to see some impact of all of this uncertainty in the value of existing structures. and all you have to do is look at read prices to test that idea, and the data go very much in the opposite direction. so i think if you want to make that argument, you at least need some explanation for what's happened to the price of existing assets. >> so do you have a story about why elevated commercial real estate prices would go along with weak private investment? >> yeah. i think, i think that there are a set of issues around regulation and zoning, rules on, rules on land use, difficulty in permitting that would operate in exactly that direction. it would make it harder to build new structures, and that would

tend to raise the value of existing structures. i think that line of thought is a much more plausible one than the one that emphasizes some new, generalized unis earnty. >> so i think we have time for, like, one more question. yes, you at the very back. >> greetings, i'm thomas ward. last week there was a program on innovation, what plays into the growth aspect, and one on infrastructure that i'd recommend everyone to look at. but my big question goes backing to the issue of underring lying growth. how do we get growth when we've got third quarter growth that just came out at 2.9%, i think it is, overall we may not have, you know, 1% -- >> time is short. so ask the question quickly. >> two things would come into play. one, we've got9 to look back at 2013 -- >> yes. >> -- that changed down 3%. the price, so was the gross really that numbersome but also

in the question of the pricing, if we have these taxes and everything else taking money out, how do we ever get growth if we're only going to be looking at taking money out of the economy -- >> will higher taxes hurt the long-term growth outlook? >> you know, i'm general -- i'm sympathetic to the idea that marginal tax rates, applying to individuals or businesses matter for things like investment and economic growth, so i'm very sympathetic to the idea that the kinds of tax cuts that particularly were in place in the 1980s actually worked and did encourage economic growth. that's not to say that that's all that matters, and you certainly had growth in the 1990s without having those kinds of cuts in tax rates. but i think it's certainly a part of the picture if you're thinking about growth and investment. >> look, you're going to have a little bit of a tough time here, because you're basically making robert's -- you're basically

reaching robert's kind of conclusion with my kind of argument, because -- >> sounds perfect. [laughter] >> you're basically making an argument in keynesian terms about the impact of tax increases. i don't think the imperative right now should be -- i think the imperative should be raising the growth rate. i do not think that fiscal restraint is plausibly a major growth promotion strategy at a moment when interest rates are effectively zero. and it was reasonable to think of fiscal restraint as a central growth strategy in 1993 when capital costs were high and plausibly were what was holding back investment. i think you can -- i think there's a very good debate to be had about the respective role of

public investment and reduction of barriers to private investment. i think that, obviously, one has to pay attention to long run fiscal sustainability. but i would tell you that i think if we are successful as a country in raising the growth rate to anything like 3%, there will be a strong tendency for these fiscal problems to melt away as the economy grows out of them. almost regardless of what we do in terms of fiscal packages. and if we are not successful and and the underlying growth rate of the economy remains in the 1, 1.5 to 2% range, i think we're likely to be preoccupied with questions of long-run fiscal health almost no heart what fiscal packages -- no matter

what fiscal packages we are able to adopt. and so i think there's a need in washington -- which i think is substantially happening -- for the frame of big picture economic debate which has been about, has been for 15 or 20 years been framed in terms of long-term budget plans to be reframed in terms of growth acceleration. and i think that reframing from the long run budget issues to the question of growth ought to be something that people can agree on whether they come at it from from a more progressive and keynesian perspective or from a more conservative and incentive-oriented perspective. >> well, thanks. we as a country -- and i personally -- tend to obsess way too much over the short term and

never more so than four days before a presidential election. so i am very grateful to both of you for this wonderful interlude where we actually thought a lot about the long term. thank you both, robert and larry, and thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

to try to put together a nation. >> by december 31. >> the second part of the question and then i will go to another. the kind of conversation we had in the last three weeks have been managed in methodology. if we work hard with all of the members, i think december 31 can be realistic. realistic.

