know you were on this earned income tax credit but what about the people that are going to pay their employees on how much to? thank you. >> guest: on mozart, first i don't play anymore and the reason i don't play the horn anymore if i'm out of shape and i don't have the chops for it. so i listen a lot, particularly with my kids i enjoy great music and i enjoy other people's suffering while they play music

more than i enjoy my own self suffering through a lot of these great pieces. when it comes to paying a fair wage, i understand the sentiment. what can i see corporations that make a lot of money. while the executives coming at me have employees that are really on the edge. the problem that we see is what a lot of the corporations, they are hiring people that have a hard time earning in value more than that. that is the reason that as a society we need to be able to say that we want to improve the capacity of people to create value. we don't want to pretend people are creating more value than they are. we want them to create more value. the way to do that is through capital enhancement, better education and the near-term eking working more as a contract with us as americans. now, that is good to come from everybody. it's disproportionately going to come from the corporations because they pay the most taxes and that is okay. but if we actually go to the corporations and say from now on

you have to pay coming yes but some of these guys they don't create much value. it's not going to hire them and nothing that we do in a free society is going to make them want these people more. and so that is the practical problem that we need to solve and that's what i'm going to get into. other corporations that only hire people that do create more value from the get-go they pay a lot more than the minimum wage. the pioneer organizations in the area is hobby lobby pushes and super famous because of that. but hobby lobby is paying 12 to $15 hour to start on us or you can do that you will be hiring different workers. and we want to make sure that everybody is capable of creating more value. and that should be the kind of moral goal that we have in society. >> host: you have to be in good shape to play the french foreign? >> guest: your lips have to be in good shape. spend a couple of months not playing it pretty soon you're not going to sound so good.

>> guest: i was happy in barcelona because i was in love. i chased the woman that i meant when met tonight is when i was playing a concert on the tour in france, she didn't speak any english but i figured she wasn't french, she was from barcelona. and i went to barcelona and a half% because i didn't show enough commitment she would agree to marry me. the good news. there was a great source of happiness and a singular source of joy in my life. playing at the orchestra was not really my cup of tea. it sounds like the best job ever but the trouble is when you play in the symphony orchestra you lack a lot of control. it is pure social control. and i have a tendency to have a trouble with authority so it wasn't the best job for me.

>> host: at about the atmosphere of barcelona. are the people have the? >> guest: spain is one of the unhappiest and it's been going the wrong direction for 25 years. spain is less happy than they were 25 years ago. some of the stereotypes that we have the lighthearted hippie standards are actually wrong and there are a bunch of different reasons for that. a member to the family, community and work in the foregoing are wrong direction on all four, particularly work. 26% unemployment and 56% from 56% for young adults. that is just young people trying to be in the workforce to look for jobs. this is the recipe for misery. you have a secularized society that has been hugely socialistic taking away a lot of opportunities. the result has been bad macroeconomic policies, and the environment that isn't very noble for citizens, for the talent and passion they don't meet very well in the workforce

and the result is if they think the standards are happier than they actually are. it's a lot of reform that needs to happen in the country to get them on the right track. >> host: the phone lines are currently jammed but if you would like to ask a question on social media booktv is the better handle. you can make a comment on the facebook page facebook.com/mac book tv. and finally you can send him e-mail at c-span.org. thanks for holding. you are on with arthur brooks. >> caller: i was going to comment about wal-mart also and i don't know why the united states is ground for the company like wal-mart to pay their workers so low while the owners are billionaires and the taxpayer subsidizes their workers when they can very much afford to pay their workers decently. and when the last gentleman talked about that, i don't

believe arthur brooks addressed why the working man taxpayer and working woman in taxpayer has to subsidize the other businesses like that. and please come address this specific thing. by the united states is a ground for that. and also, why after the colony collapsed, all since then have gone to 1% of the population. why is it ground for the feudal system? >> guest: i wish i lived in a place called limerick or sonic or something like that. i lived in bethesda. the wal-mart question isn't whether or not the owners of the large stockholders and the executives make a lot of money. they do. and if they choose to give to charity i think it's great and

important and i hope they do. the key is remembering if you start out a lot of those come in the income that they had it will make hardly a dent in the workforce that ends up to the millions. what we need is the workforce where they are creating more value for wal-mart comes from the get-go they can be earning a higher wage. so, instead of trying to put all of our energy towards forcing our corporations to spread around more money, which would inevitably lead to cutting off more jobs for people that are marginal in the value that they are creating to find a way for people to create more value and in the meantime, let's end from the tax revenues find ways to make more and pay more to the people that are going to pay a vast majority of the taxes are rich people and corporations can and that's okay. i think is as a public contract we should be able to do that. >> host: which of your books have sold the best? >> guest: the road to freedom was on the bestseller list for a while and i'm grateful to that. i'm grateful for that. and some others were sort of

surprising. the first commercial book that i wrote, which is actually the fifth book that i wrote i guess it is a good one who cares about the charity a professor at syracuse university. i wrote a stick book and found myself in the radio on television and people bought it and in relatively large numbers changed very abruptly. if someone were to pick up one of her books which one would you recommend? >> guest: i favorite book, and they were not written by me. the favorite book that i've written that meant us to be as gross happiness. it didn't sell the most, but it's one that i -- i learned a lot about with my own personal values are. the book i'm writing right now is sort of closest to how i see

the world and what i think we can do to make a better world together as a social contact. >> host: wayne is in, not iowa. hello. are you with us? i think he's gone. let's try telling an albuquerque >> caller: yes, hello. thank you for taking my call. and i was going to ask something else that he keeps using this phrase "creating more value." as the clerks in wal-mart aren't really creating value of the way that it's structured and they get paid it certainly seems to deny the value that they are giving and doing and doing their jobs. and the phrase, creating more value, it sounds like a think tank phrase for me.

