provider. >> coming up on booktv, former federal reserve chair ben beinecke is ãbthe author of the courage to act and firefighting, the financial crisis and its lessons. after that, conversation with former secretary of state condoleezza rice on the ongoing covid-19 pandemic and national security. >> good morning, good afternoon, glenn hutchins here, welcome everybody to this, i hope proved to be a fascinating and insightful session with ben bernanke and david wessel. when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and ben bernanke was chair, there was no playbook. he had to create one from scratch. a few of us expected his successors would need to refer to it so soon but fortunately for all of us he left a copy for jay polyps consultant. i would recommend for people on

this call if they are interested is a very good book called "firefighting" summary of the crisis and one called first responders which is gets in deeply to the individual program. i recommend everyone have a look at it. over the next couple weeks. been among other things is a distinguished economic historian, well-suited to put this horrible event we are experiencing now in context for us. to give us a sense today of what will determine how deep this recession will be, perhaps how long it will last, how effective the fiscal and monetary policy response has been and perhaps what's likely to come and whether the covid-19 recession will leave long-lasting scars on the u.s. and the global economy. i will turn this over to ben for his remarks after which david wessel will pose questions and i think after that there will be instructions on how the audience members can

ask their own questions. then come over to you, thank you for doing this. >> thank you glenn, thank you everyone for joining us this afternoon. it feels like a long time ago but january, february, we had a very strong economy with 3.5 percent unemployment rate. were hopeful at least that the strength of that economy will provide a little bit momentum for the financial reserve to get through this. what has happened is that the world has been hit by the covid-19 virus the virus itself is doing great damage but from an economic perspective the fact that on essential businesses are being shut down globally is having enormous effect on economic activity people are not shopping people are not working people are not going to school work and to see those the effects of that in the data very soon. you need to keep the data into perspective if gdp in the second quarter is 10% lower than the first quarter remember

we report on an annual basis multiplied by four very possible we will see gdp numbers in the second quarter of 30% or greater. people furloughed from a company are unemployed will they be coming back in the near term with dramatic numbers but i think we won't know for a while how serious and how deep this phenomenon is going to be. clearly people have made comparisons to the great depression. it's not a very good comparison the depression was 12 years long it came from financial crisis it came from man-made, human made errors and decisions this is more like a natural disaster and the response is more like emergency relief then it is a typical stimulus or anti-recession response. having said that, the critical factor in terms of how bad this

is going to be, how much imprint it will leave on the same economy is its duration, how long will it last. the longer it lasts, the more businesses will fail financially will close their doors. the longer it lasts, the more people will lose their jobs and lose association with their former employers the longer it lasts, the more destruction there will be in the harder it will be to come back. the duration is and be critical, the most important determinant of the duration is public health response. we are currently in shut down because we are trying to "bend the curve" we want to get the grate of new cases low enough that people can feel confident that the system can handle the cases we want to add palliative's and medicines and treatments we want to test and trace we ultimately want to be able to feel people can go back to work safely and that's going

to depend more than anything else on the public health response. i think that still a great deal of question about how that's going to go. one scenario is that we partially open up the economy over the summer and perhaps in the fall there is more infection we shut down parts of the economy again overall it could be a very bad year for the u.s. economy ãb will be the most determinant of how long and how deep this downturn is. having said all that, there are other components to the response in which i am more of an expert. we talked about briefly the fiscal response and spend most of my time on how the reserve

is responding to this crisis. fiscally, what we are not going to be talking here about a stimulus package because the book can't really go out and shop but we are talking about here is emergency relief. what we need to do primarily in the fiscal packages make sure people can survive this period with very low income that business is losing revenue can pay their bills, pay rent, pay utilities so that when the all clear or released to partially clear is sounded they can open up again and we can restore economic activity. that is a big part besides the part of the fiscal program that addresses health the biggest part of the cares act, the $2.2 trillion fiscal program is trying to provide life-support for an economy that is going to be shut down for a while until we have a better grip on the

disease. the money is going into direct payments to individuals to help them get through this period, i think the main issues there are logistical, are we getting the money people fast enough? is it enough? there will probably be more coming later but it's the right idea to try to help people get to the spirit, the other partners to help businesses survive this period. and that involves focus on grant, large amounts of money for the airline but also credit to help firms pay their bills and remain solvent so they can open up again when the health situation is better. i think overall the fiscal policy response, which you can think of as emergency relief package or disaster relief has been a good. there are some logistical issues in terms of getting the money out but it has the right shape i suspect it will be more coming later as we help the