>> are their stubborn position. we expect them to have very clear substantial changes in something that will complicate any type of agreement. >> and the cease-fire. >> september 2 we have been very conscious that this also has a ramification on the national security so you need to perform so they don't go back. that's why we proposed to activate the concentration zones

so they can be conducted on any penalty they would receive. and we need to move fast. so that's why we want to move forward at the right time. [inaudible] it's the right way to escape the responsibility. i've been respectfully trying to put some red lights on the constitutional court that there

might be some way to maintain. it's my expectation as a citizen, the court shouldn't allow this to happen just because it was rejected october 2. there's another option to say even though it was rejected, it is unconstitutional without the society deliberating on this.

it's the type of refunds. >> we have literally two minut minutes. there are times you feel so much more comfortable doing it.

he was dismissive and how can i say maybe he never thought that ideology could have the grounds to reach power. i think in colombia we need to be clear that in moments of economic social despair and lack of confidence the grounds for populism can happen, and we cannot be naïve that that can happen. i saw some years ago who took hugo chavez to: beta.

he derailed the institutions completely. he had a style of governing we cannot be naïve that those risks are there. could it happen in the large-scale or the local scale, we don't know yet that w but weo have the right ideological, political and institutional mechanisms to prevent that kind of populism can happen in colombia. some people are more afraid than others. but if i don't use the term we cannot be naïve but those could have been in colombia. >> with that, thanks again to charles for your support. it's meaningful, and it may also

invite you back to the council of the americas. we enjoyed the opportunity to host hugh. this has been a tremendous -- [applause]

learn more about the influence of america's presidential spouses from c-span first lady is now available in paperback giving their readers a look at the lives and impact of every first lady in american history the companion to the well regarded biography series. each chapter offers brief biographies of the spouses and archival photos. now available at your favorite bookseller. >> former head of the cyber command general keith alexander discussed cybersecurity in the u.s. in an event hosted by the

atlantic magazine. he's interviewed by louise kel kelly. this is just under an hour. after the conversation we want to hear from you, so we are going to have time for questions and with that please welcome general keith alexander and to lead thme that the conversatione contributor who covers national security for npr. the stage is yours. welcome. [applause] good evening, everybody. it's a pleasure to be here seven

days and counting. it's been a challenge to try to prepare to interview you because i got word a few weeks ago and as i went about my job covering national security at npr i would get some ideas and jotted down n and then some new event would happen whether it was the word of another russian hack or word that the nsa had been breached or the reports just outside communications, maybe mysterious communications between a donald trump server and a big russian bank all of which is to say i've

rewritten my nose to interview you about 17 times and it speaks to how quickly the landscape is changing and how big of a challenge i think we all realize as individuals we need to be careful but i didn't know i needed to be protecting my coffee and toaster maker until we as corporations should be doing to protect our data online. so, welcome. and i have to start with the timely question. i know we are seven days until the election and a question that has hung in the air, how worried should we be that it could be hacked. >> overall the way they've

approached it i think is mostly accurate and that is i think it's really hard to disrupt the electoral process. that doesn't mean -- i think that it's all very difficult. that doesn't mean there won't be things that do occur and i think perhaps bigger than the actual event itself if they do something to one side is the perception versus the facts so when you hear about that, it's one of those things that escapes many of us today and so much misinformation to get a piece of the fact and how many was it and they would say two out of three.

okay. that's probably not going to change it. so i think the real issue that we are going to go through this time will be fine. i think the next election we should look for a process and with all of the digital capabilities that we have an identity management, you can imagine having a device that is somehow represented to you. the teambetween seven or 8:00 te will get on the phone to vote and you can go to the library and done. i think we have to get there. that means there's a lot of things we have to take us to make that happen.

it represents the best of what we can do as a nation because if you do that imagine the ability to bring the power of the people into some of the decisions that are going on about health care and other things. overall i voted this last weekend and that the process is difficult for someone to hack into. you throw out the circles and they tell you don't go outside of the lines. >> the scenario that you raised raises the specter.