we've used it many times. i haven't counted it, but i do not think that it's really articulate. so if you could talk to that and also reparations for people who are definitely enslaved in the country that created value. >> guest: creating value may sound like a think tank, that it may have some correlations between the two. when i talk about value, we can talk about economic value and non- economic value. when i took that earned success, i don't mean making money. that isn't what i mean at all. creating value with your life and the lives of other people which is a deeply moral thing to do. i don't think that there is any difference whatsoever between the guy that runs the hedge fund and somebody that trims hedges. on the contrary, anybody that

believes that there is any value difference in the deep oral value between anybody that is an honest days work in any java versus any other is on the wrong track. and that is the reason by the way. i heard the vice president on national tv talk about the dead-end jobs. it offended me so much coming initiative and everybody that is watching us today. we should reject that. there are no dead-end jobs. there are dead-end politicians. there is a dead-end culture committed and policies but there are no dead end jobs because there are no dead-end people. if you are giving an honest days work it is critically important. that's why i want policies. again, take away the idea that somehow we are going to browbeat organizations. let's be practical. we know that people on the work and honest day of work they should be able to support themselves and their families. we all agree on that. the question is how do we make it so. we have policies that can get it done.

but we are not doing it because we are trying to score political points. so let's fight for working people. let's fight for the poor. let's implement the policies that will actually get that done, which incidentally will also be disproportionately paid for by rich people and corporations. what do today and we will see tremendous progress in the social justice in america. >> host: crazy e-mails to you has a solution for the high cost of a college education? do you need a college education to get a job, please do not tell me manufacturing jobs are coming back. >> guest: manufacturing jobs are not coming back. manufacturing is a good percentage of the value of the american economy than it was 30 years ago but it is one eighth of the jobs. you are right. it's just less job intensive as a part of the economy. education is critically important coming, and we need a couple of different reforms. ..

we need more alternatives to the way we get college done. it works for an alternative path i wouldn't have been to college a place called thomas edison state college in new jersey which is where i did my whole college degree in correspondence and which i mentioned earlier. if it hadn't been for that competition i would have been able to go to college. i simply would have been foreclosed on africa and they still have a very deep personal

reason for wanting an alternative path for different people that will insert downward pressure on the tuition rate. >> host: paul e-mails into question spirit was surprised to see mr. brookes challenge the conservative orthodoxy of beneficial influence and corporations on politics. what should be done to address the oversized influence? >> i am not as worried as a lot of people are about what money is doing in politics. what i want is a lot of transparency and i want people to know what's going on and i want more people, actually less of the weird regulations that help certain people but don't help others. i think there's a lot to be said for free speech in the way we pay for a politics that we shouldn't understand who's paying for what. in the political process i think we can deal with more transparency. >> host: paul second question that comes there for everyone

the world to live like americans it would require three or four more plants. is the american system the american standard of living scalable? >> guest: the american system is scalable. what we see is there are a lot of facts that are surprising to people. if you make more than $34,000 a year for family of four you are in the global 1%. people don't recognize that that virtually everybody who is watching this today is in the global 1%. can we not get to that standard? that's ridiculous that we wouldn't be able to hit that. we see places in sub-saharan africa that were written off for dead that are making nine and $10,000 a year places like namibia that have been tremendous success stories and have been able to get at without the outlet idea idea that we will consume all the resources. until several hundred years ago if peter had more money than arthur would have less. for enterprise had this

positive-sum world where peter could have borne arthur can have more. should we can serve naship natural resources? of course. do well to think simultaneously. we have a strong ethical economy and we all can be more prosperous together. that is the lesson of the free enterprise system. a couple of quick facts. when i was a kid in 1970 compared to today, the percentage of the worlds world's population living on a dollar or day less, 70% of americans think there's more hunker the world then there was the 70s. it's completely wrong. 80% decline in the poverty. the reason for that was not the united nations for the world bank for the imf. good institutions are bad. people disagree on that. was five things. it was globalization, free trade, property rights, the rule

of law and american-style entrepreneurship is spread around the world after 1970. these are facts. now what are we going to do as good stewards and global brotherhood to bring that to more people. instead of saying we all have tickets and less, we all have to live under more austerity as if there was a solemn, a set amount of sources that we can never go beyond. that is wrong. prosperity can grow when more people can come out of poverty and we have a moral obligation to do it to serve fellow man. this is the optimistic vision that the american system should bring in liberals and conservatives should band together on sr compact of global brotherhood of people around the world. >> host: chris, huntsville, alabama. please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hello, gentlemen. how are you doing? thank you for c-span. mr. burks, i just want to tell

