was a fascinating talk and we all learn from it. my name is mindy, i'm vice president of ngo global peace services. i don't need to tell you that economic issues have one of the triggers of the arab spring and the concern of young people that the future looks bleak. shimon, paris, i'm sure in your long career, had a vision of technological sharing among some of the countries in the region, of course that would be egypt. where do you see the economic power in the coming years, the future for young people. what are some of the creative initiatives going on to give them a sense of investment in their future and in the growth and strength of egypt. >> that's an excellent point. the egyptian government has put a lot of emphasis on implementing projects and frankly it's an executive

government. they want to get things done. they don't really want to talk a lot about it. and you see this in the very large amount of transportation changes that have occurred on the roadways, what they've done around the canal and so on and so forth. that's all good. what i'm talking about is i'm trying to find a way to couple that, in other words, building a larger economy. if you listen to president cc, he will repeatedly tell you i need to build a larger economy in order to satisfy the as s aspirations of my people. the point while after that, while we do that because we've gone through political change in the middle east, it's important to make sure that everybody feels they're a stake holder in this process, and therefore, as you take the right steps in implementing projects, we also need to develop a culture of public engagement in politics and the ability to have different points of view, as long as they're within the

constitution of the country, so it's a challenge and just today i was on watching television in egypt and they were showing these six tunnels that they had built, under the swiss canal. all of them were -- i mean, the general manager of one of the tunnels was 32 years old. you couldn't do that in egypt five years ago. so, yes, we need to respond to u.s. in particular and we need to get some real work done. it can't be all talk, but, again, talk is important in order to provide direction. >> i have time for one more question if there is one. >> i want to go back when you're talking about the identity crisis. and national identity versus religion. can you talk, at least in egypt, how that has altered since the

start of the arab spring where we are now, how would you gauge where egyptian kind of understanding on this issue is. i mean, this is an issue that's been going on for 200 years plus, but i would be interested in your thoughts on that. >> it's a great question. if i had an answer, i wouldn't have raised them because then it wouldn't be an issue. the question is valid. but i'll give you an example of why i raised it. in 2011 and 2013, you would hear people my age talk about what the youth did and what they want. 2000, year 2000 or 2005, you would have heard the people saying what the they should do in following our direction. there is a clear understanding today that we're going in a different direction, that the younger generation are going to define success or failure. it's our role simply to provide

them the opportunity to do that. and that's why, again, people will say, well, you keep talking about public policy and putting forward scenarios. well, young kids, i made mistakes when i was young and i succeeded in different things. i want to be able to provide them different opportunity, different scenarios and the ability -- and give them direction, but it ultimately it will be their choice. i am worried that with the frustration that exist in the middle east today, be the deficits or the frustrations and the different challenges. they may be driven towards extremism. so it's -- that's why there is this role for enunciation of public policy, but it's also important, as you had said, it can't be all hot air, it needs to have some concrete evidence, as well. >> last question right here in the front. >> thank you, from the clinton

group, welcome. i was wondering about the regional fragmentation that you spoke about in the last decade or so, the center of gravity has moved from the traditional centers of cairo and baghdad and damascus into mostly the gulf region which has able to maintain a certain amount of power or economic that has the sources to do that. some in positive ways, some in negative ways like yemen, syria, things of that type. my question is gulf region money is out, it's declining. what is the center gravity is going to shift back to egypt and with egypt being relatively weak position, how will it maintain that kind of force. >> in centers of gravity are not theoretical, they're real. it's a real effect. if you don't play a role, if you

don't create something on the ground, it will shift somewhere else and that's exactly why -- what you said and it's shifted in certain area to the gulf. i'm not sure their money is drying up, but any way, i understand the point you're making. where it will go will be defined by what we do. we can't argue, i mean, when the arab league was established in cairo, there were six countries. we were the ones helping our countries get out from under european colonialism. but because we did that. we did had more stake holders and more shareholders in the arab system. so it's quite logical that the arab system becomes more complicated to deal with because there are now 22 rather than 6 members. well, nobody is going to give us back our role, you need to gain it. it should not be the same role we had in the as. it should be a role that's

consistent with multi stake holders, but multi stake holders with some leaders. so i, again, when i have these debates back home, i look at my egyptian colleagues and say let's get our work done and then if we do something that's good enough others will logically want to emulate these parts of it. if we don't, then it's a moot point any way because you can't regain your role. i mean, we can gain -- let me be careful here. we can gain our role positively or negatively. i prefer as a moderate society and then our role is positive. if we want to regain our role because we're at the beginning of the end. that's a different scenario. that's not one that i want to contemplate on frankly. >> i will try to exercise leadership. in leading the group thank you for that excellent presentation. >> thank you. >> thank you gentleman. [ applause ]

we must understand that we're a democracy. we're a government by the people and when we move, it should be for very severe and extreme reasons that serve our national interest and end up with a stronger country behind us. >> i will not make age an issue

of this campaign. i am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. >> you have a president that will work with the congress and american people. you can bring that down 20, $30 billion a year, build economic growth. build a good strong future for america, invest in those things which we must invest in. economic development, good job., >> i wish he would join me for the balance budget amendment for the federal government and for the line item veto. i would like to have that line item veto for the president because i think that will be extraordinarily helpful. >> and the 2008 debate with illinois senator barack obama and arizona senator john mccain. >> the situation today cries out

for bipartisan ship. senator obama has never taken on his leaders of the party on a single issue. we need to reform. so let's look at our records as well as our rhetoric, that's really part of your mistrust here. >> so we're doing to have to make some investments, but we've also got to make spending cuts, what i propose, he's proposing a whole bunch of new spending, actually i'm cutting more than i'm spending so that it will be a net spending cut. the key is whether or not we've got priorities that are working for you. >> watch past presidential debates saturday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. watch any time on c span.org. bap next a discussion on social and economic issues facing white working class americans. authors j.d. vance and charles murray took part in this event

hosted by the american enterprise institute. it's an hour. >> good afternoon, everyone. good afternoon. i'm bowman and i'm a senior fellow and i would like to welcome all of you to the first bradley lecture program of this academic year. as many of you know who have attended these programs in the past they're usually lectures. with tonight's event, we saw a rare opportunity to host a conversation about a culture in crisis. we're grateful to this line of making this possible. midway through this mental --

working as a cashier at the local grocery store as where he lived turned into amateur socialologyist where he saw how some people gained the system and how the owners treated customers differently. he said at that point he began to read books social policies the truly disadvantaged and charlie murray losing ground. he writes both of these books were written by african-ameri n african-americans could just as easily be written about his families. he realized no expert or single book could explain their problems. mr. vance's description is much more as amateur socialology. it tells us what goes on in the daily lives of real people and i'm quoting him directly, when the industrial economy goes south. he continues. it's about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way

possible. in this he echos the concern at many of ai over the years including the late robert who wrote the quest for community in 1953, peter burger and the late richard john new house fam flet in the 19 -- pamphlets about the important of the country's mediating institutions, families, neighborhoods and communities. and, of course, to my current colleagues and charles murray, among others. taken together. offer vivid, country where millions of people live by the grandparents code of while millions of others don't and they have lost touch with the virtues that give our lives purchase and direction and ultimately make us happy. you will be able to purchase copies after this conversation and he's graciously agreed to sign them.

