will bahhance of the trust fund. that and if you read the commentary of the greenspan commission members and the staff director they say that it's our intent to keep the program going on a pay as you go basis and not to have big imbalances from one year to the next. jake pickle wrote, it is aing the public would not stand for a big trust fund buildup because they wouldn't trust the investments and save the money. so we want to keep the program going on a pay as you go basis and they got big surpluses in some years and big deficits in some years, but that result wasn't fully apparent until it was so late in the legislative process and obviously what they were dealing with was a big emergency and they didn't want to have the political deal that wasn't reached where the program on paper was more apparent than real which is why it has slipped since then. i should probably allow myself

to -- >> if we get a solution this time there's going to be political consequences as well. would you care to comment? >> yes, i do care to comment. there's a real dilemma here. if you operate a program like this on a strengthly pay-as-you-go basis and then you see as thermography changes and changes in unexpected ways or trend economic growth changes, you're going to have to raise taxes or lower taxes or raise benefits or lower benefits and for a program that's designed to provide the american population with some kind of assurance that it's going to be able to plan its retirement or how much insurance it needs for its potential disability. that's not a satisfactory way to

go. the other option is you can build up reserves and deplete reserves over time and i agree with the dr. that the intent was not to build up these big reserves and the future course of thermography was not fully appreciated by those responsible nor were anybody at that time. was the baby bust a permanent phenomenon? we've had huge social changes that have gone on in the last 30, 40 years. small family size, more immigration, more women in the workforce, et cetera, et cetera, that make these things very hard to put in place and then stick with your decision for the next 75 years. so i don't think there is a right answer to this question.

>> and to sort of feed off this because oftentimes we have this conversation because we're accustomed to have this conversation. i think we don't explain it in terms of most americans and we look at it from, so essentially what we're seeing is that back in 1983 when social security was nearing a point when it wouldn't beble to pay all benefits, congress -- excuse me, working with president reagan worked to dealing with that and the result was that americans paid a little bit more and those that were retired got a little less benefits and the result was this reserve that was being built up because the americans have been contributing more into the system that's been needed to pay recipients to beneficiaries. now, i think most americans would say if i gave you hard cash or a bank or any other

place where i can store my money and you tell me you'll pay me an interest on that cash, and so essentially by law that's what we did. we told americans that when they deposited their contributions, social security contributions for their paycheck for social security and it come interests treasury bonds and then from there the social security system uses what it needs from those treasury bonns to pay for benefits and it cashes in those treasury bonds because it hasn't needed to cash in all of those treasury bonds to pay for current retirees that's been building up the surplus and the surplus has been an interest. small because treasury bonds earn more interest than some risky investments on wall street and that's the 1.6 trillion in interest that's been earned. some people wouldn't question whether that's real money because it's interest and it was essentially a transaction

between one arm of the social security to the other arm of government which is the general operating budget of the federal government, but those treasury bonds are real and as the chairman pointed out earlier, 45% of the public debt is owned by foreigners. they own that debt and they get to collect on it because they own treasury bonds. so there are those who say that it's not real money that social security holds and guess what, we're in pretty good shape because 45% of our debt held by foreigners isn't real money either. if you don't own social security americans who paid into it, we don't know the foreigners either. that's why i don't understand the logic of those who say it's not real money because americans paid real money into the system. it was secured by the most secure form of currency there is which is a treasury bond and to say it's not real money simply because it was done by the

social security giving the money to the government and in turn it's getting a treasury bond to hold on to that money i think is a real either mistake to say or a real injustice to the american people who continue to pay into the system today, and it's, in fact, that reserve is going to continue to grow for several more years before we have to start using it to pay for benefits. and so i think the public will want to understand. i did the quick math on this. in the 77 years that social security's been around, you and i and everybody who works and has worked we contributed $14 trillion with our paychecks or our fico contributions and we used up about $13 trillion in paying out benefits, hard cash left over, simple math. there's $1 trillion that americans have contributed in cold, hard cash to social

security that's never been used and that's helped preserve part of the reserve, but because for decades that reserve is held in treasury bond, it's added another 1.6 trillion. most americans would tell you if you only wanted to give them back the 1 trillion and not the 1.6 they have in interest. if this was a bank we'd probably burn that bank down and so i think we want to be very careful when we talk about funny money for social security because either we tell china and the rest of the world that we're not going pay them because they've got the same funny money or we should keep our obligations to americans who contributed money. final point i want to make is this, calling your friend from texas that social security faces a permanent deficit forever. i want to make it clear, and i think dr. reich will agree that