>> you've got this tremendous technology out there that's our future with all these vulnerabilities. how do we as a nation secure that. there is many of you that have looked at these big problems with the day to decode data and you want to let the american people know that you are protecting civil liberties and privacy. the internet of things is converging and you mentioned it with your toaster. >> did you see the story of the atlantic put out the virtual toaster, the writer trying to figure out the incident if i

create an imaginary toaster and put it online how quickly would someone try to hack it. >> it poses an even greater problem for us as a country because many of the systems that were hacked you would normally think that isn't part of the network that these are having an impact. it's going to converge so that greatly increases the cyber security risk and we don't want to slow that down because it also things tremendous opportunity for healthcare.

we were mentioning i have 16 grandchildren. i know i don't look that old, thank you. that fixed it they want to compete on who will get the most steps. and she's 300 miles away so these are tremendous opportunities. >> what do you think happened in that case d. y. n. what do we think happened? they blamed it on the attacks posted on the web. many people could use it, you could go out and grab it.

>> [inaudible] >> i think that is his assessment and i don't have any reason to disagree with that. i would say it's hard to know who conducted an attack and for what reason so i would step back and say what's the impact, why did they do it and what do we need to do to stop things like that in the future and if you look at it with the number of device and estimates about 620 gigabytes plus, what would that do to the nation's infrastructure if something like that hits and why would they use that and who would use it and how do you stop and what kind of tools do you want the government to have and how do they work

together. all of that is has to be debated if the government has to lead that. you think about the constitution and where we come from and we talk about the common defense and in this area here we don't have the common defense because past problems and other issues that put the nation was built on is we are working together for the common defense and we need that in cyberspace mark in any place else and we've got to figure out how we get that back. if somebody wants to do us harm,

we no longer have the privilege of being isolated from an attack where someone wishes us harm. you can see people that disagree with this diplomatically can use cyber to do thalabor to do thato confront that. >> when you say we need to prevent this from happening again, what is your advice [inaudible] >> i would put it into categories, government and industry. let me use sony as an example because that's when we put on the table to say who should have

defended sony. the practical reality is that it has been a north korean military outfit the military would have stopped it. if they had the attributes to attack back now we have a company doing government responsibilities so you end up coming down on the position of the governments jo government'sd the nation. that's the government's job and so how is the government going to do that? you have three basic sets, the department of justice and what the fbi would do for law enforcement and criminal actors,

you have the department of homeland security responsible for forensics and setting standards and the department of defense responsible for defending the nation. the department can't see or can the community see the attack until after the fact so what we are left with his forensics. but we are going to learn more until the plane crashed. we would say can't we learn something here and to stop it from happening and the answer is yes. we've got to have a way for the government and industry to work together and i would've put on the table and d to do it in a wy to protect the privacy and make it transparent that we ought to do that and so we ought to practice it and set the standard up and as a nation say what about our allies is this a good

model of how we could work with and the answer is i think everybody would agree with that. there will be subtleties, those that want to change that very fabric of the network to dictate what people listen to so we have to figure out how do we get the nation protected and then work with our allies who are like-minded. >> what does that mean when you talk about a company like sony working with the government? >> think of it like a radar system. when a thread actor tries to get the company they say that guy hit me, tell the government. so it goes to the government and

they have a decision is it criminal or nationstate. now that standard would be like the national institute of technology in the framework or another one in the international standard but you would have the ability to see a company could install the nationstate attack but the government can only come if the attack is ongoing and by setting up the great particles to understand that. that is what i think we need to move forward. an alert system. we do it with planes and missiles. >> what about the pushback.

you've are in the private sector now and companies are being attacked regularly. you don't want them crawling around your servers every time. >> i'm not advocating the governor crawling around the servers but a way of saying what's happening to the companies so the government can respond. if sony was being hit with this but the government never sees it they won't be able to stop it until it's too late so we need a mechanism to share information and what type are we talking about sharing. we are talking about when a bad guy is trying to infiltrate our past malware into your site. the government should know and be able to stop or help stop it either by giving you advice on what to do or see if this is an

attack trying to take down a sector. let me take it one step further if you want to do the country harm you with laughter sectors like the energy or financial sector and will tell you could take down big portions of that. now pou important to nationstate attack. the only one that has the capacity to do that is to government and defense department but they are not trained to do that, they don't have the authority and we haven't allowed the industry and government to work together. the first thing people would jump to is we don't want them going around serving sweeney to come back to a system that does it with the date of everybody

could agree to be shared and the way that they actually put it into the legislation is a good way. that way everybody knows they are doing the right job, homeland security can attest to it. if you don't do that then you are in the alternative. wait for something to happen and then dictate how we are going to stop it. >> i'm imagining that i'm the ceo of a company and there were systems that place, everybody in the cyber command, dhs, everybody is averted and the clients are running for the hills.