you that i am a fan of milton friedman as well. i read several of his books have watched a lot of black-and-white from back in the day when he was talking about the economy. in the middle eastern country as well as india. he weighs showing how an economy can be with people working together. how could we bring that blueprint from that kind of world to the ghetto in the ghetto in low-income parts of this country and put it in that we can do with a argument over there was little or nothing. >> host: chris, what do you do in huntsville? >> guest: construction mainly, but due to the weather it is kind of slow right now. >> host: what attracted you to milton friedman? >> caller: basically the way that if the system can help

people that don't have a voice economically, that it benefits all and it is something that is good. you don't have to worry about dependent on welfare and food stamps because we can do for ourselves. >> guest: thank you, chris. how was it that we have world development policies that are so good and potentially rwanda or transition economies, but where so much trouble and around cities. for that matter in rural areas that i left behind as well. the key things to remember or we know how to create prosperity. we know how to do that. you need work and unique human capital and culture. that is what you really need. you need a work culture that embraces the values that we are all created equally and created a sql and that we could all create value again.

i use it again so our viewers keeping a word count. i said it again. we need a culture where we have a political system where politicians are warriors for job creation. this is one of the things i like about governors because governors are crazy -- i just create a 7000 jobs. they will run down the street if they can get 7000 jobs to come to their state. what will they do more of? before my feet hit the floor every morning, i say what am i going to do for the government system is in the way of that. when a debate bias job creation and unique human capital. i think it is holding people back that they are being discriminated against when it comes to having good schools and equal access to education. it is not right in this country that we have too many places where school systems around for nearly for the benefit of grown-ups enough for kids. it is absurd we are doing that.

california were 52% is spent on education yet you have one of the highest and fastest growing poverty rates in the nation. we actually can if we have a bias for work on a healthy culture and for training cave for training kate doesn't matter their basic civil rights. post go arthur brooks, sometimes the 7000 jobs that a politician creates, tax incentives, tax breaks come in maybe free something or others. is that an effective way to create jobs? >> guest: i am always in favor of finding the way for government to take less money. i know the government needs the revenue. but when there's competition with respect to taxes between states, that's a good team because i'm that there's more economic value being created privately, which is better for the economy, which if things work right better for everybody. when there is cronyism however

that's a problem. special deals come in the special industries where they're able to get a leg up on their competition here that is struggling a problematic and that's what a lot of states with you. bring your source to my area. your competition will have to pay taxes, but you are. that is cronyism and unfair and bad for workers, bad for economies and bad for government as well. post of those types of incentives, which classified those as you do in "the road to freedom" with government activity? >> guest: yeah, i want tax regimes more favorable to everybody that create a magnetism for economic activity is supposed to targeted tax breaks for individuals. >> host: fargo, north dakota. as an atheist as mr. brooks suggests that makes it to be happy. atheists and people of faith may or may not be happy for various reasons. freedom from religion would improve my chances of happiness.

post go i would recommend religion. he's an atheist but he understands the beneficial impact of spirituality in everybody's life. as an atheist you are not for close to the same benefits that i is a practicing christian look at. good luck. thanks for your question. >> host: larry, centralia, washington. good afternoon to you. >> caller: thank god for c-span and booktv. my favorite weekend programming. my question for dr. brooks. the heritage foundation versus aei, can you compare the two against each other and the second question would be as it the opinion of the citizens united decision in the mail a request for donations from my party. i quit sending anything because it's just like adding a cup of water to the pacific ocean compared to citizens united.

>> host: larry, we will get that. if you could share your opinion or what you know about aei and the heritage foundation, what you think. >> caller: when i watch c-span and anytime there's someone on heritage foundation selling a book or some thing, it is so far right-wing that i i can hardly sit through the whole program and aei i noticed that during his tenure as secretary of state, his wife was ordered a job at aei. i am not sure about that. >> host: thank you, sir. we will get arthur brooks' views. >> guest: thank you for that. i grew up in seattle and then through their all the way through my childhood. i know it well. the heritage foundation has been around since the 1970s. aei was formed in the late

30s. aei is more academic. the heritage foundation has been more professional for the conservative movement. so they've had a different action to route the year. i've been a donor for both for a long time. they do different things as a matter of fact. aei, my institution does not corporate policy. if you think it's today or not the official views because aei doesn't have official views. 70 full-time scholars and 145 on top of that and so our views are more like a university than it is like policy advocacy organizations. the heritage foundation has views that are central to the corporation and that is how they will be affect it. they are quite different along these lines. >> host: colin powell, i think he meant dick cheney. >> guest: when cheney has a wonderful book that came out last year, a biography of madison. i recommend it to everybody

because it tells us something about what a great and independent thinker to help us remember the original conception of what it meant to be an american dreamer from the get-go. >> host: has almost powell been involved with aei? >> guest: no, she hasn't. but when cheney and other public figures are privileged to be involved throughout the years. >> host: larry also asked. there's a lot of legitimate disagreement on it. it doesn't necessarily bother me that we have more of a competition of money between them. somebody who is sending them five or $75 check is going to be a smaller percentage of the sun that goes into it. that means they have an opportunity to affect the debate in different ways. i might note that a good thing to do is to support think tanks, for example i'm a witch as if a $75 check instantly. >> host: dear fisher, facebook

