>> now on book tvs "after words", former federal reserve chairman amber nagy discusses his book the courage to ask. he recounts the 2008 crisis and recounts the steps taken to revise the economy. he's interviewed by the ranking member of the senate houston ranking affairs committee. >> mr. chairman nice to be with you. >> thank you. >> impressive work. you began by showing up at work in kissing it to buy. you began to write this impressive work. it was impressive and recall and

this book was on the stand and being sold by october of 2015. not much more than an 18 month process. how did you do that? >> well i started right away as you point out. i left the fed on saturday and monday it was at brookings working on the book. i have lots of material. the federal reserve let me see my e-mails because i managed by email. i had dozens and dozens of email every day. it was very useful because you could go back and put a -- see in real time what was happening and what you are thinking it i also had daily news clippings and other material. i had a wealth of material and i could sit down and bang out a draft. i should also say, i had some help from skidmore who is a pet federal affairs person at the fed who took a year off to help me with the process in the research. i got a good start and had it

done within about 14 months. >> a decade more or less when some of the most dramatic economic times in our lifetime, if not on our nation's history, you probably have time to reflect much on your life during that decade, certainly reflect on economic policy. as you wrote over that 18 month time period, what to do you learn about yourself question. >> first of all, a big purpose of it was to think at leisure the through the whole process and that was really useful. i think one of the things i learned, first of all, is there is a lot of hindsight bias. we all create a story about what happened. everything seems inevitable. this had happened, that had happened. as you go back, go back, you realize you were in the fog of war, as things are actually happening you're always trying to make judgments about one probability against another and one risk against another. i saw myself as a a risk

manager. summary who was trying to assess evolving chaotic situation and trying to find the right way forward, but it was a very, very difficult to know any given time what was really happening. >> i remember many years ago in readers digest, digest, as a kid, as a teenager, i remember seeing a line from someone that said with the boy i was be proud of the man i become. you don't strike me as a narcissistic man particularly or narcissistic person. were you generally pleased with the way it on folded in the way you accomplished what you did? we made mistakes in the. running up to the crisis. we were still balancing the risk of crisis against other risk into 2007 and it took us to august 2007 to recognize the thing was getting quite severe.

after that we were very aggressive. i think we did the right ring to stop the crisis and help the economy recover. so, like in any war plan, the first contact with the enemy, all of a sudden your lands are disturbed. there were certainly were lots of things on the margin we could've done different, but i think once we determine we were gonna hit this thing aggressively, aggressively, i do think we got the main things right. >> let's talk a little bit about you and your background. i know people are always interested in that and how that informs the chair of the federal reserve and years later. small-town jewishñ=@÷ kid, smaln south carolina as you said in your book. you said you're a dodger fan because of sandy koufax removed the boston and now washington. a lot of readers may have been surprised that you worked at a place called south of the border.

i plead guilty, i know skyline chili in cincinnati and the diners my wife and i go to in cleveland but i don't know south of the border. people on the east coast tell me everybody does because of all i-95 points to it. you were a middle-class kid, not poor, not really rich. what did working at south of the border do for you? >> it was and is a place where economics, where the economic situation is tough and people have to work hard. i worked as a construction worker. i worked in my dad's dad's drugstore and i worked for two summers as a waiter at south of the border. i got appreciation for how hard it is to put food on the table and pay the rent, particularly if you don't have a lot of education peter was good expense but i was both part of a not part of the community. i was not part of it in the

sense that i was jewish and most of the town was southern baptists and quite different orientation, but i was also part of the town in went to all the public schools. i worked with people in the drugstore. we knew everyone in town. my father offered credit to anybody he felt he could trust. the whole experience was one of getting to know really ordinary americans facing economic challenges, which we face for a long time. >> you tell stories about your grandmother in connecticut. you would sit on the front porch in north carolina talking to her about the depression. you and i were born more or less the same year, we all had parents or grandparents who talked about the depression. your grandmother had been living in connecticut when this happened and talked about the paradox of the shoes. tell that story. the great thing about this story is that fortunately for the country, you had talked enough about the depression, if i'm not