we will do so here after the conversation and we invite you to join us for a gallery outside. mr. vance will begin's tonight's conversation about how he wrote the reaction to it. jd. >> thank you. thank you guys for having me. thank you for being ready. >> i was a 30-year law student and yale and i was listening to the same conversation that folks were having across the country about equality. i was trying to sort of understand why it was that kids who grew up like me were so under represented than places like yale. it wasn't an economic thing. i recognized i was a cultural outsider, people talked about things that didn't make any sense to me how they would make $160,000 a year but they didn't think it would be enough because they would have to send their kids to some fancy day care in manhattan. i thought what are these people

talking about. why are they at yale law school and nobody like me is. the more i thought about why it was that kids like me were represented in these sorts of places. i started to think it implicated not just something about my own life or family's life. >> the more i research and interrogated the more i realize this was a problem. it wasn't something unique to law school, it was unique to the entire white working class. as you've written about, i think to groups much broader even than that. i started writing the book at the end of 2013 it was sort of

nights and weekend. the more i wrote it. the more i realized there were hopefully some new economic insights in the book. what i had to offer was sort of explaining what it's like when you grew up with these problems as i write in the book hung around your neck. what it's like to grow up in these communities. what it's like to be thrust into this culturally alien territory where you grow up like working class white kid. that's the book i set out to write and i the only thing i said, i told my wife i hoped it wouldn't be so under read that it would be embarrass me. >> you are really frank about

the immediate members of your family. those of you who have not read the book, it is not a sociological treat tis, thank god. it is deeply personal story, very well written. i would like to know where you learned about that, can't be yale. the things he is telling about his family get really personal and a lot of them are not pretty and yet they agreed to have their real names used in the books. >> that's right. >> are you still getting along with everybody. >> one of the things i tried to do to sort of mitigating it was the fact i was going to be airing our family's dirty laundry, so to speak, make them part of the writing process. it wasn't sort of my personal memory that informed the writing, interviewing my aunt, uncle, sister and so forth. i think because of that they felt like it was part of the story, it wasn't just my story but also theirs. even though it is very frank. i think that people feel like it's frank and honest, but also

said something that needed to be said. one of the things that happens when you grow up in a family like this and community, is that you're not totally sure why you feel the way you do about certain things. i think my family appreciates that i sort of shed a little bit of light on that, but also put it in a broader context. >> i'm so sorry, that is the first phone call i've gotten all month, i think. i do not get phone calls. >> that was me, actually. i just wanted to be clear on that. >> the thing that struck me i was reading the book. this book is one that i've read from beginning to end, which doesn't happen very often. this one i was completely engrossed in. but i was especially engrossed

because i am scotch irish. and i would put up my lineage of scotch irish as far as americans are go, pretty clean, blood. they went to ap lay shan, they were in north carolina, classic place for them to be and then another class sick move they move to missouri early in the 19th century. they are nothing like your people, as far as i can tell. >> furthermore i had additional to writing about, i've got to say my experience isn't just sbek yule i live for the first 18 years of my life in town of

15,000, which did have an upper middle class. one high school, one junior high, best friends were sons and daughters of frakt si workers that was 18 years in the last 27 years i've lived a little town which was also middle class, working class farmers and a couple of odd balls like my wife and me. and our kids went to working class high school and just down the road. here again, i can say i think with some fairness that i have, i've been rubbing shoulders with the white working class for a long time. bits and pieces are recognized from people we know and, specific events. it looks like you're describing a culture in which, your words, hill billy culture, which is distinct from all of those, you have spent the last several weeks i'm sure getting people doing exactly what i just did,

hey, you know, i have this is my experience, can you give me a sense of how, as you look at the mosaic of people telling you about the white working class, how it works? >> absolutely. it's worth noting if you look at the ethnic graphic studies of this area. you find that the scotts irish are disproportion atly represented. there is an ethnic component to what's going on in a lot of these areas. one of the things i think is definitely true. have they have migrated out. they've gone to indiana, ohio, michigan and so forth that's where the industrial jobs were. i think it's probably fair to say that there's been a lot of cultural intermixing. some of the divisions that i draw are starting to disappear. maybe they've disappeared in generations past. there is something where the

culture is a lot more ho mo joe nous. i think -- there's a sense in which scotts irish and white working class are increasingly commingled in being the same thing. it's not necessarily that my family's experiences or the things i describe is unique to scotts irish culture are only represented there. i think there's something we should call it the united states of ap lay sha. there's something to be said for the fact that the culture is both unique and regionally distinct. but it's also spread pretty far and wide and had a lot of effect on other parts of americans. >> and other authors have written about the scotts irish sku culture and the statistics on blood ethnic group. >> absolutely leading

characteristic is being drunk and violent. >> i thought you said your family wasn't like mine. >> as i read, there's a lot of drunkenness. but, when i compare that to fish town. fish town is the philadelphia, working class community and coming apart that, there's also a couple of really good books that have been written about fish town. one is a dissertation that i quote extensively in coming apart and the book that came out in the 1960s is really

interesting because the way that is described is first, a lot of violence in that community mostly structured violence so that when they might not call to bother the cops there was too much spousal abuse. there was a lot of violence. the other thing of that is made clear, there's a lot of hard drinking in fish town in the 1960s. the other thing that's made clear the community really functioned. and so people would say to the poverty workers that came in, that they liked their community, they were happy in their community. these people refuse to recognize that they were poor and

miserable. to what extent does that fit in or not fit in with the community you knew of when you were growing up in the 1990s. >> you mentioned not being willing to call the police. i was talking to my sister a couple of years ago she knew a family where all the christmas gifts had been stolen not long before christmas. >> there's willingness i think not to just engage in violence but unwillingness to engage and sort of, you know, involving the broader community or involving some of the institutions and community and that violence and

what you find in these communities, i think, is if you go to middle town ohio you look, you drive down the street and you go to my old neighborhood. they were definitely times in my life where we fell below the poverty line, no doubt about it. i never felt that we couldn't put food on the table. i felt there was some sort of material, baseline, maybe, you know, because the social welfare state, maybe my grandparents wealth that they accumulated. so there is definitely a refusal to recognize that you're poor.