page. mr. brooks, both born babe has so much as stated by performers of our tax system should look to taxing us when we spend wealth, not when it's served. those on to talk about the fair tax act. >> host: the idea of consumption taxes. for those who are want just enough to look at the website of think things, i recommend going to aei.org and look at our tax specialists. he's written a book on consumption taxation called the ex-tax. all that means is you don't have to pay taxes on the money you save. but when you take money out, when you spend it, do you thought you consume you have to pay taxes on. there have appropriate ways of protecting poor people from taxation. it's a much worse is the way to design our tax system. if we did that, we would see the

stronger economic growth and greater tax fairness. >> host: greta post that you should run for president in 2016 if for no other reason than to get your message before the public. >> guest: thank you so much. the question is is america ready for the president. i think not. >> caller: yeah, thank you. i was wondering if you had the insider overview or thoughts on the permanent dividends at the oil revenues and disperse dividends every year. all of the residents they are. it's pretty intriguing they been able to keep this going for so many years. >> host: what do you think of that? >> guest: i think it's pretty good. it's the government handling the people's resources and returning it to them. it's amazing they can invest in i wish everybody could do that. just go the key to that is you need to be free big natural resource, have very few citizens

per square mile and have the tap never turn off. it's a little hard to scale with the whole united states. saudi arabia has done that, norway, extractive industries have done that. and nonfree countries, it's the kiss of death quite frankly. and extractive industries and nonfree countries, you've been supporting populations on the basis of modern success but on the basis of natural resources can be really dangerous. fortunately in america we can do better in alaska has shown it doesn't have to be terrible. >> host: ronald is calling from west lafayette, indiana. are you associated with purdue? >> guest: >> caller: yes, i am. >> host: and the student ecological science and engineering. >> host: go ahead with your question or comment. >> guest: i have a two-part question. but i'm thinking about distribution and supply and demand. i would like to know, i do think

you would improve everyone had access to nutritious food? akamai, how do you think the american food system of government would be effective if government supports the programs like snape and corn and soybeans if they were replaced by an income tax credit performers are absolutely free enterprise and see what happens. but he or on that? >> host: what are your thoughts first, ronald? >> guest: well, i don't know. i think there is a large debate about replacing some of the pro-program especially since now takes up 80%. the usda program bills. technically the supply and demand side of it. if you remove, it makes it difficult. some of the same people with corn and soybean would end up in the same with fruits and vegetables because it's difficult to grow fruits and

vegetables, especially to make it cheap. >> host: ronald, what do you hope to do with your degree in ecological science? >> guest: eventually, continue research into a little more because it's difficult to work on the wife and how when you don't get the wife. so disciplinary research in the future. to think about how to format because each active research is fundamentally political in a resource constrained world which we live in. >> host: >> guest: thank you. you are the expert and i just learned from hearing you talk and appreciated very much. one thing i want other viewers to know is the what and how important but the wise critical. that is true in every area of policy. it's true for each one of us to think about why we are doing what we are doing. this is such a big deal in policy work that i believe essential to the work we do at

aei. on food security, it is absolutely true mission of social entrepreneurs working more and more to have basic food and water security for people all over the world and do it now would be an unambiguously good thing because this debate to more global prosperity and human accomplishment. people who are starving who have nutritional needs are people who simply cannot run their success. so that's a good thing to do. in the united states, the security to the snap program is critically. i see no data to dissuade me of the idea we should be cutting for fundamentally altering food stamps. the cost would outweigh the benefits of doing so. that said, we need to detach them from the system of arms subsidies that is distorting markets and making foodstuffs more expensive than it should be, most especially for the poor get farm subsidies or something politically difficult thing to change. if we look at human welfare and basic fairness, this is something we absolutely need to

do. in the farming community, let it tell you, they want to get rid of these things. you can't do it for the competition and not themselves. they want a fair system that levels the playing field for everybody. when i talked to producers, energy producers of ethanol, they tell me privately, let's get rid of the small subsidies. that will normalize the corn market. it will make it cheaper as a source of food and at the same time if you get rid of the energy subsidies, we should be getting rid of oil subsidies and when subsidies and energy subsidies as well. the best forms of energy will obtain. in equilibrium, we do need more free enterprise, particularly for the case of jobs and opportunity of growth for poorest americans. >> host: springfield, georgia. dr. brooks mentioned pope john paul ii. what are his views on the current pope is the current pope is used to. very antithetical to dr. brooks? >> guest: the current pope is

a marvel. more people are attending all over the world than ever before and after so-called catholic or somebody sympathetic come you think that's a great name. the current holy father is argentine. he's not been exposed to american capitalism. when he thinks of capitalism, he thinks that what is going on in argentine today. 100 years ago argentina was the richest and the entire hemisphere. they've been in the process is under development because of cronyism, big government statist on. all on. all the things i've been regretting over the past two hours on this program has been in huge abundance of large enough. it's no wonder the current pope who comes from the system sees capitalism through that lens. all of the united states progressives and conservatives benefited so very much from the rule of law and property rights to believe that free enterprise can lift people up. we all think these things that

we have an opportunity to help them understand how the american dream can be much more for human dignity and lifting people up. it's the best opportunity. >> host: marianna skeleton from pittsburgh. hello, mary. >> host: mag is going to remind you to turn down the volume otherwise there's a little bit of a delay. david in phoenix. we are listening david in phoenix. david, are you with us? david is not with us. and let's try another pittsburgh call. this is joseph in pittsburgh. joseph, we are listening. >> caller: thank you. i wanted to ask dr. brooks now with the contract with harpercollins, i'm pretty sure that's owned by rupert murdoch