putting dots together that don'e connected, that lead you later to graduate school in economics and study in the depression. talk about the paradox of the shoes. >> sure. we used to sit on the front porch with my grandmother and she would tell me stories about her youth when she was living in connecticut. the stories told me was that she was very proud because her children were able to go to school and where new shoes every year. lots of the kids in town didn't get new shoes or in some cases didn't have shoes. i said why not. she said the shoe factories in this connecticut town had shut down in the depression and their fathers lost their jobs and therefore there was not enough money to provide shoes for the kids. i was six or seven years old but i could see something wrong with this. all they had to do was open the factory, produce shoes and then the kids would have the shoes per she said no, it didn't work that way.

that's the real intellectual puzzle of the great depression per the factors are still there and the workers are still there but for some reason it's not happening. the magneto problem is that the system isn't working. it was a real puzzle to me. i don't want to pretend that i was inspired from age six to study the great depression. i was interested in all kinds of things but when i came back to it in graduate school, i found it to be what i would later consider to be the holy grail of macroeconomics. it's the greatest puzzle that, mishaps. i did spend a lot of time researching and thinking about it. >> i'm guessing that the paradox of the shoes will go down in some kind of economic history. let's talk about 2007. i was put on a committee that is called the sleepy banking committee. they had finished with sarbanes-oxley but didn't have a lot on their agenda. where i came from it was different. my wife and i, not been, but

then lived in a zip code that had more foreclosures than any other zip code in america. it seemed to me in 2007 - 2008 that there wasn't all that much attention from the fed on the housing issues because we hadn't, the housing crisis was more caused by a whole lot of reasons. in cleveland it was predatory lending, a synergism and obviously what was happening with manufacturing declining. why did the fed sort of miss this in some sense? why was the government, overall, not cognizant that there were places all over the country.

in fact, ohio, ohio was about the middle of this. hadn't more foreclosures every year than it had the year before, all over the state. why did we not see that as a country? why did we not see how serious that was? >> i don't quite accept your characterization. i spoke about foreclosures a a number of times before the crisis. my concern was that, some foreclosures are probably unavoidable, but in some cases it seem like there just wasn't enough effort being made to modify mortgages and find a solution for people to stay in their home. i did speak about that. we were very concerned about the housing market which was beginning to slow as early as 2006 and i talked both about foreclosures in the general problems in mortgages alike in testimonies and speeches. we thought about it partly from a macroeconomic perspective. what was the risk to the economy overall? we did worry about effects on communities for example, the

empty houses affecting local tax revenues and the fed didn't pay attention to that issue. >> i heard that statement but i also would say that consumer protections to stop predatory lending in some of the responsibilities and authority that the fed had, particularly prior to you, and i'm not casting aspersions on anyone, but i just don't know. i began to hear from people in cleveland and other cities that the fed or other regulators were not particularly there for any of us. >> the use of the word predatory is really critical because i talk about it to some length in

my book. at the time, in the book i had a go back before the time i was at the fed because it extends back into the '90s, these issues and debates, one of the big stations distinctions in washington was predatory lending which was illegal lending that got people in trouble immediately and subprime lending that is legitimate. that was touted as being a a good development because it allows people with more modest means to counteract redlining. to get into a home and participate in the american dream. quite honestly, one of the reasons that there wasn't more aggressive efforts to address subprime lending was the fear of cutting that off. again a very strong distinction made between predatory lending which was already illegal, it

was a question of enforcement so we can debate about enforcement, versus subprime lending which was viewed as a different kind of thing. >> let me take it from a different angle. before your book, you write i don't think he fed staff spoke about how good the staff was and in my dealings i would agree with that. i don't thing the key fed staff are captured by the firms they regulated in the sense that they perceive to be in their own career for financial interest to go easy. they were open to arguments that regulatory burdens should not be excessive in the competitive market forces would, to some extent, extent, deter poor lending practices. i work at an institution where lobbyists are omnipresent. regulators here are some the same people you might remember. after dodd frank passed they said now or at halftime.