social security does not run deficits. >> that's correct. >> social security will never face a deficit. you use the right word, it's an actuaryial deficit. it sees the difference between what we're collecting and what we hope to pay out and there is a deficit there and that's what we have to tackle sooner than ever. can the social security system ever run deficits by law? it can never run deficits and the cold, hard fact is that we have to tell americans in 2033, guess what? all of a sudden your benefit went from 100% to 75% which would be cruel and that's why we have to deal with this, but never has social security run a deficit and never had it until we in congress change the law. with that, i would yield back. >> you want to make a final comment on that? >> i certainly don't want to be construed as implied that the bond and the trust fund is not real assets and as my testimony

indicate, i think the they're backed by the full faith and credit and when you get the controversies about the trust fund and it's not so much about real assets between social security as to who's paying for the trust fund bonds, for example, the interest payments and we did 200 plus billion in general revenue transfers this year to social security from the general fund without collecting any taxes. based on that 200 million. those bonns will earn $400 million or so, and and who is paying for that interest? the taxpayer who finances the general fund of the u.s. government or the person investing in the treasury bonds is obviously, you know, the interest payments, it's not necessarily the case that they were paid for by workers on social security and there's a fierce analytical argument about

whether that portion of social security's financing is brought by contributions, and any other source and i don't want to say it's not real money for social security. >> mr. chairman, this is what i love about hear suggests when we can actually have this kind of a discussion because this is what the public would like to hear rather than us doing our five minutes of asking questions and you only getting your five minutes to respond or give your testimony. this -- and i think actually chairman camp has done a great job of this on taxes where he's allowed us to have these informal, off the record kind of conversation with experts on tax reform and i think we can do more of those on social security, but for example, you point something out very important. when we did the payroll tax cut to try to help working families with this recession, you're right. we told them you had to contribute less to your fico taxes to social security and congress said we're not going damage social security. we're going to take money from the general fund and replace the money that otherwise would have

gone in. so i would respond to your point which i think is a valid point is that real money that should earn interest through these treasury bonds because it came through the general fund. we consciously, in congress said we don't want to undermine social security and we want to help the economy and give working families who pay fico taxes a bit of a break and we don't want to do that at the expense of social security when they retire and the decision was consciously made by congress that we knew that that money would be used to buy treasury bonds that would then earn interest and therefore we knew that that would become money that the federal operating budget would owe to social security when the time came to collect on those treasury bonds. your point is absolutely well taken and that's the kind of person that we have to discuss because otherwise, everyone gets confused about is it real money or is it not real money? i appreciate the point you make. >> want to thank both of you for being here today for the

positive discussion. we do need to fix the social security, and i want to thank the members here and mr. clark, thank you for showing up. with that, the meeting stands adjourned.

>> we have more live program ahead on the c-span networks. coming up, president obama speaks to the national association of elected and appointed latino officials. this is the same group challenger mitt romney addressed yesterday. you can see that live starting at 1:40 eastern on c-span. a little bit later today we'll have a look at women in business, government and media. this comes to us from the conservative women's group and the clare booth foundation. tonight it's a debate between republican candidates running for u.s. senate in texas. ted cruz and david dewhurst are vying for the nomination and you can see that live at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> if all of us decide at the same time we'll tighten our belts and spend less, guess what? what happens is we all end up poor because all of our spending falls at the same time. and remember, this is the kind

of stuff that we're supposed to know, and this is stuff that we've known since the 1930s and because they think i've got too much debt and it's self-defeating. >> who's going to tell them the truth? we have to tell them the truth. if we don'ttel them the truth then our country fails and we must succeed in this and we will succeed in this. we will reach them through the media and through politics and through pop culture. pop culture. we shouldn't be afraid to get out there and quit preaching to the choir, but get out there and be influencers, right? in pop culture. >> the c-span networks covered the panels with paul drugman and elizabeth warren and right online discussions with michelle malkin and sarah palin. watch them online at the c-span video library. >> earlier this year, congress

debated two bills to stop online piracy. meanwhile, yahoo is suing facebook over patent infringement. these other aspects of technology and innovation were discussed at a stanford university law school conference in early march. the moderator is stanford university law school dean larry kramer and this panel is just over two hours. >> so, welcome, everybody, and i believe this is the last panel of the day and, of course, for those of us who live here, the most important one, and the only one that really counts. so here we are in silicon valley and we'll with be looked at the equivalent to the industrial revolution or many other shifts. one quick story, we were trying

