technology. the area of a $2,000 car that can run on something other than petroleum -- it has been a struggle and doesn't seem to work out. that seems like an unlikely evolution in the market. even in india, the very cheap -- the nano car has not been successful. indian consumers want a better car when they can afford one. you would have issues are around safety. the technology required gets you of bald to thousand dollars -- gets you above two thousand dollars. so far, in the united states,

the bulk of consumers still want a car that gets a fair amount of range, well over 300 miles is relatively easy to refuel. exotic technology has been a tough sell. hybrids are only 3% of sales. i am not quite sure this is where this is going. you will see automated technology coming from expensive cars. host: on twitter -- host: what kind of infrastructure investment is needed to make a large number of self-driving cars part of america's future? >> this is an interesting point.

there is a divergence worth watching. the comment is the lead. the infrastructures that we have now, by most accounts is inadequate and coarsely maintained. the budget and the money to bring what we have up to a level is not forthcoming, for the most part. now, the federal government has had a program under way for a number of years and are starting a big experiment in an arbor, not far from where i am, in what they call connected vehicle technology where you have transmitters and signalling devices in the traffic lights and along the side of the road, connected to, communicating with cars. the infrastructure knows where the cars are and the cars now

where the infrastructure is. if you are coming to when in for seven -- intersection, for instance, and someone is coming through nonetheless, the infrastructure will warn you can't stop a car. it is a great idea but involves an structure investment. the product leaders said google are taking the -- at google are taking the view that the car has to be able to drive itself by its self and waiting for the government to provide guidance and the structure will take forever. -- infrastructure will take forever. if i had to bet, i would say google has it right. if you want to do this, you have to make it self-contained and whether the government has sensors in the roadway is not that big of an issue.

host: twitter -- host: i want to refer him to a "forbes magazine" article were they right there will be virtually no parking spaces. host: do you know more about this mission? guest: that is a vision. it is very futuristic, i have to say. in order for that to work, i think, you would have to have a situation where most people are sharing a car rather than owning a car. if you had a society where most

cars were shared and could be busy functioning as a taxi, in no way, you would have a situation -- in a way, you would have a situation where you could store a car, waiting for its master to come get it. i am skeptical that we get to a society where car-sharing is the norm. i am a baby boomer. my idea is i want to own my car. my kids will probably be more comfortable sharing a car, but this is something that will take a long time to evolve. >> next up for joseph white -- host: next up for joseph white is new york city. george's a republican. caller: in terms of integrating this technology, and having some

revenue loss by the government, can that be picked up by charging you how much you use -- based on how much you use the roads and matching revenue to build expenses associated? is there also privacy issues with regards to the government having access to where you are at what time and other privacy issues around knowing where you are? host: thank you. guest: good questions. first of all, the issue of how do local governments, state governments, and the federal government raise revenue to pay for highways and other infrastructure if you have a continuing slide in the collection of gasoline taxes, either because of technology making its sell cars use less

gasoline, or because -- making it so cars use less gasoline, or the inflation diminishes. that is a big problem right now. we do not need to wait for the future. there is not enough gas tax revenue because consumption is declining for the first time in decades. the government does not have the revenue right now that some people believe is required to keep the infrastructure up to a good grade. so, a society where cars are operating efficiently and not by going, and people have fewer shares -- cars because they are able to share them, that is absolutely a revenue problem, and taxing people by vehicle miles traveled is an idea that is alive and well.

the reason is not done right now is there is a technology hurdle of sorts, and privacy. there is no question there will be a concern about having a world where your heart is connected to a grid -- your car is connected to a grid that can be monitored by either the government, google, or anybody else for that matter, where your location, where you have been, where you stopped, how fast you were driving -- all of those things -- could be recorded or monitored. that creeps people out. how you manage those privacy issues, and what policies are put in place, it is absolutely going to be a factor in how quickly this technology rules

out and how it rolls out. people have speed cameras right now, where it takes an automatic picture of you at 80 miles an hour. people do not like those. could you imagine what would happen if every time you go past a stoplight there is a record of where you have been, and even people that are completely innocent and have nothing to fear find that creepy. host: here is something from "use it -- usa today" a --

host: do you know anything more about this, joseph white? guest: i have seen pictures. it sounds like the ultimate toy. two hundred $80,000 is a steep charge. i happen not to like flying, so i would not be a customer. why would anyone want such a thing? partly because getting somewhere on the ground is such a hassle. i think that is a response to frustration people have with how long it takes to get around congested metro areas. host: chicago. peter. independent. caller: high and a truck driver and have a somewhat -- i am a truck driver and have a somewhat state of the art trucks that has

radar, cruise control, warnings, but i would like to point out that even with all lot of technological equipment there are dangers. for example, yesterday ahead to pull into a center lane to avoid a vehicle on the shoulder, and the person behind me got angry, and he pulled in front of me. fortunately he was maintaining his speed. if he had hit the brakes and slowed down in front of me, my automatic equipment would have slammed my brakes and that could have caused a jackknife situation. you will always need to have a human being to monitor this. i like all of this, but i would like to make a comment about a

related issue in my opinion. i have been thinking about this for a long time. eventually, we will run out of oil, and i ride we are pumping 50 form million barrels a day of the earth, -- 54 million barrels a day out of the earth. that should be a great concern. we could have and he electrified line underground on the interstate, supported by solar panels along the shoulder , reducing the energy years we have and it would automatically maintain you add a certain distance. host: thank you. peter, truck driver in chicago. joseph white? guest: i am not enough of an engineer to know what you would

need to do that, but there are people thinking well outside of the box to solve those kinds of problems and i think having sensors in the highways and possibly an electric supply in or over the highway is something people are working on. can you scale back to handle 100,000, two hundred thousand cars next there is technology that allows you to -- cars? there is technology that could allow you to charge an electric car without wires, without cables, the way you could charge a cell phone now, but i think we are away from having that technology that works at that level at a reasonable price. i would say the point about the technology on his truck, and how even with all of that technology

you still faced unpredictable hazards, that is exactly the point that people who are enthusiastic about automat -- automatic driver technology need to keep in mind. as long as people behave themselves it is a straightforward proposition. it is planning for randomness and bad behavior, that is the problem. working them into the a algorithms will take some time. host: last call is from utica. mike. democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. due to advances in sensors, connectivity, computing, the future of the u.s. will benefit from the smart red,

manufacturing -- smart grid, manufacturing, automated mining and farming. all of this requires leadership and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. the government is responsible for education. the importance of education cannot be overlooked. this comes together from a systems perspective for a bright future. one of the things that comes out of this is the intelligent questrom, which i think is emerging in -- classroom which i think is emerging in academia right now. i think it is emerging in his industry, academia, and government. , so that is all i wanted to add to a nice discussion. host: joseph white, stem education and our energy future?

guest: i went to a conference a few weeks back and a panelist who is in this field was asked a question similar to this and he said one of the problems he thought the united states had was that it has been difficult to inspire young people to put themselves through the hard work of becoming skilled and capable in math, science, technology, and he was saying that maybe automated vehicles and challenges around making cars that could safely drive themselves would be the kind of thing to capture people's imagination who would say i want to do that. that is cool. this kind of challenge, and i am sure there are others equally

interesting and valid, but this kind of challenge that would make education cool again is something a lot of people think might be a good side effect of doing the work over commercial and economic consequences. i say that as an english major, so, it is too late for me, but maybe if i had been inspired in a different way this is the kind of thing i would like to do. host: but you get to ride in them, so there is some upside. thank you for being with us. our audience had fun with this concept, the self-driving cars. joseph white, thank you again, sir. >> any time. host: in our last segment,

america by the numbers, america's veterans, on facebook there is a memorial day page and more than 103,000 people have offered comments. many of us will be honoring veterans and those who died in service with more traditional ceremonies. c-span will begin coverage with the memorial observance at arlington national cemetery. in our final segment we will look at america's veterans, how large a segment of the population they are, how it is made up and what the challenges are. we will be right back. [video clip] >> we have done a whole lot to make sure that the men and women who serve us in our rock and a rat -- afghanistan -- in iraq and afghanistan have been served

with the same honor they served us when they come home. [applause] >> we put together the post- 9/11 gi bill for them to get training and skills. we have mobilized the private sector to hire more veterans and given them the incentives, but congress should create what we're calling a veteran's job core, so we can help communities put returning heroes back to work. nobody who fought for our country overseas should have to fight for a job when they come back home. we have too much unemployment among our veterans. [applause] >> life is incredibly precious and it passes by incredibly quickly. use your unique talents to serve

one another as i will be the true measure by which your life will be judged. >> memorial day weekend, watch commencement speeches on c-span with politicians and business leaders sharing their thoughts with a graduate in class of 2012, saturday through tuesday at noon and 10:00 p.m. eastern. >> "washington journal" continues. host: you heard president obama talking about legislative the initiatives dealing with veterans -- legislative initiatives dealing with veterans. we thought it would be a good time to look at the statistics. but me introduce you to melissa chu, who is at the occupations specifics branch of the census bureau. eredith kelley can't --

meredith kleykamp is at the university of maryland. i have a chart right here that looks at the years 1980 through 2010. how many veterans are there and how has that changed? guest: over time, the number of veterans has decreased from 29 million in 1980, to just under 22 million in 2010, but the percentage of the population also decrease. in 1980, about one in six americans had some kind of military experience where in 2010 it was one in all 11. host: what is happening with the smaller percentage? guest: over time we have had fewer individuals needed to serve in the military. we had a drawdown in the wake of

vietnam and the first gulf war. i think there is some evidence to suggest that fewer and fewer have an interest in joining as well, but there primarily driven by need. host: "the new york times, call this a budget the new york times -- "the new york times" has a discussion on what we call our veterans. a question as we honor veterans, what do we all of them as a nation -- owe them as a nation. phone number star on the spot -- phone numbers are on the screen.

host: we will get to your calls and you can tweak us -- tweet us. this looks at a generation of veterans and looks at the difference between the last decade. what do we learn? guest: here, we see the number of veterans that served during the vietnam era comprised 7 million and their largest group however that has been on the decline. between 2008 and 2010, the number of gulf war veterans has increased to nearly 5 million and that is projected to increase. host: the reason the world war ii numbers were small is because a lot of people served but they're all dying. guest: every single day we lose

more and more world war ii veterans and that has implications for who are war veterans are. host: the group of the and non-- era veterans, we had a draft, sold -- vietnam's-era veterans, we have a draft, so is that why it is so high? host: they serve in a shorter. -- guest: they serve in a shorter time, which means you need more, and now they're serving more. host: here is a map of the united states. the darker the blue, the higher the concentration of veterans. which states have the highest as a percentage? to tell they are mainly --

guest: there concentrated in the west in montana and wyoming, but also in virginia and made. the most popular states, california, and texas, have over 1 million veterans. host: of statistic on women's veterans. guest: this chart shows since 1980, women were 4% of veterans in 1980, and that has risen to 7% in 2010. the next chart shows more detail. this shows you the percentage of women's veterans which women veterans by age. among those aged 18-to-34, about 20% are women, where if you look at older age groups, around 13%.

host: what is happening with demographics? guest: statutory, the number of women was tapped. they could not serve in large numbers. some would argue that one of the main reasons for the success of the volunteer force is the opening of opportunities for women to serve. host: brian, a veteran in florida. when did you served decks -- server? caller: i served at an air force base from 1977 to 1983. host: tell us about what you think this country owes if anything? caller: i am not seen me in

particular, but people in iraq and afghanistan are from a lower economic scale in this country, and they serve voluntarily, and what bothers me is there and are rewarded with a job. they have problems getting veterans' benefits. i think the country does told them that much. -- owe them that much and we have no legal problem that takes these jobs. veterans have 20% of employment in this country. host: let's dissect some of the comments. he says those who serve our from the lower economic status in society. is that true? guest: in some ways that is true, and in some ways that is a holdover from the vietnam era. people who join the military tend not to come from the elite in society, not the 1%, as we

might say these days, but also the requirement tends to screen out people from the very poorest backgrounds, not graduating from high school or other requirements. the consensus is the military draws from the middle of the distribution, not the lower-end. it is true, but i would not say we have a poverty draft or people are being coerced because of economic needs to join the military. host: let me give you numbers to respond to concerns about unemployment. this is from the bureau of labor statistics about veterans unemployment, and overall it is 8.3%, not different from the national average, but look when we begin to parse the number -- able-body is at 7.9%. those with service-connected

disability, 8.5%. war veterans from iraq and afghanistan, a 11.6%, so higher than the national average, and then another number. young men, 18-to-24, the unemployed rate is 29%. what is happening there? guest: is a complicated story. i think it is difficult for veterans to find a job. some of that has been argued to stem from and players not familiar with what skills and veterans might bring to the table. some people have suggested that in players might be concerned about the traumatic experiences -- employers might be concerned about traumatic experiences veterans faced, but young veterans in particular are having a difficult time finding work, the more difficult time than their contemporary peers.

host: we mentioned legislation and there is a gi bill president obama mentioned in that clip, and some facets of that include a monthly living hausen -- housing tighten, a tuition fee -- tuition and fee coverage, $1,000 for books and study, and the option to transfer benefits to your family. where is that not? guest: it passed in 2008 and was enacted in 2009. there have been changes to that over time, in some recent changes to try to help the long term unemployed veterans that includes an additional year of trading retraining, and i believe that has passed.

