many of the problems we have with china are a function of success, not failure. they are important problems, but we need to recognize that 20% of the world's people are moving rapidly in this same direction. we do not know the destination, but it does not bear any resemblance to the soviet union. host: this is from twitter. as china use north korea as a tool? guest: i think that you have a triangle here. china uses north korea to influence policy of the united states -- look, in their view, americans want china to put pressure on north korea. well, if the americans are selling weapons to tie one, maybe we can get them to slow

down on an issue that we care about. conversely, north koreans use the china u.s. north career relationship to exert pressure on both of us. i think the north koreans are extremely worried about the chinese and want to have direct negotiations with the united states so that they are not so dependent on china. i would say that in this triangle, every party has their own objective and of what they do with one party will influence their relationship with the other. this is a very complicated relationship. host: tom, port charlotte, florida, go ahead, please. caller, go ahead. let's try one more line. louisville, ky. gene, republican line. caller: yes.

i have a few questions for mr. lampton. if you could, could you give us a comparison of the chinese military compared against the u.s. military? specifically their army to ours, there navy, the number of ships, the naval technology. same thing with the air force. as well as their strategic nuclear capability. finally, what affects has the trade embargo had on china? should we close our bond markets to china of to improve our own economy?

we need to have a better deal. host: thank you. guest: certainly, i am not spending most of my time on the structure of the pla, but i do have a knowledge of that. starting with a comparison of it military's, strategically is no comparison. china has always believed they only needed a small number of nuclear weapons, because they assumed it was unacceptable. certainly, 10 cities would be unimaginable be unacceptable to americans. unlike the soviet union, they did not feel they needed 21,000 strategic weapons.

so, china has always striven to have a huge buildup in that regard with regards to their own resources. but the numbers, 200 to 400 warheads, that would be in most of the estimates they you would hear compared to thousands in america. of course, we have very effective diversified delivery vehicles, like submarines, bombers, and so forth. the ultimate question is, how many billions does it take to deter the americans? the chinese are probably correct. you do not need the numbers of the soviet union. now, china is building up those numbers, we believe, slowly, but i do not think it will achieve or even wants to achieve anything like the soviet union

did. the other dimensions of the chinese military is that they're shrinking their land army and increasing their air force. the next war in china, that is what mao was planning for. asked what they wanted to fight a war on their own territory. that the war needed to be fought on the shores. -- off the shores. so, china has been developing each of these dimensions. but china is increasing its capabilities and developing some capabilities that are worrisome to the united states. anti-satellite capabilities, but china, overall, counting just weapons systems, has a

relatively weak capacity compared to the united states. there are certainly areas we're worried about. your other question, the ability of the united states to close its markets, you used the word embargo. it would be interesting if we went down that road, because so many basic consumer items, target or wal-mart, anything, so much is in fact assembled, if not made in china. certainly, one of the major effects would be increasing the cost of living, particularly for the lower income american consumer public. this would not be cost free to american consumers. earning dollars presumably under this scenario, china would not have a need to invest back

without foreign investment in the united states, increasing employment, particularly in the auto parts industry. i think that the administration, when they look at the economic relationship, this is like two scorpions in the bottle. they each get one thing and then they will be in worse shape. host: from twitter -- guest: well, if that was the only basis that we had to compete, the price of labor, no. but we cannot compete with vietnam, probably indonesia or india. even if we were not competing with china, we would be competing with other low labour cost producers in those areas.

those jobs, which suggest -- where is the american comparative advantage with technology and innovation, maybe the products of china, vietnam, or india, simply do not have the capability abroad. a complex international division of labor, where we have the highest value added components of production innovation, this brings us to the real challenge, competing with low labor costs. americans do not want to work for those wages. but we want to have a higher wages. that means education, money into research and development. we have got to crash ahead in those directions. it is certainly true that china pursues many abuses in the labor

realm, broadly speaking. of course, american companies have a responsibility to oversee this as well. basically speaking, on low-cost labor jobs are going somewhere else. we have to keep our eye on the ball and look for our advantage. we have always been an innovative society. that is what is so threatening about this intellectual property cyber theft. that goes to the core of our genuine advantage. that is where we should be a very serious. host: i know what, democratic line, surely, go-ahead. -- iowa, democratic line, shirley, go ahead. caller: itunes i and to my paging channel every day and get the news and -- i tune in to my

beijing channel every day and get the news and advertising. if people did this, they would get a different sense of who they are and what they do. they are only spending a fraction of their money on armaments compared to us. they are using their money to purchase french ships in the form of investments. including shale up in canada, billions of dollars of investment there. it would be very interesting if you went into the wage slavery in this country, in our prisons. we keep accusing other countries of doing all the nasty things that we do. host: at this point, the china have a free media? guest: obviously not.

china has an enormous propaganda apparatus. the party line comes down with directives every day, providing guidelines on sensitive issues. if you have a bit of a historical perspective, what happens is you have more media sources in china right now than you did four years ago, five years ago, and so forth. and the government subsidizes the media less, meaning the media has to generate its own viewers and readers, going for heavy advertising. they care about the stories and programs that people want to see and read. i hesitate to call it a free media, because of someone goes too far, the system comes down on them. what is happening is you have more initiative in the media to

bring the stories up, then the system reacts. so, not a free media, but i would say freer, and going in the direction of a market driven and commercially oriented media. we know the consequences of that. host: one more call. independent line, go ahead. caller: can i read you from this book, "china: a gathering threat"? host: we do not have that much time, caller. tell us your thoughts. caller: [unintelligible]

at the same time, there is a factory for chinese service [unintelligible] host: what is your question, caller? caller: this china pose a real become a serious, serious threat? -- does china pose a really, serious, serious threat? guest: first of all, i would say that china recently did have joint military exercises with the russians. of course, they have done this with a large number of countries that have had military exchanges with england, india, and has

exercised military cooperation with the united states. i would say that a hallmark of their military is trying to deal with more countries in the world in an exchange of military exercises. yes, the russians they are keeping a close eye on. china lives in a very rough neighborhood. the fact of the matter is that china probably has more interest and positive relationships with us than it does with the russians. when all is said and done, the russians have suspicion of the chinese because of their long border. there is a lot of chinese illegal immigration and all sorts of issues. the russians are worried about selling weapons to china, because china is the nearest big power and has always been a problem, in their point of view. do not overestimate the fears

the chinese neighbors have of their neighbors. the fact of the matter is, the u.s. can have border relations -- better relations with china and china can have with most of its neighbors. we have some advantage. >> this weekend, ♪ caller: "washington journal" is live from north carolina. saturday our guests include melvin alston, and sounded a mayor of charlotte johnses and then monday, a conversation with art pope. "washington journal" is live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. newt gingrich is expected to announce this afternoon the suspension of his presidential campaign and we will have that live at 3:00 p.m. eastern and

will follow-up with phone calls afterwards and will re-air commons tonight at 8:00 eastern that letter tonight, a -- a look at the state of black america by the urban league at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> spam is the weekend in oklahoma city with book-tv and american history -- spends the weekend in oklahoma city with book-tv and american history. sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern, oklahoma history of american history tv on c-span 3. tour the oklahoma city bombing memorial plus a look into african-american life in 1920's obama -- obama. once a month, the local content

vehicle brings you the lives of cities across america in this weekend is oklahoma city on c- span 2 and cspan 3. >> more than three years after one of the worst financial crises in u.s. history, there has been criticism of the federal government for not criminally prosecuting more wall street bank executives involved in the subprime mortgage market. coming up, a new york university law school discussion with senior criminal justice officials including the head of the justice department's criminal division, a former new york state attorney general, and a former u.s. attorney. this is one hour and 20 minutes. >> thank you everyone for coming today. we are on a strict schedule so i will get right to it. more than three years after one of the worst financial crises to head in united states history,

the government has been criticized sometimes severely for its failure to prosecute executives at large wall street institutions that many believe helped cause the financial crisis. today, we address the key questions of whether this criticism has been fair or not and where do we go from here and the value of what has been done so far. before i start with introductions of our incredible panel today, i want to give a couple of thanks for putting this together. thanks to the prosecution center and two of the senior fellows for helping put this together. i would also like to thank the world of twitter who helped supply a few simple questions. critz example questions. when michael and ricky came to me and, with the idea of posing a paddle on this topic, we sat

around and tried to think who would be the right people. it was almost like who would win a fight between batman and superman conversations. it was fun to think about but we never really thought the people we were talking about would ever come together. when are tough choices agreed, we had a mixture of shock and we were intimidated and extremely grateful. our panelists today are people who don't normally appear on panels. they are the people who conference-builders build a three-day conferences around their addresses. i'm glad they're with us today. let me do my introductions. they really don't need much introduction. let me start to my left, eliot spitzer, a former attorney or a general of the state of new york. he was the so-called charitable

street. he used groundbreaking -- he was the so-called sheriff of wall street. he helped bring the use of the martin act into the forefront of the public consciousness as a potential tool for those types of cases. sitting to my right is lanny breuer to was about to be the longest serving assistant attorney general in the department of justice in charge of the criminal division. he oversees the criminal division's 600 attorneys. beyond that, and i don't recall previous assistant attorney generals having his same role in this administration. he has become the go to guy on the hill for major policy issues dealing with criminal justice and has been the face and spokesperson for our topic today most recently representing the

department in interviews on "60 minutes." we're fortunate to have him here. finally, we have mary jo white who is a partner and head of litigation where she represents almost every destitution that has anything to do with the financial crisis cases out there. >> what can i say to follow that? >> far more importantly for my own personal perspective, before that, for nine years she was the united states attorney for the southern district of the york where she has had an incredible and unprecedented run in that position. she really only made one significant mistake and that was hiring me in 2000 giving me the only job i ever wanted and would have needed. i should do a couple of quick dissolutions on that front. i am heavily conflict with

everyone on this battle because i know all of them something. by 0 mary joe my life and my wife. elliott was one of my earliest and strongest defenders in the public arena. i will always be very thankful and grateful. lanny why didn't know before went to washington, i was fortunate, not to get to know and have him become a confidante. as i hope we will discuss today, he has brought the most significant case, a multi- billion dollar accounting fraud that his office led the prosecution so for that i am grateful. with all those introductions out of the way, i am happy to say that our panelists have graciously agreed to waive the traditional opening statements and we will jump right into the questions. i will moderate the discussion,

asbestos questions until about -- asked the questions until about 1:30 and that we will take questions from the audience. but mr. with this proposition -- the president, not too long ago and the attorney general holder in a press conference announced a new task force or sub-task force, offered an explanation as to what we have not seen as much big-ticket wall street prosecutions as some would like to see. they said it was because a lot of the potential activity in the run-up to the crisis may have been immoral or unethical but did not cross the line to being necessarily criminal behavior that wanted criminal prosecution. let me start with you, elliott. you have not been shy about your criticism about the lack of prosecution. you spoke on television in one of the more memorable appearances.

what is your assessment of that statement and that analysis? >> it may be accurate but it is not sufficient. most of the activity was immoral and wrong but not criminal but that does not lead to the logical conclusion that much activity was not also criminal. there was very significant criminal activity, deception, fraud in the civil and criminal context that should be prosecuted. i continue to believe that if we were to pursue the evidence, one set of evidence clearly said to the bank that you are secured thousand loans that do not satisfy your own requirements. those types of documents, if you examined how they radiated out, would lead to criminal cases. let me make a larger point. i almost hate to bring upon occupy wall street but they had

a sign that was very accurate it said we will now corporations are people and texas executes wonder if [laughter] one. [laughter] we have given corporations all the upside but none of the downside. we have given corporations all the rights and privileges that we extend to individuals and yet when it comes to holding them accountable, because of the diffusion of responsibility, because of bill ayers and offers built-in by lawyers, accountants, investment bankers doing their job in good faith, it is very difficult to ascribe criminal intents. as on the financial side we said you keep the upsetting we will guarantee you too thick to tell on the downside, in the criminal context, we say you do bad things we don't have a way of holding responsible. too big to fail says we cannot prosecute goldman sachs because the world would come to an end.

there is this void and we are stuck with the downside consequences and they keep the upside stuff they want. i think we should talk about that in terms of remedies. the bottom line is that there should be more prosecution and data shows willful disregard for bad acts. willful disregard for that stuff is the basis for criminal prosecution. we should use that theory among many others. >> you mentioned that the clinton documents and there is evidence out there. why hasn't there been more prosecutions? >> it is tough. i would criticize myself for this that we did not bring as many criminal cases as we arguably could have. this was earlier on when i heard that they would not do it again.

the zero greatest scam of walter was persuading us they could regulate themselves. that was complete hokum. -- the greatest scam of wall street was persuading us they could regulate themselves. i gave chris to the notion that they would begin -- i gave credence to the notion that they would pull apart the web of conflict of interest that underlies all the violations of fiduciary duty that lead to the fraud. >> lanny, these are your boss is, do you agree with what they have said? >> much of what elliott says makes sense. even in his answer, he is suggesting policy making issues. -- he is addressing policy- making issues and whether the institutions should regulate themselves and whether or not there should be a change. those are very important issues.