economy get back to full employment. i would also add that this will be probably almost entirely debt-financed which in the circumstances i think is probably appropriate. this is why we have the capacity to borrow to deal with these kinds of crisis. let me talk for the remaining few minutes about the federal reserve which has been extraordinarily active and i want to commend jay and his colleagues for being very proactive in trying to address concerns in the economy. the fed has done basically three types of things, each of which has important role in supporting our financial system and economy. the first is supporting market functioning and providing liquidity. this is what central banks were created for ãbas you may know, those listening may know

that the fed has been dealing with some of liquidity issues going back into last year when the repo markets were somewhat destabilized the feds was putting liquidity in the system as early as last fall but since then with the pressures on financial markets coming from the uncertainty associated with this crisis, there has been a lot of destabilization, the fed has responded in a big way, it has been, for example, buying large amounts of treasuries and securities to help restore good functioning and those chemical markets. it continues to put cash into the system to try to make the repo markets and money markets work better, it's opened up discount window so banks can borrow at 1.41 percent interest as they need liquidity to make loans. very importantly, the fed has also been providing liquidity in the international system so back in 2008 and the financial crisis, one of the problems around the world was that so

many financial transactions take place in dollars and the only source of dollars as the federal reserve so in order to stabilize money markets around the world, the fed conducted what's called swap operations with 14 other central banks. we found ways to provide them with dollars that they could then use in their economies to help stabilize their financial systems and that in turn affected u.s. financial markets. the fed in this instance is also set up swap agreements with 14 central banks once again the fed will be acting as a lender of last resort in dollars not just to u.s. banks and financial institutions but essentially to the rest of the world. it's also set up a facility whereby other countries besides 14 can pledge the treasuries they hold get dollars, get cash, and provide liquidity needed within their own

economies. the fed is acting very aggressively to make sure there's enough cash and liquidity in the system. that's the first line. secondly, the fed has been aggressive on monetary policy. they lower interest rates, as you know over the summer last year they cut rates three times as insurance and that seemed to be what the doctor ordered so to speak. the recession risk at the time fell and it looked like the fed had achieved a soft landing. now we have a much different situation the fed has cut rates down to the minimal 0 to 25 basis points that we saw in the years after financial crisis it has issued guidance saying basically we are going to keep rates at zero until the economy is clearly back on track and inflation is moving back to two percent. i suspect it will be quite a

while. in the asset purchases has been doing at least $500 billion of treasury into hundred billion dollars of mbs, mortgage-backed securities have already been undertaken. that will transmogrified into quantitative easing helping to keep rates low and monetary conditions easing after the crisis the health crisis has begun to ameliorate. this is really kind of a two-stage process at the moment easier financial conditions are helping the system making it easier for corporations to borrow so they can continue to survive but it's not really time yet to stimulate spending and get people to go buy cars and houses that will have to wait until the health situation is better at that point monetary policy will begin to performance of normal functions. finally and most innovatively, the fed has been intervening substantially in credit markets. credit markets have been very destructive by the crisis, by the fact that people are so uncertain about how long it

will last the cash flow implications will be so as the crisis began, many many credit markets were disrupted and the fed has borrowed from the feds playbook from 2008 and added quite a few innovations of its own. borrowing from the 2008 playbook it's done really three things, first it's created a commercial paper's a facility which provides commercial paper, some short-term lending to corporations to help them finance their inventories and their materials working capital. that was something we did in 2008 on the shelf that's up that's already running. secondly, there is a money market liquidity fund we also have in 2008 that brought up to allow money markets to sell their securities and reduce pressure on the money markets.