holdings. what is your opinion of rupert murdoch? >> guest: thank you for your question. the chairman rupert murdoch. i know him personally. he loves his country. he's so happy to be in the united states. he's so happy for the freedom papering said he's been a transformational person and media all over the world. so to see somebody and and a word i admire him. >> host: , california. >> caller: hello? >> host: hi, bob. >> caller: hi, good morning. it is still morning out here. i want to ask dr. brooks, recruit by taking jobs from europe and now china is growing by taking jobs from the united states. how do you continue with the system of taking jobs from one

set of people to another set of people and still maintain some sort of middle class. >> guest: thank you for that. the import thing to keep in mind, the important point that you are making that want to underscore is any change doesn't just have winners. when you have fundamental economic change, people lose out as well and a good economic system in a good social system recognizes people will lose than win and you have to deal with those losing. the thing that i want to correct is we didn't just take jobs from europe. we created new jobs to the free enterprise system, which is to create a system of greater abundance. when china becomes freer, free enterprise as opposed to capitalism can create economic opportunity without destroying the opportunity in this case. in the united states however, jobs to move. they move to parts of the world in the process of developing

where we were before. if we do with that in way that doesn't leave people behind come you can't just ignore people. you can't soak them up as public assistance. you have to get serious about education, human capital development and we have not done that. i go to a little town in kentucky the company factory in the town has been checked out a new you want to moloch, honduras or someplace in asia. a lot of people are unemployed. generally speaking, a doctor will start writing and giving diagnoses of back pain and other things so that people can subsist on $900 a month in disability. that's a reason over 11 million americans are on permanent this ability because of economic dislocation. the highest in our history and the last six years since we've been living for americans behind.

at the same time, i go across to north dakota. we've been talking about wal-mart and the show. the average salary for stocking shelves at $17 an hour. that is three markets that were. why is that we don't have relocation subsidies? by don't be a greater remission so people with less opportunity to be paired up with places where there's more opportunity? why don't we retrain people and move them? it's consistent with america's culture. all of us sitting here and watching, our families didn't start out here. someday. but the vast majority didn't do that. they came from someplace else. we need to eat those of opportunity and a government culture that can facilitate and help it more. >> host: from the road to freedom, prime minister margaret thatcher is reported to have said that the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money. that is the road america is headed down now. aida, pennsylvania appeared you

were on the air. >> caller: thank you very much for your program and for your present speaker. i just adore everything he said. many tell you about myself. i'm a registered libertarian. every pictures on my windowsill. each says work is the only thing that dignifies the man and i thank you for the things you've mentioned to help me in my argument and people say the good old days are gone. you've given so many examples of how we've improved and i hope my friends were listening. secondly, please tell me how i can be more of an activist. how can i inspire that although my two children are grown not been very successful. but they are not activists and neither am i. i want to be more active. i want you to try and inspire that. it's a message you get with us. we have to inspire everybody.

get the people i bought this not doing their job. >> host: ada, give us a quick snapshot of your life before today. >> caller: anglo-saxon. i'm of italian heritage and i grew up in brooklyn and philadelphia and i went to europe for four years to 19 orting nine to 1953. i met my husband there and we had a great buys. he's dead now so that's okay because he was a great has-been. please tell us how to be more act is. how can we get our children to be more active? >> guest: aid, if i can be like you when i'm 90, 90, that is really all i ask. the key to activism is remembering that each one of us belongs to communities and each one of us is blessed in these communities. look, if more 90-year-old people in the united states were talking like you, the people at your windowsill, work brings

people to dignity. this is unambiguously true. remember the experiences you had in your life, the wisdom you bring in the comments he even if you can find ways in your particular community to share these ideas, that is how ideas spread in the united states. in the current vernacular, that is how things go viral. each one of the season ourselves as a leader. we have a pivotal role in taking. who do i touch with him i can share these views? that's what leadership stars. thank you. god bless you. >> host: david, phoenix, you are on the air. >> caller: i watch tim geithner on your network a few months ago and had to turn them off before i had a stroke. so i would like to hear from a very intelligent defender and reformer of the system holidays. i mean, i accept too big to fail. why couldn't the individuals

responsible for running those institutions in the ground have received savage punishment? maximum-security, confiscation of absent and how can the system ever regain credibility as they keep getting away with it? >> guest: thank you for your question. the reason i was too big to fail and the reason we had t.a.r.p. in the bailout are things people are alarmed about morally is because there was so much fear. economists didn't know whether or not the atm machines were going to stop working. i don't mean atm machines for rich people. i mean for you and me. that is something that stimulated both among republicans and democrats the will to do something like t.a.r.p. when there was -- when there were activities that were improper, when there was this legal and moral impropriety, we need rectification. we need a responsibility. to the extent we haven't done it

in a sense be as much as anybody else. who needs to fight for that? conservatives, not just progresses. stand up for fairness and say it's not right when somebody campbells is somebody else's money and they are rewarded from the air. i agree with you, but what we need is more public moral outrage that cronies will be able to wire around. >> host: run arthur brooks' book "the battle," the narrative about the financial book consists of five key claims. one, government was not the primary cause of the 2008 economic crisis. two, the government understands the crisis that is how to fix it. three companies treat americans were nothing more than victims of the crisis. for crisis. four, the only way to save the economy is through massive government growth and deficit spending. inside, the middle class will not pay for the stimulus package.

