access, more use of artificial intelligence and we are going off the planet. there is an internet in operation and it is on its way and the next thing after that is the nearest star and nasa has designed a spacecraft to do that. >> well, top that arriana. >> actually, this is a perfect segue. while you are saying the next big challenge is going to be planetary, the challenge is going to be inside ourselves and we need to remember to look at them and remember not to be distrackdi distracted by the glories of the

internet. it gets back to machine to machine communication. they are going to do it for you. it is only just beginning. whether here or on mars. thank you very much. and thank you to all of you at the institute. >> in a few moments, a discussion on the election and economy. in an hour and 15 minutes, discussion of the plit colitica system. after that, a discussion of executive power. and later a forum on climate change.

on c-span2's book tv. >> now a national press club discussion of the election and the economy. panelists include three journalists who cover the economy. this forum looks at the role of the federal reserve, the europe yan debt crisis. >> tell kal difficulties, again, welcome. i'm thrilled to see a filled

room. please keep watch on press.org for other events. i want to thank you for braving the weather this morning. i kind of think that the next five months will be interesting. as we see how obama and romney duke it out. and i think our panelists will agree as well. the cover has a sinking ship entitled, the world economy.

spending cuts, and then perha perhaps -- for me, the most telling element that economics matters to economic tv is that politico is writing. we have news makers coming our way this week and next week and we'll touch on those. we have data coming out today. i'm sure that big clinton will continue to -- president obama.

i would like to start out with brief introductions. to my left we have ben white. it is a good way to get a round up on the news. ben is based in new york city so we thank him for making the trip. >> next on the panel is greg hipp. he is the u.s. economics editor for the economist. we covers financial and monetary policy commissions and financial services and greg will take all of the questions about how to create a proper banking system.

and then last but certainly not least is jim mctague. kro correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe you have seen many administrations including bush one? >> since bush one. i was a stock broker former rill lynch in the 1980s and have been in the private sector as well. will you join me in welcoming them. [ applause ] i will be asking questions and then i will turn the microphone over to you. when your time comes, hold it

close to your mouth, speak clearly, state your name and please make sure that you state your question and not as a statement, that would be great. so, the economy is getting harder to identify. we see culprits like gas prices, gdp and job growth, is there going to be a tipping point? >> yes, for three years in a row now, we have seen the economy start with strong job growth. we had a spike in oil prices,

when it started happening, it was perplexing. oil prices were up, but not as much as a year ago. they peaked in april and had been moving down ever since. the payroll tax was taken care of a few months ago. if you look around the world, it is striking the extent to which,

it is just kind of actually manic that businesses and markets hate unsernl certaintun. but the extent to which, political actors themselves are factors in the economic outcome this year is without precedent. in europe, whether or not the zone collapses is more in the hands of german voters. and here, you have this you know, conplufluns of events occurring at the end of the year. when republicans and democrats agreed to pile onto the lame duck session, we'll have a referendum and then talk about

what to do. when people know there is a ji began ten gigantic event, people tend to wait. china, and the asian markets, all of them are slow. in china, we are waiting to see when it holds up at this time. i said, the odds of china -- are 80% and the odds of the united states going over the fiscal

cliff are 70%. you will say each of those events are probably okay. it works out to one in three. you have a strong incentive to sit on your cash and not do anything. it has been the case that the economic out look affects what happens in politics. >> i think in the surveys, there is no certainty in business leaders. who is going to win, it is going to be close. and then what policies are going to look like in the next congress. we talked about over hauling the

tax code. it doesn't happen and there is not a lot of certainty in every possible area and so you have again another short spike in hiring followed by attempts to get more productivity out an existing workforce. if you read for example, this issue of barons. our professionals are pessimistic and have naked fear and they are saying get out of the stock market and raise cash. europe will collapse and there

will be a spill-over effect in the country. when you travel around this country and i think it is reflected in yesterday's figures, it showed that the wealth of the family is decli declining. if you are graduating from college and you work a free internship for a couple of years. it is a painful adjustment. it is affecting the rich, the lower class and the poor. i don't see a recovery on the

f horizon. >> all right. we're all good. >> do you think it will keep bernanke around? >> no, i don't. history will judge whether ben bernanke was correct or not. but a new broom will sweep clean. i don't believe that ben bernanke will want to stick around. that is a very tough job and he is due for a vacation. >> is there blame? >> romney is on the record saying that he wouldn't support