-- training, and i believe that this test. host: james, a veteran. thank you. caller: thank you. i think the best thing this country can do for a veteran is keep the promise they made when we raise our hands and took the oath of service, give a veteran his benefits. if he is disabled, do not make him fight for decades to get their benefit, and especially these young kids coming back. they are the offspring of my generation, vietnam, did not make them suffer like we suffered. get them their benefits and let them live. thank you. host: thank you. james brings of disabled veterans. the associated press have some statistics. let's put those on the screen before our guest answers how they are treated to a total

disability claims has risen treated -- treated. it total disability claims have risen. 45% of iraq and afghanistan veterans are seeking compensation for service-related injuries. guest: i do not doubt that, and i think members will rise. do you have numbers from the census? host: while she is looking, maybe you could talk about the disability process. guest: i do not claim to be an effort on the disability claims process, and my closest contact is my husband who is in your to the wall of that process. is a long -- year two of that process. it is a long and difficult process. the va provides five post- separation benefits to access

health-care services, but that is somewhat of a holding pattern until permanent claims can be established, and i do not know what the numbers are right now in terms of the backlog, but it is substantial and it is taking a long time for veterans. host: the rise in claims is a charitable to the number of casualties or are there other dynamics -- a charitable to the number of casualties, or are there other dynamics? guest: there are other programs from past wars, vietnam, claims with regards to exposure to agent orange, real cases of posttraumatic stress syndrome, so it is not simply a iraq and afghanistan veterans. i would believe that is largely driving. host: and jim from twitter sinc.

host: you have a sense of the statistic, but help us understand. guest: let me explain what a service-connected disability is, it would be incurred or aggravated during service and it is rated by the departments of veterans affairs. what this shows is that among veterans in 2010, about one in six heavy service-connected disability rating, and by age, if we look at the next slide, this figure shows the veterans under 65 are more likely to have a service-connected disability than veterans 65 and over. i believe meredith kleykamp was referring to the backlog from the vietnam era claims, so even

the numbers are lower, the percentage is lower among those 65 and older, again, there are 7 million vietnam era veterans. distal comprise a large number. host: do you want to add any more? guest: i think that is about right. even though the percentages might differ, as we saw the vietnam veterans and iraq and afghanistan veterans, tends to make vietnam veterans the typical veterans in the the a. -- in the va. host: linda. you are on the air. caller: thank you. i think we should show reverence to our military personnel, but there is one law that has unintended consequences.

if an active duty military person owns a condominium, we cannot close on them for maintenance fees, and that covers water and sewage, and it is very expensive. we have one that is thousands of dollars behind, and we are told there is nothing that can be done, and the politicians do not want to touch this issue to see about amending that law because they do not want to be seen as disloyal to military personnel. what can be done about this? host: thank you. guest: i empathize with any individual who might be dealing with the unfortunate consequences of having somebody whose property might need to be foreclosed on or is not able to make payments, but i think the laws more generally were put in

place to protect individuals deploying in service to the country which might have economic implications to their family, and to protect them from having homes for closing their absence. so, i can understand the individual frustration, but i think the policy was put in place to protect our service members, which i appreciate. host: i want to go back to the graph looking at women by ag in 24 -- 2010 -- by age at 24 in 2010. veterans -- women veterans have different experience than male veterans, especially their exposure and

experience with military sexual trauma which has implications for mental and physical health. the va has taken steps to increase their attention to women veterans as they grow as a fraction of beneficiary populations, but women have special needs, and that is about 30%. host: starting this week, we will tweet the same numbers i am looking at the night before so you can spend some time with them and get better acquainted. if you are on our twitter list, you will automatically get them, and we will also put it on our "washington journal" home page on c-span.org.

next, tennessee. arnold is a bit veteran. which war, arnold? caller: i was in the navy during the vietnam war, but i was never in combat. host: what do you want to talk about? caller: you were asking what can the government do former u, due for us, and then brought to mind john f. kennedy's famous ", asked not what your country can do for you, but a test where you can do for your country." i would like to try to do something before my country. my name is arnold joseph white, and i have a website where you can read and download for free of books that i wrote, and it is

godislove.org and i use this "when the power of love overcomes, the world will know peace." there is another quote from john f. kennedy, and that was from his and all euro address in 1961, and this other -- inaugural address in 1961, and this other one goes "in a long history of the world only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. i do not shrink from this responsibility, i welcome it." we need to try to bring a end to

war if at all possible and i believe we can if we love one another. host: thank you, arnold. next, massachusetts. jim. go ahead. caller: i have watched wars since the 1970's, watched soldiers get. on when they were coming back, no fault of their own -- spit on when they come back, and no fault of their own, because of the government. if you want to do them justice, take some of these leaders in government and data mining looking at how these wars started, especially during the bush administration, especially when he had meetings with energy companies and everything else. why are we sending our people to wars when i believe this last

war was no different than another war, which was an inside job. nobody is going to jail in the government when they steal from the people and the banks. the industrial complex has gotten bigger. we have the patriot act, and nobody has a voice. if you speak up, you might be deemed a terrorist. these soldiers are coming back with plutonium poisoning and everything else, and i called one time to ask the gentleman who said he was going to take care of the soldiers, and they're not doing anything. host: thank you. renminbi soldiers of this era coming -- are the soldiers of this era coming home with medical conditions that are unfamiliar? guest: i am not familiar with

chemical exposures or the like. the signature injury for this generation is a traumatic brain injury, and a condition that only had an official diagnosis after vietnam. loss of limbs -- i think 1400 head head -- have had that, but some of these conditions take awhile to become evident. there is some awareness and interest in studying the cte, the brain atrophy as a result of injuries to the brain, the kind of issues we obscene sports players fall to parent -- two. host: "washington times"

host: it's an interesting time to look at the number of hispanics and other races in the military. let's get this chart. host: -- guest: since 1990, the diversity has grown. the percentage of white, not hispanic, has decreased. this shows the race and hispanic origin by race for veterans, and among -- by age, and among younger age groups they are more diverse. among 18-to-40-year-olds, about

one in three are non-white, non- hispanic. host: hear other percentages for those of you at home. maybe the camera can get in closer. 50% are black, 13%, hispanic or latino. compare that to the 55 age group, where there is a noticeable shift. does that come with any issues? guest: in many ways i think it is nothing but a great thing for our country to have a military that demographically reflects the society that it serves. there might be differences between economic representation, i think it is encouraging that we have racial and ethnic diversity that parallels civilian society. host: we are looking at america

by the numbers. houston. jason terry good morning -- jason, who was a veteran. good morning. caller: i was calling about the first caller, but as i have been listening, i guess what i called about has changed. when i really want to talk about -- when i really want to talk about is the benefits veterans receive when they come out. i am a 2000-2004 and veteran -- the veteran, and a lot of my friends and a gun all over time, and a lot of people that i met -- have gotten out over time, and a lot of people i'm not going to school, a lot of people have had trouble receiving benefits, just trying to get their benefits, and i know the policies are changing. they have been changing a lot.

with the chapter bill, everyone thought it was golden, but it is making it harder for veterans to go to school. by now -- i know that the money that you get from it is pretty good, but you cannot really live off of it, so to speak. if you want to become a full- time student, it is really hard, and the only thing you get out of it is an associate's degree and a lot of jobs require bachelor's degrees. there are a lot of job offerings, but there are a lot of veterans. they cannot offer jobs to every single veterans. -- veteran. host: what are you studying? caller: i am going foreign

associates. i plan to get a bachelor's in psychology. i have been diagnosed. my wife is a veteran as well. she's done great taking care of me. we of three boys. we try to do our best paradigm of a lot of friends the have ptsd as well. i have to take medication for it. i used to get really angry when it came to topics like this, but i'm just saying that it is really hard for every day veterans -- we are working class citizens. my parents were working class people effected by economic hardships like everyone else, and it makes it really hard for everyone to get back up on their feet when they keep getting knocked down. you get the check the 9/11 bill that comes out and everybody is

praising it, and you get a stipend and a housing allowance and whatnot, but in the end it is not enough to survive on. you could at a single-family, just a husband and wife, and it will still be hard for the veterans to get a job of an associate's degree he is getting with the chapter 9/11 bill. host: thank you, jason. we will put the tenants of the bill upon the screen. we will return to our guests to add some caller to what jason had to say. guest: that experience is reflected in many veterans coming home. we have programs that are intended to help, but sometimes the rules and the bureaucracy are so thick that is difficult for people coming home, someone like jason hu might be dealing

with mental health issues -- jason, who might be dealing with mental health issues. it is difficult to manage bureaucracy in my own life, much less when you're dealing with a number of other conditions. the gi bill provides students with 36 months of tuition, a living stipend, but many veterans are getting out at soks higher than e4, they're used to earning more, some going back to a stipend at a level that you might of been at years ago is difficult to manage. host: this looks said veterans educational -- looks at veterans educational assessment. host: -- guest: what we find here is veterans are more likely than non-veterans to earn a high

school degree and have some college education, but they are less likely to complete a degree than non-veterans. host: do you have any sense as to why? guest: you know, it could have a lot to do with what kind of institution you choose to attend. host: starting the process later, too? guest: starting the process later -- family can go and get in the way. it is easier when you do not have family evocations -- obligations. sometimes all wife and children need to get in the way of completing a degree, and different campuses have a different level of attention and services provided to veterans on campus. it is important for veterans to look at the places they would like to attend college. host: twitter --

host: moving from military service to civilian, public service toward this looks set -- service. guest: what we see is veterans and non-veterans participate in the labour force and similar rates, but those under 55, veterans are more likely to participate, and over 55, they're slightly less likely. host: is that a factor of how you crunch the numbers? there were lots of people that might be going to school, or raising families, so when you just slice off the veteran population it is easier to beset the numbers. -- dissect the numbers.

guest: we broken out by age. host: at 55 and above it starts to equalize because people are making decisions to it acquired -- retire? guest: i imagine so. guest: that might be the case in particular for veterans that serve a 20-year career in the military. if you entered at 18 or 20 years old you might be able to retire around 40. host: bernie, a veteran in denver, colorado. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i sit on a committee and in denver va committee where we are building a facility that will be the most complete diagnostic research and treatment center in

america for veterans. i would like to answer questions you do not seen the able to answer. we are providing arguably the finest health care system -- excuse me, i'm a little out of breath. i'm 81 years old. i was in the caribbean war. -- car re-in war -- korean war. arguably, the service's veterans are applying to, including specialty care services, which includes everything the private sector delivers, we will see 77,000 patients in denver in our facility this year. with regard to disability claims, any boot on the ground during the vietnam war is entitled to benefits.