those are policy issues in congress and other legislative entities. that does not make a prosecutable. we have to remember that. as i said before and the continued to say, as we talk about excessive greed and we talk of excess of risk-taking mitt which may be abhorred, a person may find it at war and which i do, that in and of itself does not make it a crime. we just have to face that. i also have to say that we are not that far from wall street. i don't accept the fact that we have not done anything. i admit when you are in new york and focusing on wall street, you may lose sight but if you looked at what has gone on over the last three years, we have indicted thousands of people for mortgage-related fraud. we have created was -- we have indicted and convicted multibillion dollar investments call over the country. those are the people who defrauded police officers and put their investments and their pensions at rest.

those of the people -- those are the people did it to school teacher is not just here but across the country. alan stanford is in trial right now. i think this is an important topic but it is not the case to suggest that nothing has been done. we just have to remember that when you bring criminal cases, there are challenges. we absolutely need to bring them and we do it all the time. the other point i would make is on one panel, i am accused of doing too little and then i am accused of doing too much. we just have to call the way we see it. >> i appreciate that. not to take away from some remarkably good work in these areas, there is still -- there has still not been what people would like to see which is

handcuffs and senior executives of wall street institutions. we had our first criminal case which is sort of related in the southern district of new york this last week with credit suisse. >> we have a room filled with brilliant nyu law students. some good percentage of these brilliant nyu law students will go to these big new york law firms. those big new york law firms wiwere all over these transactions. that is not to say they were not criminal and we are not investigating it. we have to deal with the lawyers and disclosure documents. we have to deal with the issue of materiality when you have sophisticated parties and counterparties. you have huge institutions where one is the party and a huge institution is a counterpart in .aren we've got brilliant lawyers, some hopefully will come more

into view and great people at the sec with my dear friends rob kuzami but these are difficult reactions and we want to see wall street walking with handcuffs, that concept -- i understand the desire but that is not enough. >> in this concept that there is an immorality and read that makes us ups that falls short a potentially bringing criminal charges -- can you give us an example of something like that and whether or not there has been any consideration of expanding the criminal laws to cover the status of behavior is? s? we have decided to draw a line about what is ethical and not ethical.

can you give us an example of something that falls on the non- criminal side of the line and whether there is any suggestion to move that line to try to include this behavior? if this is the behavior that helped cause this remarkable collapse -- near collapse of our financial system, shouldn't it be criminal so it does not happen again? >> nothing that i am saying -- when they say we are not investigating cases -- the southern district announced of the credit suisse case a week ago. there are a lot of cases being investigated. at the end of the day, i have to prove every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. i have to prove that it is material. i have to prove that people acted with criminal intent. if you want to say there should be strict liability but when we're talking about these cases, there is no secret here.

we had a downfall and a financial crisis but during the time as a country, this country embraced some level of regulatory action and not more, people embrace the idea of securitization and more and more complex products. for a long time, we put those people on a pedestal. they were the smart people who stopped going to law firms and created these structures and became gaziollionaires. now suddenly bridge >> that has to be a crime, don't you think? >> when we talk about, the problem i have is that when you are a company or individual, the greatest of the great lawyers like mary jo white, they will put as to the test and we have to prove the case. the companies are big and

decisionmaking is diffused and documents are many. we are putting the time in and we will continue to. we are absolutely committed as we have been. we brought a lot of cases, we keep changing the focus a little bit. three years ago, we were on the panel and i would told you that we prosecuted dozens and dozens of people who had done billion dollars fraud. and people say that sounds pretty good. we have now decided to take those frauds and put them in one category. we are doing it all that is the challenge. >> that does not take away from the important cases. mary jo white, you have one of the most fascinating perspective as having truly been on both sides in a way that there's probably no person on the country that has been on both sides. what do you think about the

president's assessment? >> i think say breadth of the state and federal criminal laws are extraordinarily broad. they pick up every variety of fraud you can imagine. you can actually bring a criminal case based on real-life criminal intent. avoid fax, that amounts to a frontal laws are extraordinarily broad. you can bring a case against a company which is easy to do. if one employee has committed a crime, the company is liable for that. it does not mean prosecutors should prosecute companies and drive them out of business. arthur andersen is exited a of

eight -- is exhibit a of that. anytime you have a financial crisis of unprecedented scope, you will have crimes being committed. people are not used to that kind of colossal failure. you can't have people who don't mark to market deliberately and you should be aggressive or there is crime. what you should not do is failed to distinguish between what is criminal and what is just mistaken behavior and what is reckless risk taking. and not about to the frenzy. use a during the height of the crisis that every ceo of every financial institution was on the cable networks as if they were on the 10 most wanted list. forget whether they committed a crime and forget whether there is any evidence or acknowledgment of a fraud and forget whether there may have

been no crime committed. we must distinguish between conduct that is not criminal and what is criminal. i will applaud the other panel where they beat you up for bring to many cases. seriously, you have to proceed responsibly and not about to the frenzy. i worry that the frenzy overtakes reason and judgment sometimes. >> who was on that panel taking that position? >> probably made. me. >> we know the spectrum of intense. t. the pressure to bring criminal cases would and could have abated had there been more significant remedies brought even when the cases were settled. the famous goldman sachs case of advocates where they were

selling securitized debt knowing it was going to tank and betting against it. goldman sachs had to pay a whopping fee of five other million dollars which is basically the sales tax on the $12.9 billion check from taxpayers it got from exposure to credit to fort swaps. -- credit defaults swaps. at the time of that settlement, why wasn't it necessarily impose upon them that they changed the way they structure these deals? citigroup has done it, goldman sachs is done, each of the bank's new at the time they were struck from those deals what was doing so use the remedial opportunity in the civil setting to get the structural reform you need and maybe the pressure to have the ceo in handcuffs would have diminished. >> there is something to be said for that. i also think, there's a real

pitfall and that is when you have prosecutors trying to delve into areas where you don't have the expertise to deal with it. one of the major efforts and achievements of your office, elliott, was a research analyst settlement. there are different views as to whether that was good or bad in the long run for the public interest. i think you have to be very careful legislating reform by way of enforcement actions. you have to be right about that and expert about that. i agree that if you actually dealt with what you consider to be the kind of transaction the way was structured that caused so many losses, that could abate to the cry for scalps and handcuffed them and you are right. >> you are right. lanny is right when he says he

is a prosecutor and not a legislator. were you have had massive regulatory failure, where nobody has and forced basic rules of fiduciary obligation, present -- prosecutors can say this case is exhibit a in how the business model is broken and if you want out from under the prosecution, you must change the way you do business to ensure you will not go back to doing it again. if a guy sells a certain quantity of cocaine to the second time, he goes away for 20 years. the penalties of post upon them are not sufficient to change their ways that you are pursuing more knowledge on the part of the prosecutors. >> you have the option of a deferred prosecution agreement or a non-prosecution agreement against the company were you can

impose any condition you want to. if you are certain about a broken business model and i would question whether you know enough to be certain. you could require that as a condition. >i might know enough to do that. [laughter] >> to follow-up on that comment -- i don't want to suggest for a moment that our prosecutors are taking a myopic view. if you see a systemic problem and try to resolve the case, you try to deal with it in an appropriate way. to the group will empower regulators is not something the prosecutors themselves can do. i don havea civil piecce. it is heated the southern district of new york or sec or the two of them combined.

it is easy on a panel to talk about what more should have been part of the settlements. no one accuses rob kuzami of being has a tent. -- has its hands. - hesitant. people are working hard and they are pretty darned tough. in any settlement with a company on the other side, there is a give and take. i cannot address was something was not done but i -- but what i can say is that it was not done, it was because in the strength of that particular case. these are complicated cases. i know it is not fun to hear it with lots of disclosures, loss of conditions, lots of other issues and the settlements have been a result of that and they have been aggressive settlements. >> as of the last couple of

ways, one potential source of criticism of the department's response has been generated by the department itself and that is the creation now in 2012 of a brand new sub-task force that is dedicated to resignation and securitization fraud the continued -- contributed to the crisis. this sounds like the president bush financial fraud task force. i was the file member of that back in years before. we have these revolving structures. one way to do is it -- is an acknowledgement from the department that is not an

optimal and has not captured the kind of cases that they want. there are many skeptics but the other side of s. is the structure of this new task force. this is seen as being more of a political read branding in election-year on a potential issue that is not popular. this may be just a political re -branding of an existing effort or is it an enormous and that something is broken or has to be fixed? >> i don't think it is either. there is no magic to these things, to these structures. you got a lot of well- intentioned people were trying to deal with these issues. when you and i were on the working group together and the task force, we were trying to figure out how we could make a

real difference. as you pointed out, for that task force, we got together and brought one case and it was very successful. this is an interpretive process. ative process. we have local and state prosecutors who want to be involved. elliott and i were in the man andd.a.'s office. this is a the evolutionary process. because of this task force, i spent two days with eric schneider. i spent yesterday although at thesec and we talked about these issues. it is evolutionary. we now have a structure focusing on this does not suggest that what we had not done has been working. it suggests we keep trying to figure out ways of being more

nimble and ways of getting more resources to gather. this will be former operational. this suggests that we don't pretend that we have every answer barry we don't pretend there is one way to do it but it does indicate that many of us are extraordinarily committed to holding people responsible. >> there is a state attorney general component to the original fraud to. >> there is not as much of an operational point where people were detailing individuals together. you and i built a good relationship because we are friendly and so our teams could work together but in this case, more than before, most people would not have done quite as well. we have all learned a lot. i get to see what does a a new yorkg have going on at and what

is thesec doing? there are a lot of offices around the country handling similar cases. >> isn't this a little bit late? are we running up against the five-year statute of limitations for these cases? in 2007, this machine was grinding to a halt. one thing that has been suggested is who is running this working group and who is not. we had iraqscneiderman who was been very vocal. you mentioned the southern district of new york but they celebrated 50 years of a

security fraud division. not only is the seventh district -- is the southern district not co on they-chairs but they're not on the committee and what does that say? >> first, the fact that you don't have the title like i do of being a c of theo-chairs of the committee -- the southern district is a leader in the state. and will continue to be. there are a couple of meetings in washington that will not have to be attended. that could conflict with posing for his portrait in "time magazine." >> he is the man. >> the southern district is very

involved. a lot of these investigations are ongoing. there are plenty of statutes out there. we have lots of tools. elliott is most expert in the martin act. there are different ways of getting around things. people have been spending a lot of time a i don't want to suggest that we are still at that we were not added in 2009, 2010, 2011 but we will be added for years to come. >> back in 2008, you had statements and you alluded to this earlier about the downside of creating a task force especially in a highly politicized environment. it is my record collection -- it

that maybellection bu the southern district was not going to participate in that task force. could you address the potential dangers of this approach? is enron an example of how those changes can be expressed? >> speaking generically, my immediate reaction to task force is that they are announced with a lot of fanfare and pressed so where is the meat? are they real? that is the first question you asked. you asked weren't there two others already and you wonder what it is now. you wonder whether their mortgages to a minute -- a mechanism to assure the public they're doing something. are they bringing together

resources that are helpful to bring together to do the job. the other concern i have about task forces, it is like announce it and there will be cases. its debt -- it gets back into my friends a concern and backed into forming a body like that much like the special prosecutor, they are a failure if they don't bring criminal cases. you don't want that in the system. you don't want that kind of pressure in the system. he don't want to search for scalps that is our mentored a success. what those cases investigated thoroughly, aggressively, and decide the merits of the policies that don't belong in this bill is a bulgarian do you think enron is a good example of this?

there were 30 zero individuals charged by an -- arthur andersen and only one survived appeal? by all e did thenron investigation. fbi left the task force, it was formed in the southern district decided not to participate. you have to rest of his web was. -- you have the rest of desperate they will make judgments based on where they get the biggest bang for the balk. they often operate on their own. a part not necessarily of it.