the rich will. >> guest: these are raw views we heard starting in 2008 in 2009. these things turned out to be false. the biggest one that we needed to keep in mind and i direct everybody's attention to my colleague anna peter wallace and his work housing in the financial crisis. the biggest thing we need to remember is that government housing policy that basically saying for decades now, democrats and republicans say full american citizenship requires buying a house through ball that people should not been getting drove up the price of real estate, led to the bubble and melted the financial system. this is bad public policy. the worst part is we are doing it again. through the process of filling up these great big bubbles in financial markets again. we can look at malfeasance in our last caller pointed out that he was a real problem, but the private sector file in the public sector's lead down this

path at the least let's not have government wrecks our economy for pete's sake. it is just common sense. >> host: peter wallace and has a new book coming out. >> guest: she does indeed he is basically a book in january that shows how the financial crisis proceeded. it takes you step-by-step. i know it's complicated. people throw up their hands and say i don't understand it. read the book right after the first of the year and you will be a lot smarter. >> host: in january, you will see peter wallace and on the program for next year's "after words." >> caller: hello? >> host: we are listening. >> caller: hello, wow, i am really excited to be on here. thank you for being on c-span.

i am a recent graduate from arizona state university and i am studying sociology. but my question is, what do you think future generations can do to help you have a more positive opportunistic lifestyle? >> guest: thank you very much. congratulations and good luck on your career. in many ways, this is the most exciting time because there is such a blank slate, desire for people to do good at a time after there's been a lot of suffering and i can tell already you will be real leader. the key thing i recommend is this. think for yourselves. look, you know come easy for me to say here on the great c-span and tell you this is how you should be. think for yourself. this is what america needs. more young people not saying i'm a republican or democrat. or when i was in college my professors all top ministers a

way to thing, but we are autonomous individuals. we have access to lots of information. remember as a generation of leaders that will save this country and commit morally and each person hominids on to sam going to form my ideology on the basis of what i think is right. if we have a generation of new leaders are freethinkers, will be on suit the powers that be? really dangerous for these vested interests because you could be the revolutionaries to turn our country around. >> host: let's go back to the battle for a second. the political left understands the 30% coalition's appeal among young adults. it aggressively and successfully wooed them in the 2008 election campaign and plans to grow its coalition over time. there were three long-term strategies to keep the young and the 30% coalition you pay off

the debt, give them government jobs and make sure they never have to pay for the services the government provides. >> host: there is always a strategy for people in power to bring people along and permanently into their coalition. the greatest source -- the greatest weakness that the entrenched powers have if people taken for granted granted is not being taken for granted. it's astonishing to me. there's this depression among conservatives. they say look, the world belongs to the left. how come? there are more and more nonwhites. more and more single women that 18 to 29 more in favor of president obama and company. that is completely incorrect thinking. demography is not destiny. 75 years ago you couldn't find catholics to read together for the republican party yet today they are overwhelmingly republican. demography doesn't vested in any

party or ideology to failure or success. what this tells us today and we can and hasten these patterns of destroying demographic destiny by asking people to think for themselves. so this could be the greatest time of the greatest nightmare for their side on the basis of what we do to improve the moral climate, creating more opportunities, all the things that those demographic groups have traditionally been left wing that would actually bring them to the philosophy that engenders the greatest human dignity. >> host: creech is in grand falls. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. it's a pleasure to speak with you both. big al from and know who for an earlier was asking about activism. i discovered a monument in plymouth, massachusetts that i

never even existed and is even existed and is called a national monument to the forefathers. it turned 125 years old this year. it stands for faith, morality, law, education and literacy. it stands for civil and religious liberty. you know, make repairs for survivors of the armenian genocide. i grew up in a family where we had the family business. i am just so worried for our country and scared. for some reason this monument has been put on my heart and i've been trying to rally the troops around. i don't know if you have any suggestions or can put me in touch with ada. >> host: this you found in plymouth, massachusetts? >> guest: yeah, if not down by the waterfront. it's up on the hill. the largest granite monument in the united states of america and it was built during the civil war and they had to kind of

scale it down a little bit because it was hard to raise money at the time. the thing i find unbelievable and most americans have never heard of the monument before. i did neither. i'm 50 years old now and i was there in 2010. but over the past few years, and the work that i have and trying to do were spread about the monument, it is amazing how it has connected to americans from all over the country. this gives them hope. i don't know what to do. >> host: albright. >> guest: that's great. i didn't know about the monument either, but is there anything more wholesome than what we just listened? these human values for that matter. so what can you do? part of it is the torture of your life. if you believe in these things, these bring most people to the happiest life. what greater joy for the people who need them the most.

be a happy warrior. one of the big mistakes we make, that is pretty much everybody watching here today. you are watching c-span about public affairs, how do we exhort leadership? not hiding our views are more people. not hiding behind materialistic and economic language, but saying this is what brings the best life to the most people. whether the people i fight for what likes me or not, that is the beginning of a happy warrior. that is what we can do. when we do that, are we ever going to be a strong name. >> host: faith and family. republicans have been passed or conservative profamily values. >> guest: they have. when you have sources of happiness, like faith and family, don't use them as a cudgel or a weapon someone else.