his staying on the job. >> it was pretty much the number one job of the gop candidate. >> i mean, he has used the tools to keep the rates low and stimulate the economy with the measures he had available to him. and the markets continue to do that. and now the question is do they act to start a new round in an attempt to keep rates low for an extebded period of time. it is hard for me to consider the depefeat of ben bernanke. >> this is going to be fun. >> it was a good try. he tried to inflate the stock

market and real estate market. >> that you would lose money if you kept your money in a cd or savings account. and both efforts would fail. >> the markets would have more downside and we have seen the stock market give back it's gains since the beginning of the year. >> that is not ben bernanke's fault. it was up until we had the latest round of concerns. i wouldn't lay the sub subsequent decline of the market on bernanke. >> if he bears any blame it is for things he did like calling for tougher regulation. since the crisis, he has behaved in the sterling fashion in terms of executing what we know, and

he provided liquidity when everyone else wanted cash. he did that. he shutter to think what would have happened. what you have, you wanted to get a list, it changes the incentive, you have a situation where rates could not dip to zero.

good map when you need more physical stimulus. if you talk to anybody at the fed, i can't help but think what they were thinking. do i really want to get ripped to shreds in the congress? how is my decision going to play out there publicly? even if they say, it does not influence my decision, that the political process will filter what the fed does and transform

what it is meant to be to the rest of the population. so after using two, there was a lot of accusations by other country countries that this was leading to the run up in oil prices. are you sure that it is not true? you have to take these things into consideration. >> he's done a wonderful job of postponing the inevitable.

if they stayed at this, it works for a while and running out of this. he is like a quarterback that had a wriliant first quarter. you are not getting a return on your savings. >> the whole point is to put it into riskier activities. >> the point was to punish safers. or to scoop up a condo and make money that way.

guess what happens? you cannot make money in the stock market. great plan. >> well, we are having fun. you know we talked a lot about so far about greece and nobody knows what the cure all is. will the united states. >> we've grown our way out of these things before. the economy tends to recover and start growing again and the debt seems like less of a concern. we have had long-term structural

drivers of the debt and medicaid and we don't have a system that is equipped to deal with those things. they are not entirely possible and complex to deal with. if we could have a congress that is not so in incapable of taking decisions that would reduce the growth of those programs coupled with recoverying economy, i think it could make it not that difficult of a problem to start to reduce both the deficits and the size of the debt. and we could stop talking about this. this is the constant issue. the problem is that there is no indication on the horizon that they are able to do those things. it is complete political gridlock and income tense but

there is nothing they get beaten down on the left and the right the left saying we can't raise taxes or cut benefits. we have a bigger, broader, more diverse powerful economy. we are less -- like italy or

spain. we could handle the problems relatively easily probably. we haven't found a way to do that. >> it would be hard to handle the dead crisis. i'm not aware of the currency having a dead crisis. that is significant. the reason, spain and greece and italy, their bond users are six percent and it took off the tab table. i mean it is not nice but works. so, when you buy a u.s. treasury

bo bond, you worry about the power and decline and you wonder whether you will get 100 cents on the dollar back. the nknowledge running into the kind of window slamming shut crisis that europe has. but there is an argument to be made. it is the frog in the pot of water sort of argument. they will never wake up to the fact that they are doing tax and spending policies.

>> when jimmy carter and ronald reagan opposed it. when mortgage rates were 11 and 12%, that was a period of us terity. the voe tters sent them there i

2010. they wanted austerity. i believe they wanted to shrink the size of the federal government. the public sector will be one that will feel the pain for quite a while. what scares me is that our politicians here share the ideas ofhe europeans. that congress isn't taking action to create jobs. the private sector creates jobs and the government has been a drag on job creation during this recession. i'm hopeful that will change

regardless of whether there is a change on the administration or not. >> i would like to open the q and a session to our audience. if anybody has a question, raise your hand and we'll pass the mic row phone to you. >> please be sure to state your name and affiliation. >> i would like to ask each panelist what is your forecast for gdp in the second quarter and what do you think that will mean for the election in november? >> i didn't bring my green eye shades i don't know if i can make an accurate prediction of gdp second quarter. i don't think we are going much over that anytime soon. what does it mean for the

election? it means unless, i think the figure that i look carefully at is the monthly jobs report and what that is going to tell us about the outcome. barring a collapse we stick around where we are now which is 2% of job growths per month with a rate staying 8.2, 8.18 in that scenario. it is 50-50 for either candidate depending on the debates. more than the other, i would probably give the edge to president obama in that scenario. the worst scenario slower gdp and job gains that go closer to zero or be