>> creating new task forces is a great and does another thing for the actual numbers. where we continue to disagree a little bit is that the folks in the federal government are incredibly smart enough of this personal attacks these are judgment calls about the scope and civil statutes and the degree to which they should should not be used. theh sec at a raft of cases -- had a raft of cases. the mutual-fund industry was

doing best of the business several structural issue with their returns -- there weren't allowed in boards. what matters isn't some was fees being pushed back ought to ordinary investors. the sec telugu zig that marking down fees to where they were was not appropriate. we said billions of dollars for investors. posner was presiding. you can begin to see smart prosecution and remedies that address these issues in a more substantive than publicly satisfying way. >> i totally agree with you.

in a formal life, i had to deal with independent counsels when i was special counsel to the president clinton. i have always been public critical to councils for the very reason that was just said. if you follow the flow of our discussion today, on the one hand, we have not done enough and the second, it forces us to be too aggressive. you can get it right.

i think it is on us not to bowed to political pressure and not prosecute for prosecution's sake. we need a comprehensive approach would state and local and federal people to get it right and that is the goal. >> let me ask you about these clinton documents. clayton documents. these documents became public. these documents essentially say that the very company that was brought in by the banks to do due diligence on the other -- underlying creditworthiness of mortgages found and told the banks these loans to not satisfy your own underwriting standards. the banks than to of those

mortgages and securitized them nonetheless. have not followed every e-mail but you followed this stuff up and find out exactly where the information goes, how can you not make a structural case against the banks for failing to act with their fiduciary obligations. >> i cannot talk about clayton. i cannot talk about anything under active investigation. >> can you give us a date? [laughter] >> that was not that funny. [laughter] and all of these kinds of cases, you make a good point but it comes down to what exactly

was represented? what was understood? what did the acquirer understands they're getting? if there was a misrepresentation, did the acquirer rely on the misrepresentation or did they now? y know? we have our own people who are pretty damn smart to determine what the underlying securities are. was there any reliance at all? there are many issues that we have to go through in these cases. as everybody here knows, they are very labor-intensive. >> i think there is a recognition on the part of prosecutors and government attorneys across the country that this is so and that is that you often can accomplish a lot more on the civil side in the

way of reform and in the way of bringing viable, large cases in this space. new york formed a civil fraud unit in its civil division. in the pharmaceutical space. you have corporate integrity agreements as part of those resolutions. you also don't have the consequence of a criminal indictment driving the big five, now the big four in terms of business. it is well worth spending a lot of time on that. >> let me raise a counter position -- one of the problems of the abuse of civil authority and we have seen this a lot in the financial crisis is that you have judgments that are pocket change. against these institutions on the very rare occasion that you

see individuals charging new cases. their fees for settlements seem to be covered by your insurance policies or the shareholders themselves. we saw that in the wamu case. one of the reasons why we all got into this business to be prosecutors, we like doing the big cases. it is not the publicity but because the impact you have from deterrence. the sense that i get is that while they may be helping goodell label and support and goals, will they get to the point of deterrence of? ants? how do we fill that gap? >> the question is, did that individual commit a crime?

and secondly, even if so, it did arguable that you can bring criminal prosecution against it? it is the one place where deterrence actually works. i think when you do arrest on wall street, everybody on wall street knows about that. in the short term there is a deterrent effect. i always said to the assistance in the office, you know, pay attention to the deterrent of the charge. do not just jump to the actual charge. is it a deterrent for people similarly situated? we get a lot of fraud cases on the criminal side after the sec brought one or two or three criminal actions. the guy did not get it. he was a recidivist. you need a bigger hammer.

you see this in the justice department and the sec and a lot of iran as -- arenas making this was a big point of we are appropriately targeting individuals for that very reason. >> it raises this tension between the standard and threshold for criminal action is rightly very high. hand, when you bring civil cases and the company brings a little money, there is no deterrence. the reality is we need to figure out a better way to enforce and create deterrance where there may not be sufficient evidence to get proven in tent, actual intent against the ceo. that is where the create -- the creative civil abuses comes in.

why was not a ceo of any of the banks removed at a point in time where they were selling job and should have known it was john, even if you cannot prove a criminal case? this is where i say occupy wall street was right. we're giving them all the rights and none of the downside risks. there is a way to craft genuine remedies in the middle that will say to the people at the top, you will be held accountable. there is a price to be paid. >> i think you are getting remedies like that. there is the sarbanes oxley. the sec is beginning to be reactive in that space. there are a lot of assumptions in your scenario that need to be proven. what did the co know?

is it so clear these transactions as structured are bad exactly? that takes a lot of knowledge and expertise to know that. and a lot of chutzpa to create that. the deferred prosecution agreement, essentially, that firm had to go out of the tax shelter. there are available remedies. we have to be very careful about thinking we know enough as prosecutors to decree them. >> i want to be clear, i do not want to suggest for a moment that we will not -- and we will aggressively pursue cases criminally, but as a white- collar defense lawyer for 10 years and now as an assistant attorney general, i do not think we should discounts the

investigation of cases, even if we do not bring them, if the ceo of an institution feels that he or she is subject to criminal liability when we interviewed them or we put them in the grand jury, or will they have lawyers and this is hanging over their heads for years and years. it may be that we decide not to prosecute the company or the individual, but i think it is inaccurate to suggest that these have a very strong effect. i'm not sure that cdo's in wall street feel as if they can do what they want and there is no deterrence. are around the country, i see a whole array of industries where i see something quite different. >> let's just shift gears for a second. this is underline how i would answer your deterrents questions. in the case of goldman sachs, the sec, if they had hit on some

of these terms, goldman would not have settled. on the question of why we were bailing the banks out, did we not insist on more punitive measures for those coming to the tilt? part of that is because of the revolving door between the financial regulators and wall street, and the treasury is a great example of many people who go back and forth from the banks to the regulators and then back again. which tends to lead toward agency capture, and at least a lack of diversity in views. it seems far from our topic, but let me continue. it has also been suggested that this revolving door happened in

criminal justice. many people point to that as to one of the reasons there has not been more robust criminal prosecution. i think it made me more fierce prosecutor then had i not had the experience of representing guilty people. >> to do your clients know that you just said that? [laughter] >> it was a long time ago, and they would not be surprised. a broken clock price the day type of thing. [laughter] they describe you as the dr. frankenstein who spawned both him and ronzani, and although i escape mentioned, i would like to think of myself as one of the offspring. and just today we read in the

"new york times" from my very close friend who is leaving the security unit with a seven figure pay date from one of the big firms -- >> [unintelligible] >> but in all seriousness, what do you think of this? i know you do not agree with that, but what do you think of the practices and optics of the people that question -- make a question the way this is done? >> if someone has got a slap on the wrist when they should have been treated much more vigorously and you find out that the lawyers on each side know each other from prior days in the government or prior days in the government sector, that must be it. i do not buy it at all. you have to be cognizant of those appearances and deal with

it so that you do not undermine the appearance, even though the reality is there, of justice. me where you were a u.s. attorney for so long, you have hired everybody. if you know somebody, you're going to get a better result. i think if anything, the opposite is the case. you do not get a better results because you were a former friend of a friend. i think the system is benefited by knowledgeable lawyers in the private sector who have been in the government and vice versa. but when i was hiring the united i saw thoseney's, on the defense side beaten up with a stick by overzealous prosecutors.

you understand what is persuasive. but there is nothing wrong with that. i think it makes the system stronger. >> do you want to comment on that? >> look, first of all, the system is a great system and most of the prosecutors are career prosecutors around the country. but i do think having people go in and out of government is great. it makes us more flexible and more nimble. there is no question in my mind that i am a far better canadian because for 10 years i litigated against that -- a far better aag because for 10 years i've litigated against firms with big, sophisticated. i was able to look at a case from a defense perspective and try to identify what the government needed to do. and having both career prosecutors and people both inside and out just generates

the kinds of ideas but elliott was thinking -- speaking about. i travel on the world and i deal with my counterparts are on the world in many societies. it is not what people do. people stay in the government their whole career. they take a path out of law school if you are going to serve in the government or the private sector. as a result, in a lot of countries in the world, they are less innovative and far less able to deal with the situation. the majesty of our system is that we have people making a lot of money in firms and then they want to serve the government for a while and then vice versa. i think that would be terrible for that to be sacrificed august. -- sacrifice. >> i do not want to put words in your mouth, but i actually

think it is a significant problem in my time at treasury. i saw the impact of the revolving door at the treasury, but i am much less bothered by this in prosecutions. my wife is a psychologist and she could give a fancy term for that. i know you studied psychology while going to law school. it could be my own distorted view from my own experiences. as lawyers in law school and when we get out, we are sort of trained to represent our clients. and it gives us a degree of flexibility to go side to side with more than someone who is a banker. >> i see it a bit differently. i agree with mary jo. the revolving door on some

levels can be good. you get more diverse perspectives. people are willing to play many different roles and that can be good and important. the problem is not whether somebody has been at a big firm and then becomes a prosecutor and somehow they are tainted. the question is, have they sell internalize the arguments that they made while at the big firm that they are capable of finding their new position? i can get along fine with harvey pitt when he had been a great defense lawyer and then became chairman of the sec. he said, you are going to see a kinder, gentler as easy. and i thought, i do not want a kind and gentle sec. i want a mean and tough one. i think harvey had internalized the defenses he had been making and somehow neutered himself and made it impossible to make the sorts of judgments that needed to be made. i think that is a very different

issue. getting diversity of views is fine. the problem we have seen at treasury and elsewhere is not the revolving door exactly. it is what i call the peter pan principle on steroids. we promoted the wrong people. we took people who made egregiously bad decisions that led to the crisis and we said, you must have learned something because you created such a mess and now you are in charge of solving it. [laughter] for the life of me, i could not understand why we would have put the same mechanics in charge for the past 10 years who should have known to change the oil and we said, go ahead and speeded up again. that is a slightly different issue than a report -- revolving door issue. we all know the peter principle. it all just got worse. >> you have no idea. with that, it is time to take questions from the audience. do we have a microphone? there we go.

>> one of the things that strikes me about the lack of prosecution in terms of easy prosecutions is what has been going on with the robo signers. somewhere between jimmy diamond and when the burger flipper was hired, he fills out a form that says he has reviewed the documents in the form when he has not, i have seen the note when he has not. on and on and there are 10 or 20 datapoint that they verify. which they have not. they signed it and get it notarized, or at least in half the cases it is a false an artery. they are just standing and signing it not by a notary. when i went to law school, recalled that perjury. i have a hard time imagining that there is not one person in

this building that would not run a 99% successful prosecution rate of there. who decided that the law does not matter and that the roles of property that have been around for centuries do not matter? why aren't those being prosecuted everywhere, everywhere this sort of robo signing is taking place? >> i am detecting a point of view in that question. [laughter] >let me suggest a couple of points. do not assume that in a lot of areas that prosecutions are not being made.

and indeed, if you use some examples -- i mean, those are the kinds of cases that can lead for the most part, you are going to get low-level people. yes, you can work your way up. but there are tons of those cases. there are tons of lawyers and accountants and brokers who are in jail. in nevada, we have had a series of cases of major frauds on home associations. my point is not to take away from your question. but i do not accept the premise that it has not happened. at the same time, how come we are not indicting the major ceo's of these major institutions, and at the same

time the robo signing. at a point is visceral. we want to get people and we are not sure where it is. robo signing is one issue. there may be a fraud and making the representation. you do have to be careful -- >> oh, come on. [laughter] >> what is the substance pot -- a violation? is it terrible that someone signed thousands of things? my only point to you is that lots of low hanging fruit, lots of meat hanging fruit, and a fair bit of sophisticated pieces have been brought. i do not think we do as good a job at explaining it. and then more generally, you should not assume -- there are

lots of cases where we are working our way out. -- our way up. >> i know what a lot of people are angry about is what appears to be a hypocrisy as far as prosecuting rich people for crimes as opposed to poor people. mr. burke, a couple of times you mentioned how good the lawyers are for the executives and how -- i was wondering how much that should and does play a role in your use of discretion as opposed to just letting it affect the outcome at trial.

>> is a great question. i testify about things like -- we have had the largest organized crime take downs and medicaid history. and we do gains. prosecutions with gains are a priority. if you have mary jo white on the other side and she says i want you to make a presentation list and you know that the person is probably going to have great representation. and in very sophisticated cases

-- it may be that the defense is interested and they believe that by just starting they can make this go quicker. but it may also be in the government's interest because we can be more efficient. the bottom line to your question is that it is a fact that these cases are well represented. but what it could do is that a very good lawyer is able to show me why we should not bring the case and able to leapfrog its into show in a very good way what the facts are. sometimes someone put -- picked a good lawyer verses a bad lawyer.

a good lawyer may just make you able to do that quicker. >> this may sound like a platitude, but the prosecutor's job -- if you get a presentation from a lawyer that is not so good, we would talk about internally was, look, that was not a very effective presentation, but let's make sure that we get this right. let's make sure the client does not suffer because of the lawyer. i'm not suggesting you can record -- rectify it all.

and maybe two or three years later paid a consequence. our job is to get it right. >> the hard thing is to do the investigation properly, to do the hard work, read the e-mails, come up with a theory and understand what happened. the frustration that i had and that the public has right now is there is sometimes quite clearly that the federal government is intentionally getting in the way. i do not think that is the case anymore. but i think it was certainly the case. -- it certainly was the case. we opened an investigation into subprime lending.

the office of control of the currency went into court to shut us down. they did not come into court to say, yes, this is an important issue. you may not have jurisdiction, but we will supplement your investigation to join you. they went into court to fight as and we have to go to the supreme court, finally only winning in 2009 to get the jurisdiction to look at the various issues that should have been investigated. this was a grotesque example of the industry capture. and the occ, whose budget is paid by the banks, controlled by the banks, and we went into the ojeda's office. he was in there with you. you hired him. the federal government was there as the puppet and upon and the mouthpiece for the banks. -- the puppet, the pond, the

mouthpiece for the banks. it was heinous. until fairly recently, the federal government was on the wrong side. we should appreciate that. >> i do not want to talk about any particular matter. we need vigilant regulators. we clearly do not want regulators that are captured by industry. that is not something we can promote. >> the 60 minutes that some of us may have seen -- i know you may not be able to talk about the particular instance, the woman from countrywide who said, i have this information.