i built this construct in my mind between the really poor neighborhood the more i think of middle town and geography. they weren't that different. they were geographically that different. if you look at the houses, we sort of built this thing in our mind. i don't think people want to think of themselves as pour and there is that we're very proud, we're proud of who we are and proud of our families. one of those points of pride is you don't want to tell strangers that you're pour. you say the two parts of town weren't that different. even at that time did they see themselves, the people who lived in what did they see themselves as living in a different part of town. >> it's hard to say because i

didn't have a ton of exposure as a kid outside of broad neighborhood. the kids who were very clearly pretty destitute, they did not expect as pour, they did not think of themselves impoverished. there was a recognition it has doctors and lawyers part of town that's very distinct from the part of town that i grew up in. there was recognition that there were rich people out there and my grandma was very cognizant of the fact they were rich and disliked them in some cases because of it. there really wasn't a sense of among the lower income or working class kids that there was a lot of class division between them. i do think that people who really resented and weren't willing to say, look, we're really poor, there was this recognition there was the rich,

hardworking middle class folks and the poor folks were maybe somebody else, but not us. >> okay. let's turn to the labor market because you have lots of different interesting observations about the labor market. this is one of the great things about the book, that you are start out one of the narratives and you think you know where he's going and it takes you completely by surprise. in one sense, this is a classic way of stuff that your grandfather worked at the steel company, is that right? >> yeah. >> getting really good working class wages, he was close to six figures at one point. >> there's a point where i talk about my mom who worked in health care and my step dad who worked as a truck driver. they maybe didn't make $100,000 a year, speaking as a kid. they definitely, i'm sure,

earned a pretty solid middle class wage. we had what i thought was a nice house. we had, you know, two cars. it wasn't that we were, again, it's not that we were destitute but that sort of economic security didn't last very long and i think it didn't last very long. not because of the economy in our case but because of some of the decisions they made. >> you had comments when you were working vary jobs, physical labor jobs. you talked about one guy who was working with you that will take half hour what he did so frequently and got to be subject to considerable amusement around the workplace. they got fired and at the point he got fired, he is very upset because my girlfriend is pregnant, going to have a baby, how could you do this to me and no sense that he screwed up.

so put together all of these semi contradictory pieces of your observations of people in the labor market whereby it is a weird combination of old fashion work ethic and post modern, it's not my fault. what's going on there. >> yeah, absolutely. so that guy, this was in a tile warehouse that i worked at right before i went to law school i was trying to save up money for the move to new haven. it got to the point where me and another coworker will call out the time, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour. it got to the point where it was literally two or three hours of the day he was not on shift. he was doing something else. . 19-year-old girlfriend, she was pregnant. the guy who we worked for even oftened -- offered her a time where he had some sort of

administrative role. the thing is he made a pretty decent wage. most of the guys who worked at this tile warehouse made $16 an hour, which is plenty to lif on. . it occurred to me when this thi guy was fired, he didn't recognize his own agency. he was angry at his boss for firing him. and thought his boss had done something wrong. that was worrisome, people have to recognize they still have some control over their own lives. at the same time, you see guys like that kind of co exist with people who are really hardworking, maybe they can't. maybe they were laid off from the steel mill at 45 and it's

hard to get another job at 45. it's hard not to recognize you have the really hardworking peop people, i think the majority that are just trying to get ahead, and you have the people who are not doing what they should to get ahead. importantly, they don't recognize that they still have some control over their own lives. this is something that my grandma, i think of a woman who didn't have a middle school graduate education, she left kentucky when she was 13 years old, she was incredibly per secretary i secretaryive -- perceptive. she didn't believe that the government didn't have a role in helping the poor. but she said don't ever be like those losers that think the deck is stacked against them.

she could recognize things weren't always perfect, but you can't give into the defeatist attitu attitude. >> generational here, if you try to do a time line of this, are the kids who think they have no moral agency increase iing and ones working hard under difficult circumstances decreasing? >> my sense is, that's true you see it in the way the people are dropping out of the labor force. as i write about in the book, there was a very definite sense in the place where i grew up, that for more and more people maybe their choices didn't matter. i don't think it exists completely out of nowhere. that's what's so hard about this, right? to see the structural barriers

that life throws at you. that's really hard to overcome. unfortunately, i think fewer and fewer kids are able to do it, and so consequently, you see a community that is really struggling. >> how about marriage? i talk about coming apart, and i'm trying to convey how much things have changed. i go to marriage as the building block of communities. the numbers are, if we talk about nonlatino whites ages 30 to 49 as of 1960, 84% of them were married. and as of 2010, that was down to 48%. which is just -- talk about a

sociological phenomenal of incredible magnitude. that was it. when you were growing up and to the extent you can look back, tell me about marriage in middletown. >> i saw personally the statistics you're describing. i believe in sweden, the country that has the second highest maternal partners, it's 2.8, the average kid will see their mom in sweden with #.8 maternal partners. in the united states it's 12.8, 13. we have this unbelievable problem, and that's concentrated in the working class. you have this unbelievable problem, not just of the decline of marriage, but the decline of home stability. they're two sides of the same coin.

it's important to recognize both sides of that. is marriage decline something it's definitely declining. why is it declining? one answer, the industrial economy has gone south, created all these financial pressures that didn't exist before, consequently people are not getting married as much. >> it's a small part of it. you think about median wages, they've been on a flat but slightly upward curve, that's a problem, right? it doesn't explain how we've gone from 84 to 48% and lower. especially when we haven't seen anything like the same trend among nonworking class people. so it's definitely there, and it's definitely happening, and the really difficult question i frankly don't have a fantastic answer is why it's out there.