now we need to go after the regulators. you and i and our staffs and your regulators, back when you were non-civilian, tend to hear from the most elite in society over and over and hear the same song. it's easy to get socialized lincoln to say, you want them to stay in the white house and win the war and free the slaves in lincoln said no i have to go out and get my public of back. this fed doesn't strike me as a place where they get their public opinion back :

less regulated so it could be more dynamic. we know there were a lot of problems with that, but greenspan's view was that the banks had sufficient capitol even really have to watch and to carefully. the regulation should not be too burdensome. >> all sufficient capital issue was not done right either. >> i understand that. let me ask you in a different way. why did tarp funding, what did bank bailouts work?

your conception and pushing through congress to a bunch of reluctant members of congress, why did that work better than what we should have been doing or tried to do from? >> well, 1st, we needed to stabilize wall street. this was not really a federal reserve responsibility. the treasury led the effort to the modifications and refinance is working with fannie and freddie owned or not to the partially nationalized. aware of what was going on because i wasi was on one of

the committees created by the tarp bill to oversee the use of the money. i have regular reports. all i can say is, there was a lot of effort. i frequently heard president obama, what are you guys doing, can you do more? and i don't have a satisfactory answer except to say it was hard to do. people don't respond to your calls for refinancing. they re- defaulted in many cases after the modifications were done, records were incomplete. a lot of modification did get done, but i share your frustration. i felt the same way at the time. it was the obama administration that was working on this and prove very difficult to get done to the extent that it was desired. >> you spoke to congress many times and niu did not

show it in your face but i understand from your book you are not necessarily having the time of your life. many of us would accuse you and the fed, more so your predecessors. accuse you of being asleep at the switch. that criticismthat criticism can come back on a lot of institutions. although i would testify dozens of times i always disliked it. >> i thought it was a tangent just proceeding. i did not think it was really about informing the oversight committee. it was about hearing the committee made leading questions are basically make speeches. and there was a lot of conflict involved. i don't like conflict. it was unpleasant. i certainly did it, testify

almost 80 times while chairman. i certainly acknowledge the importance of doing it, the necessity of doing it. fitness three overseen, but that does not mean i had to enjoyed on a personal basis. >> it does not mean that. for viewers interested, the fed the fed chair testifies twice a year by law, once to the senate finance banking committee and the house financial services and the other time in reverse, gives a report. legislation which had something that makes us different from european banks, central banks that is important, federal reserve has a dual obligation. one is to combat inflation and the others to fight unemployment in europe it is only to try to restrain inflation, not to fight. i would complement you, and

some of these questions may not sound like it, but he seemed to take the employment side of the dual mandate as seriously as he took the inflation side, again something past ventures may not have done. i credit this fed chair of taking that equally seriously and perhaps your time south of the border made you understand. let me talk about the 1st time you and i with a cast of about ten others have really serious, sobering conversation. it was september 19, 2008. you referred because he needed to make that day, i guess the people like me. ii was an industrial town east of columbus, small city. we are call from the majority leader saying we need you on the phone at 2:00 o'clock which i remember nikki and secretary paulson. september before the 2008 election and bear stearns had already been saved.

lehman and fannie and freddie, all those things have happened over about to happen. i remember how sobering the call was. you spoke to us outline the problem. secretary paulson linger on the phone and say we need legislation. my recollection is that he said it will be a three or four or five page bill. he said we need you to pass it immediately. one of the things i do on hard votes is our right reasons to before and reasons to be against can't talk to staff and fill it out and thinking about it. i remember writing best photo i will ever cast: political vote i will ever cast. i'm not exactly a wall street guy, nor, i think, are you frankly in retrospect, but i knew what was best for my country. if you recall republicans opposed it in the house overwhelmingly.