when a lot of people look at that, that is when they say, look, there's a person out here who has this information. is that possibly a way that maybe the visceral -- obviously, you are limited in what you can take on. i wonder if you can respond to that a little bit. the >> -- >> for those of you who missed the 60 minutes, my mother may forgive you for missing it. but basically, i went on 60 minutes to talk about these issues. there was someone from countrywide who said, look, i know about countrywide and the fbi never spoke to me. that predated me and it was prosecuted by the u.s. attorney in los angeles. i know the u.s. attorney in los angeles and he is a terrific person. he works very hard. look, we are a big country. i cannot explain why in a

particular case why somebody was not interviewed. the people who work with me know that i find that completely unacceptable. i bought my prosecutors interviewing witnesses as well. not just the agents. if your a whistleblower and you have something to say, then we should go after you. there are telephones and people who will pick up. we are a decentralized system. in this particular case i cannot say why she was not interviewed.

i can say she should be interviewed. i want every a whistle-blower to come forward. but that is the reality of an imperfect world. >> i think one of the remarkable things that we have seen, and you look at the savings-and-loan crisis and we had thousands of executives who went to jail over these cases. and you look at what has happened recently. one of the things that has changed is the amount of resources available and the expertise of the fbi, for better or worse -- i do not mean to suggest that it was for the worse, but the reality is ithat after the 9/11 attacks there was a tremendous focus away from white-collar crime, away from everything that was not terrorism. my run at the u.s. attorney's office from 2000-08 saw that

happen. and by the time we got to 2008 and we started up a mortgage fraud group, the amount of resources available were so much less. and we started pulling resources back into doing mortgage fraud, but that meant that other white- collar investigation suffered. and you saw a degradation in the schilke level of aid into had not been five or six or seven years training on these investigations. how much of an impact do you think that a lack of available resources -- in new york rabbi know there was kind of an embarrassment of riches. but -- in new york, i know there was a kind of an embarrassment of riches.

>> i do not agree with the initial promise. i just want to say it. i am often asked about the s&l crisis. people say, why is it different now? in my view, it is somewhat analogous to the s&l crisis. in the s&l crisis, people all over the country were indicted or prosecuted sources -- sued civilly. they tended to be local bankers in local areas, sometimes for relatively modest amounts of money. and i would say to all of you in this room, that is what it's -- has happened of the last three years. 2100 people have been charged for mortgage-related cases and brown the country. the s&l crisis, we wanted to put in jail the wall street barons. but do not assume that because you are all in manhattan that right now we are not doing it.

i think what is going on is somewhat analogous. look, as the attorney general says and the fbi director says, the number-one priority will always be to keep this country save, and safe from terrorism. i am the assistant attorney general of the criminal division. there is now in national security division. there was not one a few years ago. congress decided that we needed it in a constant fight against terrorism. but i will say that with the cutbacks -- and i fought very hard for this -- there are far more increased resources to what we would call traditional crime and traditional white collar crime. i do not think we will ever be in a post-9/11 that scenario where a good amount of resources are not fighting terrorism, but there is no question we are -- we have more resources. and that is why we need things

like this task force. because we are in a world where partnerships matter. the criminal world no longer matters. we have to work with u.s. attorney's and local das and the like. that is why we have more and more task forces. >> obviously, the prioritization is where you have to start. too often, a lack of resources is an excuse for the failures been made. i think we had 10 lawyers total when i was in the ag's office. compared to the thousands of agents at the fbi in white collar around the nation. sometimes having fewer resources is better. i've often said that the sec was somewhat like gm.

you get so big and you cannot see what needs to be changed because you are not thinking as creatively as you must think when you are small, and therefore, stressed. sometimes resources get in the way. and sometimes there were fewer resources available because they were shifted away from organized crime to terrorism, and that made sense. but all of the regulatory agencies, they had their entire regulatory apparatus and they were the ones who should have generated the information flow up to justice to make the cases, or at least to flag the crises that were emerging. when the focus finally was on what did happen, everybody who came close to subprime get new this was a crisis.

there was brought endemic and it was being marketed illegally and improperly. and the agencies that should have caught that failed to pass that on. >> a little known fact is that a lot of the big u.s. attorney's offices -- it is the lawyers to actually do the investigating. even though you had a dislocation of resources after 9/11 for obvious reasons, and still do, -- it is easy for me to say on the eighth floor, probably. to some degree, everybody was diverted, and should have been, from the pursuit of white-collar crime. >> i would say that generally, the calculation is true, except as from the office of inspector

general. hours were the best and brightest. >> if you look at something like the director of enforcement who is the chief in the southern district, but they have transformed the sec. you do have to be nimble. but one small example -- it was important to me that even in my own division that any case that was old, there had to be a pretty good excuse. otherwise -- in other words, you're not going to be able to hide behind this old case just to shake it like a beautiful face. -- vase. the lawyers in the integrity section probably never had more than three or four trials a year. last year we had 17 trials. we have to be nimble and we have

to keep re-examining how we are doing things. and our regulators have to do that as well. >> i'm really sad to say we are out of time. i would like to thank our panelists. please join me in thanking them. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >>, former house speaker newt gingrich is expected to suspend his presidential campaign in just under half hour. we will have that announcement for you live at 3:00 p.m. eastern. and we will open our phone line afterwards to get your reaction. >> between 1971 and 1973,

president nixon secretly recorded more than 4000 hours of phone calls and meetings. >> always agree on the little things. and and you hold on the big ones. i have done this so often in conversation. i will concede the small things and make them feel good, but do not give them the big ones. >> hear more on the nixon tapes, including discussions with key house -- a key white house advisers this saturday, conversations with gerald ford, ronald reagan, and george hov bush. -- and george h. w. bush. sunday on q&a -- >> i do not regard this as just the biography of lyndon johnson. i'm saying this is a kind of political power. see what a president can do in a

time of great crisis. what does he do to get legislation moving? but as a way of examining power in a time of crisis. >> his multivolume biography of the 36 president this sunday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span's q&a. and look for second hour of conversation. >> on this morning's "washington journal" paul light talked about bureaucracy in the federal government after the recent events with the secret service. we will watch this and to live coverage of newt gingrich.

audio line: 202-783-0005* host: joining us from new york is paul light, a public service professor at new york university. good morning. how are you? guest: fine, how are you? host: fine. trying to send in your printout? guest: i never title the is op- ed's. i thought it was an appropriate title. it says we're not dealing with a basic, systemic problem to create the incentives and permissiveness that lead to the kind of things that we saw from the secret service, and we will continue to see them. it is as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning. it is a matter of time. host: as far as bureaucracy, how does that affect the operating of the federal government?

guest: we do not often find out about misconduct until after the fact. i think that we have to get better at sending the signal that this kind of behavior is not to be tolerated under any circumstances. the second thing is, we have a hierarchy within the federal government that goes very deep and is difficult, if not impossible for the minister raiders of these agencies, the secretaries, to see what is going on at the very bottom. now, in this case the minister raiders' new fairly soon after the clown conference in las vegas that something had gone wrong, but she did not do anything about it. she did not send a signal immediately, which was unforgivable behavior. she said -- she should have done something. the perpetrators, going after them, if you will, was

effective, but after the fact. the organizational problems in government, neither party seems to want to do anything about it. president obama does not talk about it. mitt romney, the businessman candidate, does not talk about it. it is time for a big overhaul. host: no one wants to talk about it, why is that? guest: i think it is an issue that is fundamentally boring. there's not much capacity left on capitol hill or the executive branch to see this through and push forward a comprehensive reform that we need. we need to look at the contractors who work for the federal government, the civil service system. it is a complex issue and, you know what? it is not very sexy.

members of congress do not get reelected because they worked on the engine of government. it is not as much fun as being the miscreant before the committee, doing the perp walk, being at the helm of promising that this will never happen again. it helps to make careers, but does not solve the problem. host: on capitol hill, making sure that we get efficiency for the dollars that we spend, none of that spills into the operations of the federal government itself? guest: we are not focusing on the right type of reform. the turnover is much higher. there are also proposals floating around to reduce the workforce. it should not happen at the bottom of government, where americans want social security checks on time, we want

inspectors on the oil rigs. and you go down the whole list, we want people and federal inspectors at the poultry plants. it really is a failure of putting the resources where the matter most. you have this huge hierarchy filled with low-level and high- level managers, lots of overseers, but not an of people on the front lines doing what americans want them to do, which is working on the economy so that we are safe. there is a lot of talk about efficiency and policy cuts in the number of federal employees, but not much conversation about the contractor work force and having better oversight of what happens there. it is just not a sophisticated approach to the problem, which is the basic structure of the

engine. president obama promised last year that we would do a major overhaul. my father was an auto repair guy. you need to do more than changing the air filter. you have got to take a look at the whole engine, where we are headed, and how we do it. that is hard work. host: our guest, joining us to talk about bureaucracy and government, wrote an op-ed entitled "the broken bureaucracy." paul light, if you want to asking questions, for democrats, 202-737-0001. for republicans, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. you can also reach out to us on twitter and journal@c-span.org as well.

you talk about the ethics system and government hierarchy. but compared to the civil service system, can you describe what that is and how it plays and your thoughts on this subject? guest: it has not been significantly reformed for the work force that comes into the job every day now. we have got about precontracted employees for every set. they often sit side by side in the same workplace. we have not reformed the hiring process very much. we can get people on the job fast, but the commotion, the pace system, they probably spend -- the promotion and pay

system, they focus more time on the job that is almost automatic. you go through performance angles to tell workers that they are not doing the job, or that they are doing a great job, and there are a lot of federal employees who do their work well. you know, we do not do a very good job at all with these performers. signaling in the vans that you have to do a job well. we do it after the fact. telling agents that they cannot drink 10 hours before you serve the president. that is kind of a minimum set of standards that we should not have to tell our secret service agents. we should not have to tell them to behave properly. it is a carrier of culture within that organization, culture from the top.

i am very supportive of the director who said there is something wrong in that unit of government where we have to ask them to behave as if they're representing the united states and not their personal interests. really? this person goes ahead with the over the top conference, is the approval of the process, moves all the way up the service and does not do anything? approval does not go any further? it is a serious problem that goes to the core of how we operate government. host: job -- joe, go ahead for paul light. caller: i am going through

n.c., va., talking to a lot of voters who are upset with this gsa scandal. mitt romney, congressman graves, they have pledged that they will do something about it. to make it more efficient for the american taxpayers. the need to elect people who are committed to doing something about the bureaucracy. i do not think that president obama and the democrats are really committed. we need more people like tom graves. you remember that, professor. guest: i think that both candidates need to lay out their plans for making government more efficient. everyone talks about it.

going back to harry truman, i have not seen a president with support from the recovery -- republican congress in the last overhaul of the federal government. every president comes into office saying he will do something about it. jimmy carter, ronald reagan, the war on waste, the government spending more, more employees with a much more cumbersome civil service system after he left. every president promises something, but most do not do much. it is just not an issue that holds much public interest or media interest. it is downright boring.

i do not know if mitt romney will be able to do anything about it. i sure hope that president obama will outline some of the steps he promised when he said, last year, about the big overhaul of government, they should both be called what they're actually going to do. it is not just abolishing the department. we have got to organize properly. mitt romney said that he wanted to abolish the housing and urban development fund. i do not know if that will make a bit of difference in the program. a lot of this goes up to capitol hill and that committee structure and encourages members of congress to enact those programs in their pet agencies. we have to fit -- fix congress as well. host: rich, democratic line,

good morning. caller: professor, i am a criminal justice and law student, international. [unintelligible] our program director was from nyu. i took a course in an administrative law that was extremely and lightning. in history, i found how this originated to be very on point. prior to the roosevelt administration, the government was very small. there is a book called "in the shadow of fdr." so highly influenced by the new deal and the expense of growth of the executive branch, that seems to me to be where it

originates. yes, the 1950's were a big change from the 1940's, but this is sort of like something that cannot be disassembled, at this point. host: we will leave it there. guest: i hope you had a good experience with my fellow nyu professor. we like to think we put out the best. so, let me make clear, truman and the republican congress actually did some things to fix this for all that was created by and during the first 100 days of the roosevelt administration. it was a mess, coming out of world war ii.

the head of the overhaul was grover cleveland. a great administrator before he became president. we can disagree on the kind of president he was. but he did a terrific job in trying to clean up this for all of the federal government. that is the overhaul the gets talked about as the last successful overhaul. actually, the last overhaul in general. truman, congress, with herbert walker, doing something about this.