how do you address that? schenectady intention would be to do the opposite to say companies are going to have certain levels just like fiscal securities that we have the standard and if they meet the standard what they are able to do is see i can defend this but there are certain things we don't have the ability to defend and my experience is that hackers always when. that tells me the current process isn't working so you need a way to say i'm going to meet these standards and when i see these kind of things we are going to alert the government and appropriate authorities before it gets too far.

we don't want it happening anywhere else so how do you do that. and it's interesting. we started out with the toasters into the internet things makes us so much more complex that we've got to take that on. i'm not advocating that the government is going to do everything for every company. what i am saying is companies already do an awful lot of investment and i think they spend a lot of money on cybersecurity and what will go oon in most boardrooms is i'm spending all this money and yet my cio is telling me i can still be hacked.

this is a national problem and one that we all have to work on and there are solutions out there and it comes back to that earlier statement if we don't fix this now something will happen and we will race to a solution none of us will be happy with. >> another example that's been in the news all of us can relate to the extent of imagining if all of your e-mails, they were to suddenly make their way into the world. aside from never writing another e-mail again, what can private institutions d due to protect communications? >> it goes back to that statement in this case it's hard

to protect against the nationstate hackers. both the dnc and republican party, and you can go back to mccain during his time they will tell you we were hacked for a reason they want to know the positions the candidates have. and they will go in for different reasons. the reality is today's environment greatly favors the hackers so i am pushing for a process where you start putting together companies into a sector and an example would be 7,000

banks. i thought they weren't maybe eight or ten. so 7,000 paying. they all will defend themselves but for the attack we are talkinweretalking about they wor separate entities. imagine if they could automatically tell others when things are happening to them than others but already know what's coming at them and the exploitation and defensive surface would be bigger than with one bank is so we need to think of new ways of defending the network like that and they would extend to others. there's going to be somebody

that says we can' can stop thisd he should. it's not easy that we can do this and i think as a nation we should commit to fixing it and the cost per industry is growing so much. we are buying stuff and hoping it works. they say i bought three of these into two oand two of these and f these. if you think about it we are buying multiple things trying to ensure that defends is right without partnering with others and the answer is you do better by partnering together. >> staying on the theme of government responsibility for

cybersecurity and questions about russian cyber intrusions i think i spotted jim lewis in the audience. not retaliating for the cyber attacks becomes a green light. that's something the government can be doing. should they retaliate on the consensus? >> the way that i look at it i think the defense department and the intelligence community should provide the decision-making tools and they should say you have all these ways to respond through milita military.

the whole government approach and cyber is one of them. i believe giving the president and national security council the options to say you can choose if you will do it over and based on your belief, who is constitutionally elected here's the options you have to figure out the best way to do it. if you attack -- they attack we attack back. >> do yo >> do you agree on that argument that not retaliating or not responding is a green light? >> i would say different.

the government chooses how to respond by all those tools and i think that my experience in both administrations is when the doors are closed and you are arounewartaround the table talkt these issues, everybody is looking at what is best for the country goes on the obama side and on the bush side. it's too bad we couldn't bring in the cameras for the american people to see how they debate because i'm convinced they look at it and when they come down here looking at it and the president of course is the final decider. what i would say is i think we elected these folks into office and we ought to back them and trust demand say they will do the right thing. by and large they are doing the best they can.