>> you have friends in their early 30s. among the guys you know, what percentage of them have gotten married and stayed married? >> of the folks who went and got an education and stayed in middletown to work or left middletown, most of them off the top of my head, i can't think of one of my college educated friends who isn't married or engaged. >> you're asking me on the spot, so maybe i'm not remembering. >> it's a lot, in other words? >> it's a lot. every single one of my grooms men, very similar story. every one of them are married or engaged right now. those who didn't get an education. it's -- again, it's tough to think of a good friend who has

been married and stayed married. one of the things you definitely see in the working class, people get married sooner, i definitely know of some folks who got married, but then the marriage didn't last. and so, it's stark, because i can't think of someone who didn't go to college, who i grew up with in middletown, i think -- i can name one person. >> how about the women that you knew in high school? >> what's happened to them? >> well, you know, my sense is that from a purely social perspective, not a material perspective, but from a purely social perspective maybe the women are doing better than the men. part of that comes from the maternal cultural aspect that is at the forefront of my book, you have these women, who a lot of times when the men aren't working, the women have to step in, they have to do a lot of the things that men aren't doing. it's not uncommon to see in my

community, my cousin found herself in a marriage that nell apart quickly. she had a young baby, and it was the baby who got her life back on track. she had to take care of that kid. if she didn't take care of that kid, nobody else would. when the family breaks down, it's very rarely the men in these communities that are stepping up, it's almost always the women. >> it reminds me of this observation made by one of the people in fishtown. she was saying, you go down the street, and you see this woman with a baby in one arm, and a couple shopping bags in the other, and walking behind her is a guy playing his video game. and there's a quite demoralization of males that seem seems -- a combination of what

the statistics say, and a combination of what i've observed in my own personal life. there is simply a falling away from the old standards of hey, i'm the guy, i have to put food on the table, take care of my children, because that's what a real man does. an incredible falling away from that, and even though i know you can't give me a cut and dried answer as you think about your friends can you come up with some even quite specific reasons why they have fallen away from that? >> specific reasons why they have fallen away from it, one thing that comes to mind is that there was definitely -- it's sort of tangen shall but a bit related. there's a culture of masculinity that treats schoolwork as a feminine endeavor, that's something that i have -- i wrote

about it's something you see, if you're doing really well in school you see kids use certain slur slurs directed at people that are doing well in school. there's a sense that hard work in school is a feminine endeavor. my sense is that psychologica y psychologically, the decline of the industrial economy has been harder on men than women. that's something i'm picking out. i don't have a statistical basis in that. because there is such pressure on, you have to take care of your family, you have to be the breadwinner, when it disappears in some of these working class

communities, it's very easy for the men to say well, i can't find a job, and i'm not going to continue to deal with this psychological phenomenon. i haven't thought a ton about why men are uniquely struggling in this world. >> there are a variety of other explanations that i think too, often don't get said as bluntly as they should get said. one of them is that in 1960, the fact is, if you wanted regular sexual access to a woman, you pretty much had to get married. yes, there were other -- was there sex outside married? sure. was it easy? was it the same way it is now, not even close. in so far as 19, 20, 21-year-old males, really aren't yearning to

settle down without any encouragement. that was a pretty powerful incentive. if that incentive is gone, you spend those years doing something else. there have been a variety of ways in which the acts of taking responsibility for your spouse and your children used to confer a lot of status on you. when you did get married at 19 and 20 to the mother of your children. you were doing the right thing. that status has pretty much disappeared as far as i can tell. i want to switch to another topic that i have to raise because i prudently wrote a book on iq some years ago. the relationships of iq to a variety of personal characteristics.

such as impulse control, delayed gratification. the ability to calculate and consider long term consequences of behavior. now, i.q. is not a problem in the vance family or your relatives on either women. she encouraged your academics and you yourself yourself, having not been a model student perhaps during your school years, nonetheless managed to not only graduate and get pretty good test scores get into the marine core, and get into ohio state and yale law school, i don't think you have an iq problem. let's say that's true of the family, therefore dick hernstein

and i must say, i.q. is not everything. you who have not read the book, have no idea how crazy this family is. they were financially doing quite well for a while. there were decisions taken that made it extremely likely that that financial security was going to go away and a variety of other things. you've had to reflect upon this in your own mind, here i am, yale law degree, out in silicon valley. what is the difference if it's not native ability between you and the others who made such very different decisions? well, it's very tempting to sort of congratulate myself and if everyone wants to tell me i have

a high i.q., you're more than welcome to do so. i don't necessarily think that that's what was really going on in my background. i say that for a couple reasons, one, i never felt like an idiot when i was a kid. i never felt like i was a kid who struggled with schoolwork. i didn't feel much more intelligent than most of the kids that i grew up around. i felt like i did fine, maybe i was above average, but i certainly wasn't brill yabt. i remember thinking, not a lot of kids go to ivy league schools, the people that went to these schools were unbelievably brilliant. i recognized about three days after i got there, that's not actually the case so to me the difference -- there was this very good review of the book that was somewhat critical, one of the points he made is, the reviewer made is, one of the things that j.d. vance benefits

from is the natural ability that other kids don't have. it's tempting to slap yourself on the back and say, great, i was really smart, that's why i made it. my sense is, the people who didn't make it, who grew up in similar circumstances, which was a lot of kids in my hometown, versus the kids that did, is that they had a couple things, one, they had at least one really strong male figure in their lives. and they had at least one really strong female figure in their lives. they had a maternal and paternal presence even if that wasn't their mom and dad. for me, it was my grandpa and my grandma who was this force of nature, when she died, we made a cd of her favorite songs and we entitled it force of nature. that's the only thing we could think of to describe her. it was this constant temptation to make bad decisions, hang out with the wrong crowd. when i was a kid, the first time

i smoked pot i was probably 11 or 12. i remember the kid who was encouraging me to smoke, i don't think i put this in the book, i remember when my grandma found out. she leaned in and whispered, if you don't stop hanging out with that kid, i'm going to run him over with my car and no one is going to find out. >> i told you. >> i remember thinking -- most kids ignore that, parents tell kids not to hang out with the bad kids all the time. but when my grandma said it, i was like, oh, my god, i don't want to get this guy killed, so i'm going to stop hanging out with him. that was really something that she, that was her. that wasn't anything about me. that wasn't anything even about my family, that was a person that recognized there were temptations to bad decisions and she was going to prevent me from succumbing to those temptations.