we do have sprawled. we have a ton of overlap. the government accountability office released a report last year, you can go to their website to take a look at the report, and it is just stunning how much information overlap we have. getting a lot of money by consolidating programs will be difficult, because a lot of them came from capitol hill and they have their sponsors. we have a great opportunity, right now, with the retirement of of these people from the federal government. we will lose half of our work force over the next 10 years. baby boomers will move on. we are going to retire. i do not hear anyone talking about reshaping the federal government, which is so frustrating. we need someone to step forward. someone like senator mark warner, who has been working on this for the past three years to

four years. you know, it is just not moving, the candidates are not talking about it. what you can do with retirement is start asking hard questions about what kinds of jobs we need to fill and what kinds of jobs we need to eliminate. that involves a lot of conversation and analysis. you tell me which candidate is going to do it. i do not hear a word coming from them on it. obama. host: our guest highlights three things about ethics systems, government hierarchy, and the work of the civil service system within the federal government. we are talking about the larger aspects of federal bureaucracy.

mike, independent line. you are on with paul light, new york university. caller: we went to the same problems on a work level in the money area. you try to coincide your areas until the money lined up. we had an administrator who did not have the time. why doesn't someone pick up the ball? seems like all the statistics are right there. why is it not you?

guest: i have a great deal of respect for the government accountability office. their first rate and have a lot of information. but what is happening there right now, the number of analysts over there, we are not asking them, comprehensively. they did produce this enormously important report. they have a lot of capacity there, but congress has to ask them to add. congress has got to get into this. mark warner needs to reach across the aisle and talk to grassley. saying -- what can we do with the finance committee? as democrats and republicans? we have a number of other people doing this, but they need

to be supportive through strong analytical agencies. we should not be cutting gao staff right now, we should be augmenting them so that they can get into this overhaul business and draw on the enormous knowledge that they have about fixing some of these problems. it is happening, here and there, with state and local government. we see it happen, from time to time, but in washington this is what we call an eyes glaze over issue. it is just not very much fun. when you go back to the voters and they say -- what did you do for me over the last four years and you say to them, i have been working on government management reform, it is a nonstarter.

the public needs to say -- look, we want government to run more effectively, be more efficient, and we understand it will not a fault -- involve always cutting the federal work force. we need a different kind of worker that will spend less on personnel and have more employees. we have a bad distribution of workers. we have so many workers at the middle, so many political appointees at the top, and not enough workers who actually do the job that americans want done. the backlog of veterans waiting

for decisions is enormous. the backlog of people waiting for decisions on all sorts of issues is enormous. there are not enough workers at the bottom. the baby boomers in the middle are about to retire. they do not know anything about the conference planning process. lo and behold, we have probably got the most visible scandal of the last three to four years. i am telling you, another one is coming. i do not know where it is going to be or what it will involve. we had a federal case that was just announced yesterday. another one on kickbacks and bribes. that is why i like the peace. the fourth what is going to continue. who knows where the next one will be.

caller: the problem with the government is that is not run like a business. and they need to cut everything in the government by 10% and tell the managers that they need to provide the same or better services. they would just get rid of the extra people who are not doing any work. if they cannot do that, you hire someone else from within the can. guest: i agree with you, to a point. i think that as people exit the high-level management jobs, that is where we should focus. as someone reaches a job as a

top level, midlevel manager, they look at the job and say -- do we really need that? the way the system works, we're going to fill that job with the next person in mind. my argument is, stop that. they talk about cutting 100,000 employees, but we know that when you enforce that kind of cut at the bottom of government, it will hit very hard. we know it will hit a the bottom of government very hard. the turnover rates are much higher land the middle and a higher level. i would argue to you that we need to reduce the number of managers and senior level people who got into their jobs because they have to spend 30 or 20 years. we need to take that job back. we need to remove it from the

hierarchy. i understand there are managers in the federal government. there are seniors. the number of technical support has moved up. it is almost all automatic. the performance appraisal process is highly inflated so that the vast majority are rated each year as above average. you tell me how private businesses and nonprofits do it. they have to have those high ratings. when the baby boomers like me step out of our jobs, we had to

change. >> good morning. >> i want to ask you to comment briefly on that the government nepotism. in albuquerque, i see a lot of people's names that are the same name as the person across the hall. i don't mind it, but the only way you can get a good government job is if you're born into the government. >> i really don't know what the answer to that question is. there is the protection board which is responsible for overseeing that kind of behavior and it might have something that you can look at.

i think the bigger problem is that federal employees to report this consistently and that it is favoritism that you do not get promoted on the basis of your performance, you don't get a take increase on that basis of your performance. a good half of federal employees believe that promotion is not based on merit. whether that is true or not is open to debate. no one has said whether or not this really is favoritism or whether federal employees are right about this issue. we are on the fundamental issue about what is driving this behavior statistically.

we would like to prevent it in the first place. that is what we keep pushing on. we need someone to step forward and say, i will do it. we need someone like john -- who worked with the republican from delaware on these issues back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. we got some good legislation out of that. we got some good legislation out of that. that has not worked very well. absent an overhaul, we will be in the same problem always.

host: carl from florida. caller: i like your honest views about things. i am impressed. carl and mary shelden vs. u.s. we testified in front of congress and we are told by congressman henry hyde and congressmen john conyers that we would be protected under national security. we have had 3 attempts of murders on our lives here. we have given this information to all of the authorities in this country, including the attorney general in washington, d.c. host: so, what is the question to our guest?

caller: why is my family and i after we testified on behalf of the american people, why are we being treated this way? guest: the federal government does not do enough to protect its whistle-blowers. we don't create an environment in which whistle-blowers' feel comfortable coming forward. i do not know your case. you should look me up and send me information about your case. government oversight, pogo.org tried to figure out ways to protect whistle-blowers. there was a senior gsa employee who saw this conference plan, across her desk.

she said to the commissioner of the public buildings service, this looks bad to me, but he did nothing about it. she was a whistleblower and work with the inspector general. a terrific job after the fact. we did not do a good job about creating that stack, that protective stack where you can go up the pipe and report your concerns without being the subject of retaliation. i think we have to protect the whistle-blowers who want to report but worry so much about retaliation. host: we have a question on twitter. if the government could operate more efficiently.

guest: can the government operate more efficiently? host: the role and the process of looking into the role and different branches of the a federal government. guest: all power to them. we have to avoid the tendency of congress to focus on the scandal du jour, to say basically government is absolutely terrible and this happens all the time. most federal employees are working hard. we do not do enough to prevent this kind of behavior in advance and we have some employees who need to be fired. an earlier caller said, why does this happen? my view is that we do not pay a price for creating these hierarchies.

i get calls from the federal managers who say, why are you denigrate what we do? there are a lot managers that do good work. there are too many layers. if he wants to work on it, i am behind him. we have to do this in a bipartisan fashion. otherwise, it cannot be done. this is tough enough to do on its own with having it become a partisan issue. the president wants to move ahead. he should ask congress to create a blue ribbon commission

that would pose significant reforms that would go through congress on some kind of it fast-track process. that is the only idea i have that they can do right now. we're not as efficient as we should be or as good with the taxpayer dollar as we should be. we should get more aggressive about eliminating duplication. that costs us a lot of money. host: pat on our republican line. caller: i am 67. you're not addressing public service unions. there are more dramatic than what is going on in the private sector. >> we are going live to hear from former speaker house speaker, making an announcement that he is suspending his campaign.

-- we are going to hear live from former ehouse speaker newt gingrich. [applause] [applause]

>> well, thank you all for coming. about a year ago, on may 11th, we formally announced the can candidacy. i want to thank everyone who has helped us. it has been an amazing year for the entire family. jimmy and jackie are here. bit they brought with them i think the two best debate coaches. [applause] whenever i did well on the debates, i would describe it to maggie and robert, and they would diligently monitor and brief me before the debate. i would like to thank my wife's

mother who faithfully watched this campaign on line. filled with many questions and wondering what was going on. she put up with almost as much as we did. i would like to single out the over 1079000 donors who helped us. -- i would like to single out the 179,000 donors. i would like to thank randy. i also like to thank our chairman. we go all the way back to the days in the house. i think that we helped to co- invent c-span. we did everything we could to create a house republican majority. i would like to thank members of

the team who stuck with us through the whole process, which was a truly wild ride. i could never had predicted either the high point or the low points. it was astonishing. there are some of elected officials i would like to thank. i spoke to the majority leader in iowa who was courageous and stayed with us through the whole process from the time that we were supposedly dead to when we rebounded. she was a spectacular in solidly campaigning all across the state of iowa. i would also like to thank the speaker, who was a tremendous help. also, speaker o'brien in new hampshire. he is a model of balancing the budget the right way in new hampshire. they get the revenue number first and then they appropriate

up to this number. so, they don't start with a spending number and try to figure out how to find the taxes. they start with what is coming in. i would like to thank the governor and the georgia house members who work for me, both in washington and in the state legislature, the house and senate. one of the high moments of the campaign was carrying georgia by 156 counties. this gave us a good feeling that back home, we had a very solid base. it was pointed out to me by my daughters, in carroll county, we got a 60% of the vote. it was nice to feel that we had a very strong base of the support from the people that knew us best. i could not be here without thinking governor rick perry. he stood with us all the way through.

towards the end, i said, i am with you till the cows come home. he said, i am pretty comfortable understanding that. i would also like to thank herman cain, who was tremendous in campaigning for us. also, michael reagan, who campaigned for us and communicated pretty clearly the relationship that we had with his dad. of course, while they were not to wreck the associated with the campaign, it would be impossible for me to be here and think everyone without mentioning sheldon and maria adleson. they came very close to matching ronnie's -- about romney's super pac. i would like to thank the voters of south carolina. we would have broken their

tradition of always picking a nominee. this will make me feel slightly guilty every single time we go through south carolina. they were tremendous, welcoming, enthusiastic. the size of the victory was historic. we will always remember south carolina because it was a tremendous experience. today, i am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship. we are committed to being active citizens. we owe it to america in my case, i have been an active citizen since august of 1958, between my freshman and sophomore years in high school. my dad was serving in the army and europe. this august, it would be 54 years that i worked on three things. one, what does america need to

do to be free, safe, and prosperous? how would you explain this to the american people so that they gave you permission to do what is needed? 3, how would you implement the change is the american people gave you permission? starting in 1960, in columbus, where my father was assigned, and i was a volunteer at the nixon campaign. to 1964, when i dropped out of college to be part of a campaign. then, when we ran for congress. then, 1978-1974, working to build a majority. starting with the capitol steps of vent without ronald reagan in september of 1980. helping reagan in the 8 years that he was president, with bob walker's and others, developing a generation solution and

training. building the contract with america, which led to the largest one party increase in american history in an off-year alexian. 9 million additional votes because of the positive campaign actually attracted people. we won control of the house for the first time in 40 years and we passed welfare reform working on a bipartisan manner with a democrat in the white house. in 1996, it was a more difficult election. we were the first reelected republican majority since 1928. we did it not by compromising, but by standing firm for a balanced budget, standing firm for lower taxes, smaller government, reform. we were able to work with president clinton on four consecutive balanced budgets for the only time in your lifetime. we did it in a bipartisan manner

because we represent the will of the american people, not the will of washington, d.c. 2001-2006, i worked as a volunteer in the bush adnistration. we developedamerican solutions and we began to raise the central importance of an american independence energy plan so that no future president would ever again about to a saudi king, said that we would not be dependent on the strait of hormuz and deal with the iranians. over my lifetime, i have tried to move the national debate including 24 books and. we have done several documentaries. my wife has tried to lead and educate with "sweet land of liberty."

we are now voting to put down the role of candidate and candidate spouse and take back the roles of active citizens. actually thought today, i thought that congressman tom cole, who i've worked with, who had once been the head of the congressional campaign committee, actually captured this moment when he said the following -- "newt is liberated to do we does best -- adapt conservative use for the challenges of the 20s century. for some ways, his best days might be ahead of him." we will try to find ways to educate and move the country and move policy in washington, d.c. probably essential is our deep commitment on american exceptionalism and american history and our sense that we cannot truly be americans if we have amnesia about who we are, where we came from, and what

principles have made us great. in addition, we will spend a great deal of time on religious liberty. my newsletter is specifically on the whole issue of religious liberty and i appreciate the working relationship we have with a human events in developing issues like this. i will continue to work on energy independence. this essential to job creation, balance of payments, the strength of the american dollar. we will create energy independence and create trillions of dollars of royalty. we could have a discipline serious approach to first balancing the budget and then using american energy to pay off

the national debt. in a very real sense, we could be free of radical islam, saudi kings, and chinese bondholders. we will talk about personal social security savings accounts and the stark reality of how brilliantly in two counties have use of that model so that people from their generation can have two-three times as large a retirement account while growing the national economy independent of political influence and interference in a system that is much more fair than the current system. we are going to emphasize the work ethic, something which was controversial in at least one of our debates. one of the proposals is going to be to modernize welfare.

you need better job skills. if you look at north dakota, they are providing skills. there is no reason you should give people 99 weeks for doing nothing. this is an important debate in a country that was founded by a man who said, if you don't work, you don't eat. you will see us come back and talk about that. i want to come back and one of the projects i feel the most sad about not been indicating very well, talking about a brain research and rich tenor tiff medicine. if we reorganize the national institute of health and the food and drug administration, we can have absolutely revolutions of better health, more independent living, longer living, and

dramatically lower costs. part of the great challenge in washington is how do you take an idea like that and move it from the scientific world, where everyone i meet with says is right, into the political world where no one has a clue what it means. this is an enormous challenge to us as a society. i will also focus on the healthcare system. the center of al qaeda is yemen. i'm not sure the white house has gotten that briefing.