it is absurd if you take the happiness and use it as a weapon. the difference between a force between a minority area oppositional force and a majoritarian joyful force is the first bytes against things from using weapons at its disposal. the second half before some other force that is winning is for people. how do you fight for people? by sharing the sources of business in your life. if you got something beautiful and good, do so in a positive humanistic way. don't do it in a negative. tentacle that bashes people with your particular views. this is important. i want to share with you out of a sense of love. >> host: arthur burks, to current issues we have an address. the emigration in particular i strongly suspect will be much less of an issue or hot potatoes

in 2016 that it is today. why? >> guest: part of it as president obama gave the republicans a great gift too through the executive order will slowly but surely taken out of the political discourse the republicans are masters possible for legislation. my guess is democrats will be very, very disappointed that president obama did this because they couldn't keep the immigration issue alive nearly as long since obama took this step. the second is the way of real immigration reform is going to take place is little by little. over five years, there's about 30 things that need to get done and through legislation and policy action, the most important and least political objectionable can be taken piece by piece. the high skilled immigration reform, putting more engineers in the silicon valley. a guestworker program perhaps. in either of isis and so you

know who's illegal and not illegal. little by little there will be positive progress and it will be much less controversial and 2016 that it is today. on same marriage, this is something there's a lot of controversy on the right. same-sex marriage is an issue where the right is just monument to a 100% against it. that is actually not true. there's a huge amount of dialogue on the right on this particular issue. rather than adjudicated not, but they tell you what we learn from this. 15 years ago, it was a 7030 issue. today to 6040. the advocates for marriage equality stopped fighting against and started fighting for equal rights. doesn't matter what your views on this are. the lesson to take away when you stop fighting against things and start fighting for people, you prepare to start renaming your

policy battle. >> host: linda in rutland, vermont. you are in booktv on c-span2 ways arthur brooks. >> dr. brooks, my question is more that you seem to be expires and the answers to many of our social else and our government isn't doing anything. is this because they are more interested in sustaining themselves than they are taking care of the country? not understanding that sooner or later the country simply going to explode. >> guest: yeah, thank you. i appreciate the question. it is hard for me to be in the heart of policymakers and look at their motives. i can look at the fact we are not dealing with a lot of issues we need to. to begin with this much easier when you're not in government

ticket solutions than when you are because the puka process is complicated to be sure. there's a bigger problem we need to deal with them that's leadership. leaders again to look at political coalitions and try to simply accumulate political power while bashing enemies. leadership is actually using power for a positive purpose. it is basically saying i will ask people to sacrifice and do hard danes. that is not what we have in washington d.c. we don't have leadership and a lack of executive leadership is what grind systems down. i'm the president of a nonprofit organization. it's not the united states i understand. only a couple hundred people working full-time. but they tell you if i didn't think what are we trying to do? how do? how were we trying to move ahead? are we trying to help other people? if i did with my own capital, the organization would grind down. donors have stopped giving to us. we wouldn't have impact and how

positive for some politicians in the hill and write good books and materials and have good offense. this is what is required in leadership all over the place. the number one thing we should regret is we have forgotten what leadership means that the executive level and that's the problem in the united states today. >> host: 15 minutes left with our guest in this month's "in depth." john, you are on the air. call co-are you doing, dr.? i wanted to talk about the situation of government employees. the last number checked a few years ago was coming up on 30 million state, local and federal. they don't contribute anything. they don't produce anything whatsoever. it just can't be sustained. so instead of taking care of business, they are wondering what this for lunch. do you have any answers as far as that is concerned? it can't be sustained.

>> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: there are a lot of government employees. that is unambiguously true. do they create a? i actually wouldn't quite agree her character as government employees is not creating good. we have cases where markets fail in private markets can't redress every wrong in our society. we have public goods. i wouldn't say that somehow police officers and firefighters and people and teachers are not creating a whole lot of positive good. are there too many? yeah. if the government to good? absolutely. but we do about that? one tangible issue that's true than the expansion of government and government payroll and other public-sector unions. the whole idea that unions are bad is not right. the labor unions per se or really compatible with the free

enterprise system, but they have to be able to exist in allen said the management of operations and they have to have an interest in not driving corporations out of business. when you collect is bargaining agreements between management and employees, they have to have an interest in making sure the company is prosperous. that's not the case because they don't have a budget constraint. when jon corzine was the governor of new jersey and when they got out the public-sector union instead of fighting for you, that would be the ceo of general motors saying it would have the wages. i would not create a balance between the two. public sector units have a flexible budget constraint and it's your money as a taxpayer. furthermore they can use the funds to support political candidates who support the expansion of public-sector unions who effectively are paid for those political contributions with tax revenues.