it went down, then we went back and fixed it, and that was -- >> you remember that very well. from the time -- what you did the tarp that clearly working in my state one came after that. but then in your book and here is where i want to go to the next up because ii think the conversations i watch with you talk a lot about lehman brothers in the actual type issue itself. the satisfaction of you and treasury and the others, it is hard to -- to forget, although it is easy to forget details how bad a situation the country was in from that day in 20082 in the last four months of the year through the 1st half

of 2009 our economy hemorrhaged eight million jobs. in my part of the country, but everywhere. you get the fiscal health in the late bush years with the stimulus, tax-cut stimulus that you supported. in retrospect you thought it was inadequate butan adequate but important. the beginning of the obama administration another fiscal help though and they retrospect you said it was probably inadequate. here is my question, sorry for the long intro. overwhelming opposition. why was it so hard for you and secretary paulson, you

were appointed three times by president bush, republican. i don't know a lot about your politics. secretary paulson was clearly republican. why is it so hard to convince republicans to step up on the fiscal policy to grow the economy? >> well,well, i think that people have the wrong idea basically. there is a fear of deficits. deficits were very large because the economy was in deep recession which generated a big deficit as well. and there was a lot of fear mongering about what that would do and whether it would lead to high interest rates or inflation. in the uk we saw you in more rapid prosperity. don't ask me to defend it. there is a kind of simplistic view.

in my family to five. >> i remember very specifically getting this question. my teenage daughter, she over spencer credit card we cut them up and i'll let her spend anymore. >> the question is why you getting the teenage daughter credit? >> i'm sure many of the viewers will wonder about this but it is an important distinction. to help the economy recover. the reduces the deficit by increasing tax revenue. in some ways the diseases better than the cure. those are the kinds of ideas, thinking, political views that led to existence. to be honest, we were less austere here than other countries, but i agree completely that we turned to

austerity to quickly and in particular the federal stimulus that we got in 2009 was offset by the contraction of the state and local level. all of those budgets were deeply. >> that is so interesting, what you said about the local level. in the reagan years when job growth happen significantly part of that was fueled by job growth in government at the state and local levels in the federal level. in this more recent recession when we have had job growth heading for 60 consecutive months so we

have had a track on that local, state, and, and federal hiring commercial there are fewer and fewer ironically, fewer and fewer government jobs, you use the word headwinds a number of time this book. as 1st suggested in the 30s, economic slump, public spending can replace private spending. economy and free phone the economy certainly needed fiscal help. the usual cost of central bank speak this is the fall of 2,008. effectively endorsed obama for president.

i wasn't endorsing a candidate. i was endorsing a program. not your accessibility, not to transparency. the talk more precisely and descriptively about what we needed to do. we hope to pass a transportation bill. we have to do public spending, interest rates are low. why can't you be a little more descriptive and stronger in your words. this wasthis was not an ordinarily for them but it was an extraordinary time.

>> why couldn't you do that? >> i think it would have moved the public a little more which ultimately lose congress. >> for better or worse i was cautious. they need to get more jobs and to think about longer-term. i will explain. the explanation was i was concerned about overstepping essentially about violating the explicit contract that congress has to make much or fall to the policy. >> i don't approve of it. >> i tried. my general rule, and you can think this was wrong.

my general rules talk about the direction of policy, the fact that we needed more fiscal support for the economy and stay away from issues with her was transportation or tax-cut because that was the kind of thing of the congress to work out. i was pretty clear that i wanted more fiscal support but was reluctant to say it has to be infrastructure versus a tax cut. but then thatdid that i would do more harm than good. >> shocked is not your work. traditional conservatives to the fattest institution blaming the fed when they were not planning gse's.

and i want to think of tax cuts are increasing the earned income tax credit. republican leadership. >> i absolutelyi absolutely did. and that was an easy call. austerity reduces the deficit. the debt limit, people may not understand the debt limit is not about constraining government spending is up paying the bills for spending that is already occurred. i was very clear.