the fact that some of our opponents are as stupid as our bureaucracy is very dangerous. we do not have a grand strategy. we have to deal with the rise of china, but is not automatically a threat, but a reality. we have to deal with new technologies that to threaten us. i will take back up the issue of space. that is approximately 219 times, give or take three. this is probably not my most clever comment. my role is providing material for seven at live which was healthful. the underlying point israel. the fact is if we're going to be the leading country in the world, we have to be the leading country in space. our system does not work the

founders of google is sounding a private-sector efforts to mine an asteroid. the space it venture program hopes to have a private-sector opportunity to circle the moon by 2015. as many of you, there is a low earth orbit project under way. next week, there will be working that will broaden this perspective. this is not trivial. this has the courage to say to young people, yes, you should go into math and science. i happen to think that is a

better future than methamphetamine and cocaine and i will argue for a romantic american future of doing things that matter. we have to replace the 130-year- old civil service model with modern management systems. this is a big issue that is fundamental to the united states. we have been obsolete system that is impossible to make work effectively. the forces that support it will fight every inch of the way. this may be too big a challenge, but we do need to have a national discussion about how to get congress to be effective. congress has decayed dramatically in the last 20 years. the senate has become a dysfunctional institution. under our constitution, if congress does not understand things and cannot legislate things, you cannot fix it.

it is really important that we have a much bigger national debate. because we will pursue solutions, we want those solutions to be real. we will campaign for a republican president, a republican house, a republican senate, republican governors, state legislators. america is a complex, mosaic government. the presidency matters. but so do all the other offices of self-government. if you are going to have change in america, it has to occur in many places simultaneously. as to the presidency, i am asked sometimes, it is mitt romney conservative enough? my answer is simple. compared to barack obama? this is not a choice between mitt romney and ronald reagan.

this is a choice between mitt romney and the most radical, leftist president in american history. if you simply take judges and ask yourself, who are the kind of people governor romney would be inclined to a point? who are the kind of people barack obama of points? if you look at his pledge to cut spending, something we will help him with, to balance the budget, to work with paul ryan and others on the entitlement crisis, to focus on economic growth by creating private- sector jobs, something i would suggest governor romney knows about 60,000 times more than president obama. think about appointing common sense regulators. as compared to the obama epa regulator his said, it is nice

to crucify industry because it teaches them a lesson. you cannot get a much bigger gap. a republican sweep this fall would revitalize america just as the reagan sweep of 1980 revitalize america. we have done before, and we can do it again. i always tell people, economic recovery will begin late on election night. when people realize that obama is gone. by the next morning, people will make new decisions about investing, hiring. but beyond this election, the election is just an interim step, and then you have the next struggle. we had to work for eight months to pass the reagan tax cuts. look at what scott walker is going through in wisconsin.

the election just starts the dance, it does not end it. every republican -- every conservative should be prepared to work every single day to bring to bear the best ideas and to develop the best future. i think in the reagan tradition, there is a shining future ahead. i think maggie and robbers generation will live in a safer and more prosperous -- roberts generation will live in a safer and more prosperous generation. i am certain -- it is almost inevitable. i think they will live in a generation that has resolved the challenge of optimism. of alzheimer's, of parkinson's. that has mastered mental-health. i think their generation will look back in the olden days when people did not have holograms at home and had to do so many things manually.

they will live in a very different world. i am confident about this feature for maggie and robert because i have written three novels on at george washington, and i know what he went through. i have written four novels on the civil war. i know what we went through as a people to preserve this country. when we entered -- the germans and japanese, underestimated us and thought we could never mobilized and we did not know how to fight. the soviets said that they would bury us. the japanese in the 1980's were going to be the next superpower until their system collapsed in 1989. currently, the chinese are the latest example of somebody else who is magically going to appear, who will take on 305

million people and somehow be more innovative, more in of that -- more effective, more clever. i do not believe that. with every great challenge, americans have reinvented themselves and their country. building within the framework of the declaration of independence, the constitution, and the federalist papers, we are liberated to use common sense and courage to create a better future. we pledge to work with you and with every american who wants to create that better future. to once again challenge the institutions that do not work, challenge the premise is that do not work, to create new solutions, new opportunities, so that the 21st century will be the third century of freedom in america and exceptionalism. thank you very much.

[applause] >> almost a year since announcing his run for the presidency, a newt gingrich effectively and as his campaign, telling supporters and reporters in arlington, va., that he is suspending the campaign after winning just two primaries in south carolina and georgia. we are opening up our phones for the next couple of minutes. newt gingrich supporters can call -- if you are a mitt romney supporter, that number is -- for ron paul --

all others, it is -- make sure that you mute your television when you call in. here is a look at the map on our c-span.org road to the white house page. mitt romney leading the pack with 847. let's go to calls. minnesota, and newt gingrich supporter. caller: i am certainly disappointed. i have then a newt gingrich supporter for a couple of years. i was really excited when he got into the race. i view it as a missed opportunity for the nation. here is a man with a proven record.

he hopes it 9 million people off of welfare. his debate strength, his innovation, i think he has the ability to inspire a lot of people and to inspire a nation. now i know we will have to take a gamble with mitt romney. i consider myself a conservative. it is concerning when you look back at some of the record. the person -- our choice for the nominee -- >> you will vote for mitt romney in the election? caller: i do not know. i will consider it. the thing i loved so much about newt gingrich is you knew where he stood every time on every

issue. >> he said he would cheerfully helped mitt romney would several things, several issues. let's hear from a mitt romney supporter in wisconsin. caller: i am happy to see newt gingrich drop out. he is more of a centrist as far as his policies go. that will go a long way. host: do you think there is a role for newt gingrich na mitt romney administration? -- in a mitt romney administration? caller: i did not catch what you said. >> do you think newt gingrich would have a role in the mitt romney campaign or administration?

caller: i am sure he would. you pick the best people in your party and you -- there is a role for a right wing individual. >> newt gingrich spoke to "usa today and said that he would campaign for governor romney. here is arizona. this is steve. was just calling because after watching newt gingrich, as you keep on watching mitt romney, and the other candidates, the more you hear them talk, they are all the same. the route newt gingrich's entire speech, -- bailout newt gingrich

his entire speech, -- threw out newt gingrich's entire speech. these other people that consider republican exceptionalism. i think we really need to understand that we need to be americans again. it is not even about ron paul or mitt romney. it is about how we will change america as a whole. as we watched these gentlemen up on stage, they continue to talk about to going to war and keeping iran from gaining nuclear weapons. ron paul goes against mitt romney. he is a different type of politician. what my question is, ron paul is

going to stay in the race. the delegates will not vote for mitt romney. there is no way that we will do it. i am a delegate in arizona, and we have already talked about it. if he does not go into the convention and -- in no way, we vote for mitt romney. we would rather not vote. host: this afternoon, newt gingrich announcing that he is ending his campaign for the presidency. that leaves mitt romney and ron paul. we are asking your thoughts. what does this mean for the convention in august? pam is on our others line in washington. caller: good afternoon. i am glad to see him get out of this race.

he had no way to carry enough delegates to compete. he is so egotistical, it is beyond my comprehension. all of this comment about fiscally conservatives -- >> we are going to let you go. you are breaking up a little bit. caller: first of all, i am a newt gingrich supporter. what worries me is the country we are living and and having children, but we will pass on to them. obama has already been president for four years. not only are we already in debt, we are completely in debt. i am so sad and that -- he was

our only hope. he was the only one that could win this against obama. and now we have mitt romney. i am sure he has good intentions, he does not have the vocabulary, the smarts. newt gingrich is so intelligent. i have never been political, i have never even cared until i saw him. i was, like, wow. i boarded the president to be newt gingrich. -- i wanted the president to be newt gingrich. and how obama will probably be elected -- and now obama will probably be reelected. host: newt gingrich did not say outright that he would endorse mitt romney, but he indicated that he would support him and

supports a number of his ideas. he framed the race between mitt romney and barack obama. as he has done in the past. one between mitt romney and "the most radical leftist president in u.s. caller: hi, i saw some of the numbers that you put up for newt gingrich. i saw that you were taking calls. i was able to meet the speech so i would not have to listen to the blowhard. $5,000 so we can collect money from one of his organizations. i thought he had gone into this just like herman cain. he was probably surprised to

find that he could gain some traction. the realization -- he fought as much as possible to raise taxes on the wealthiest people by a couple percent. that is the major reason we're able to balance the budget. i am very happy that mitt romney is a candidate because, you know, jimmy carter -- they could except the candidacy. at the same time, i do not think he is going to when. -- to win. barack obama, after four years of being president, will show

that he has taken charge of every position. host: mitt romney is speaking to workers. we will cover him at campaign events in virginia tomorrow at 1:15. he will be joined by a virginia gov. bob mcdonnell. also the campaign releasing a statement on newt gingrich's announcement that he is suspending his campaign. they're right that newt gingrich has brought creativity, intellectual vitality to american politics. that is from the romney campaign. a couple more calls. another supporter in connecticut. caller: action, i support ron paul. -- actually, i support ron paul. i consider him an honest, no- nonsense candidate that can save us from our own government expansion. i appreciate c-span.

i feel the mainstream media is ignoring ron paul and his rallies. that is only at their own peril. tralee, -- truly, we will stand by ron paul no matter what. i feel we may define the race. it is important to keep that in mind. he offers alternatives that other candidates have. i was registered democrats before i learned of ron paul. he really opened my eyes to the two possibilities -- to the true possibilities. host: we want to let you know more road to the white house coming up this weekend as we bring to the libertarian convention from las vegas. that is coming up out friday -- on a friday at 9:00. we will have coverage on saturday at noon. pennsylvania, mary, a supporter

of newt gingrich. welcome. caller: i am very sad to hear what we just heard, but it was inevitable. i have never seen anything like this. the man that have the resume, the previous experience, the man that was saying the things that all of america wants to see happens, it was somehow sets aside because of things that people want to say about how the past was proceed. the reason it was being said the way it was being said, his involvement, his being an insider. this administration is afraid he would win. they got -- he got all the opposition he got and all of the media jumped on that bandwagon, pushing him to decide as quickly as possible. this man said day one, the

czar's are fired. obamacare is repealed. he would balance this budget and create jobs. i do not know what is wrong in this country, but it is a sad day for america. what is left of it. people think you can limit government with the administration that is there or any administration that will come after this one, that does not have a solid vision mike newt gingrich pass -- a solid vision like newt gingrich has come at they are deceiving themselves. all of the tax payer dollars that are unaccounted for, that people are wondering, where is all the stimulus money? it has already gone to other nations. host: will you vote for mitt romney in the general election? caller: i do not know what the point of that is.

i do not know. i really do not know what the point of that is. host: arizona on our mitt romney line. last caller. caller: how are you? just to answer that last question. if she wants a reason to vote for mitt romney, it is to get rid of obama. he has got to go. he has been there for four years and he has done nothing. obama has to be a one-term president. in arizona, i will make it happen. they say it is a swing state, but i do not see how. host: are you at asu? caller: yes, i am. host: we appreciate your call this afternoon. you can stay on top of some of the social media conversation online at her websit -- online

at our website. we want to remind you also about our political coverage coming up tonight. we will be aired this event at 8:00 on c-span. could spend the weekend and oklahoma city with booktv and america -- >> spend the weekend and oklahoma city with booktv and american history tv. oklahoma university president and former center on his letter to america. sunday at 5:00, oklahoma history on american history tv on c-span3. tour the oklahoma city bombing memorial. minivet american artifacts from the special collections at the oklahoma -- native american

artifacts from the special collections at the oklahoma museum. >> between 1971 and 1973, president richard nixon secretly recorded nearly 4000 hours of phone calls and meetings. >> always agree on the little things, and then you hold on the big one. >> every saturday this month on c-span radio, hear more of the nixon tapes. saturdays at 6:00. listen at 90.1 fm in washington, d.c. sunday --