it takes six-to-nine months. i applied for a benefit because i lost my hearing in july of 2011, and i was awarded 60% visibility on march 1. it was grandfathered to me, and i will begin to receive a benefit for the rest of my life, which is substantial. i will answer some questions if you have them. host: i was going to just say thank you, as we are four minutes away from the program and in. what can you add to that story? guest: this story, as good as it is, is challenged by some veterans. va provides services that others

cannot provide. many research studies have shown that the quality of care provided by the va supersedes civilian society. i think the story is good for va in general. is the bureaucracy -- it is the bureaucracy host: our viewer -- bureaucracy. host: our viewer had statistics. you survey the that. guest: what this shows is that for both veterans and non- veterans, they overwhelmingly participate in the labor force and are employed in the private sector. however, that being said, as a previous caller alluded to, they are much more likely to be employed in the government, federal, state, and local.

host: this blue bar is the veterans against the orangemen are, not veterans. ok. why is that? does it affect government pensions if you move to a civilian public sector job? guest: i am not familiar with how the double dipping questions about two types of pensions works out. host: second, would there be hiring programs? guest: veterans have a hiring preference did they get a priority depending on whether they have a disability or other circumstances. i think in many cases it is clear that veterans have something to bring to the table for the department of defense or veterans affairs, for example. in addition to the priority, their skills are applicable.

host: george, new jersey, active duty line. caller: i am a vietnam war veteran. i wore the uniform for eight years, from 1968, to 1975, and more importantly, i met my wife in the regular army, and she loves the life. i am presently on active duty with 70 years in what they call the active-duty military -- 17 years in what they call the active-duty military now. she has 18 years in the reserve. i look at my own demographics. i'm approaching 62, and i am probably at the young age of my colleagues and peers out there. so, that is why am.

if i had to get right off, i would ask you to do two things. have two other shows. i think you're spotlight is far too narrow. it would be great if you had a follow-up show on military families, since we have an all volunteer army. when i served we had a draft. it was very much more like a world war two army than it is today, and it was uncommon for a first sergeant to talk to end e2 who was having family problems and say that if the army wanted you to have a wife they would issue you one. the other issue is the military debt. there is a report out that says

80% of civilians do not have a clue what military life for experience is. host: sorry to cut you off, but we have 30 seconds left. do you keep statistics on military families? guest: do not have statistics today for you, but one might be able to use some of the service to produce that data. host: you can take the numbers and slice them differently? guest: i think that is an important issue. we talk about the civil military gap. it is less than 1% of the american military today. that means 99% have not been directly affected by this war. host: thank you for the idea. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. may 25, 2012. i hereby appoint the honorable steven c. latourette to act as strote on this day. -- to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy.

chaplain conroy: let us pray. almighty god of the universe, we give you thanks for giving us another day. as our nation enters this long memorial day weekend, may we all be mindful of the sacrifices made by so many of our citizen ancestors who gave their lives in the service of these united states. may they rest in peace. may we be equally transparent to the men and women who currently serve in our armed forces and thank you for their generous gift of self so that we might spend our days in peace and security. may peace prevail in our world so that all our soldiers might return to their families in good health. on this day, i give you thanks for the distinct honor of serving as the chaplain of the house of representatives for this past year. bless us this day and every day

and may all that is done within these hallowed halls be for your greater honor and glory. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house sundry communications. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on may 23, 2012, at 9:38

a.m. appointments, congressional award board, with best wishes, i am, signed, sincerely, karen l. haas. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir. pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on may 24, 2012, at 10:06 a.m. that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 4097. that the senate passed senate 2367. appointments, united states commission on international religious freedom. with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on may 24, 2012, at 5:01

p.m. that the senate passed with an amendment h.r. 1905. that the senate passed with an amendment h.r. 5740. that the senate passed senate 3187. with best wishes i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the house stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m. on tuesday, may 29, 2012.

>> you can order online. coming up on c-span, a discussion on the major national security challenges facing the u.s. over the next four years. live at 11:00 a.m. on c-span. elected the british inquiry on c-span2 after revelations that british newspapers hacked into the voice mail of celebrities. c spas' been covering many of the hearings over the past few months. today, we'll show you some of those sessions. the witnesses, rupert murdoch and rebekah brooks.

here is look at some of our other weekend holiday programming. >> life is incredibly precious. use all of your unique talents to serve one another as that will be the true measure by which your life will be judged. follow the golden rule. >> watch commencement speeches on c-span. scaring the thought of the graduating class of 2002, saturday through tuesday. >> there is an extra day of book tv-- >> there's an extra day of "book tv" this holiday weekend. aaron burr, a different side of the new york politician and vice president, saturday night

said 8:30 eastern. and the former director for asian affairs at the national security council on the impossible state, north korea. victor cha. >> the dialogue on human rights is a ridiculous dialogue because you can tell them you need to improve your human rights situation and their response will be, "well, the united states has human-rights problems, too. that is not a comparable discussion." >> that is saturday night at 10:00. also this weekend, operation red wing, from his book about a navy seal at war. that's sunday night at 10:00. three days of book tv on c- span2. >> now a discussion on job discussion. we'll hear from the head of the news service. he says the u.s. needs to strengthen intellectual property protection.

>> my name is michael davidson. i am the ceo of gen next. nationwide.ould g for those of you, to give you a context, we try to find successful people who are forward thinking, they want to do better, be better, and we try to give them information, access, knowledge, a network to be consequential on issues, primarily in economic education. and global security is basies b. many of you here are already members, but those of you who are not members, that will suffice. that is part of the process, exposing members and guests to leaders who move ideas and advance them and shape the

debate across the board. tonight that is mark anderson, the ceo of strategic news service, the first online newsletter on the internet, a subscription based newsletter on the internet, and bill gates reads it, every major thought leader reads it. michael dell reads it. he is prominent in the space of prediction. 95% of the time since 1995 all his predictions have come true. two cools ones. one, he predicted the liquidity collapse before anybody else did. he also predicted steve jobs would return to apple. i was before steve jobs knew he would return to apple. he runs the conference on technology that "the economist" magazine has named one of the best conferences in the world,

and fortune 500 has named him one of the smartest people we know. for you and news junkies, you will see him on bloomberg, cnbc. in every sense of the world he is a thought leader and he is an entrepreneur. we're fortunate to have him here tonight. put on your thinking caps because there will be questions and answers, and i will moderate those questions. with that, mark anderson, everybody. [applause] >> hello, everybody. nice to be here. thank you for having me. i think my marching orders are 15 minutes to be talking away at you and then we will talk together for the next 45 minutes. so start taken up questions and complaints -- i trust if you

have comments, complaints, and we will cover that right after. i want to talk about something that is half obvious to you. yet this is to lead you to a new idea of america and other nations and what they should do today and tomorrow which they are not doing which they may have no choice if they want to succeed. this sounds dramatic, and i think that comment is well placed. i want to give you a little background about this. i spend time making predictions in technology and markets. you have to look around the world and look at levels of things. i was forced to look at the countries around the pacific- asia rim and try to figure out how they ran their business models nationally, not what was in the newspapers, but the truth of the matter. that is quite different, by the way. beginning with post-war japan,

and in south korea, picking up on all these tools that i will call mercantilist, for lack of a word. very intent business model, purpose of which is to be asymmetric in trade. this first step is hard for americans to get which talks about free trade and win-win situations. you have to put a different thinking cap on because that is not the view of the countries i will talk about this evening. it is a win-lose situation, the whole idea of import-export numbers. if you want to be successful in modern times, the whole idea is how can i be unfair, how can i do things where my partner gets hurt and where i do well? that means i have a lot of exports and no imports. or very few. they have a lot of imports and i do not. -- and i get all the money.

this story has been going on for a long time with smaller nations, and it is fascinating. japan, there was a time not so long ago when japan was reaching full flower in the exercise of this model, and they were focused on the united states. we were a real power then. we lost about five industries, major industries, overnight, overnight, because they were so efficient at what they did. the business model is a perfect match for the u.s. business model. or the german business model or the u.k. business model. the things we do make us very strong in some ways and very vulnerable in other ways. in that case, japan was able to quickly not only compete well, but destroy the american presence in the industries of steel, ram chips, television sets -- a world where we were the leading manufacturer of television sets.

some people would disagree but i think we invented it. we lost all those companies to all those industries in a matter of a few years. finally, intel came along and fought back and the new intel emerged. you probably know that story. japan continues in that model, but in a wiser way, more nuanced way, and this began a long story. and if you watch south korea today, they are doing exactly what japan did to america. if you vote for tv's, do not vote for japan, vote for south korea. chips, sameting for story. there will be a number of lcd screens, flat screens, so clearly samsung and the guys in south korea have taken two

looks at the japanese model and one-upped them. these are relatively small countries, but then came china. china has not only a top-down government, but they have that ability to -- be big. every number is a big number. we were able to tolerate the experience of the economic -- having somebody steal our intellectual property, dumping it into our markets, destroying our industries, and still survive. we're here today. when it was a small problem, we survived it. we're now looking at a quantity situation which is so large and so focused that i do not believe we can survive. i do not mean we america. the number of nations which invent things is now imperiled. the global economy, based on

essentially technology and inventing things, based on intellectual property, and we have a level of theft occurring right now that is ramping up and not getting worse, that is so intense, focused, clearly planned, so effective that richard clarke last week said probably every american corporation has crown jewels of interest in china that china has already robbed. that went out from the head of the gshq in britain. in my opinion, it is the first chapter which is already over. all those crown jewels have already been taken, no matter whether it is a chip design or an airplane design. whatever it is, it is gone. we are at the stage where we ask ourselves, if you are a microsoft person who is a systems analyst, can this thing run forever?

and i think the answer is no, it cannot. with the level of effort we are looking at, and it is called parasitism, it is not likely that we will continue to be able to enjoy the economic efforts in the way we did before. i go further to say that is already happening. you can look at markets today and see the destruction of those markets. i will mention telecom equipment. everybody knows there are bodies over the road. and more coming, from motorola and otherrs. s. a company from china, which is about to be champion in that

market, and the bid is 40% or so lower than all other bids, we are seeing this over and over. you saw the announcement from the solar industry this week that they are firing 3,000 employees. one-third of the workforce is gone. in every place you look, where you might think it is strategic, the same problem. so what are we going to do? complain? whine? whining will not work. threats will not work. saying you're upset will not work either. bringing wto actions are not very effective for a couple of reasons. there's no enforcement branch by the wto. there's no teeth in it. you cannot bring in enough per week. there are so many infringements and it takes several years to go to the appeals process to get one done.

we just found china guilty of dumping solar panels. i think the was a 1.5% penalty. the wto is not the right engine. -- the right answer, as far as i can tell. this means as a country, not just this country, but others -- anybody in the inventing business has to rethink it. the way we did business before, a more gentleman's game, that is not how it works now. you invent on monday and i will see it on wednesday. good luck. may the best man win. so how do we deal with that? two steps. one step is often discussed. we have always been an inventing nation. that is america, what we do. the germans do it, too. germans have also been that, and we need to start seeing

ourselves differently. self-image is a powerful tool. i do not think we have an image today. we do not say that we come from an inventing nation, but we do. that is the simplest way i can describe the economic history of america, and that is what we have to get back to -- "i am from an invented nation and i will change everything." we have it in us. we have been doing it for so long, but we do not see ourselves that way. we have to imagine ourselves with that role model in mind and understand who we are. i will tell you what we are not. we're not britney spears, we are not celebrities, not drug addicts, not fast car drivers, and we are not jerks. we're pretty smart, we work pretty hard, often too hard. the rest of the world is looking at us. we're working 90-hour weeks sometimes. we have to work smart and not

kind of smart. not mcdonald's smart. we have to work in a way that advances the whole idea of this nation being an inventing nation, and if we do that, great things will happen. i think for many people, that touches your own personal agenda, whether k-12 education, higher education -- make a list of things we are worried about -- investment rules, regulations -- all those things peel back off the original onion of we are an inventing nation. the positive story is if we do this i believe it is possible to re-create the economic elite we have joined for a long time. people get this and look at all these lost jobs or that we have been stagnant for 20 years. or the incomes have not gone up since 1979. probably all true.