we've seen some run phenomenon and this is been helping there as well this was something we did in 2008 and the third facility we have also planning to reintroduce but not yet so-called term asset-backed securities lending facility is used to buy packages of credit to your credit cards, auto loans, student loans and a variety of other types of credit to help make those markets more effective. these announcements together with the treasury mortgage-backed securities have already improved credit market functioning considerably. drawing beyond that the fed is going tohree its 13b emergency powers which we use 2008 for the first time since the depression. the fed in general has very limited ability to buy access and bank loans but under emergency conditions, so-called

unusual accident conditions with the permission of the treasury secretary the fed can essentially lend to anybody, thus the 13 three facility the 13th repower and based on that, they are adding a whole number of lending facilities that will try to ensure that businesses can borrow cheaply and effectively in order to maintain their survival through this period. so what's coming out, there is a two corporate facilities that one that will lend directly to corporations, essentially making loans or buying bonds of corporations to help them to survive the period. a secondary facility that will buy existing bonds trying to improve functioning as a credit markets in the corporate bond markets. thirdly, this is an important and difficult one, departing

quite substantially from past experience, the fed is also to be introducing a so-called main street business lending program. main street is a little bit of a misnomer because it's really for middle size firms. 500 to 10,000 employees. the fed will be providing cheap liquidity and perhaps providing protection against risk. the banks will be incentivized to make loans on good terms to these midsized firms. the smallest institutions, the smallest businesses are eligible for loans from the sba, small business administration, that began this week. again, logistics are so important to have been some snafus in terms of getting money out. i hope that will get straightened out. but that is supposed to provide the sba program to supposed to

provide cash to smallest businesses on favorable terms and in fact, those loans are at least partially forgivable if the company small companies maintain their payroll. the fed is helping there as well, it announced i think today or yesterday that it will buy sba loans from banks or provide secondary market for those loans making them more liquid and making banks more willing to make those loans. i think the thing to emphasize here is that the fed, with the fed can do is reinforce the private credit markets, the private credit markets are dysfunctional because the leveraging because of uncertainty, the fed can come in and replace those markets to some extent or strengthen those markets and try to bring private lenders back into those markets. the fed does not give away money, the 13 ãrequirements to require that the fed pay

collateral and intend to be repaid but in order to give the fed some protection a big chunk of the money in the fiscal program ãbprovides equity for the lending programs so that if they do lose money, it will be covered by these treasury funds. again, there has been progress already, we have seen the credit markets improve i think the critical issue will be how quickly the public health ãb finally, let me point out a been talking about the united states, this is particularly difficult situation because

it's a global situation almost every country in the world is suffering from this pandemic almost all have chosen to significantly reduce economic activity so this will be a global recession. the situation is being worsened by a strong dollar, by falling commodity prices by capital flow outflow from the countries. we may well see emerging market crisis and global recession as well as in the united states. we have a hard roll ahead but i'm pretty pleased overall with the fiscal monetary responses we've seen were in a need more but at least those authorities have done what they can to help economies stay functional until the public health situation gets better. david, i will stop there and be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you very much for

that. people listening in, we have a number of questions already but feel free to add but to the list by emailing events@brookings.edu. or on twitter. as you mentioned, the fed increased its balance sheet approaching $6 trillion soon twice the size it was when you left the fed in 2014. is there a limit to how much money the feds can create or reserves to create to purchase u.s. treasuries and lands for all these emergency facilities? is there some limit to how much the treasury can borrow to finance this rescue? >> there's not technically speaking, there's not really a limit to how big the fed's balance sheet can get. at $6 trillion this would be about 30% or less of u.s. gdp in japan i don't know the exact number but on the order of 80 or 90% of gdp the size of the bank of japan balance sheet.

it could be bigger, much of the increase is temporary, for example, a lot of the commercial paper facilities, those are short-term loans and presumably as things normalize, those loans will be paid back in the fed's balance sheet will accordingly shrink. i think the fed does have capacity to increase its balance sheet. it appears willing to do so significantly and i think that's appropriate. i don't think there's any real danger from that. i don't think, for example, that inflation is going to be a risk, if anything, disinflation, low inflation will be more of a concern in the next year then too high inflation. as far as borrowing is concerned, the federal government is falling a lot, this is when that borrowing capacity is so diagonal when you have a national emergency which of course this is paying

for this with taxes would be counterproductive because it would depress buying power at a time when the economy needs buying power. i think the question of sustainability with the u.s. federal debt is a tough one. i think long-run issues clearly as the population ages has crossed the medical care to go up. we see projections of the federal debt that are very disturbing over the next decade or two and we need to think hard about how we are going to get control of that trajectory. i think in the near term, dealing with a crisis of this magnitude that i think this is an appropriate approach and i would just note that finally, interest rates being almost 0 means that the interest burden associated with this borrowing is actually going to be quite low even though the number of dollars borrowed is high. >> and what to backup for that