>> i do not regard this as just a biography of lyndon johnson. this is a kind of political power. seen but a president can do in a moment of great crisis. how he gathers, what does he do to get legislation moving? that is a way of examining power in a time of crisis. i want to do this in full. i suppose it takes 300 pages. >> on the passage of power, volume 4. this sunday at 8:00. look for our second hour of conversation with the robertcaro sunday, may 20. >> we take you to boulder, colorado, for a discussion about the effects of climate

change on the world economy, environment, and health. this is part of the animal world affairs conference held in mid- april. it is under -- annual world affairs conference held in mid- april. it is just under 90 minutes. >> all right, let's get started. good morning. welcome to living in a new climate paradigm at 9:00 on a wednesday morning. this is an issue that is near and dear to a lot of our hearts. it is an issue that we are all wrestling with. this is an especially exciting panel we have. everything we do this morning is being filmed by c-span. it is important that everything we say it captured on a microphone. we will ask you to speak into a

microphone. so that it can be recorded for posterity. bear with us on that when. let me introduce the panel. it is a good one. we will start off by a hearing from the president of the national wildlife federation. america's largest conservation organization. in addition to his impressive resume on conservation and climate change issues, one of this other claims to fame is he is inspired and entered a whole generation of conservationists. i used to work down the hall from larry. we will hear from doug ray. he works for the department of energy's national laboratory. he is one of those really smart people do deals with science and technology and energy. if you are looking for a job, we need your kind here. we will hear from dan ferber, a

journalist would several biology degree is this seems to have the knack for taking scientific issues and making them understandable to the reading public. a science geek that can communicate. he also just published a book. hopefully, we will your some of the insights from that book. she is president of an ngo in santa fe. why not climate change? this woman likes a challenge. that is our lineup. we will start off with larry. we will hear from each speaker

for about 10 minutes and then we will open it up to all of you. >> thank you, susan. it is great to be here this morning to share this urgent issue with you. for the last 11,000 years, humans have existed in a climate where the carbon dioxide levels were about 280 parts per million. today, we have succeeded in moving that number to about 391 parts per million. it will probably be 393 by the time this year is out. it is a 40% increase. that is important because even though it is a minor constituent in the atmosphere is a major player in trapping heat. carbon dioxide has been trapping heat for some time. nature is one of the first responders to climate change. in that book, she devoted a

chapter to the global thermostat, in which she laid out the fact that fish and wildlife were moving further north in the northern hemisphere and further south and the southern hemisphere. at this very moment, we are witnessing -- that is what she said in 1950. that happens to be the year i was born. she was president and her observations of that nature was responding to a shifting climate. nature has always been the front line of or warning system. -- of our warning system. all of the greatest things that humans have accomplished has occurred. personalization is really -- the

scientists -- there are a couple of papers published that we are moving into new climatic period it. there is a lot of discussion about the fact that we are on a course, but will it look like common and it depends largely on what we do over the next few years to curb an art -- curve are carbon emissions. we are moving out of the paradigm that we have enjoyed for the last 11,000 years. what does that place look like? none of us know for certain, but there are some things we can say about that. for example, there was a recent paper published that suggested a 2-degree rise in temperature would trigger a green light melts.

that will largely be unstoppable as the temperature goes over to degrees. it will be a predictable slow melt of greenland. it is dumping about 100 billion tons of ice into the ocean. if you go back a couple of decades, greenland produced no water flow to the ocean. we a party seen a dramatic shift in the amount of water. that -- we have already seen a dramatic shift in the amount of water. it has some potential to change the conditions in europe and elsewhere. nonetheless, agreement will be locked into a steady melt if we go over that to a degree. i should tell you that the

scientific team that is working on taking all the promises of all the governments to address climate change and putting them into the model, i saw some early results of that. it looks like we're going to about 2.3 degrees warming by about 2014. -- 2040. if you assume we are living up to our promises, we are heading to a very dramatic shift. what happens in agreement does not state -- what happens in the green land does not stay in greenland. situations will displace 100 million people on the planet living on islands, coastal areas. these people will be pushed out of their place. they will have to go somewhere. they will have to find a new place to live.

that is critical in places like egypt, where the delta is already in serious trouble. as sea level rises, there will be places like that. louisiana is another place or we will see very severe shifts. storm intensity will increase. i believe that to others to talk about. -- i will leave that to others to talk about. we have seen a 4% increase in the moisture. that additional moisture causes of additional storm events and has had a profound impact already. we are also sent drops -- even already come up while we are just entering into this changing periods, we have about 2% less land as a result of climate change. add to that the fact that we

are going to 9 billion people. we have more mouths to feed in a climate that is shifting dramatically. we also are adding acid to the ocean, part of its carbon dioxide. that carbonic acid is accumulated in the ocean. it interferes -- the oceans have about -- we are shifting the acidity in the ocean. it will interfere with all life in the ocean. the more acidic water is, the less calcium. if you wore a shellfish, it makes life a lot more difficult because you'll have a harder time collecting the calcium that you need. we are seeing that already. the phytoplankton is down about 40%. it is one of the great engines

of oxygen production. the to% of oxygen on the planet is derived -- 50% of oxygen on the planet is derived from our oceans. i want to add this to the conversation, if you add up everything that everybody is doing to do with climate change, we are turning the temperature up. if you have a pot at home boiling over at home, who would run over and turn the temperature up? that is exactly what they are doing. the energy policy is not a energy policy, it is a political statement. we have to change the nature of our energy policy to date in order to protect our children tomorrow. there are things we could do in terms of adaptation, but we are headed for trouble.

the models suggest we will lose 37% of the species is the temperature goes up over two degrees. if it goes much higher, we will see 40% to 70% of the species on the planet. that is the direction we are going as we continue to put carbon into the sky. a couple of years ago, my daughter asked me to watch her bring a new baby into this world. she said, i wanted to cut the umbilical cord. i am in this delivery room watching my daughter deliver her first child. the little guy comes out and the doctor handed me the scissors. i have to admit that i was deeply moved forcing my new

grandchild active critic for the first time. -- forcing i'd be grandchild's for the first time. i made a promise to that little guy that i would continue to fight this battle for his future. i must have been taking too much time because the doctor said, are you going to do this or what? [laughter] i really believe this is a moral issue. it is no longer an issue of science. scientists have warned us. we are seeing the kind of changes in our oceans, in our forests, these very dramatic shifts in nature. it is up to us to change the outcome of this important issue for our children's future. thank you. [applause]

>> good morning. it is great that i get to follow larry on this one. i want to talk to you about what i think the scholarly community refers to as impacts. i am not going to talk about mitigating climate change. i think that is critically important, and i think there is a lot we need to do. we are not doing everything we could be doing, but i spent a lot of time yesterday talking about that. i care about that as well and i have a lot to say about that. what i do want to talk about is what is likely to happen. the temperature is going up, it

is going to go up even if we have a complete cessation of carbon emissions. we have already put enough in the atmosphere to cause the temperature rise to occur. i think we have to think about what does that mean and are there things we could do to reduce the vulnerability iies? the take home for me is, given that change is going to happen, and we have some idea of what those changes are going to be, the most important thing to realize is the most significant impacts will happen in the developing world. as we seek to attain equality of life that we generally experience, we have to think

about helping them get there in a sustainable way. they will build and strengthen their adaptive capacity to respond to the changes in the climate. they are coming, what ever they are. some of them are going to be very serious. let me go through a brief outline of some of those changes. i will amplify a couple of them. i will defer others to my subsequent panelists. we can expect subs -- significant changes in river close. probably increased river flows in the northern areas. i do not want to call them rainforests, but they are definitely included. in areas that are typically

dry, probably reduced river flows. the resilience of many ecosystems on the planet are likely to be -- and ecosystem has an adaptive capacity. if there is an extra and a change on an ecosystem, and it is a modest change, the ecosystem can adapt to it. some changes occur and they are significant to a particular species, but the ecosystem is fine if the changes modest. that is what you would call a tipping point. we are likely to hit some of those. lynn? i do not know. but almost certainly, we will hit them. they will have disastrous consequences for those ecosystems. what is interesting, nets carbon

uptake by those on the land are likely to increase the peak by midcentury. then they will turn around. that means after midcentury, those ecosystems will start releasing carbon. this will amplify the change that we are driving going forward. by midcentury, what we will see in the first task will be fairly moderate. the bad stuff comes later. that is what that point says to you. the potential for food production is projected to increase globally. that is probably a good thing because there are a lot of

people who do not have enough. i kind of search for a positive because i do not want to always be a downer. it pales in comparison to the negatives. i agree with that completely. coastal areas and small islands will be exposed to increased risks. the mega delta is in asia and africa are especially of vulnerable. we in the developed world are not to going to be impacted that directly. the most significant impacts will happen in these areas. exacerbated by the fact that those societies do not have much adaptive capacity. we can -- contemplation in europe to build a bigger dams and bigger dikes.

that is a great mitigation strategy. those nations have the capacity to execute a plan like that. bangladesh does not have that anymore. they lack that adaptive capacity. the future looks much bleaker for those nations. building the capacity is really important. health impacts will vary from location to another. i cannot say anything more about that. -- i will not say anything more that -- more about that. future vulnerability really depends on how much the climate changes. but also the development

pathway the at risk peoples of the world. we can have a bigger role in that as well. there is a very important connection between sustainable development and the vulnerability to climate change. that is the final thing i want to leave you with. we can take questions later. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. next up is dan ferber. >> thank you for coming out this morning to hear about this critical issue. larry and doug have sketched out a clear view of the bigger picture. i want to give you some specifics. a new climate paradigm, and you probably already know a lot. i thought about drawing and some

aspects that are not familiar to a lot -- throwing in some aspects of our not familiar to a lot of people. talking about productions going forward, we deterred about some of these projections. -- we just heard about some of these projections. i have worked with a scientist who was associate director for the center for health and global environment. we wrote a book together. one of the things that he did, one of the projects a few years back, he put together a large team of experts and make projections about scenario planning. when you cannot have a mathematical model to figure out exactly what will happen, yet can still create scenarios.

that is what they did. they came up with two possible scenarios. what happens as climate change moves forward. in the milder scenario, the glaciers, more extreme mothers and disasters, -- more extreme weather and disasters, a sea levels rise. fresh water is harder to come by. coral reefs are damaged, almost to the point of extinction. that was the milder scenario. economically, major economic a facts. -- effects. the more severe this scenario

was the kind of thing that dog was just talking about. -- doug was just talking about. we are seeing that out here in this part of the country. new trees will grow, but you are talking about major changes in ecosystems. more severe storms, challenging, more of katrinas. more disease, and i will talk about more -- talk about that more in a minute. the worst possible scenario is something that most people do not think about. the possibility of a broad climate change. we know how climate has been paved over 800,000 years or so

-- behaved over 800,000 years or so. layer,n look at every p and you can figure out what the temperature was. we have records of climates from that. what that has shown us over the last 20 years, we are in a very unusual period right now. more typical is up and down and up and down. we are talking about changes could be on the order of 10, 20 degrees fahrenheit, average global temperature. as quickly as a decade or as quickly as three years. the last one was about 12,500 years ago. what happens if we do get something like that?

we talked about an analysis that was done by some consultants for the pentagon. this was a very detailed analysis based on extensive interviews with scientists. this is what they came up with. they worked that scenario of more fresh water off of greenland, it changes in currency, -- currents. here is what they found. the scenario was warming, and then sat and chilling -- suddent chilling. europe got a lot colder. people started moving south from scandinavia because it was just too cold. massive famine in china because they could not feed all of those people.

this is for pentagon planning. they are giving the best guess. u.s. has to secure borders to keep out those who are starving. aggressive wars to fight over resources. this is the worst-case scenario. the global economy suffers on the level of 1930's depression. the world becomes haves and have nots. is that going to happen? nobody knows. the science is that not -- the science is not there to protect. in complex systems, they can undergo tipping points. that is well understood. if you had a top that is those sorts of

things. what are the signs? extreme weather is happening. last year, 60% of the united states experienced extreme weather. drought in texas, terrible flooding in vermont. that 60% was the highest area covered effort in any given year. how does that play out? the number of billion dollar insurance disasters has skyrocketed since 1980. global insurance companies are feeling the pain of this. we do not know if climate is

going to flip, but there are some scary things happening. good news is that unstable systems can be stabilized. we do not want to be pushing the system even further. in her book, we use an analogy. what he said is that we are -- what we are doing to the climate is poking an angry beast with a stick, and we need to stop doing that. here is how it could play out. let me go through this could play out. dangerous heat waves, the most dangerous type of natural disaster. we do have ways of dealing with it, the 2003 european heat wave killed 52,000 people. it also affected agriculture in

the area. regional climate modeling said that if we do not cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, heat waves could happen every other year. every year by the 2040's. that is what the climate model shows. you have infectious diseases, malaria, for example, moving higher in the mountains. you have allergies. the higher carbon levels have triggered ragweed. pollen is more potent.

more people are having allergies, maybe there is a reason for that. extreme weather, we talked about that. the effects of the ecosystems going over the edge. trees and crops. the agriculture this scenario, there are some complications. more heatwave and droughts and extreme weather. there is a lot of concern to how this can affect us. this is not about polar bears. this is about people. i will take more questions later. [applause] >> thank you. our last -- one thing i failed

to mention, in addition to mediating global conflicts all over the planet, she has some street cred closer to home. >> thank you. i have been around for a long time. [laughter] i have a bunch of notes, but i will not use them. i asked to go last because i had a feeling i was going to be listening to wonderful experts on a very dystopian future. i would like to respond with the potential for some good news. we have to balance what we know is happening scientifically. that is what i want to talk about. i made some notes while the guys were talking. i am throwing out what i was

going to say. i do want to pick up on some of the important things that my distinguished panel had to say alar. ry started -- larry started off by saying there are dramatic shifts in nature. he mentioned that we have to change our energy policy. our organization, which is an organization that is applying complex adaptive systems science to how to transform the negotiation and the diplomacy around the issues in the world that are completely stuck. we go immediately to the systems level. for example, it is not enough to change energy policy.