i think that's a huge part of it. >> there were several things you referred to i want to follow up on. one of them is, you didn't spend much time thinking about how smart you are when you were a kid. >> yeah. >> the children of upper middle class and especially new upper class parents spent a great proportion of their time worrying about how smart they are, partly because their parents keep telling them you're so smart. but it is part of the -- it's an integral part of who they are, a central part. and that reminds me of the experience that my wife and i have had in the small town of maryland where we live. there were lots of really really bright kids who weren't aware of how bright they were. and there was not the -- nobody was saying to them, you know what, you could get a free ride at yale, hartford, dartmouth, stanford. nobody was saying that to them.

it's the difference between that atmosphere in a white working class community and the atmosphere in potomac and chevy chase and northwest washington is vast. the other thing i want to follow up on with that is your experience at yale. you say you discovered you got there, and they weren't all geniuses afterall. talk a little bit more about that. and your -- the reaction of the kid from middletown, ex-marine corps, infantry man getting to yale. >> yeah, well, i think the sense that to make it to an ivy league school was so powerful, i expected to show up and everyone to realize, the admissions officer drank a little too much bourbon when she was looking at this application. i was surprised to realize that what really set the kids at yale

law school apart, they were above average intelligence, very smart, but they were extraordinarily hardworking and ambitio ambitious. they were willing to put in these insanely long hours in the library that was foreign to me, if i hadn't joined the marine corps. these kids at yale i thought of as really coddled, the one thing they were willing to do is lose sleep in order to get ahead in the classroom or some other way. so that was definitely a huge difference. there is i think a cult of innatability that we have, in the upper class and lower class broadly in american culture it p was the day i asked my wife's father permission to propose to her. i was talking about, you know, she went to yale and yale law

school and her sister's also very smart and accomplished. and i was like, how did you raise these really smart kids, they're unbelievable. he's a first generation immigrant from india. he's like, they're not very smart, they're just hardworking. i couldn't believe it, because where i'm from, my family thinks that my wife is this other worldly genius, and i do too, but there's this sense -- of course she's very very smart, but even in her own family, it was more about work than it was about innate ability. i don't think it's always necessarily true. i think my wife is much smarter than i am, but one thing that she's really -- that is true, is she works harder than anyone i've met. >> i agree with what you've said, but there's also another side to that coin that i recall from when my wife and i were working on a book about the

apollo program, and one of the people in mission control was saying, you know, this stuff you're doing with iq is way overblown. i didn't go anywhere until i had motivation, once i got motivation, that made all the difference. i said, jerry, do you happen to know what your i.q. is? yeah, it's 146. motivation really helps. there's another lead on the yale business that fascinates me, one of the other themes of my work is, the kids at yale, too many of them vbt a clue about middletown, about white working class americans. they haven't a clue about main street america, and what i want you to do is to give me several vivid illustrations of why i'm exactly right. >> you get my drift? >> yeah. >> there's obviously a huge

culture of disconnect. if you didn't think there was, look at the 2016 election, of course. one of the things that was very, when i realized that this cultural disconnect was very real it was a national securities class, one of the students after learning i was in the marine corps before i went to law school, asked me, you went to the marines? yeah, why is that so surprising? i didn't know that people that joined the military were like you, were nice and all that. i remember at the time thinking, huh, that's an interesting comment to make. but i definitely. there is a very remarkable cultural disconnect between that part of the world and the part of the world i grew up in. it never really affected me in a

negative way in law school, there's certainly a lot of stories in the book about how i didn't know how to navigate the elite law school, the first time i had a fancy dinner, i didn't know what to do with the utensils. i excused myself and called my wife. tell me what to do with these things. she guided me through that. there was definitely just a sense that people don't quite understand. i think it goes both directions. right? the people i grew up around don't quite understand the elites and the elites don't understand the people i grew up around. >> the elites are the ones that make decisions that affect the lives of the people in middletown. >> you mentioned the election. and i've got to ask you one last question before we go to the

audience because in this election cycle we have had the white working class, a huge story, a source of support for donald trump and we've had race be an enormous story. you are kind of a unique observer resource you -- i don't know what the racial make-up is in middletown, the white working class. you observed in the marine corps. you've been at a large public university and you've been at the yale law school. and in in all of those four areas, i imagine the issue of race and the way people talk about it and think about it has to be different and maybe in some ways the same, i love to hear you reflect on that. >> my takeaway from my life is that everyone probably is pretty

prejudiced. you have to be prejudiced -- how much does the racial anxiety drive the trump phenomenon. i think it drives some of it. people at yale law school are prejudiced. >> how does it manifest itself. >> let's say you don't know a trump voter, but you say, he's the racist candidate that all the red necks deserve. that's a form of prejudice that is extraordinarily real and people back home feel very very passionate about. so my grandma once told me, hillbillies are the only group of people that the media, that the elites -- that's not a term she would have ever used --

you're still allowed to make fun of in polite company. it wasn't an excuse you should be able to make fun of all the other people, she was saying, there's something weird about we say red neck or hillbilly, and there's not pausz about that. that's not an argument we should go around using racial slurs. it's recognition that what exists in some of these elite enclaves is a certain amount of seclusion from people like my grandma. and a failure to recognize you're pretty biassed against them a lot of times even though you don't recognize it. one of the things i've tried to do is sort of recognize the white working class voter, and my hope is when they hear me speak they don't have their worst fears confirmed. >> i think you're safe in not

worrying about that. >> we're going to go to the audience. i see a handup, the gentleman with the beard, standing up right now. >> thank you for being here, very interesting presentation. i grew up in cleveland, ohio, in the 50s, early 60s, cleveland was in some ways a larger scale of middletown, very heavily industrialized, very heavily unionized. strongly democratic, and with a lot of folks that had moved up after the war from west virginia, the hillbillies as we disparagingly called them at that time. you could see the early signs of induction that took place. particularly because of the heavy unionization, the work rules, the tax laws at that

time, that worked against industrial -- >> we do need a question. >> my question is toll what extent did you see even when you were a kid, did you see those same processes at work in middletown? and a follow-up question, when i was a kid, middletown was a great basketball powerhouse. what was the role of athletics plus or minus in middletown? from your experience? >> i probably can't speak to the role of athletics, i think it gives people some social capital. it's a big deal in middletown. our basketball team isn't quite as good as it was in the jerry lucas days. the question about to what disagree i saw the industrialization going on. i saw it, but i didn't realize what i was seeing, i realized maybe there weren't as many storefronts. maybe there were some businesses going out of business, and i