what you are really seeing, and this is the part i want to get through to you tonight, this is not because we just had a president who did not know anything about economics, or banks that got out of control. this is a bigger story, the story that what happens when in an inventing nation all the intellectual property goes somewhere for nothing. that's why we do not have jobs. that is why jobs are not going to come right back. that is why there is no old normal, there is gone to be a new normal, and that is not going to be the one you want. if you want a different one from mcjobs, you've got to have high-value intellectual property created in a regular way. this leads to part two. then i am pretty much done. once you invent something as beautiful as it might be, if you give it away, or if you expose it or if you lose track of it or if it is stolen from you, the day after it will not do you much good.

it does not matter whether you are microsoft, in operating systems or airplanes. bad things are in your future. the return on investment for those will begin to fall, and i will say again i believe it is not in the future this will happen. this is happening right now. the return on assets that we may have enjoyed 20 years ago we are not enjoying today and that is why. it does not matter what you make. there is a list in china right now. it used to be 115 things. it is now 407 things of economic interest. you are in it. whenever you do. it is big enough to include everything in a phone book i can think of. soyou have got to be aware if you are in charge of innovation in your company, this is the primary risk you face, and if you are a national leader, this is the primary risk you face.

the risk is not to re-create jobs. -- building bridges? that is not the answer. the job is to re-create jobs, creating high-margin intellectual property which you can have -- and it will not turn to zero on wednesday. you will not be competing with your own engineering talent on friday when it shows up for half price in town. all these things are happening right now. so how do you protect it? a lot of people feel it is impossible. i have been working on this with people who know what they are doing, and it is not possible at all. as a matter of fact, the military does it all the time. what is hard to get ceo's focused on this. it is an educational problem. once you convince them they have to act as the way that the military acts, the teams being assigned to them are military-

grade teams. great people, and that is why they can cut through normal corporations like a hot knife through butter. it takes them a little effort to get you to start. -- to get your stuff. it does not matter who you are. when you saw rsa have their master keys lifted almost effortlessly by china and used against lockheed, that should have been the ultimate wakeup call. it is not as if you could spend money and solve the problem. even rsa was attacked. i think all of our commercial firms were.ams wer we know google was. google was brave enough by the way it stood up and talked about it. it gains huge points for this, and part of it is standing up and just talking about it. it is like everything else. if everybody keeps their

private little secret that they got hit, nobody will solve the problem. so we need to make sure that people have the nerve talk about it. intel filed an fcc notice that they were hit. we have to be opened up to these things, describe the problem, and get on with it, and there is a solution. there are technical ways to identify your crown jewels, give them a high value internally, put them onto a server, and unplug the server from the internet. this is exactly what the department of defense does. it works great. does not cost anything. [laughter] pull the plug. restrict the number of people who have access and review them

about once a year. have attention to what car you are driving. -- pay attention to what part they are driving. the expensive stuff that comes behind that and it takes years, but the simple things are very effective. i think those two things, if america wants to really launch again, we could beat high energy, high income, high success, but it is not because we are going to pass some new bridge project. it will be because we took this to heart, identified ourselves as an inventing nation, and are going to protect the stuff we make. that is my 15 minutes, and now we should open it up to you for conversation. and your own ideas -- and get your own ideas. >> that was fantastic. thank you. round of applause? right up our wheelhouse. we will get you in one second. i have a question.

you mentioned china. i have a watch given to me by a member, and it is chairman mao waving at me, and it is a reminder you only have so much time it, but you have to compete. and there are people that want to compete with you. we did a program with the former chairman and ceo of intel, and one thing he said i remember -- you do not win unless you choose to compete. what i'm hearing from you is we have not chosen to compete. we do not see ourselves that way. you run a conference call future in review, a cool name. imagine the future and we are successful, and review it. what was our action plan to get there? >> it is a lot like what i described. we're trying to get stories in "fortune." the front cover of "business week." we brought this story about 14

months ago on television. we want to have people understand the problem. it will be nice to have some people stand up who say, i get it and become role models for everybody else. gaverey emoimmelt blueprint's away for nothing. given awave it away. he was made the jobs a c zar. i think jeff would be a good example. i think he would be perfect guy to do that. i get it.

i understand. i know he thinks this. we are technology-driven company. it is a hole no idea -- a while idea. if she did that, i think other people would get the message. >> speak up. it seems like the tone of our society has changed. now you have occupy wall street people.g says cecil peopsuccesl how'd you change this tone in society were the entrepreneurs have become the bad guy? >> i don't think you're right

about that. i did nothing the on jupiter is the bad guy -- i don't think the entrepreneur is the bad guy. but wall street rightfully got enough. nobody has gone to jail yet. i think there is a lot of anger over wall street. in the public view, that gets vague, fuzy. people do not keep track. of some onkeep track wall street -- if you're rich, that is a problem. the political pundits make hay

from this. you're fighting a machine. stay with program. we need to of a cultural change -- we need to have a cultural change. people will see that. "brian is pretty cool." that's what we want. i think that happens in every community. >> thank you for coming out to talk to us tonight. great ideas. infer -- when you combine government and cronyism and capitals a, you get crapitolism.

we see that right now. our need to get urgent about entrepreneurs will result in bad outcomes like solyndra. we continue to fund things without money that we have. greasing the skids -- >> solyndra. was a company -- was the company? >> first solar. >> you are seeing the american solar industry getting gutted by a fish. in the middle of the plan, money dumped that into the

market and destroyed their business plan. it is really a plan that china had to make sure that those guys didn't succeed. don't blame solyndra. blame china. be smart. we are seeing carnage in a lot of places. look around. i'm not trying to espouse any kind of program. i believe there is a role in trade. governments make a trade deal. my hope is that one result is that governments in america and australia and canada and the u.k. and europe get together and agree that nations will have as

a top trade priority trading with other nations that protect i.p. if they do that, good things will happen. >> i encourage you to ask questions because we have time for it. >> that lends itself to some questions. what can we do? my partner was mentioning you're talking about government in for intervention but it seems like a exclusion our path you're talking about doing business with like on the international scale. on the flip side, you mentioned that unplugging the server and keeping the act of i.t. -- a way

to talk kilobit toward the idea of of, how real is the danger of reverse engineering or being able to take a finalized product and being able to work back so the server would not mean anything if you unplugged it. >> you can live with it. there will ever be a terrific world. there will never be a time when it doesn't leak somehow. this will keep happening. i think as is not is it white and black story but of one of degree. right now the level of theft is very high. of those 407 -- shopping list is done. i would call it 100% success.

what if we had only 20% or 30% loss? 30%.uld tolerate the represen nobody knows what the numbers are. we're thinking of the economy in terms of intellectual property. it is always too small on the balance sheets of corporations. it down to zero? what is the strategic value to the people want to compete with it in my own business? what is that the value of a jet engine > i will make up a number =--

$100 million. the valet of the guy who got it is probably $10 billion. my understanding is that india has spent nine years trying to a pratt whitney jetnesdineer engine. maybe it would be harder if he did not give away. >> the idea of refunding that energy of being an investing nation and it may be think of israel where they have more startups person than any other country. from a p.r. perspective, how you recapture that energy of four individuals are encouraged and

almost naturally find their way towards inventing and entrepreneurship. >> i think seattle is already doing it. they're more start-ups ever year is seems like. the venture guys are a little behind. a lot of the good money comes from california and boston. boeing , microsoft. you start adding all these different segments. we're doing pretty good. we are developing people or they are coming here to live here. we're pretty good answer to, "what do you do? you see people try to do wouit. a lot of folks try to find new ways of starting up. up costs are on the way down --

start-up costs are on their way down. "what did we do here that made this happen in seattle?" the only idea i have -- a love the idea of starting companies easy. i would like to be easier. i like to see a program where you walk in and you fill it out yourself and say, this is my company. i have two years to get this right. then i will give you the other 400 pages. right now, i want to see if this will work. .t wouldn't be that hard >> you mentioned a relationship

with china were the playing field is not level in part because you have a wto that is broken. i agree with you. he did not mention romney current manipulation. -- did not mention the current manipulation. what is the solution? >> you have to find these claims to fame and market them to people. the use of the term "currency wars." i have been following the japanese yen dollars or four years and china got involved in the deal and it became more interesting. i didn't see china that way at

first. as i realize there was a model, i looked at what the peg is. peg is a great pr word. is -stoodat the pay ieg reinvention.constant if i'm any country and i decide there are two ways for my guys to get -- home. we can work hard or invent more or will do what china did word will messan did and i with the money. brazil is experiencing what we

experienced earlier. every time there is a partner debts with china, what's the unfortunate dance partner. first sign is the currency get slammed. the currency went up 34% in one year. that makes things expensive at home. now things are out of control. every president knows this. china is not playing fairly. how do you play? they will laugh at you. they want to favor export companies. now you're from peru. everybody is playing the game except you. we've taken the wrong path for

the wrong reason to get ahead. the result is a completely out of whack currency system worldwide. people take the pledge and say, not japan, south korea. but l find a new basketbal,, no more intervention. we'll all gang up on you at once. i think we need that time and situation. we do not have that right now. it is out of control. >> like you to address the greatest asset which is creativity in general. how much of a commodity do think it is and what can we do to leverage it?

>> great question. hard question. there is a book i have not read it which is very good. it is called "imagine" and it is about creativity. i think he is on to a deep understanding of creativity. i am a science guy. we're all taught the scientific method when we are kids. you have an idea and you test it. you take the results and compared to what you thought and go again. we teach is to our kids in science. this is like the answer to what we're supposed to do. they forget one thing -- where did the bloody idea come from?

i have never been to a class of any kind that teaches that. einstein -- he asked himself -- speed of light is running along and i was running along -- he was 16. where did he get that question? that's what you're asking me. there are some answers. there are things we can do that will lead to more creativity. if you sit and stare at the proble and have more coffee, that will not do wit. he step aside and go for a walk.

famous stories for people who get off the bus, they had a dream. people have these ideas offline. we are to include the idea of going off line as part of the creative process. that will be eight teachable moments. -- that will be a teachable moment. >> the risk trading with countries and not to another value of gen next the risk not spreading democracy to places like eastern europe, russia, china, other places where we want to spread our ideals and values by shutting down that trade with countries that do not protect i.p. like we do.