if we keep looking there, we are going to miss the fact that we have to shift the way we identify ourselves in the universe. we have to start acting like nature. that is what we have to do. i am a big fan of a book that was written about 12 years ago. it is about the fact that human beings have been separated for so long from nature. nature is out there. we have to end that separation. it is gone to require a complete shift in our mental models. we do not have a paradigm shift yet in terms of global climate change. it was a shift going on in nature, but the shift has not

happened in our brain and in the way we think about this. i have come to this conference -- last week, i was that the united nations facilitating on behalf of the prime minister. you know >> you about the growth happiness. if we measure how humans develop, or how we progress, in a new way, perhaps we can begin to change our world view when you can measure something, it becomes a real we only measure human development now as we know in terms of economic development. that is how we measure progress. until we stop doing that, and

until we begin to think about -- i hate to call it an anti- growth, but we have stop this growth paradigm. we need an intervention. the reason why i was at the u.n. was because he has been playing with this for about 20 years. they are ready to march into the world a. we have not talked about the failures frontage years ago. a lot of things happened 20 years ago. we negotiated developments around so-called sustainable development. and then nothing happened. this is 20 years later. we need something that is going to push people into action.

we are trying this with the growth of national happiness index. it is a very sophisticated index in progress and development. hopefully we will be able -- and i want all of you to help -- hopefully we will be able to get this on every one of's agenda. it starts in about eight weeks, june. i wanted to mention that. change in policy is not enough. we need to change hearts and minds. we are trying to figure out how to do this. i got a question from the floor about how we change our hearts and minds? how did you change the habits and the minds of human beings? is there a possibility for some kind of profound change? i said to him, one of the things

we are looking at is meditation and practice. this is not a question of religion. this is a question of the fact that we can look inside our brains and now with our new technology, functional mri. we can see the parts of the brain that lights up. we can see parts of the green light up when different activities are introduced. the people who meditate on a regular basis, which i believe we should all be doing, is that there are changes in the brain that lead us to become not just more compassionate, but more in touch with the whole that we are a part of. that is one of the ways that i know we can come back to nature. i will be talking on my next panel.

it is the nuclear weapons panel. our organization -- we do a lot. we are testing how you transform diplomacy and the tough issues. this is a natural one for us. we have had the luxury and the privilege of bringing in the iranians and the israelis. one of the things we did was put meditation cushions in the room without saying a word. there were delegates from many cultures in our meeting. every great, every lunch break, those questions were killed. we never said a word about it. filled. cusiohions were

we never said a word about it. even if they had never meditated in their lives, they sat down. the thing is we are testing is future planning. we do it in a little different way. what we do is say please print the victimization that we are all going through a side and let's just see if we can come up with the future scenario. pick the time -- 10 or 20 years from now. think about a positive future. boy, let me tell you come it meetings to get there.

we want to see if it is possible that there can be a better future. we have been testing that. once you go to that positive teacher, you say, i do not know if this can happen, but this is what we keep up with. what step happened? then we go back to the future. but step happened there that is not happening now? that is where the creative thinking finally breaks through. i wanted to mention that. helping developing countries get their futures in a more sustainable way -- i have to say that they are trying to figure this out. they are trying, really trying hard. they are beginning to succeed.

let me know when i am out of time. we also talked about these multiple disciplinary teams of top experts. i got a book called "here comes everybody." i am a big supporter of occupy wall street. it is one thing that is happening to change the paradigm in america right now. the age of the so-called expert is over. we are all experts now. need to come to thatall solve these problems. -- need to come to the table to solve problems. scientists say, leadership is an

emerging complex system. a lot of people, especially in the press, do not understand this idea of a leaderless, organized system. this is what is happening now. this is the future we will be able to solve problems. the expert panel -- we meet with people who do not know very much about the issues. artists, poets, psychologists. that makes a real difference in our negotiations. finally, i want to say how grateful i am that the pentagon has discovered this. it is about time. you know where the money is. it is right there. maybe they will start putting some new money into some new ideas for how to address these problems.

they have the resources and the money to do it. they can do that with these scenarios. thank you very much. i am grateful. i urge action there and urge the growth of national happiness to be on the agenda. thank you very much. [applause] >> a huge thank you to our panel. they gave us a lot to work with for a very interesting dialogue. i forgot to introduce myself. my name is suzanne jones. i am a member of your city council. i get to ask the first question. let me remind you, we are building this for c-span. who ever ask a question -- the

man with with the microphone will get to you when we asked the questions. to start things off, merle lefkoff to route some threw out some provocative ideas. >> absolutely. i think that was tremendously encouraging. i paid attention to what has been happening. i have been doing this for a while. the fact that this is merging with the movement to sustainability is a tremendous. it is incredibly encouraging. but personal belief is that people despite any depressing news i gave you is that people are motivated to a positive move. i want there to be a positive

goal. scare tactics do not work on people. they just shut down and the general. having a positive goal and a vision of a healthier future i will be talking about the-- some panels later in the week in terms of the vision we laid out. it is tremendous to merge the school of happiness and having medication as a tool to get there with the larger goal of a sustainable society. thank you for that. >> my observation would be an experience that i had. we are dealing too much on experts and not on the average person. i have been struggling with this notion. i can barely pronounced the word. i suspect that people barely can comprehend what it means.

i posted a question and sought advice from various friends i had on facebook. we had a lively discussion about what was a better name for this? we have some funny names that people can up with. the one we ended up was settled sy idiosyne. i really like this term. i use it's quite often. >> i feel trapped with index we use to measure human progress. it is not just about money. degree at talk to replace the current metric with the gross

national happen is index or something like that would be a spectacular thing to help. thank you for bringing that up. >> ok. let's turn to questions. you win the prize. >> should i sit? ok. you mentioned that the insurance industry they can and knowledge y can recognize that there is a financial impact. it is tied together between the ramifications of this and business and the economy. i work in insurance and technology. we are trying to extrapolate

models alter the will allow them to determine what economic costs will be. mighty disaster? b they is there a way in which we can almost fight fire with fire a little bit? work towards using some of these new technological tools to extrapolate the economic impact and talk in terms that our government thinks today? the happiness is close enough to good, in some way. the big news predicted analytics. couldn't you make a move that model a little further toward the present to be able to say, ok, we can take these models and look at economic across these

different impacts and been that'ss the table? >> let me try to respond to that. with a talking about the costs of pollution. the opposition has been talking about the benefits. look at the economics and the costs without benefits does not make much sense. one of the things the we're working on is working with the insurance industry to redo our insurance program. it does not consider actuarially costs. we want to talk more about this as it impacts florida. the state of florida has had severe flooding and storms in recent years that they cannot afford to play there anymore because it is too expensive in some areas. they decided to underwrite the

insurance. the problem with that is that it cannot afford to do that. it is a terrible way of allocating risk. it is heading for a complete collapse at some point when they get a bad storm. we're going to try to make the point in florida that they need to underpin their state insurance program with actuarial insurance standard and open them up to a private sector thes said distribution. that needs to happen. it is one of the ways that we can begin to put the real costs on the table. i can tell you for certain that the insurance industry gets the climate changes that are up and coming threats. look at some of the papers they have published. they are talking of 1% increase in damage. and that ultimately comes back to all of us.

that assumes that they will not be a dramatic shift in events. we are betting on a gradual 1% increase per year. that may not be even a real insult. >> a couple of points in what he said. you mentioned analysis. what my colleagues work on a catastrophe model. to predict extreme events. the insurance industry is all about predicting risk and pressing properly. that is one thing i wanted to mention. another bigger picture in terms of having a positive you economically, economically, -- view economically if you are

familiar with this to be -- , the chief economist for the world bank put together a major economic reports in 2005. the punch line is that by investing one% of the global gp that invest-- is to make is not overwhelming. we can do it. that is the bigger picture beyond that insurance industry. i want to make one more point. the more the insurance industry advocates, the better. the insurance industry has been fairly strong in advocating, even though it is a concerted culture. they know about this. they are working on it. the associations of insurance companies -- i do not get the

impression that they are pushing for common action as much as the insurers are. i could be wrong. the three to correct me. one thing the insurance company could do that -- still free to correct me. went in the insurance company could do is reinforce that. we have reasons for things like seat belts. those are things that insurers have always been for. it is in the business interests to do so. if the insurance industry as a whole, maybe the world's largess, could kick in more active role and really advocate and look at the big picture and advocate for strong climate action. you are protecting your own interest if you want to have a

business in 40 years. at some point, things become uninsurable. in the flood insurance example is a great example of that. insurers have a very strong interest in pushing for strong climate action and moving toward sustainability. i would certainly encourage anyone in that industry. people know a lot more about that than i do. >> couldn't other industries also use the predictable analytics to us turn but the long-term costs would be? it seems like dogma and pure economics. we are caught in this gridlock. why do of the people not look at economics in the long term fashion like that? >> i think you are onto

something here. i also know that we are in a non-linear present and future. i do not know about predicted analytics. i do know something about chromatics. i am a mathematician. i worked with non-linear mathematicians. you cannot predict what is going to happen. if we continue to think that we can because we have new patterns emerging now -- i sometimes call it the signs of emergence or the science of surprise. an abrupt climate change would be one of those. this is a system that no one can predict because the patterns are emerging now. we have never seen these patterns before. if we can let go a little bit about the need as human beings

to control and predict, we may come up with some new ideas if we keep focusing on prediction. there is opportunity for creative thinking. i agree with you that the insurance business worldwide can be a catalyst for other businesses in pushing a way to make ourselves safer in this new climate paradigm. that is one of the ways that people can change their habits. we talked about fastening seat belts, for example. that is a huge change for people. that could be a catalyst for a pioneer for the rest of the businesses that are tried to use analytic predictive methods. >> how about another question? >> a couple of questions.

first, i am wondering why in the population predictions remained the same despite the projections for more disasters and were infectious diseases. that is my first question. second, do we overcome the barriers of contemplation when we have so much standing in the sell bonds andn phon other distractions? >-- cell phones and other distractions? >> the idea that the population will get to 9 billion is a model that has been done by others. getting back to this notion that

we may not be fully aware of what is in store for us, we may see that number change depending on perhaps catastrophic events or changing behavior as destabilize populations in light of changing traditions. i have seen in my lifetime -- when i was born, we have 3 billion people on the planet. now we are 7 billion people. i have seen more than the doubling of the population. there is this incredible and it out there that is pushing that number upward. because we're able to find food and improve the conditions of people around the world, we have seen an acceleration in name change. acceleration is--change . i believe we will see an increase in that. we will learn more as we go

forward. i've been there is a fundamental shift that we need to realize. about 40% of the total energy from photosynthetic processing is going to the human population. we are gobbling up more and more of the natural reserves of this planet. less and less is being left for other species. that is a more fundamental high level question we need to ask. hobart in humans go before we start to collapse of the entire system -- how far can a humans go before we start to collapse the entire system? >> let me take a stab at the second question. >> how are we going to get people to be contemplated? there are all kinds a way to do that. you can do that here in boulder

by hiking. that is a form of meditation, i believe. we have to get the ear buds out of our ears for a little while. the need to get off of our computers for a while. for me, it is part of daily life. like brushing my teeth. it becomes habitual. it becomes something that is easier to do. it is harder for kids, but in that neuroscience world, it helps kids down regulate. that is a term they use from all of the things that is coming at them all the time in their daily lives. it is helpful for changing behavior. we keep trying as gently as the can. i have six grandchildren in boulder. i do not leave here. i was very touched by his story

about the birth of his first grandchild. i think about my six grandchildren in boulder all the time. i wonder what their future will be like. what if they live in a place where people do not meditate? >> i was reflecting on a question about your buds and technology and those advances. so much of what has happened in the air of spring has been enabled and catalyzed by the use of those technologies. the portable technologies have been a powerful catalyst for positive change. they are not always of course positive, but it does have tremendous potential to move beyond the expert base systems, which in some cases kept people down. but in that example, it was not about the non-experts.

it was about young people relating to one another and moving forward. it is a pretty powerful change. i did not know if it will apply in the space. it has been a great thing in the world. >> that is a great point. i want to add one small point to that. there is the idea of a outsourcing solutions to problems have really caught on in science and other fields. it is catching on. it has had some pretty amazing successes. one example i wrote about a few months ago, scientists have tried to determine the structure of a protein from the hiv virus for a long time. they had been successfully using the fastest supercomputers. they ended up making a game out of it. they put it out there. you had dozens of people in the

world playing a game. they solved the structure of this protein in three weeks. it had been years and they have not been able to do it. that is a dramatic example of what crossing can accomplish. in addition to communication, that is an important tool. sustainability is complex. if anything is complex, we need everyone on board. we need everyone's thinking, too. we are all intelligent people. we need all of you. >> ok. >> i used to study the economics of wartime mobilization. i would like to ask the panel and everyone here