to recruit somebody at one point from the law school in the east in the boston area, and i said to the person who, you know, works in this area that of course, you should come here because this is the center of the universe for everything that you care about and there are so many important things that are happening. it's not that nothing is happening anywhere else, but to not come here is sort of staying in a small town in scotland instead of going to manchester or london or the american revolution happens and the states have always been the center of authority so you have to make a decision. do you stay in boston or do you go to the new capital and join the new government and if you are farsighted you go to the new capital and enjoying the government and you become john adams and our major historical figure well remembered 250 years later and if you're sam adams you choose to stay in boston and you become a beer. so, of course, what goes on here and what goes on with respect to the regulatory state is a matter

of enormous concern, what government does or can do that will either enhance or impede the growth of technological innovation or invention is obviously something hugely important and that's what the panel here will discuss. i'm going to quickly introduce everybody and then pose a question and give everyone ten minutes to talk about it and then we'll turn it over to you. i'll do this in alphabet cal order and start with richard epistein which hardly needs introduction and richard is a pivotal figure in the scholarship at least the past half century and wasn't in it for all of it, but of it he has certainly been -- he's a major scholar in too many fields to list, but includes, law, checks, upon proery and many, many more and also, i should say, speaking as someone who was his student, a great teacher and mentor. just quickly by way of

background, bachelor's in '64 and an llb from yale in '68, he did very well in law school and did not get the supreme court clerkship and he interviewed with the clerkship with chief justice warren and was asked which of the chief's opinions he didn't agree with and he said well, where should i begin? not calculated to get a clerkship. instead, then he began teaching at usc where he taught from '68 to '72 and where he was in 1972 to 2009 and he is now at nyu. richard is also one of the rare academics who made the transition to becoming a public intellectual and did so without giving up his scholarly work or the people who deeply value his scholarly wochl, gumption is shown by being on this panel as well as several others. next, tony fallzone who is to my

immediate left. your right for me is the executive of the fairious project and a lecturer at stanford law school. it is a project that we started about six years ago that is designed to both clarify and expand the boundaries of fair use in copyright. tony came with a strong background to do this sort of work. he was a '97 graduate of harvard law school and clerked for moskowitz in california, and he mitigated i.t.is qaaes before coming to stanford law school in 2007. while directing the fair youth project he's won a number of important cases against the likes of the joyce estate and yoko o no and for those of us who are deep beatles fans it doesn't matter what side we were taking as long as he beat yoko. and some day i'll show you the press release that i wanted to put out that nobody would let me. he argued, unfortunately with

less success, the golan case in the supreme court. tony has repeatedly been recognized as one of the top i.p. lawyers? california and the country. next, mark lendly who is at the far end of the table and he is the professor of law at stanford law school and also the director of the stanford program of science and technology. mark earned his b.a. at stanford in '88 followed in '91 and clerked for dorothy nelson on the ninth circuit and spent several years in kansas before joining in '94 where he stayed until 2000. he moved in 2000 and stanford in 2009. his is the only one each trying to make a brief that spilled over to the other side of the card. there is no question that he is the leading academic in the field of patents and he may also be the leading practitioner in the field as well. he is in his capacity to get things done.

while publishing seven books and the two-volume treatise, he is a founding partner and maintains the healthy practice having argued countless cases in both district courts and courts of appeals and the list of awards that mark has earned over the years is in fact, too long to read. so what i wrote to is just think of every award that you might want some day to earn and mark has received it, a number of them on multiple occasions. then at the far end here is peter teal, also he needs no introduction. peter is the head of clarion capital which is the hedge fund and as i suspect most of you know, much, much more. peter earned both his b.a. and j.b. from stanford, the latter in 1992 and he is an original in all respects and as a kid he was one of the highest ranked chess players although jim mayer can give him a run for his money

approximately while at stanford he founded the standard review for conservative and libertarian voices for students. after law school he clerked for judge edmondson on the 11th circuit and spent a short time at credit suisse and co-founded paypal. peter created a place for himself as an innovative hedge fund manager and venture capitalist and now in film and facebook. he also created a place for himself as a public intellectual and provok tour and is also well known for his support for the singularity institute on artificial intelligence and the sea setting institute which creates autonomous and libertarian communities and for young people who may be better served not going to college than doing so. he teaches an occasional class from law school and teaches at the law school as often as i can persuade him to take the time to