i didn't agree with some of those things and i thought it was a little bit low, but it was amazing to see that and you have thhadthe deputies committees anl these things. at the end of the day while different agencies ca command of different the process is good so that goes back to trying to answer that question. i don't think anybody would say we are just going to let that go. i think they are going to debate the process and come up with a good solution. >> i want to open up to

questions but i will allow myself one more i know you are donating to answer is how the nsa contractor that allegedly was able to steal classified data over many years. can i ask what went through my mind? >> insider threats are the biggest problems and those that have access on a separate network that communicates with some drawings and other things creates a huge problem but i think the nsa and my successor

will look at this and say who did what, when, where and how and what do we need to do to make sure that it doesn't happen again, who should we hold accountable with anybody. the issue is what's network was he on and have access to. we are now speaking hypothetically because i don't know. i assume he was on a network based on the job description that was completely isolated and as a consequence the way to move information is with some drives and cd-roms that exposes the risk so the question is how do you fix that and i don't know

the answer. i don't have the facts and can't answer it and then it would be a legal investigation. >> having lived through the revelations in detroit is up something like this from happening again is there something you look at and think i wonder if we didn't get this right. >> there were 42 recommendations that came out. where were they on that and i don't know the answer and i don't want to push it one way or another by making the wrong assumption. what i will tell you is there's

a great video out that talks about did you know. did you know that the unique amount of information created this year is more than 16 million. places like the nsa, cia, companies are dealing with information doubling every year and it creates tremendous vulnerabilities so that inside threat has to be part of what we are talking to and i think there are solutions for addressing that. analytics, behavioral technology, and they have to jump on that. >> how can any of us have hope if the nsa can't protect its data how can the average private

company. >> i think you will find it's some of the ones in his area and he did that in a long period of time. >> let's open up to questions if you want to raise your hand we have microphones that will make their way to do. if you will state your name and affiliation that would be great. >> i want to thank the atlantic for this event. what sits between you is trust and i would like to focus on the question i have is related to how do we improve the trustworthiness of the infrastructure and how do we improve trust in the employees and industry and government

because that seems trust is the key fundamental atomic element that we are lacking. >> that is a great question. thanks for bringing that up. this trust is a huge issue. i'm going to start by attacking the trusting the first. you has to deal with the issue as most of you may recall the nsa was spying on the american people listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails

and many people believe that's what they were doing. we heard that the white house was with the presidential commission so we could get folks like condoleezza rice and colin powell told the american people what we do and i got called down to the white house to a big table they were all on one side and i was on another. they said we are going to have a commission. i said i have great ideas and they said we've already decided and the president approved it. then they slide it across with their fingertips and you think that's never good.

it was the board members of the american civil war liberties union. this guy is suing us. the president has decided. i am a good soldier i will do the job you've asked us to do so than this review board comes up and i though thought i started d explain everything we do. so he's sitting about where you are. i thought we will tell him exactly what we did and how we did it. but to make this more transparent, over the next five

weeks they will do a audit and everything will be seen. so they come back and this guy jumps up and i think he's coming after me. my protection unit isn't here but i'm in good shape. he shakes my hand and said you have the greatest integrity of any agency. i said don't just tell me, told thtellthe president, the congred the american people. here's what he said, then i will give you the rest. i came away from my work on the

review group. not only did i find that they helped numerous plots against the united states and its allies in the years since 9/11 but they operate with a high degree of integrity and the rule of law signed geoffrey stone, aclu board member and acting dean of the university of chicago law school. so as it turns out the president's decision to do that was a good decision and almost nobody has heard that story before. what you've heard about is what the nsthis butthe nsa data thatt they found out their. so trust is conveyed by the media reporting it and that's why i think one of the things as the american people we need to get the whole story because my experience from nine years

working with these people, they don't want to spy on the american people, their job is to stop terrorists and cyber attacks come it's not to spy on the american people. that came after 9/11 to provide the data. yet we jumped to the wrong conclusion. let's get the facts out there because people at nsa are working hard. people at the cia and fbi, these are good people just trying to do the job the nation asked him to do and rather than criticize them he ought to say thanks for what you're doing. we know this is a tough job. second, if we can build the trust back, we have to have the

trust between the government and industry because many of the facts or the same way. i was stunned when i got to be the director of the nsa about the oversight and what i had to go through. if i made a mistake i had to go back through the training. so there are ways of doing it and it's not just government, it's all of us working together to figure this out. they can help tell the story perfectly and we ought to do that. the nation deserves better and we are tearing it apart.