recognized that there was a problem -- maybe not quite as many people were able to get armco jobs, that was something i recognized when i was much older, as a 6 or 7-year-old kid, the writing was on the wall, i didn't see it, it really hit me. right after i came home from iraq in 2006, ak steel had become ak steel, because kawasaki bought it, there was a labor lockout. it was the first time since my grandfather had been a really young worker. some of these economic pressures were hitting middletown in a real well. in some standards, middletown is lucky. it's not dying in the way that youngstown or detroit is. it suffers from a lot of industrialization problems, but

in some ways it's lucky, because ak steel is still around. it's something most steel workers can't say. >> toward the front, right here. >> i want to press you a little bit on cause ailty. we've obviously have this picture of this sharp and recent and marked decline that everyone can take a snapshot of it's economic but a little bit of economic. and charles has a theory that's about clear marriage that had commences. how do you put it together? >> i heard what you were saying, people not resisting a change in culture. i think it's a very fair point. one of the things i don't necessarily do, is have a theory of cause ailty. it's lurking in the background. what are the things that are

going on what the solutions might be, whether they're economic or policy or cultural my sense is that the most underappreciated part of the cause ailty story is the way religion has changed in these communities. it doesn't just operate at the level of family pressure, one of the things that charles really made me report in the book. one of the things i write about is that it's tree klein, but there is a weird way that religion is operating, people aren't going to churches much, but they identify as conservative evangelical christians, they wear their faith as a badge of honor. my guess is that a lot of these trends from the mega church to the church relocating to upper middle income communities. to even substantive things is really operating on these

communities in a way that it's not -- the whole story is not maybe even most of the story. the more i think about it, i think the decline of traditional religious practice is the least appreciated of this problem. >> and the front row here? >> my name is kami with the pakistani spektr. my question is, why it's so rare to hear -- read something about poverty among whites in america. i've been in this city for more than 30 years. there are poverty among blacks, latino and other minorities this is a real chance there is poverty among whites. since a majority of people are white in this country. there are more white poor than blacks. is that because media happened

to be very elite, and then the same context, does media hate donald trump because he talks about blue collar whites? why are people so allergic to this white poverty topic. is that the only reason they hate donald trump because he talks about middle income people. >> the largest sing emgroup of poor people in this country are whites. i think a lot of what we have seen in the last year is the sense of the white working class of what about us? that there has been so much attention paid to a variety of very serious and very real problems that affect ethnic

minorities and women and it's not just white working class, but the white working class male who is saying, what am i chop liver? it's worse than that? you identify the way -- the few slurs you can use at a polite georgetown dinner party and get no push back is red neck. you can also say all sorts of things about males that are really awful. some of them true. but you say a lot of awful things about males that aren't true, you don't get any push back from that either. there's a strong sense of everybody dumps on us. then they go out and show our privilege. that anger is real and in large part what they see every day, as the priorities of interest when they watch tv and read the newspapers. >> the only sure thing i agree

with, why does the media not talk about it so much, and my guess is that white poverty isn't politically meaningful. the poorer you are, you're less likely to vote. if you're struggling working class, you've been sort of the property of the republican party for the last 30 years, they've consistently voted with rare skepgs for the republicans, so i think maybe it takes a sort of political moment or some other way of expression the media to wake up to some of these problems. that's my guess. >> we're going to go to the center and to the right. >> john constata. i'd like to ask charles murray, something in parallel to what you've been talking about, about the elite in this country not understanding what's going on. in white working class america. >> twice this year in march, you

spoke to college -- on college campuses, at virginia tech and then williams college. in the case of virginia tech, before you got there, the president wrote an open letter, which you properly and quite frankly refuted about what your work means. williams college after you had spoken there the college newspaper characterized your work again in a way which misrepresents it i wonder in both cases, did you get the sense when you spoke to those college communities that anybody was listening to you. >> oh, yeah. half a dozen of aging, meaning they were close to my age. aging faculty members with signs and inside the hall were some

hundreds of students who listened tentatively and asked questions. same thing is true of the williams college appearance i think one of the under appreciated things is the degree to which a lot of the idiocy is driven by rel stivly small minorities of the faculty, especially in the social sciences and humanities. and driven by relatively small minorities of students in the social sciences and humanities. you have a lot of people who are intimidated by the atmosphere that has been created. but i think they're being held hostage. i welcome all chances to speak on college campuses. this will have to be our last question. >> thank you very much. my question is, with the ins layerity of the ivy league

class, i think it's changed. my mother was a stockbroker and my father a lecturer. when i was a teenager i bagged groceries at the grocery store. that was as important to studying. i get the perception ivy league students haven't had that experience? >> i think that's very true. the way that i would describe this is that there was a sense that among this class of people life was a race. and the goal of parents was to give as much of a leg up in that race as humanly possible. bagging groceries doesn't do nearly as much if you're trying to do as much if you're trying to prepare kids for the sat. >> i think that's hugely importa important. >> i have the bubble quiz that says how thick is your bubble

that isolates you from mainstream america many and the most important question, have you ever held a job that caused a body part to hurt at the end of the day? even if it's just your feet aching from standing up behind a counter. if you have never held such a job, you are sort of fundamentally urn able to emif a thighs with a huge chunk of america that hold those jobs every day. and you have a distorted sense of what work is. that separates you, i think very fundamentally, from the rest of the country. i can't say first how much i enjoyed the book, it is a wonderful read that is not just saying nice things on j.d.'s behalf, it is terrific. i urge all of you to go get a copy if you don't have one, and read it immediately. you have been engaging and insightful as you were in the book. it's been a pleasure. >> thank you.

[ applause ] c-span's washington journal live every day, with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, director of the center for politics at the university of virginia discusses his crystal ball predictions for electoral college votes and key senate and house races. front line correspondent martin smith talks about his documentary on the fight against isis. the documentary focuses on the successes, failures and challenges. and author nicole himmer will be on to talk about her new book that explores the historical

connection between candidates and the conservative media, and the future of conservatism. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal. join the discussion. >> wednesday journalist, editor and leader tina brown. the founder and ceo speaks at the john's hopkins school of advanced international studies. live at 5:00 p.m. on c-span. wednesday a panel on campaign reporting by media outlets, reporters and law professors look at issues, including threats from candidates who receive unfavorable coverage. that's live at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> our c-span campaign bus is traveling throughout virginia this week, what is the most important issue to you in the election and why.