inflation point because some people look at what's going on, huge increase in the federal deficit, low interest rates, the feds creating a lot of reserves and they think surely this will create inflation, maybe more than we want. you don't seem to think that's the case, how come? >> if you look there are supply and demand elements of this crisis. on the supply side you are seeing some types of goods are in short supply, you see some supply chains being disrupted so there are some supply side effects that will raise prices for certain goods and services. overall though, about what's happening to the demand for major industries, think about what's happening to demand for airline seats or restaurant meals. because people are staying home and because it will be a while before they are back to more

normal activity and because when they do come back to more normal activity they will have exhausted some of their financial reserves presumably, i think spending is going to take a hit the net effect will be probably slightly disinflation every that's what jay powell said at his press conference and i think he's right. one way to see that is what's happening to oil prices, which have collapsed. i think overall, the monetary for school stimulus will not sufficiently compensate to get us back quickly to full employment and the risk will be that in the short term that inflation will actually be a bit below the fed's two percent target. the feds would like to get back to two percent or slightly above i think at this point inflation is not a high risk. >> it doesn't sound like you're anticipating a sharp v-shaped

recovery. >> i'm not. the reason i'm not is because of the apparent trajectory of the virus and based infection and the like. i'm not a doctor is by any means, but they tell us the vaccine is 18 months away. there are things we can do to open up the economy significantly perhaps. but i don't see the economy returning to more normal state until there is much greater confidence both among the average person among average people and at the level of governors and mayors that opening up the economy won't restart the crisis. it seems likely if we could shut off the epidemic, of course the economy would bounce back quickly but since we probably have to restart activity fairly gradually and

there might be subsequent periods of slow activity again, i don't think it's going to be a rapid response. on the other hand, i want to draw a distinction between this and say 12 your great depression if all goes well in a year or two, we should be in a substantially better position, i hope the time back to full unemployment will be even greater than the great recession. >> that raises an interesting question. the recovery from the great recession was sluggish and painfully slow. other lessons there we should draw about either fiscal or monetary policy responses? >> i think on the margin i think most fiscal and monetary policy could've been more aggressive at certain stages in the recovery. it was a very different kind of recession. it started it was created

primarily by the combination of housing boom and bust and a financial instance the asset prices fell, house prices fell, it made people feel poor and the credit crisis meant that there was tremendous disruption in credit markets as well. when you dig about it, recession is not just everyone stopping for a moment what they are doing and then going back to it. rather, recession involves a lot of disruption, people losing jobs, separated from their employers, companies closing. depending on how long and deep and severe that disruption is, the longer it takes to get back to a more normal situation. >> i recall you saying when you are at the fed that you thought fiscal policy had tightened too soon.the period of the sequester hurt the recovery i

guess i was wondering whether you think that's a risk again this time? >> as i said a moment ago, i think fiscal policy was not sufficiently aggressive and i think at times monetary policy could've been more aggressive. the initial 2009 fiscal program in retrospect and some people said at the time was perhaps not adequately sized giving the size of the problem and it was a fairly quick response not just to the united states but globally toward a more deficit reduction and tighter fiscal policy starting as early as 2010 ended the united states very significant tightening in 2013. so, yes, the fiscal policy was too tight at various stages to fully aid the recovery back to full employment. in this case, i think the politics is a little different, the 2009 fiscal package was

passed on partyline vote. it's similar to the hurricanes and floods and other things we've dealt with in recent years. the bipartisan response to support those people affected might lead us to a more robust fiscal response as their economy recovers. >> people have asked about share buybacks which have become controversial. and suggest that one of the consequences of a long period of low interest rates will

share buybacks somehow unproductive. i wonder if you have a view on that and also the calls for the big banks to stop paying dividends they've already suspended their share buybacks. >> share buybacks and dividend payments are not inherently bad things. what they are basically is the bank or company taking its excess cash saying, look, we don't have good use for the gas worker give it to shareholders they can either use it for their own consumption or invested somewhere else you want to have b mobile to go from companies which have extra cash but no good use of it to other uses in the economy. where the cash could be better used. the good news in the current situation is that the banking system unlike 2008 is coming out pretty strong.