i spoke about that quite often. i let treasury take the lead because that is there role. >> the increasingly consolidation of a small number of large institutions. by 2010 in large part because of what happened that 18 or so percent of gdp, the 6th largest institution in 2010 was about 60 percent of gdp.

most of the consolidation was leading up to not as a result of .-dot frank. again, bloomberg calculated that those large banks have about 80 basis points, eight tenths of 1 percent. they believe that they are too big to fail and so they are low risk: money to. that gives big banks another reason to get bigger at the expense of smaller banks you can't compete as well. bloomberg said $80 billion. whatever the advantage. should we be concerned about that? six or seven or eight largest banks upwards of $500 billion, some say too big to fail father say too big to regulate, some say too big to jail. should we be concerned about their political and economic power?

>> the gal study, some version suggest the funding advantage it shrunk considerably. >> because of .-dot frank. >> in part. what i would say is .-dot frank and also the capitol agreement that we have internationally is moving us in a good direction. there are two things in general for what is under the new rules under .-dot frank there are costs imposed on the biggest firms that are imposed because they are big. the biggest banks have to have more. the biggest firms -- >> higher percentage of capitol. >> right. the biggest firms are potentially subject to the special fed oversight, systemically important financial institution. supervision is tougher.

make defend ftse the ability to unwind the failing firm in a way that will be done. the main thing i would.out is make it more costly. that ge capitol command ge is divestingdevasting because they don't want to be treated as systemically important. today there was a discussion, and investor was saying that aig ought to break up so i could avoid the extra capital and oversight. the discussion in the largest banks of shrinking and simplifying. on top of this we have living wills which are requirements that the banks have to explain how they

would be wound down. thethe practical effect is showing how they can be simplified comeau why they could not be -- why there is a necessity to have the size and complexity that they have and in the hands of regulators who are intently focused on this problem, the tools are there to move us in the right direction. >> let me talk about the living wills. the pronouncements and words of been burning key perhaps don't move markets in 2015 as they did. but give us a little prediction, if not exactly a prediction that the fed is now looking at all these big banks, the fed is saying to them if you don't -- if you can be unwound without infusion of the tarp like government infusion or go

through bankruptcy cleanly you are going to have to divest. give me a prediction if you think that will happen. you think the living wills will precipitate some banks already said ge capitol. you see that happening? >> i think that can happen. the alternative would be the determination that there is space enough that they could be unwound safely. i would.to another recent development. the fed imposing the total loss absorption capacity will, not only enough capitol that they have to have long-term bonds. the convertible bonds

pushing against the cost advantage. the complex of five large financial institutions. we break them all up in the community banks. make a costly to the big. and the take away the funding advantage. >> most of the funding advantage that they might have cited.

this was a small number of years ago. much of that has been flat. >> gal said. i would note,, again, a small piece of anecdotal evidence but the bond rating agencies are no longer getting support. things are moving in a constructive direction. they did provide a lot of flexible tools that could allow regulators to get this to the right place. >> concerned that there is an effort to move up mac strip away a number of the powers and the coordinated panel of the fed and treasury and fdic and others are you concerned? >> some of the language is about getting replacing or

eliminating .-dot frank. on the whole and has been constructive. i don't necessarily think you need to defend every single clause. there are some things less effective than others, and i hope we can come to a situation where we can make a rational review, but i would certainly oppose any wholesale attempt to roll back the .-dot frank reforms. for the most part it has been constructive. >> the two biggest initiatives we don't debate making adjustments. we work together on insurance change in something called the cultural. very little. that a lot of coordination.