>> i did not mean to say shutdown. i like the idea there is a preference. get china to pay attention. that might be the only thing that gets china to pay attention. there is a myth about china and they are wrong. i don't know if there were planted by china or somebody trying to help china, but these are the opposite of what is happening. i will give you a couple of examples. human rights are getting better because we're trading with china. no. there are more private companies now than there were before.

sorry. it reversed and there are more state-owned enterprises as a fraction of the total then there were before. is turning toa domestic consumption. check the numbers. the% of gdp is actually percentage of the declini gdp is actually declining. whenever you think you're achieving, you are not. that is a myth, a wish. you don't do that. you do something different. >> i had a question. he said that you're not saying

to stop trading with these countries. you want to give them preferential treatment. how'd you define that? >> i don't. you can help me do that. we do not realize you do not know it. america has been bled to death in a trade war that we do not recognize and we are not allowed to talk about. all the tools i am describing are unfair, on balance, not fair trade tools that they are playing by. the fact has been to almost destroyed our economy. -- the effect has been almost destroyed our economy. a cyber attacks the would halt

the fleet in its track. they have a lot to worry about. their job has been to protect the nation through the military ways, military techniques. they say don't fight the next war like the last war. that is what we're doing. my favorite metaphor is there's a patients on the table and a line in his vein and the blood is going up as fast as possible. the last thing the vampire wants to do is upset that patients. they are making too much money. wait until we of solo left and we are going to be done unless we get the first part fixed, the military part. if we don't get the military staff working -- they're more

guys in the dod that understand what i'm saying that in the commercial world. they want the economy to be the number-one issue. "this is our number one concern." they have elevated it to number one. we are in a trade war. how do we get out of it? how can we make things normal again? >> my issue is improving education, invention, creativity or failing in this country in all of our education system but particularly our k-12. what is your take on that and how do you improve that for the

future? >> i can solve the problem in four minutes. i spent six years where we took microsoft and intel and the to the problem you're asking. we work with kids and superintendents. i know what the answer is. ignore everybody what they say to you and to the following things. provide broadband to every school. provide access for the students at home, a matter what those parents make in terms of money so every kid can do his our homework. provide professional development for the time so at of timahead of

they're properly trained. there are no exceptions. you have to take the professional development. provide support at the school. when teachers need to know advice, they know where to turn to. that's all there is to it. i will suggest that that isn't even very expensive. people had no idea about technology. people said it is expensive. no, it's not. you can get broadbent for not very much money -- can get broadband for not very much money. he is a tech guy.

i think will happen is there is a business model where the school becomes the broadband distributor and make some money doing that and insures that the kids in the school district are provided. it can be a public-private partnership, which hyoscine work in san diego. you basically have the student and teacher connected to the world of knowledge directly, and that is the revolution in k-12 you have to have. it is the only way out. >> did you have a question? and then brian. >> one of our strengths as a country -- we are an immigrant nation.

as the world evolves and liberalizes and economies become stronger, do you anticipate having the effect in terms of being able to attract greater talent? >> you bet. it happens now. do you know how many students come to this country for education? i was just in australia. their number two or three revenue line is students coming to education. huge numbers. if we put our head down and do the job, be creative, people will come to us and learn how to do that. you bet. >> you sat next to me on it 5- hour flight from washington, d.c.

you can melt here. respond that walmart is the peg, we have these low-cost of goods and we serve all kinds of people with groceries and foodstuffs. >> i disagree with everything you said. i used to think the same thing. i used to think that walmart was great for poor people. you go to walmart for a sleeping bag. they say it has to be $9.95 . is a the family has to eat.

now i'm on a plane to china. they are happy to do that. walmart becomes an agent of the chinese government in the sense that what down the aisle and check how many things are made in chine ia in walmart. the people who would of made those things are on the streets. the people that used to make furniture in north carolina are on the streets. there are people who have been retrained but not enough. i do not know what the numbers are. the others were getting mcjobs. they easily get $20 an hour --

$20 an hour.y used to get you know people will kill to get $1 a day. you have the president of this country and you say you should believe in free trade. there was no difference. i think they didn't think it through. ross perot was actually right. that was the destruction of the middle class. if you are willing to say no tariffs and no boundaries and the borders, and guess what will happen? your average wage will drop from whatever it is today to 50 cents per hour. want that to happen, you have to talk about words you don't like to use light trade policy, industrial

policy. if you want to save the steel -- that is not necessarily free trade. we are in a situation where we need to be honest with ourselves internally and decide what is important. if having a middle-class is important, we can do that but we did not have that conversation. we just did free trade and now it is gone. >> the last two questions -- >> you said something where you said we are in a trade war and director recognize that if we make these changes, it is time to get back when it was normal again. when do you pack it was normal? >> that's a very good question. i have no idea. [laughter] that is like saying some leakage is ok. there has always been wars and

their caused by trade problems or by burgeoning populations or lack of resources. what is normal? it is pretty ugly. if you are a mind that you like to have a somewhat sustainable project then you've got to plan for it. it will not happen ad hoc. >> it is not to stanch the bleeding? >> exec rewrite. i'm not saying there will not be more theft or you won't win or lose half the time, you will. that is fine. that is normal. if you lose every time, that is no good. >> you are describing a situation where is this slow bleed, once you finally realize you are about to die, you're pretty much dead. >> it is when there is a faster leak you are dead. >> what will be the seminal

moment dax-co >> you can watch the rest of this online in our video library at c-span.org. we will take you live now to the brookings institution for a discussion on globalization and security to the u.s. of -- as part of its campaign 2012 project. they're releasing foreign policy recommendations for the next president. live coverage is getting under way on c-span. >> the results of this campaign will have to manage -- could for those of you who have not been to prior events and for those who have, i apologize for this being repetitious but for those of you who haven't been to the previous events, want to describe the way this project works. we have sort of divided up the world of the campaign into 12 major issues, some of them foreign, some of them domestic, some of them hybrid.

for each of those issues, we have asked a brookings scholar or sometimes a pair of them to write a paper situating the discussion of the issue in the context of the campaign, talking about president obama's record on the subject, talking about the republican opposition and try to sympathize -- synthesize the merits of the record and merit the critiquing to something like a set of action items are advised for the incoming administration whether it is a second term of the obama administration or -- we are allowed to say it now -- a mitt romney administration. we had to pretend we did not know for a long time. the subjects for today -- for each of these subjects, we then asked two or sometimes two groups of other brookings scholars to write a response

paper. sometimes these were simply arguments, people who disagreed with that thesis of the main paper and more often they were efforts to add texture and richness, look at the issue from a slightly different point of view and then for each of these groups, the 12 groups of three papers, we are having an event like this at which the authors of the main paper and the author of the response paper get together with a moderator from "political" and discussed. our subject today is america's role in the world which has been a particularly, over the course of the republican primaries, has been a recurrent thematic matter of criticism of the obama administration. it is one subject at the obama administration has talked a lot about and is subject it has been

criticized a lot about. it has actually played a large role surprisingly to a larger vision of american power and a larger role in the campaign. before i turned over and introduced our panel and turn it over to them, i would like to announce that the compilation of all of these sets of 12 papers and responses is now available. as of this week, it has shown up. some of these papers we have had the events for and some of them we have not. we will be doing so over the next remaining months of the campaign. the books are available at a table outside this fall when you leave. i hope you enjoy it. so to discuss today's subject, the main paper was written by

bruce jones it was a senior fellow in government studies here and at nyu as well our response papers were written by homey korantz a senior fellow in global economy and development and by the brookings president. here to moderate is edward devare from politico. i will turn it over to him, thank you. >> thank you, ben. i have been paying a lot of attention to what the administration has been doing over last couple of months and years as well as how it is playing out on the campaign trail. there has been a lot of talk about it in the primary campaign. there was a lot of talk in ways that are not exactly the

traditional ways for democrats and republicans to talk about foreign policy when it comes to the general election. there is a lot to discuss but to start, if you could set the table for us, bruce. tell us where you see the main issues, the main situation, on the global stage that is of concern and relevance to the united states and how the different approaches that mitt romney and barack obama have taken to discussing them might play out come 2013. >> thank you. let me start further back and address that question. it seems to me we are in a moment of some uncertainty and doubt in the american public mind said about our role in the world and the nature of the world we are confronting. there is an awful lot that is changing. the u.s. economy is exposed to an integrated with the global

economy now at a scale that is substantially different than was true 20 years ago. there are rising powers who have greater influence on world politics and greater influence in national security in internet security than 10 years ago. the middle east is in turmoil. our allies and our stakes in that region are substantial. there are a number of things that i think create uncertainty and doubt in the public mind set. this gets injected in a simplistic debate about american decline. we have had a lot of discussion and debate about american decline. i think it is the wrong way of understanding the problem. the rhetoric of decline runs far ahead of the reality of decline. there are new factors and the world, new actors, new economic relations and we have to adjust our policy to deal with it. the second point i would make is that we have lived for 65 years

in an international system characterized by two fundamental realities -- the international system was built by, protected by, controlled by american power and the second reality is that our power, by our own choice, was embedded in a series of institutions, alliance's command arrangements for partnerships for cooperation. i don't see anything in either campaign or anything in the policy of the president or anything that mitt romney says that will change those fundamental realities. they are the core tenets of the relationship to the american power and international order and they are likely to remain true for a long period of time. we confront new challenges -- china is flexing its naval chuck -- unable muscle in the south china seas and india is injecting itself on the world stage, turkey, mexico, those countries are -- we are

economically dependent on those countries like never before. those are realities. he did the president will have to adapt to them. we will delay -- hear a lot of rhetoric about this. mitt romney will accuse obama of apologizing for america and not believing in -- an american accent journalism. obama will say he is tested. the rhetoric will be in the campaign in ace will try to frame the other as not having a good grasp or the tools to manage our role in the world. we don't know what mitt romney actually since much of about foreign policy. he has advisers but when i read the couple of speeches he has given on foreign policy and destroy the rhetoric and you look at what he says he would do, i funding distinguishable from the essential policy of this administration. >> pick up what is it your paper

which is a discussion of these issues on the campaign trail and how it affects the deeper things that are going on, the negotiation, the conversations with foreign nations and halifax those relationships. >> saure, thank you. i will pick up from one bruce has said. my co operandi are in the category of responses. -- michael author and i are in the category of -- my co-author and i are in the category of respondents. what process just said is essentially good news because of you extrapolate for word from

the substantive overlap between what is emerging as a mitt romney platform on foreign policy and the actual foreign policy of the obama administration, there is not a great deal of difference and that is a good thing. there have been a lot of positive features to president obama's foreign policy which, by the way, demonstrates some degree of continuity with the second term of the george w. bush administration. there was the reliance on the g- 20 which was an invention or a convening of george w. bush. i don't think that we the american people nor our friends abroad need to worry overmuch that there will be a radical breach. to go to the not such good news -- john michael and i focused in on what we regard as a

perverse and even tragic irony about american democracy. i think it is fair to say that that function of american democracy that is most important and consequential is the presidential election. that coincides with an election of 1/3 of the senate and all members of the house. that is a very big day. every four years in our lives. it is consequential for us and consequential for the world. very often, the outcome, much or often than not, the outcome is sensible and one we can be proud of on an all community and non- partisan basis. the process by which we get to that point, the nature of the national discourse for conversation is pretty dreadful.

it has been about as bad this time around as we have seen it in a long time. it tends to start as much more of a shouting match, blame- storming. we were already getting a sense of the charges that will be made in each direction. that guy is a fat cat who strapped his labrador retriever on a station wagon when he goes on vacation and is not sensitive to the needs of the american people. back as middle name is bhussein. that is not the kind of conversation we need. that is an extension, i think, of the extraordinary polarization that afflicts our domestic politics and policy making, particularly at the federal level. it has at least two very

deleterious effects on our standings in the eyes of the world and that is the topic we have been asked to address which is american leadership. it is unseemly is one point. that takes me back to the irony i am talking about. the most consequential function of american democracy which is to elect our national leaders is, as a process, not necessarily in the outcome, as a process, one of the most un edifying. we are the inventor of modern democracy and i suspect many of you around the room traveling great deal. you must hear the same things that the four of us do. what is going on in your country and when will you get this thing over with and get back to leading the world? the second consequence is it as an extremely negative affect on the ability of the united states

government and the present himself to actually conduct more foreign policy. foreign policy actually requires the cooperation of the legislative branch. it is not just difficult, it is impossible to imagine getting any major treaty through. maybe there is some chance of apple lot of the sea treaty getting through. if you look at what this means for the two most important threats facing the planet today which are nuclear proliferation and climate change, we are dead in the water. it is largely because of the paralysis of the system in this town which has greatly exacerbated by the campaign. one of our favorite characters from american literature, pogo, is often quoted these days -- we

have met the enemy and it is us. i think that is a sad but central theme in what we're talking about. >> your paper takes some issue and lays out the idea that basically, there are huge disagreements and different pathways in front of us given the choice is between barack obama and mitt romney. could you talk more about that and where specifically you see that reverberating, in which situations around the world? >> sure, if things were going reasonably well in the world, it would not make that much difference. in some sense, the focus of the elections will be on domestic issues. that is probably right.