that's gonna be helpful for recovery. on the other hand, you want the banking system to stay strong so i think a very tough question as to whether the regulators ought to cut back on dividend payments or tell them to stop making dividend payments. we didn't do that in 2008, i think in retrospect there might've been a mistake because obviously in the end many banks were short of capital and putting out dividends reduces the amount of capital. the argument, i think there is a case for asking banks generally to be very cautious about dividend payouts and shared buybacks. the argument in the other direction is that you might give the impression that as policymakers when you tell the world were showing the banks they can't pay dividends you might tell the world effectively tell the world you think the banks are in trouble, which you may not believe it i

don't think is the case now. there's a bit of a signaling problem. i think it's complicate a question i think the banks are pretty strong i think they have much more capital today than in 2008 but i do think some caution on dividend payments can be done in a way that doesn't hurt confidence in the banking system would be worth discussing. >> one of the things that's quite different between 2009 and today is the congress back then appropriated a lot of money that went to the troubled asset relief program run by the treasury. fed of course was involved but it wasn't primarily a test program. this time congress seems to have a lot of faith in the fed giving ãbwhich jay powell says he can leverage 10 to 1 to land. i'm curious what you think about this, including this time they're talking about buying securities at the municipal bonds as well as corporate

lending against corporate debt, and wondering whether you are comfortable with this use of the fed use of the fed to lend almost everybody to basically be deciding who gets credit and who doesn't? whether you think this is an inappropriate role for the central bank. >> i think it's an appropriate role for the fed given the circumstances. i think glenn hutchins this morning had an op-ed talking about the importance of governance and making sure there are clear rules and clear oversight of the lending process. at the fed under jay powell and under previous chairs i hope has established a good record of nonpartisan and a objective analysis.the fed might the fed is, i think, a vehicle for providing government supported credit that will be based on objective criteria and less

subject to partisan debate then maybe another type of approach might have. i don't think there should be a regular feature. obviously we want the private sector to be the source of credit under almost all circumstances. but in this case where credit markets are clearly disrupted, the fed i think has an appropriate role to try to restore stability, the fed has a broad responsibility to maintain financial stability and is doing a good job of that. one side of that is that we don't expect the fed lending to crowd out all other lending in markets like commercial paper market and the corporate bond market were already seeing normal private lending returning so the fed is acting more like a backstop then the only lender or primary lender and i think that lender's last resort backstop is an

appropriate one under these type of circumstances. >> have we learned anything about places in the financial system that were more fragile or more vulnerable to we had realized or we hadn't done enough to shore up after the great recession? >> i think one area people worried about in advance and my colleague at brookings talked about a lot was leverage lending high yield, some of the areas in the corporate credit markets that are stressed in the fed's anticipated that if a shock came from some other direction that drove the economy into slowdown that some of these weaker credits might exacerbate the problem and i think we are seeing some evidence of that. there's been surprising problems even in the treasury market which the fed has addressed by buying treasuries but broadly speaking, the

situation is very different from 2008, it feels like 2008 because we are seeing the big moves in the stock market and lots of financial stress but in this case the shock is coming from outside the financial system it's coming from the pandemic and the effects on economic activity the financial system is strong and will be a bulwark against this becoming a much worse crisis if the feds and regulators do their jobs appropriately. >> do you think is appropriate for the government to take warrants or other equity interest from companies it lends to at a time like this? ? >> there's lending and then also some grants going on. where the fiscal in the latter

case where the grants in which ways the grant can be partially paid back to warrants. i think it's a balancing act. i'm not really closely enough involved in these particular programs to give you good judgment. you want obviously the taxpayer to be protected, you want to have a reasonable return and remember, the feds lending is lending, not grants, it's not gifts, you want to return that's going to be what the taxpayer to get their money back. on the other hand, you don't want to impose so many conditions and complex requirements such that it will make people unwilling to participate and make the paperwork burden so high it

will make logistical even worse. i think there's a balancing act there. because is appropriate to impose requirements including certification of eligibility and need but i think the main thing you want to do is keep those companies alive so they can function again when the health crisis is over. and to try to ensure as much as possible taxpayers get their money back. >> you make a point several times and for good reason that keeping businesses in tax so that they can more easily restart when the virus recedes is going to be critical to how we come out of this thing. i wondered if you could step back for a moment and i this is speculation i understand come to think about ways in which the economy may be different coming out of this either consumer business behavior, approach to government, just think about from the vantage point of history what you think

will be watching to see if it changes? >> the congress have a term called. >> the physics terms what perceives to be temporary changes have permanent effects. there might be some history in this crisis, in other words, some of the things that happen in the course even if it's only a year or two in the course of this recession may have permanent effects on the economy. so an example would be small business. one concern the economists had about u.s. economy is become more concentrated that larger businesses have had more market share if small businesses are knocked out by this crisis because we don't adequately keep them alive that could affect concentration in many industries going forward.