geoffrey stone doesn't agree with 215. >> 215 was the meditative program. he called me up one day and said we should do an op-ed on the 215. i said i can't write and nobody would believe us if we did. he said we need to make some changes to commission recommended. i said why would you ever do an op-ed for something like that and his answer was if we don't do something like this and give the government the tools they need and we have another terrorist attack we will not have civil liberties for privacy and i don't want to put in jeopardy. so in aclu board member and retired general did an op-ed togethethat an op-edtogether foe

nation. there's opportunities for the rest of us to set this straight and we should, all of us. we should step back and say i do think this is the greatest country on earth. we have to fix it by demanding more versus sitting there and taking what we are giving. >> that is a story that i've heard before quoted by some of your staffers. your message to share this with the workforce was heated. although the transparency of the media we try to. >> i >> is a big issue and one that we wrestle with.

i went into chris's office and i said we know what we are doing is the right thing. how much do we read e immediated put forward and what do we put at risk by doing it. so we look rather take a beating than to put the country at risk. we can argue is that right, should we have given out more, and i think there are some things we could be more transparent but on the other hand nobody wanted to put anybody's life at risk and knowing if we could help the fbi stopped one attack it's worth it and they are inundated. if the answer is yes then it's worth it.

we will do one in the back and then responds. >> i want to take one more shot at getting your thinking about what kind of activities, what kind of action the united states might take given the conditions we find ourselves and maybe a way to do it is to ask you. what can the election look like four years from now once the world sees the foreign power has come in a if they do nothing more between now and election day to call into question some of the integrity of the system just by doing whatever they've done with the stealing of the e-mails that were then publish

published. but publishing is what was new so if this isn't responded to, what do you think things will look like when they get to the cycle? >> would you mind stating your name -- [inaudible] and i write books on the nsa. i want to go back to the issue of accountability and the fact that while you were there he walked out with 1.7 million pages of documents and half a million pages of documents it wasn't just one little place, he was at several different locations and walked out with six pages of documents and had

the actual weapons. where is the accountability of the nsa? >> i think it starts at the top. truth in lending i held myself accountable to the secretary of defense because of how he had taken that information. i don't take lightly just holding somebody accountable. i want to solve the problem and think it is the right thing to do. so we walked through the whole thing and then i asked the fbi people that were there who among

thieves do you think is accountable and i said actuallyy the way this was done they wouldn't hold any of them accountable so on the way back, i offered my resignation because i thought i was the one accountable. that was turned down in part because they didn't think i could get the job on the right side but i do take it seriously and think that is the approach and in that case i was accountable. according to the movie that never happened but there are issues and now the question you get to is how do you stop attacks like this and that's what they've got to figure out what went wrong. i like the idea of having the fbi walked by step-by-step to

help us see what was done. once we have the facts i can answer that question. i would like to have all the facts. that's what we need to do that. at the top they are the ones accountable. >> every major spy scandal you have the same thing how could this go on this long. the difference now 8 megabytes used to be a big one and now you can have terabytes on a thumb drive and steal a lot of data with these devices.

part of it is how do we hold people accountable and not make these people heroes so they can do that. if you go to the industries that are the industries we have to solve. >> four years from now when we look back -- >> i thought you were going to say we were out of time. [inaudible] >> i think you raise some good points and i think they will discuss both that and look at the options between the president and the next. i am concerned there is a lot

more that turns this different. what's going on with russia and europe i and the middle east, north korea and then issues with china what that says i is theres an awful lot going on in those threads are going to manifest in a couple of ways, regional issues and back to us, terrorism and cyber so we need to get these things right and get the facts out there but the nation needs to go solve these problems. >> i think you're saying in four years we will look back and miss the good old days. thank you. [applause]

thank you so much, general alexander and mary louise and i would like to thank the underwriter u.s. trust for making this evening possible and welcome everyone to the reception that we will have in the lounge area. so please join us and have a good evening everyone. thank you. ..