things are not going that well in the world. in particular, things are not going that well in the global economy. i am not sure that i would prescribe to the view that the fundamental institutions that take care of the world are still doing their job and regardless of who comes in, they will still be able to do that job. i am just not sure that that is still the case. the reform of the international financial institutions has been going very slowly. one of them, a big destabilizing factor in the global economy has been the mammoth accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by countries in asia. some people would say that they are doing that because they have very little confidence that the

international monetary fund would come to bears -- their support in a way that they would find either useful or reliable. a lot of that comes from the lessons that some economies have drawn from the intervention by the fund at the time of the 1997-1998 financial crisis in east asia. the imfthe sense that and world bank all need to reform and they need to have a greater weight given. that reform is going so slowly that it may be threatened. the part that the g-20 agreed on is certainly almost not going to be met.

one gets a sense of institutional draft at all levels of the global economy even the g-20 -- they did some really terrific achievements when they came together with a coordinated fiscal stimulus. right now, the g-20 is flat lining a little bit. the crisis moved from being a global crisis to be individual countries. they are each taking their own routes to thinking about how they want to deal with this. the degree of macroeconomic coordination across country is very limited to. the u.s. role in this, the traditional u.s. leadership role, has been very limited.

it is posing a problem. the question becomes -- which administration is more likely to pursue a multilateral approach toward global economic governance, an approach that emphasizes and stopped to think about the collective action requirements of dealing with big global economies whether its policy coordination at the macro level or food security or climate change. will there be differences? i would argue that there probably will be in the rhetoric of the elections. the idea of global governance is just not something that's it's well with one of the political parties.

one could say they have a clear vision and that one does not need a global governance. i am not necessarily commenting on which is right in their vision but certainly, it seems that they have very different approaches as to the desire ability for global governments and the kind of leadership they would give. it comes down to a question about -- do we believe that the world's problems can be used police solved through collective action or we actually think that the problem will be solved by each country individually. ? in theory, the world will recover if they do. regardless of what you believe, is more likely to be the case

that there will be a substantial difference in approach between those two extremes. >> when you look at what mitt romney and barack obama have been saying so far, and bruce talked about how we can start to discern some of what mitt romney's foreign-policy is even though he has not spoken about it in a huge way, are their statements they are making that our particular had scratches for you? --head-scratches for you? >> i don't know about specific statements, but in some areas, i

would say that new alliances really need to be created. one of the interesting things that is happening just on the economic front is last year was the first year since the war that did -- that the g-seven economies as a group account for less than half of global economic output. at market exchange rates. for the first time, less than 50%. this year, will probably be the first year to see it asia becomes a large economic bloc bigger than europe. the thing that has basically held the global economy together which was, frankly, the g-27 and the submarine alliance

is now giving away to some liberal alliance. it is not how those allies will actually be knit together. will the dignity yet, but as though all economic agreements. or on security agreements? my guess is that that will be quite different. when you think about the positions that been taken on countries like taiwan and the relationship with china, is likely to be [inaudible] >> are there things you have been hearing or what mitt romney and barack obama are saying that you are not sure or delay makes sense on those issues. what stands out as of it when they talk about some of these issues on the trail? >> they are clearly both looking

for ways to draw a contrast between themselves. each makes sure that he is on the more politically successful. i would see this differently. i have no better crystal ball about what the exact composition and what a mitt romney policy would be but i would go a back to a my agreement with bruce on this. i don't think it will be all that different. i don't think irresponsibly-led republican administration will have a huge choice. of going back to call whatever you want -- isolationism or i think the phrase in macho-ism.

if those are in the polls, there is plenty of things right in between them. it follows the essential contours' of what has been part of the obama policy which has something common with the late george w. bush. president romney's challenge, everybody notes is that he had to go very far to the right in order to get the nomination and now is to move the center and he is clearly doing that with the exception. there are signals out there that it would be a form policy that would have continuity for the president. governor romney presided of the passage into state law in massachusetts commission policy with regard to climate change that was a good deal more

enlightened and that of the united states of america, matched only perhaps by the commission's policy that governor schwarzenegger in california started. who knows who the secretary of state might be. the president of the world bank was one until recently and he believed in dealing with china and other countries as to what we should ask of contries to be irresponsible step holders. that is pretty close to the theme of the paper. the most curious is that cheap bashing of other countries. every country on the planet with two exceptions has to hope and pray it is never mentioned

during american presidential campaigns. if it is mentioned, it will not be bad. the two exceptions are israel and great britain. china has, ala. russia has camelot. governor romney has decided to declare that russia is the number one strategic threat to the united states. that sounds very yesteryear. we will bother to check panels about russia but i don't anybody will latch on to that proposition. as for china, we all know that china is an easy target in some ways but we have already mentioned the people, the wise heads of the republican party, and i can assure you that you could read and a kissinger's latest book on china and candidate romney will get a lot of advice between now and the vietnam were merely conventional the white house to go easy on china.

that is not was going to win an election, it is the economy. >> do you want to pick up on this? they're a lot things i agree with this for the nature of the challenge. our economy is more dependent in the global economy and the collective action challenge that himey talked about was real. democrats or run against republicans and said they will work with in the mainstream and i try that and it fails and they proceed with unilateral. the biggest success present obama has the unilateral killing of a terrorist.

the bush at maturity couldn't office, there were 20,000 u.s. peacekeepers and the left of us and there were 100,000. this is your attention between the unilateral power and multilateral engagement is a constant in american foreign policy and ships within administrations. a good phrase is knit together a new alliance. it did a back to 2008, it was at jolie evident that obama would be the much better president compared to john mccain to knit together the new alliances with indonesia, turkey, brazil, india and et,c and that has proven harder than we thought it could be. these are independent powers that have their own interests and there will not simply follow american dictates.

there are places where their interests along with ours but it has proven harder than the obama administration has anticipated. you have seen a shift back toward europe and the d-eight and a shift back toward power in the foreign policy of the ball lately. that power is there is it is a real question to ask -- which administers more likely to have a better team and the tools and the orientation to continue that work of knitting together those new alliances. >> what people senate campaign shells often not what they do when i get into office. what can we say for sure presidentromney would do or a

second term president obama would do starting in january when it comes to foreign policy based on what they have said. >> i was talking to one of mitt romney's big donors. mitt romney is trying to portray obama as too soft, willing to pursue a route of diplomacy vs force. i asked this chap what would be mitt romney's first step on a rafi was elected? he will go in there and say i am your best friend and i will ask for a couple more years before we look at the military option. i think there will be a lot more continuity than the rhetoric indicates. >> what i think for sure is the

comprehensive treaty. my guess is that a second term obama would go hell bent for leather to get the ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty. that is in less likely in a romney administration. i know about climate change. i think governor romney will have to -- will need to revert to his protest campaign mode in his attitudes and what he is willing to do. the arguments in favor of him picking up on a card issuer priests small. -- picking up on these issues

are pretty small. >> with that matter when it comes to that issue? -- would that matter when it comes to that issue? >> i think it is possible but by no means certain that a romney presidency would treat incident -- international institutions and alliances will like the bush had magician did in the first term as red meat to throw to the right wing of the party. it is not what romney says. if you read his speeches and is talk, it is not what he says. he says we will work with multilateral institutions. that is exactly what obama says. he will have topivot to the middle for the campaign but he has to protect his flank. sometimes the republicans for

the u.n. to the wolves as red meat. i think it could be that for political reasons, romney will not pursue a multilateral agenda. on economic issues, i don't think you have any choice. there is no unilateral option now. >> there is the question of what sort of predictor of the campaign rhetoric will actually be to what they do. >> the difficulty is that the old pattern of trying something and it doesn't work, we can do something else. to some extent, that worked at

least in economic terms when the u.s. was so dominant that it could afford to do that. my worry is that right now, i love the international financial institutions are in such a vulnerable condition that if for two years they continue without a strong reform, institutions will start to cropp bob that will be developed, run, and managed by people who exclude the united states. you'll start to get a fragmentation of the global economic management. once that is set, it will become very difficult to go back and say we've now actually learned it will come back and strengthen. i suspect we might be at a point

where the space for the kind of experimentation bruce was talking about this may not be there any longer. without being overly dramatic, one could possibly kill off for severely damaged existing institutions if they're not given the kind of tender loving care that they actually need. the only person who can give and tender loving care is the president of the united states of. >> we have a nomination for the president. there is talk about this being the last american president of the world bank. there's also talk about the

emerging powers, india, china, and brazil and so forth, creating a related but separate facility. can you say a word about that? >>one, i think that's kim kin will find out that he takes over world bank and he will have to do contract mending by one half. essentially all of the ammunition is being already shot off by these three bias predecessor. increase sobudget it will be really tough situation and position for him to manage. at the same time, the kinds of challenges that the world bank

was set up to deal with are perhaps getting bigger. developing countries are spending something like $900 billion per year on this television show. some people are talking about double that as their needs. what agency will be able to actually do that in a cynical fashion and generate the kind of financial. if it is not going to be the world bank, there will be other institutions develop and.

whether that will take the form of the so-called brics abnk or not, i have my doubts. the bric is a nice acronym but as a political group, i think the challenge dwarfs anything that the u.s. faces. it is not easy to have a convergence of interests. i don't think on this issue that they do have picketed and regions. -- they do have that kind of convergence. that means that things they are talking about are not of the enormous relevance. they are saying that we need a global institution that has a mandate and a mandate to actually do something about green growth, about clyde this

proved a. there are a responsible we need a global institution that reflects the changing membership and partly, that is the more significant weight of it of emerging economies. we are entering into worlds were non-state or quality state actors are incredibly important on the economic front. with the tug of sovereign will funds are pension funds or other forms of capital, they have to be brought into these kind of institutions. they need to leverage the kind of capital in a serious way. the knees to the modernization of the modalities. the idea you will literally take money from crude belgian dentists to save indian

infrastructure, that is a -- that will be the challenge -- and will not be the channel. for all the problems it has brought out with financial innovation in the world on the way it has been parceled out has actually generated a whole range of new modalities. finance has to be in modernized to the new kind of risk factors. a global institution would probably need to be much more agile in this deployment of those kind of risk-bearing instruments. >> it might be headquartered in istanbul. >> it could be or in south africa. >> i would like you to talk of how you say a president romney or president obama set -- fitting into that over the

course of the next four years >> when you look at the end like the brics, it is clear that each member of them -- for each member, their relationship with the united states is more important with their relationship with each other. this is brazil russia india and china and sometimes south africa. is a very odd grouping because it does not include turkey. >> it includes russia but so that makes it odd. >> the point is, the new actors and the international stage basically only agree on one issue which is that they would like more power. they don't agree on any other issues strategically. they can agree to poke at us if we don't give them more power but that is about it. it does mean there's a huge

opportunity here if their knitting together a new alliances with core institutions that matter to global systems, which is still exercise that enormous power. it seems that obama has done less on this than i would have anticipated in 2008. i point to the difficulties here and it is not because it is about what is important, it is bloody hard. the challenges are real and the states are all playing chicken in the sense they know they have to participate in global systems and give up something to do with it but they are all waiting. i agree with the two-year point. we should not be waiting now and we don't have two years to play

with in terms of taking an approach of trying to tighten up alliances and institutions. i would put little less weight on formal institutions and more on the alliances with new actors. even there, the administration is vacillating between liking theg-8 and those areas are not necessarily well crafted. >> puc a difference in what mitt romney would do in those issues? >> i worry and i have emphasized the point, that you cannot judge entirely from campaign rhetoric. it worries me that the phrase"asia" does not come up except when he is bashing china. he does not does that either