>> my name is john david allen, i'm a freshman in college. the most issue to me in this election is the immigration crisis/refugee crisis and the economy. our country has not been doing so well economically lately, and i feel like that the immigration crisis of illegal immigrants coming in is a very big problem. >> my name is violet willis, the most important issue in this election is social issues, specifically abortion and also our immigration system. >> hi, my name is colin i attend hampton sydney college, i feel the most important issue in this election cycle is national security. i feel as though we have problems with borders and northern threats, i feel that's

important in this up and coming cycle. >> my name is alex, i go to hampton sydney college, i think the most important issue in the 2016 election is the economy. >> i'm harrison willforth, hampton sydney college, class of 2020, to me, the most important issue for a candidate to address would be constitutional rights and there's values that people like thomas jefferson held open, preserving those principles. >> voices from the road on c-span. >> next, a look at monetary policy and trade. and the impact of federal reserve district banks. this hearing is just over two hours.

the committee will come to order. without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time -- i'm sorry, of the committee at any time. this hearing is entitled federal reserve districts i will now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement. economic performance couldn't be stronger, especially in light of the deep hole president obama inherited. that's the story you're going to hear from my colleagues. they've been telling it for years, the facts clearly

contradict this situation, the fact of the matter is, we are mired in the slowest recovery since at least world war ii, our nation's economy has grown at a 3% clip. the obama administration now pretends that a new normal of 2% counts as a success. the difference between 2 and 3% is 50%. economic opportunities are now disappearing even faster and while my friends on the other side have been crowing about this recovery for years, republicans have been calling out for what it really is. completely unacceptable situation. today it will be different and at least one important respect. our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join us in showing that our economy is underperforming. a role that is under heavy attack. this attack has been brewing for several years, in late july, the democratic party finally made

their objective clear, the party platform promises to increase opportunity for all instead, it's taken aim at the foundation of opportunity in my opinion, that is the governance of monetary policy and the subject of today's hearing. democrats have constantly resisted reforms that would modernize the federal reserve. such reforms promise increased accountability, democrats falsely claim a better disciplined and more predict able policy. reforms such as these would help insulate the fed from any opportunity killing political pressures, my friends on the other side of the aisle, would like to double down on what dodd frank started. co opting the federal reserve district banks by subjecting them to the same politics.

the platform promises to press the pedal to the medal. they now have launched a hostile taker of the federal reserve itself. i'll note that this is a dual edged sword that some may benefit now, and will riou the day if this will to go through later. economic recovery cannot return until we have a monetary policy that targets assets are from. were the results, i'm as fed up as anybody. we are fed up as anybody. how could the fed have created trillions of trillions upon doll dollars in dead that they have left us with. increased inequality to boot. i know that a better way is available.

one that reverses the increased centralization of monetary policy and restores the historic role of district banks as a critical source of local information and institutional support for sound monetary policy. i believe my house passed form act and the financial services choice act offer a much better way. instead of doubling down on dodd frank, these solutions bring monetary policy into the sunlight of market accountability. by restoring the voice of the district bank president dense on monetary policy matters. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and the chair now recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee. the gentle lady from miss wisconsin for five minutes. >> thank you and good morning

mr. chairman. good morning to my colleagues and this distinguished panel. i look forward to the tremendous assets that we have here in front of us, mr. chairman, and i especially welcome the honorable spriggs who is a well educated gentleman from the university of wisconsin, madison. i think your perspectives are going to be extremely valuable, and thank you for giving us the time here. the federal reserve plays an extremely important role in our financial markets. i think we have seen this post our recession. it's also very misunderstood, so i actually think it may be helpful to have had this hearing to discuss the federal reserve and the federal reserve system i'll have to admit i was initially extremely suspicious

of this hearing due to some proposals that i think would disastrously inject partisan politics into policy. i think it's interesting, you talked about not wanting to inject politics into the federal reserve since we've heard these cries to audit the neds and balancing the transportation budget with federal reserve monies and just your statement today wanting to bring the federal reserve into more of a congressional compliance. short of undermining the independence of the fed, with policy audits or appropriating the budget, i have been open to you and others about improving the diversity of thought at the fed. the fed was created and established to be independent and i think that independence is fueled a lot of these

misconceptions and misgivings about the fed. and i think that we ought to and should ensure smart reforms, but that it also bolster's public confidence. we've made some tweaks in dodd frank including having the gao study -- conduct a study and make recommendations on reform. i think that that's appropriate. i think the gao recommendations are a good place to start, any conversation on reform. i also signed on to a letter with some of my democratic colleagues, encouraging the fed to seek greater diversity. i yield back the balance of my time and look forward to this hearing. >> today we welcome the testimony of ester george, president and chief executive

officer of the federal reserve bank of kansas city. i know you're coming off a busy august with the jackson hole conclave that was put together. i know you met with a number of folks that are represented today in the audience. jeffrey lacquer. bob jones, former board director for the federal reserve bank of st. louis, and mr. william spriggs, chief economist for the afl-cio. >> this is dr. spriggs. >> yes. >> each of you will be recognized for five minutes to give an oral presentation of your testimony, without objection. each of your written statements will be part of the written

record -- we're going to go in order different from my sheet. >> good morning chairman. i'm honored to speak to the subcommittee about the federal reserve banks. it's essential to understand the fed's purpose. the banking system was often unable to adjust the supply of monetary assets flexibly enough to adjust the needs of the commerce. clearinghouses, bank owned cooperatives in larger cities played an important role in how periodic crisis were resolved before the fed. including the issuance of currency substitutes. clearinghouses were widely viewed as favoring the interest of large money center banks. reserve banks were modelled

after clearinghouses. with no issue powers, and universal eligibility, the aim being to approve the role of clearinghouses, a plan for a centralized institution was rejected out of concern about wall street influence. proposal proposals were rejected, a measure of public oversite was viewed as essential. consistent with progressive thinking, and so the act included a federal reserve board whose leaders were politically appointed. the federal reserve act reflected a balance of competing federations. a diverse range of geographic and commercial interests with a hybrid public private governance stuck tour, to contain misuse of

authority. >> the structure of the federal reserve is still effective in my view. the considerations are all relevant today. they benefited policy making. reserve banks historically have shown intellectual leadership on topics that initially went against the grain of mainstream thinking, but later became broadly accepted. and reserve bank presidents have a measure of challenging views. deepening the feds understanding of diverse challenges. to be sure our country's understanding of diversity has expanded since 1913, it is within keeping of the spirit of our founding. we have sought to ensure broad representation of views. including those associated with