the form of work here we are having this conference remotely people at brookings and all around the country are teleworking and learning how to work remotely, will this change our shopping and change her work habits? will this affect the way that we interact with people? online rather than in person? industry composition will be affected no doubt. you can't see as many people going on cruises for example there might be changes in the way that other travel industries operate to reassure people about safety and health. a lot of different dimensions but i guess the historical

examples like in 1817 the flu pandemic 19 1718 the asian flu in the 50s, have had permanent impact. i'm not expecting at this point the complete reshaping of ãb there will be some changes that will probably work on some dimensions. there will be some changes going in forward. >> before this crisis we talked a little bit about his savings gland where there was more savings and not enough invested to soak it up which was of course by global interest rates have been so low. as we look ahead, which way do you think that balance will go? i can think of it more than one way we might have very risk adverse consumers, people might be willing to save more i can imagine a lot of people not being willing to invest, on the other hand, government

borrowing will be certainly a lot greater than it was before. how do you see that savings investment balance?what will you be watching for? >> you can't out ãon both sides but if you look at the great depression people who survived the depression for many years saved more cautious so i think some of those same factors will be there. if people think that in particular they think the pandemics will happen every 10 years they will have more precautionary savings because they want to be prepared for those kinds of disruptions. i would expect to see more savings and more caution, which will probably net lower interest rates. you read about higher fiscal deficits but ãbargued in a recent brookings paper without the fiscal deficit interest rates would be lowered still

but they've not been sufficient to raise interest rates up to historically more normal levels. >> let me close with this, i think a lot of people are just scared it's a very frightening moment you're not allowed to go outside in many places, you watched if you have retirement savings to diminish the uncertainty about the future the next few months and even year of the economy is very unsettling. what can you tell people to reassure them about how we get through a period like this? >> it's going to be very difficult period. there is a lot of uncertainty in dealing with this illness. we don't understand fully. a lot of people's financial resources will be tested both because of movements in the market and because they're trying to survive this period with low or reduced income. i don't want in any way diminish what's happening. it's very tough and scary

period. one that has very few precedents in history. all that said, i think history also suggests that you will find solutions for this illness whether they are logistical, whether they are scientific advances, whether they come from changes in how we work, i think the u.s. economy will recover and within a few years will show modest remarks of this experience. i think if we are patient, do what we normally should be doing we will come out okay on the other end we will learn some lessons about being better prepared for future crisis and future shots of this type with some patience and optimism will come out of this okay. i certainly understand and

appreciate person-to-person level the uncertainly we are all facing over the next couple months. >> to people online, if you have questions we didn't get to, i apologize. if you send them to us@brookings.edu at our questions we can answer and there are many we can't. we will try to find a way to answer them. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> sunday night on book tv on afterwards, author tara westover talks about growing up in the idaho mountains with survivalist parents in her book "educated" a memoir". >> i think my mother did a pretty decent job of homeschooling. by the time i came along she had seven kids she was a

midwife she was an herbalist, there was a farm. there wasn't a lot of homeschool going on. i never wrote an essay for my mother, never took an exam. there was never anything like a lecture. >> at 10:00 p.m. eastern former u.s. surgeon general ãbon the impact of loneliness on health. >> and had many experience talking to friends on the phone i would find myself mindlessly scrolling through my email or social media feed or google question that came up and i don't need to do that it's just so accessible it's right there and i fall into it. but it does dilute the quality of conversation because science tells us very clearly we cannot multitask. when we think we are multitasking were actually task switching between one thing and another very rapidly. this is why i think it's so important to ask the question, how do we transcend not only the quality of time with people perhaps more importantly the quality of time. >> watch book tv this weekend on c-span2.

>> the presidents from public affairs, available now in paperback and e-book. presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. and features perspectives into the lives of our nation's chief executives and leadership styles. visit our website c-spanstore.org/the presidents. and order your copy today. wherever books and e-books are sold. welcome everyone to our hoover virtual policy thinking sears and tom gilligan director of the hoover institution. for more than a century the hoover institution has been collecting knowledge and generating ideas that support freedom and improve the human condition. our works profoundly have an impact on public policy initiatives in the ud