japan or china have american allies. there's a cast back to a transatlantic u.s. and europe picture of the world that i think is outdated. this is much better suited to a century in which the cast of characters is planning. obama himself a very hard to navigate. guest: there is a microphone somewhere in the back. you could identify yourselves and speak clearly into the microphone. we have lots of recording going on so please be aware of that. there is a person when a question here in the front row. let's get this posted on the

prep -- let's keep this focused on the general election. >> i want to pose the question in the form of a hypothesis. if you think about bruce's excellent paper sometime ago about the u.s. as the u.s. majority shareholder in a liberal democratic quarter, i think it is a highly important point about the extent to which the electoral process itself "getting us to the first two seats is not only on seemly, it makes government more difficult than ever. about the need to form new

allowances, you jump to the question of given all of that, which president, romney or obama -- can we predict what they will do in which one would have the greatest likelihood of doing the things that need to be done? i emphasize that there is. divers because presidents have far less room to maneuver. where the defense will be made is in the congressional elections and securely in the senate. particular given the fact of rule 22 in the senate and the unfortunate growing role of minority interference in the governing process. depending upon how it comes out on the first two seats will make it as devil for a president

romney as a wood for a present obama. given the test of character this seems to be taking the place. the most recent example is richard lugar. as the hypothesis was with the day comes to the question of i will leave it at that. >> i'm not sure i buy it. i am absolutely sure that i'm not going to say which of the -- i think it really matters and it will matter in january of next year. of course the composition of the congress will be immensely important. the big question mark about barack obama, will he be able to

succeed in a degree that he was not able to succeed in his first term that you want to do? if you go back to his speeches on the campaign trail in 2008, grant park, and his inauguration, he kept talking about a planet in peril and how that had to be a priority. it was not a priority at the beginning of his administration. health care was a priority. the climate issue faded and ultimately failed to get anywhere. obviously, that was a joint mistake on the handling of the executive branch and the legislative branch. he had some sex predicts success

with reducing nuclear barrels with the new start treaty with the russians but no such success, of course, on the testing. the big question will not be what his intentions are but what his ability to is to deliver on those tensions. with regard to president romney, we have to see how he lays out his plans and taken seriously in either case. if he lays out priorities that a line with those of us as individual citizens, then he will be very strong candidate for the presidency. the of a point of that to the economy. what is important for our ability to lead in the world by example and by having resources necessary to back up our soft power with hard power and there

is a question of getting our own economy back in shape and that means dressing -- restored schools and school fantasy to our national argument. which one of these candidates as a credible plan to do that and t-a-x will have to come up and that and their judgment will have to be made. will they have the political will to drive those issues for and will they be able to get enough support from the congress. >> do you want to respond to that? i have a question right appear. >> i am struck by the

conversation not including the word afghanistan are much talk about hightower. you address the balance or imbalance between hard power and military and civilian power. it seems that one of the areas of not enough light and alternative approaches is coming out of this campaign and the rhetoric on the campaign trail is this question of what admiral mike mullen has caused over- militarization and lack of ability to invest in and muster the diplomatic solutions that we need. this discussion has been about the real problems that require a diplomatic solution. is it just that on the campaign trail they speak to domestic politics and are not speaking to the realities of implementing u.s. foreign policy?

is there any hope that a next presidency can help shift that balance and get out of this over-militarization cycle of four -- u.s. foreign policy. that relates to the congressional question given the budgeting challenges. a final question about a related assumption -- there is no light between the two sides -- it is about u.s. excessi optionalsm. until we can get -- exceptionalism is the granite for u.s. policy, we will be stuck in not having the right solution to the world's problems. is there any hopes to get into a different approach how we see our place in the world? >> let's talk about militarization and foreign policy. >> this is the central argument

of my paper that either the president has to invest more in the diplomatic tools but that does not translate directly into increasing funding for the state department. investing heavily in the tools and capabilities we need to do exactly something like knitting together new alliances. i think this has become a partisan issue. congressionalican actions to reduce state funded r block increase to the state funding. in fairness, in the previous administration and a second term, they try to increase funding to states. this becomes an important issue. do we have the right tools of government to force to get a new alliances to kind of managed issues and a much more complex way. we don't have a very honest conversation about this.

i don't think state is currently staffed and trained or is the right tool for managing the world. we need serious reforms in the state department. i think the emphasis and the need for an abbesses on diplomacy and the despair -- and the diplomacy is not a great issue. as a matter -- it is a situation of magic alliances including military action. i take your point. we don't know which of the two presidents would be more likely to do this but i think the congressional point israel. there are a lot of people around bett romney who understands this point and the need for serious diplomacy and some people around him who clearly don't.

>> you can take up that or the american exceptionalism. >> that issue has gotten a little goofy. present obama gets off a helicopter and he gets caught red has agreed tofareed zakaria. a couple of months go by and say he's readingbob kagan. by the way, these two terrific books are not diametrically opposed. in their prescriptive implications. i noticed in the speech that president obama david the air force academy a couple of weeks ago, he went out of his way to say this is an exceptional country. i guess he covered himself on that.

the other was to say that in libya, nato was out there leading from the front thereby laying to rest forever the line about leading from behind. the serious point is we are an exceptional country. there is no country on earth that has the convening power. there is no country on earth as the global military power on a global basis that we have.

>> it was interesting the you talk about development and diplomacy. one of the great legacies of our former president bush was in fact his prioritization and focus on development. he did quite a lot to raise the amounts of resources. that is something president obama has tried to do. in terms of their resources and the ability to commit in countries like afghanistan to a long-term process of support, i think both will probably be able to make that commitment and stand by it, hopefully, because

there certainly will be a necessary element of moving forward in any of the fragile states that have become so when ported -- important and a part of u.s. diplomacy. >> you talk about president obama and his sense of exceptional as compared it was a major part of the republican primary campaign. mitt romney talked about it a lot and it is one of the main attacks on president obama. this is open to anyone. given what was said in the republican primary campaign, and where you see mitt romney, how does that affect his foreign- policy if he is the president in 2013?

>> and generally speaking, edward-isaac dovere, it will probably be much more harmony as to oppose -- as opposed to what they are saying. original point.s i was interested when senator marco rubio was here last month. he is one of quite a number of opt-in-coming republican political leaders who is talk about is it possible by president. he gave a foreign policy talk here. it was a very thoughtful speech. i do not want to ruin his chances for getting on the ticket, but it was not wildly different from a speech that i could a imagine coming out of the department of state, or even

the white house, making a few amendments and a couple of lines in it. this is a good thing. i and others have expressed some dismay about the polarization of our politics and the breakdown in civil discourse but i think there has been a shaking out process that has been going on. if you look at the field of republican comments, and mrs. truly non-partisan because it is and type -- and this is truly non-partisan because it is entirely about the republicans, there were two of those candidates who i think many americans, including independence and probably some democrats, depending on -- i am referring here to jon huntsman and mitt romney -- they were by

far the most centrist, and that is what the process delivered, which is a good thing. let's see if the process can continue reconciliation on foreign policy issues because the tough issues facing the next president will be domestic and economic. >> did you want to say anything? >> i think that is well set >> a question in the back. microphone coming from the back. >> thank you. robert lerner, a consulting firm, mentioning uncertainty. given that your pets undergone -- given that europe has undergone three crises, and china could be going into a substantial slowdown, what you think their responses and the differences might be between

obama in the second term and romney with respect to that deteriorating economic and financial situation? >> i think there is a very serious debate going on about the best group out of the current crisis, and that is essentially on getting the balance right between fiscal consolidation and what is called austerity as opposed to new growth programs. i think that debate is joined in europe. europe is not unified in terms of how it is going to -- where it is going to come out on that balance, and i think in this country as well, the two parties

are quite different in their positioning of this. china is rather different. china is, indeed, slowing down. i think china will almost certainly start to implement stimulus measures, both monetary and fiscal, to try to take care of it, and that the end of the day chinese growth probably will slow down but the probability of a very hard landing in china or their growth approximating the zero growth or the 2% growth in advanced countries still seems to be low. between the united states and europe, i think this is an active debate based on different philosophies on what generates growth in the short run. >> i want to take the question and used it to make a slightly

different point. which president would do a better job at educating the american public about the change in the world that we've lived in? i think we begin to understand that our economy at this stage rises or falls with the global economy. the days where for our own production and consumption were isolated are long gone. china, europe, they slow down, we slow down. china grows, europe grows, we grow. simple as that. i do not think that is understood in the american public. the question becomes which president can communicate that we live in a changed world and what that means for us? hear, i think it is a tough

call. certainly, so far, obama who clearly understands this reality has not done that good of the job explaining this. it is a hard argument to make been tough times, easier in growth, but with mitt romney we do not know. there could be a mix to the china element, or there could be this "you are a bain capitalist who profits from this while we lose jobs." we do not know what he will be liking communicating this. there is nothing in his campaign rhetoric that suggests he is good at it. >> this just came to be listening to that answer from bruce. the one-word summary is entered- dependence. -- inter-dependence.

by the way, the fate of the chinese experiment is completely dependent on the house of the global economy. i think one reason president obama, who really gets it, is not out there making the case, is because in these tough times talking about inter-dependence makes you soft. this is a perennial achilles heel for democrats. they do not want to look soft. with a ceiling that the europeans are about to screw everything -- with the feeling that the europeans are going to screw things up, the chinese in our lunch, to say is an inter- dependent world, you are not protecting us. that is a fundamental factor.

the president has no way around that between now and the election. he has to find ways to talk about it, where if they do not sound robust, at least sound optimistic. read the text at the air force academy speech. it was reagan. morning in america, sun is shining, we are going to be fine. >> i am curious, given the economic situation and how much it is part of your paper, the question posed about which candidate would be better able to explain to the american public the situation we are facing, what is your answer to that? >> you know, i have found it

interesting that on things like gas prices, which is a clear example of the interdependence -- there has been a suggestion that it really does depend on the president, and there were fascinating polls showing the way in which those views about the president's ability to control gas prices flipped over time, depending on who is in power. it is not a matter of a deeply held beliefs. it is about communication. it does seem to me that is enormously important. the fact of the matter is that not just in the united states, but in europe, the conversation

around economic problems and the diplomacy around those conversations is disappearing, and it is part of the reason they have not solved the problem. in germany, they still have the view that the greeks are lazy. greeks actually work probably 25% longer hours than germans. so, these perceptions become important in terms of the way economic policy is formed, and at the moment i think that is their real problem with the honesty in which the communication is happening. >> another question on this side. >> thank you. a m with phoenix tv. i would like to talk about the

issue on china. mitt romney released an advertisement on china and the white house responded that they were tougher on china. i am curious if the china issue will intensify throughout the campaign, and will whoever is elected fulfil their promise? also, treasury released the exchange rate report and it claims that china's current strategic currency is still significantly -- china's currency is still significantly under-valued although secretary timothy geithner says it has dropped dramatically. thank you. >> we are running a little short on time, if we could keep these

answers short, we could get to one or two more questions. >> yes, the china question will intensify, and let's count on chinese patients and in january we will be back to something like normal on how we handle current exchange rates. >> this goes to the point i was trying to make about the facts of what is happening in terms of economics and the perceptions. u.s. exports to china have increased by about 50% cumulative lead since 2008. chinese -- cumulatively since to thousand eight. chinese exports have increased. this is a trend that has been there since about 2004 or so.

when you looked at this in terms of growth rate, the u.s. is doing really well and last year u.s. exports to china surpassed $100 billion. despite the bilateral deficit cut is still substantial. what is the deficit, is still substantial. what is actually the deficit, it is still substantial. what is actually in -- deficit, it is still successful. >> you win election in swing states, and if you are in los angeles, new york, miami, etc., globalization, the stock is ok. not so much in western pennsylvania.