i understand how conservatives get bent out of shape. i would recommend that viewers get bent out of shape about that as well. >> host: e-mail, what does mr. brooks think about the recent column encouraging corporate boards to include labor representatives and community representatives. mr. myerson said this would help towards think or in terms of stakeholders and not peerless stockholders. what aei ever deliver such a topic for discussion or research? >> guest: he's a smart guy and i like him. i've been on panels with them in the past. that is sort of the point. we have a corporate governance problem and the system is bringing more of labor representation and community representation on the board. i don't agree with that, but i do agree that a corporate governance, and alex pollock had aei has done a lot of good work on corporate governance. he talks about the fact they're

simply not enough responsibility on corporate boards for the life of organizations and we need a different kind of responsibility. he had positive steps on how to do it. having an affirmative action for labor unions and community wraps, i think that would create a misalignment of incentives in dangerous ways to corporations that would ultimately hurt working people. i do agree that we have a problem with corporate governance in america today. >> host: sharon wants to know via e-mail how was your catholic faith inform your thinking? >> guest: as an formed by thinking in the following way. when i do work on free enterprise, i remember free enterprise comes after morality. that is ethical thinking, secular ethical thinking as it happens to work. the values through my christian faith. remember, i try to remember that normality comes before markets. without a proper sense of

brotherhood, of helping others, of honesty, of love that markets will be like any other system for good or for a period there will be some sort of an amoral machine. if we don't have a good view of how we try to help our fellow man, we don't help their fellow man and not with the disposal which in the united states should be the free enterprise system. >> host: educated, work 30 years. save at least 10% off through those years. invested most of my husbands life insurance. all went down in 2008. had to retire in 2002 due to medical problem, not dependent on social security. there needs to be more controlled fund and keen and insurance companies need to be out of investment. >> guest: there's a lot of positive ideas on how to separate streams the investment. i'm so sympathetic and i hear the story again and again and it

is not right what happens to working people in the country like our e-mail her here. but they probably had as the government system of housing that melted down our market and away we way we try to redress this and the longest term for a monetary policy that has blown up these equity markets yet again after e-mail order has gotten out of equity markets. or are you people work really hard. they get their life savings white south. we build up the stock market again through free money and guess where the money goes? the top 10%. somebody made a guess that 95% of the game is the top 1%. 81% of the wealthy since 2009 have gone to the top 10% of the income distribution. this is during an economic regime from a president who promised that wouldn't have been. what we have is the rich getting richer and the poor stack never getting poorer all the way back

to 2009. we nine. would become two americas are one america is in full blue of recovery. 5% economic growth in the other side is zero or negative economic growth and wealth gains have come from policies making the rich richer. that should outrage us. that is not right that we have policies that do that. we need to fight back. as conservatives and progressives that say what am i going to do, the policies how people at the bottom so they an equal shot at the american dream. the inequality we talked about, the many discussions at elite government levels. inequality is the enemy. opportunity and equality is the real problem. not income inequality and opportunity inequality is being driven i policies at the last six years. >> host: brenda and her window, you are on with arthur brooks. >> caller: hi, mr. tran for. you know you talked about too big to fail and we all comment on this.

i wanted to ask you about iceland. they did not put money into their base implies their corrupt government was also dismantled and replaced. but why did we do something like that instead of giving the money today? they did it to get my second porridge. my neighborhood is gone. when they lost their homes, the bank got paid. >> host: we've got the point, brenda. >> guest: thank you, brenda. iceland is a small country with 250,000 people. it was clear that in the seychelle economy based on a totally unstable speculative banking system. bottom line don't run your company like iceland did hear it if we had a country, we can

crash like crazy in the united states and maintain some integrity. the problem is people like you in your neighborhood are the ones who got hurt a lot. when there is now part is, when people are running off money they didn't earn, people should be held accountable. i don't think there's any reason wished a special privileges because they are rich. either way, i think because you are not rich doesn't mean you should be held accountable. between 25% 50% of people who lost their homes foreclosed on their homes voluntarily. to combat this. this is work that comes from the university of chicago that talked about voluntary foreclosure. a lot of people, millions of millions of people turned their keys into the bank, and continue to pay their mortgage because they were upside down and it was not in their interest to do so. all of the should regret which people, middle class people.

>> host: glitzier from charlene via e-mail. i am amazed that ucs is comparable with the european social democracies. those countries have universal health care at lower cost. reasonable accommodations for working families with small children. they test higher than us at all educational levels. they've levels. there the better% of full-time jobs with decent benefits. they have a good business environment for smaller discrepancy between the house and have-nots. how can you possibly draw the conclusion which he did? >> gue would recommend our e-mail or move to europe. it sounds great. go do that. that's a good idea. good luck finding a job in fitting into society and learning the language. the truth of the matter is in the united states, we are the ones soaking up the entrepreneurs from europe. there's still entrepreneurial migration from young people looking for opportunities because of the dynamic society to rework people more.

are we good enough? absolutely, not. i lived i in europe for a long time and let me tell you, the food is good, the weather is great. that i prefer with respect to opportunity to live in the united states and people are voting with their feet and agree with me. my wife is an immigrant from spain. she's grateful every day. when she came to the united states, we had no money. she spoke very little english. we were buried she would have opportunities. she had four job offers in her first month or this is the greatest of the world for people who want to work. it was a profound moment for me. she worked for three years at three years at a minimum wage job and we needed our work and we needed our work and neither one of us thought that was a dead-end job and we are grateful for it. again, can we do better? for sure. don't give me your because i don't want to. >> host: arthur brooks is an

author, social scientists, happiness expert and president of the american enterprise institute. @arthurbrooks is his twitter handle if you would like to follow him. ..