do so and the way i conceptualize that class is it's the world according to peter teal and i don't actually care what he does. seriously, if you have a law school and you can put extraordinary minds of people, that's a good thing for them and that's why we try to get peter to teach as often as we can, lastly and speaking of people at the heart of the ongoing technology and information revolution is ted uliot who is the vice president, general counsel and secretary of facebook. he earned his b.a. from harvard in 1990 followed by a year in france and then a j.d. from the university of chicago in 1994. ted then clerked for judge michael ludwig in the fourth district and for justice scalia on the supreme court. he was a lawyer at kirkland and ellis although he moved to aol time warner in 2001 as associate general council and from there became the general council of

aol time warner europe, i suppose making use of that french. he joined the bush administration in 2008 and first in the white house and then as chief of staff to attorney general gonzalez who turned to kirkland following the end of the administration and joined facebook in 2008 where he currently is. with that, let me open this up and i'll just pose a question that, you know, gives everybody a chance to talk a little bit about the issues that we were given here and we'll again start alphabetically which means i will start with you, richard and set the tone of ten minutes and no more. we'll get people just to reflect on what is the relationship between technology and the regulatory state and how, if at all, should government regulate technological progress, innovation and all of the good things that we hope to get out of technology while hopefully limiting the bank. >> thank you for doing this, and

what i will do is i will start with a question and then try to give an answer to the question slightly refrained. there is a powerful question about figuring out the question of technology to innovation, but there are many regulations which do not get you involved with the so-called regulatory state and so the question is exactly what kinds of regulations are desirable and why is it that i think that they don't fall within this larger category of regulations which are generally dubious. the first point is every system of law needs a system of regulation, even in purely competitive market marks, and y need the statute of, and you have to have taxes and so forth to support it. it doesn't depend upon government force, is if not an adic us myth, and the key feature is what is the point of the system of regulation? what it's designed to do in

virtually all these cases is to fortify the competitive markets and strong property rights, protected by regulation and statute of fraud on formalities of contract and the breach of contract and the use of force against contracting parties all drive you very much in that kind of a position, and i don't think that there's anybody who with can quarrel with the fact of bringing these kinds of areas or treat it as a sign of regulation in the regulatory state. what happens is when we come to technology there are two important feels that i'm going to discuss and each requires some deviation or at least some modification of the earlier positions and the two types of systems that you're going to refer to are, in fact, the intellectual property system which are copyrights and patented trademarks and trade secrets and so forth and the other turn out have to do with the trademarks and what makes these things special and what are the regulations that we ought to welcome and which are

the regulations that are a part of the state that we ought to be concerned about. so let's turn to the first of these things with the intellectual property act and what is so clear about intellectual property is that it is not simply enough to allow people to take first possession of property and announce that they own it. so as early as 1790 we start off with the patent act and the copyright act and what makes these statutes the kind of long-term successes. >> the first thing about it is that neither of these are meant to be technological force with respect of the domain. what the law does is it gives you a system where, by if you have the two things that will matter and then there will be an examiner who decide whether or not this particular patent is or is not going to be valid and what happens is it then falls into the sphere of ordinary property rights and protected and it used to be by inzufrngzs and damages in the event of

infringement which is the analog which is toward trespass and it licenses this thing which is the power of the position associated with these rights and by virtue of the fact that you have a decentralized system in which anyone can start to play the game, the only real questions that you want to have with respect to this system is just how is it that you make it as efficacious as possible, and in dealing with this thing, i think the 1952 patent act which was the act before this god forsaken act of this past year that they had a pretty good job in trying to figure out what kinds of advances were eligible for patent protections in order to get that protection and so on down the line. there were controversial features about this system and the ebay case which would weaken the injunctive release question and some of the cases having to do with l.g. which would limit your ability to create various licenses and all sort of

negatives with respect to the operation and the thing most fears with respect to the property rights under the patent system is that there will be a variety of mistakes and one of them is you can lengthen the terms which is the problem that mark will talk about in connection with copyrights and which i'm certainly opposed to, and i don't think that's a real risk in these particular cases, but you could make the system convoluted and so forth that you no longer understand its actual boundaries. this would include having elaborate and complicated examination provisions most of which strike me as a huge mistake and it requires the fragmentation of patents, as business patents start to get special treatment. the simplicity and robustness of the older system were in fact, correct. on copyrights you have to have a system of registration, but there you don't need a system of examination and the two systems have widely parted grounds on that. on the question of durability on intellectual propernd