eliminates failed to strengthen bankruptcy rules. lehman brothers did that, was that the lesson from lehman brothers in part not to do that? >> will bankruptcy does, the goal is to protect the creditors. make sure the bondholders get as much return as they possibly can. unfortunately that was not the main public purpose. at the time when lehman collapsed we were not concerned about the potholders but the stability of the overall system. they ended up losing a lot of money, which is fine which goes against the idea that lehman was easily saved anyway, the trouble with bankruptcy laws is that they are not focused on the principal public purpose and financial crisis which prevents the collapse of the

overall system. the advantage of the liquidation authority is aa gives discretion to the fed, fdic, and of the regulators to do what is necessary to stabilize the company, to stabilize the system without necessarily being constrained by doing only in exactly those things which will give the highest return to the creditors and shareholders. that is the difference. i am all in favor of protecting creditors in general. the higher priority should be respecting the system. >> perhaps more personal question. prefaced earlier question.

it was amusing to you went from an 2,002 he joined automatic. then when you went back the transition obviously in my head of the much more precise. how did family react? do you talk differently? >> i talked totally differently. various kinds of things. i understand the pressure during all of that. >> my home life was a tremendous relief to me.

you asked about my personal experience. my wife is good about giving me an oasis i can unwind and relax a little bit and it was important to my mental health. >> i assume also to the countries ultimately. page 42 of the book you talk about a book you are writing in 2002 when he got the call that change life to go to washington and be appointed to the federal reserve is governor. how politicians created the great depression. what title would they give to a similar book describing the lead up, not the solutions comeau what the lead up to this.

>> something like too complacent. one of the aspects of the '90s is that things looked awfully stable and underneath the surface the risks are building. the risk and the broader financial system that when -- that led to this conflagration we ultimately saw. so i guess that would be the terms of the period before the crisis i would identify excessive confidence. and in that respect when you asked me about the future and down .-dot frank is working i have to say we have to remain vigilant and

be sure we are paying close attention to what is happening because you cannot assume that everything will work out. >> one of the 1st things that i thought about was how so many people in this country, so many people on wall street and in financial services were rewarded for risk-taking, they got the rewards and unfortunately the public last year's numbers of jobs. and the loss in the stock market, a bunch of senior citizens and while and hamilton in ohio, inflicted on them a lot of that is come back, as you know. i was talking to tom and he talked about one of the things that culture has changed. every major financial institution might

think we had done this fairly well. somebody that has the stature and the compensation to suit the table, risk officer not, their polling firm back. are we doing that well enough? have the authority and gravitas the support of the board of directors to tell a company you can do that. it is too risky. >> i'm not sitting at the fed now. testifying on these very issues. it is not going project, but before the crisis they had risk officers but were not necessarily at the table. they were not given enough attention by the board. >> not taken seriously. >> not enough. a big part of the strengthen supervision to make sure that the risk officers have very high profile.

the banks are able to assess the risk. one of the problem was you asked the banks, suppose house prices dropped 20 percent. get back to us in a couple of weeks. give permission to pay dividends to shareholders, not only show you have enough capitol but that you have the ability to monitor the risk of assess the risk. but i don't want to say the problem is solved, things are moving in the right direction and there is consistent pressure from the regulators. the other thing is another aspect has to do with the compensation structure. people are paid bonuses, you can take a lot of risk and then the money and move on to another company. a lot more now the

regulators are insisting on compensation packages allow for callbacks. we have to is not getting paid back the money received. try to create a longer-term perspective and the broader risk sensitive perspective by the way structure. i don't want to claim that we have gone far enough. >> kristen had a reputation listening a lot of people to wall street to design some of the most extraordinary, complex financial vehicles of various kinds of derivatives ncv is no. our young people less likely to do that now? >> there still a lot of interest in finance at princeton and elsewhere, but

statistics show the best and the brightest are not necessarily hitting wall street, at leaststreet, at least not in the numbers they did in the '90s or early to thousands. >> manufacture high-tech leading-edge kind of manufacturing and what that would mean for our society,. >> again,again, i don't know whether it's by now. talked about my frustrations i still have the frustration we don't have those, any of the straitjackets on today. give me your advice and what is most important, one or two things congress should