disadvantaged communities. i believe our record in this regard, like that of many other organizations in the united states shows a substantial area of progress. in addition to bringing diverse viewpoints to bear. the feds public private governance makes our policy making focus -- there's temptation to provide economic stimulation in the short run. evidence from around the world, along with our own history in the united states. amply demonstrates that the temptation of short sided monetary policies is a bipartisan vulnerability. just as the feds founders feared. this implies that meeting to meeting monetary policy decisions need to be insulated from short term political pressure pressures. independence with regard to the choice of policy interest rate settings, must be paired with

strong accountability with policy over time. the feds public private structure supports monetary policy independence by ensuring a measure of apolitical leadership independent capital stocks play a role by limiting high frequency interference. the presence of bankers on reserve bank boards is said to represent a conflict of interest. strict rules limit bankers roles, they simply have no avenue through which they can influence supervisory matters. best practice is to seek experts with expertise in the activities. the feds large processing have

bankers serve on reserve bank board. bankers are particularly well positioned to report on economic positions in their footprints. some claim the governance structure is a historical inago runnism argues for the continued utility of this finally balanced arrangements that they crafted. thank you. >> thank you, dr. lacquer, with that, miss george, you are recognized for five minutes as well. >> thank you for this opportunity to share my views on the role of regional federal reserve banks as part of the federal reserve system because the federal reserve is an institution that makes suggestions -- the public should understand not only the congressional content for its current outside.

but also it's strong safeguards that secure its accountability. they have important responsibilities for our nation's financial system and economy. congress has contemplated a central bank for the united states more than 100 years ago, took note. keeping in mind two earlier attempts at central banking in the u.s. ultimately it opted for a different approach. trust of power, and greater confidence in decen pralized institutions. it's designed to provide a system of checks and balances. schae challenges of this public/private design have surfaced throughout the fed's history criticism of the quasa

nature was anticipated from the start indeed the federal reserve act leaves no unchecked power in reserve banks. the politically appointed members of the board of governors have oversite authority of the most important governance aspects of reserve banks. they appoint the chair and deputy chair of a reserve banks board. they vote to approve this election of the bank's president as well as the chief operating officer, and they approve the reserve bank's budget and sal y salary. finally, the reserve banks operations are reviewed by the board of governors as well as an outside independent auditor notwithstanding the strong public oversite, some question the role of commercial banks within the fed structure here too, important safeguards exist. supervision and regulation of the federal reserve member banks

is a statutory responsibility of the congressional ly confirmed board. no director can participate in bank supervisory matters. all directors are required to adhere to high ethical standards and -- or in anyway discredit the reputation of the system. the stock serves as the foundation allowing for separate corporate entities private citizens from diverse backgrounds and the largest to the smallest communities have input into international policy the central bank has provided

insulation from short term political pressures. altering this public private structure in favor of a fully favorite corn instruct diminishes these characteristics in my view it risks putting more distance between main street and the central bank. pressure can be exerted on the federal bank. the 1984 speech he noted the important role of the structure of the federal reserve system in supporting the bank's decision making. he said it was all quite deliberately done, designed to assure a certain independence of judgment, a continuity of staff, a close contact with economic developments and opinion

throughout our great land and our large degree of insulation from partisan or passing political concerns. to that end i extend a personal invitation for any of you to visit the federal reserve bank of kansas city, to see what a regional federal reserve bank provides. thank you, i look forward to taking your questions. >> mr. jones, you are recognizes for five minutes. >> thank you. it is my honor to speak with the distinguished members of this committee today about the role of bankers on bank boards. it's critically important that bankers continue to serve in this capacity. i sit before you as the chairman and ceo of national bank corp, the 182-year-old community bank, headquartered in indiana, serving indiana, and kentucky.

i'm a proud board director of the bank of st. louis. i'd like to begin my remarks by touching on a partnership that's changed the lives for the better. at its center are two individuals, roslin jackson and ben jeragains. with insights and guide answer from roslin, ben designed a financial education program that provides nonviolent offenders in our region with the tools to gain financial independence once they've completed their debt to society. launched in 2014, this program led the american bankers association to recognize ben with its george bailey distinguished service award. more importantly, it's led 2,000 individuals out of a cycle of

despair, one graduate of the program summed it up this way i learn that you can always clean up the wreckage of the past and take control of your destiny. this is just one illustration of the many ways that banks big and small, work to strengthen the communities that we serve. old national is a typically common bank. we are literally headquartered on main street in evansville, indiana. our clients are small and mid sized business owners, farmers, young families, retirees, labor and community leaders. each year we invest millions in support of community causes. and our 3,000 associates are known for their volunteerism having donated 2,000 volunteer hours in 2015. we were named as one of the world's most ethical companies.

we were named as one of the best banks to work for during the country. the strong connection our banks enjoy, gives us a unique and valuable perspective, not only do bankers serve as community catalysts, we are on the front lines assisting our clients who represent a broad cross section of industries and neighborhoods. over time, we gained vital instincts to how they view the economy and how those views shape their decision making. conversecy, the bankers who sit on the nation's reserve boards gain incredibly valuable information that they can take back to their communities. i experienced this relationship firsthand during my tenure, fueled by the knowledge i gained from my board experience, old national speer headed the creation of the first bank on program in the midwest in 2009. in the nearly 8 years since we adopted this program, we've added another 16 programs, be

helping the unbanked and underbanked individuals take control of their finances. all of this dates back to the knowledge i gained, serving under federal reserve. my time as a director, i and other bankers on our board, brought valuable insights from our communities into our discussions. we reached out to a diverse set of community leaders to gather specific feedback that helped drive policy decisions. over time, these trusted voices from main street began seeking us out to offer their views on issues of the day. these candid regional perspectives were valuable to our discussions on the drivers of our local economies. bankers are a vital asset, i recognize the concerns that have surfaced over whether bank directors might somehow attempt to control or manipulate decisions for the betterment of their own institutions. i believe this issue is effectively addressed throughed current policies and procedures

of the federal reserve system. the banking industry is highly regulated. and fully understand the consequences if we violate these regulations. the existing governance model is strong, and i applaud the controls currently in place, i can assure you that during my tenure i never felt my integrity or ethical center were challenged. our role is limited but crucial. we serve as managers, budgeters, auditors and strategic planners and we supply a vibrant and regional voice on issues that affect small and medium sized towns all across our great nation. i encourage this committee to retain this vital link to the views, perceptions and attitudes of main street america. thank you for your time. >> with that, the honorable william spriggs is recognized william spriggs is recognized for five minutes.

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