be doing. >> how will we get the economy to grow better? provide good infrastructure, fix immigration and in particular i object to the limits on high skilled immigration. that needs to be rethought.rethought. skills and training, critical for growth and income distribution. and i think the government needs to keep a sound role in r&d technology, the government has the ability to fund basic science that no individual company necessarily wants. >> okay. >> medical research, highways, bridges, water. >> move the economy forward but the government job is to provide the foundation in some sense. it has been hard lately to get bipartisan support for sensible programs. there is a lot that can be done to help the

productivity gains have been anemic the last few years, so there's a lot of things that can be done to make the economy more vibrant. >> a set i only had two more questions. maybe my bias, but it's clear. wealth inequality, workforce training issues. >> i 1st want to caution that this is a long-term trend. accused of exacerbating inequality and ii don't buy it. these are long-term trends associated with globalization, technical change, and it will not be easy to reverse the oil tanker.

two main pulls, transfer policy and the other is skills and training. make sure everyone has the opportunity to succeed. we have not succeeded in doing that. >> what did you mean of you reference? >> i really going to punt this time because it's congress' decision. >> you are clearly a citizen of this country. >> one tool that you have is a legislature to address and equality is tax rates, income, wealth, inheritance, corporate taxes, a lot of improvements could be made. i am not advocating a particular tax rate.

it is not my role, but it is a tool that you could consider and think about the trade-offs of doing so, but it is one tool that covers has to look at. >> it is not your role except you are a distinguished economist who speaks with a louder voice than almost any other. i no you're not going to let me bring you down on the tax rate, the thoughts generally i would just like to hear your assessment of what we are doing right and wrong. corporate tax to personal income tax. >> i think earned income tax credit and other credits the reward work toward education , those are constructive and avoid some of the trade-offs you worry about if you essentially create a tax on benefits by taking away benefits to go to work.

corporate taxes, seems like that is an area where there is a lot of bipartisan agreement. those are things that we should be able to get done. there are areas where congress to the progress can be made. >> ii am working with a couple of senators and speaker ryan. i am hopeful we can come to an agreement so that we can give incentives to companies to bring there overseas dollars back home. and that money goes to long-term infrastructure and at the same time so that does not in send companies to go overseas. they have a minimum tax from then on. >> instead of being a one time thing you want to make that a transition to a more rational system. >> that is part of what we are trying to do.

my last question is about baseball. one of the things you love about baseball is one of the things i love about baseball , the statistics. you are lucky enough to see what some thought was a perfect game. my question is i represent ohio, as you know. the southern part of my state, not asking for your opinion on whether they should be in the hall of fame. shoeless joe jackson who played for cleveland before he was traded to the chicago white sox. understanding the blemishes that the two of them have their was aa rookie player for the new york giants and the story came up again recently.

if the cubs had won the world series my team would be the longest existing team to have not won a world series. but how far was it that the 1st baseman for the new york giants made one mistake and was called bonehead merkel for the rest of his life? how fair is major league baseball when labels and? >> i remember like it was yesterday, he did not run out the ball the 2nd base. this is interesting. they had this neighborhood play, you don't really have to touch 2nd base. >> be in the neighborhood. >> and now they have instant replay. they willthey will come back and say that in really touch

2nd base. the standards change. at the time you can directly, the convention was that you did not have to go to 2nd base. the game ended and i think it was a little unfair. i would not use that word in connection. >> a little unfair, standard practice was reversed. >> good conversation. thank you for your service to our country. >> more.

>> ii have this figured that is kind of a conglomeration of israeli settlers in the palestinian figure and if you notice is on the prayer

rug that has issues on. both of these figures are sort of utilizing a false religion for political purpose. so it proves that once again i am an equal opportunity defender. >> sunday night at 8:00 o'clock eastern and pacific on c-span q&a. >> good evening. i am excited to be with you tonight. let me tell you. [applause] and i may speak fast