i think the nature of the election campaign focuses on the downside of global integration, where there is a lot going on that drives investment ensure growth. >> gentleman in the middle. >> thank you. a i am with "egyptian daily." my question is with climate change, the air of the swing -- the error of spring. ing.he arab spran what do you expect mitt romney or barack obama to handle the changes in the middle east, and whether it will just rely on security alliances or deeper and

useful partnerships? thank you. >> one thing that might come up before the election is whether there are differences between the candidates on issues like syria. so far, the obama administration has been very careful talking about the potential for military engagement, and he has been criticized for that by some parts of the republican party as well as parts of the democratic party. there is a hawkish alliance that straddles the two parties. i do not know whether romney would be a bit differently in syria that obama has so far. i actually doubt it. i think the idea that we would rush to military intervention is probably over-played. your question is more broad than that. there are fundamental tensions and stakes here, and the ability

to navigate what is coming will be a critical test of either president. i did not have a crystal ball. i do not know if strobe talbott has more insight. it will matter a lot who did it to be national security advisers or the secretary of state. there is a wide cast of characters on the potential list for mitt romney, and that will change things a lot, whoever it is. there is the economic rise in asia, the turbulence of the arab spring. >> if you might put iran on the list, to. >> i would put iran on the list. >> i think in countries like egypt in particular, taking an economic lens now will be

important for both candidates, and the big challenge that will need to be addressed is the real money and resources for helping countries in the arab world is likely to come from the gulf, and to what extent can those be merged with the support that could come in a variety of non- grant form, but trade alliances, investment alliances, etc. and multilateral institutions? it's that combination could be put together, there is a regional -- reasonable chance the support packages could be useful. if that does not put together, you will be faced with a situation where there will be

potentially significant economic risks and trying to forge security alliances with countries that are having their own domestic economic problems, i think we've seen that is a difficult thing to sustain. >> we have time for one more if the question is short and the answers are short. right up here, up front. >> state department -- since the presidency is often defined by what the president achieved in his first year or so, let me ask you about priorities each candidate might have, not just based on campaign rhetoric, but overall, and this is hypothetical, but assuming domestic and foreign policy constraints were not forbidden, what do you think obama and mitt

romney would like most to do as their priorities early in the next administration? >> keep it short. >> short answer -- either one's priority has to be fixing the problem that will not be fixed this year because we are having a presidential election campaign, which is fixing this country, particularly fiscally. as for the priority in the election, it goes back to the famous reagan question that allowed him to be jimmy carter mitt romney -- jimmy carter. mitt romney has already asked that question and barack obama will try to persuade the american people that since this is a referendum on his first term that we are better off than when he first came to office. >> i think it will depend on the state of the economy.

untraditional issues, i do not think they will have a choice the iranian situation will resolve itself or it will not resolve itself and will be the dominant foreign policy issue in the first year, 2013. where i think people will look to opportunities is in the tightening up the alliances with india, turkey, south korea, australia, and forging new patterns of cooperation with those actors, and i suspect either party would look to opportunities there. >> i am with strobe talbott on this. before looking abroad, fixing the fiscal and fixing growth is essential. both will have to think hard about how to do that. >> ok.

what our program calls for is a closing thought from each of these gentlemen. try to sum up all the things we have talked about, send us to the one or 10 things we did not. maybe we moved down the line, and a lover wants to go first, homi kharas? strobe talbott? >> i think it is a program that iran came up towards the end. i will make one observation about the irony and perversity of the election nears on foreign policy. there has clearly then more progress than the pessimists expected, but maybe not as much as optimists' hopes for on iran. one of the constraints on president obama is dictated on the election.

in order to get a big deal with teheran he would have to get it to give away enough where he would be vulnerable -- he would have to give away enough to where he would be wamble to be a physician that he gave up too much. -- was vulnerable to the acquisition -- accusation that he gave up to much. >> my sense on -- is that whoever wins the election will have to quickly come to grips with how aggressively do they want to address the issues of global governance, and what to do about international institutions, forming new alliances, and whether that requires or not a major overhaul or a muddling through kind of process.

i think there will be a big question about whether the so- called tilt to asia can actually be implemented, or whether it is iran, syria, here up, something -- europe -- something will be dragging priorities away from large, dynamic emerging economies in asia, and finally about whether the foreign policy of the united states will continue to be dominated by security concerns and military interventions, or whether it will become more driven by economics, development, global growth. >> let me make two point. -- to will points. if you look back in front of and

charge, and to do well or not in foreign policy, one question i would focus on is are we in a tighter, more productive alliance with india, brazil, turkey -- critical emerging powers whose participation global structures and global economics is going to matter a great deal. china will be a different category that will be handled differently. below china, the other actors, the new swing states that could put us in a positive direction, are we in better shape? that is the test as we look back. the second issue we have to talk about is we have a pattern of global economic investment in this country centered in major metropolitan cities. i heard john warner talk about

driving foreign direct investment in global economic investment to rural communities and communities and outside of major urban senators for two reasons -- one would be how to kickstart growth, and to start showing a profit from globalization. in other words, educating the american public cannot be an abstract discussion about bricks or who is up or down. it has to be a reality that integration is a positive thing in terms of creating jobs. can we change the patterns of where it is globalization is generating profits and jobs, and will we be in better shape in terms of alliances with these new players on the international stage? >> ok. a lot to think about.

thank you for joining us, homi kharas, strobe talbott and bruce jones, and schwab you for being here. -- and to all of you for being here. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >>, wisconsin voters head to the polls early next month to decide on whether they should recall governor scott walker. tonight, he debates his democratic opponent. we will have the debate live

from milwaukee on c-span. on this morning's "washington journal" we talked about the recall election with a reporter in wisconsin. host: what has this race turned into? guest: it started with collective bargaining and that is still a big part of it. there is no way they could've done the 1 million signatures that they did if he had not gone after collective bargaining for public workers last year. that issue is important to public workers and unions nationally, but to the average voter in might be less important. so, in some ways this race comes down to the typical things that races do when the economy is not well, it is all about the economy. >> how well is the economy doing in the state? guest: the candidates cannot

even agree on that. monthly jobs data shows wisconsin was the worst in the nation. they lost 34,000 jobs. governor scott walker has questioned the data, and rushed the release of data that usually comes up from the federal government they would not come out until three weeks after the election that shows wisconsin actually gained jobs, 34,000, last year. that data is generally better respected. however, there is no way to that it. you cannot compare it to national numbers. even if you use the better numbers, it is pretty anemic growth. it is not on pace to meet its promise to create 250,000 jobs in a full your years, but it is positive territory. host: talk to viewers around the country about the interest

by interest groups and public officials on both sides of the aisle. guest: the recall movement started a year ago. they could not recall governor walker right away. you have to wait until someone has been in office a year in wisconsin. we saw in nine recalls last year. six republicans and three democrats. more money than we had ever seen spent on legislative races. huge portions of. it from out of of the national unions were heavily involved as well as conservative groups that raised money nationally. those groups tend to have to disclose less of their funding. so where they get the money is not clear. in this race we have seen a lot of money, much of. it from out of of there's a heavy republican tilt in this portion of the spending.

governor walker talks a lot about the national unions and outside special interests spending money in wisconsin. he has raised a record amount of money. two thirds of it from outside wisconsin, much of it -- very large donations. $250,000 from casino mogul sheldon adelson, who had supported a super pac for newt gingrich. we saw quite a bit of labor money this week go into labor groups going for tom barrett. host: how are wisconsin voters reacting? guest: we have never seen this kind of spending in a race for governor. it surpassed the record of

spending before the primary and there still a month ago. the air waves are blanketed with ads. political professionals seem to think the advertising is not as persuasive as it usually is in the governor's race because people have already made up their minds. this electorate is very divided. half the state loves scott walker and sees him as a tough guy and who has made the tough decisions and done what he thought was right to get the states where it is. half of the state hates him, thinks that he has done an attack on people, not being fair to the common people. people have their minds made up. both sides agree it will all be about turnout. early voting started this week. it appears so far that turnout will be quite high. that is where we see. it see host: thanks so much. a big debate between the governor and his challenger to

night. c-span will have that live beginning at 9:00 p.m. eastern. patrick, thank you. we have an interesting couple weeks ahead in your state. guest: thanks for having me. >> again, that is why the 9:00 eastern here on c-span. after the debate, commencement addresses from graduation's around the country, starting with republican congressman alan west of florida. supreme court justice sonia sotomayor in new york university, the solicitor general at the university of iowa law school, senator john kyl and then education secretary arnie duncan. also, starting this weekend, a spotlight on columnist. tomorrow, syndicated columnist

mona charen -- >> all next week, beginning tomorrow, actually, at 9:15 on c-span's "washington journal." a zoologist says demand for elephant ivory is at an all-time high in china. a committee was looking at what the u.s. could do on ivory poaching in africa. senator john kerry chaired the hearing. it is one hour and a half. >> the hearing will come to

order. i apologize for starting a few minutes late. thank you forthcoming. i realize before coming. i realize the -- for coming. i realize the issue might seem to some to be slightly off of the beaten path of the usual topics our committee has tackled, but i believe strongly that one of the responsibilities of our committee is and always has been to make sure that issue is deserving attention receive focus, whether people believe them before they ever heard the issue or not, whether they are on the -- there on the front page of national consciousness today or not, it is our job to help put them there. certainly, even if we are not thinking much about the global implications of poaching in africa, i can guarantee we will

be if it goes unabated. in a country with a deep conservationist conviction which has rallied to the defense of the bald eagle and the american bison, it is a matter of time before we awaken to poaching consequences, and if we do not act now, the time will come too late. it would come too late for the elephants, these enormous majestic animals. they are a living connection of prehistoric times and a reminder of our responsibility to the future by preserving the past. just as we have fought to save to no, shark, -- tuna, sharks, the american eagle, here we have

a responsibility to future americans to live out our stored responsibilities. how destructive and shameful it would be if we did nothing while the great species was criminally slaughtered in to extension. here we are in the midst of one of the most tragic and outrageous assaults on shared inheritance that i've seen in my lifetime, where an elephant's debt ivory is prized over its living condition, and corruption fees and its body and soul and money makes matters worse. we have urgent, everyday problems that consume our politics. i am more than well aware of that. deficits, unemployment, terror -- challenges we know too well and numerous enough to make anyone dizzy but history reminds as we never have the right to turn our backs on the values

that defined a. it is said the elephant never forgets. nor should we. we are fortunate to have a strong panel of witnesses that will shine a spotlight on this regrettable and widespread trade. i was shocked and saddened by the recent reports of the surge in poaching across africa. the pictures of dead elephants are heartbreaking. they stand as a grim reminder of our capacity to inflict harm on the natural world, but i would also emphasize the human costs of trafficking ivory and other animal parts need to be focused on. this is a multi-million dollar criminal enterprise. the ivory trade stretches from the african savanna to the asian

marketplace, and the united nations office on drugs and crime ranks it as a significant form of transnational organized crime. coaching is not justice security thread for africa. it is also a menace to developing economies and it thrives where government is weakest poachers with heavy weapons are a danger to rangers and civilians as well as the animals they target. they operate in remote areas with impunity, wreaking havoc on families and communities. criminal gangs and militias are wiping out entire herds and killing anyone that gets in their way. we also know that poaching is interwoven into brutal conflicts, and many of those come patents are essentially members of criminal gangs

preying upon the communities. one big gets the other, and their inter-related. in the democratic republic of congo, u.n. reports charge at all parties of conflict, including the army, have participated in this book its trade with multiple reports describing armed men coming across the borders from sudan or from somalia into kenya to kill elephants. poaching is only increasing as armed groups expand criminal networks and profit from the book its trade in conflict minerals and a legal tender. it is all part of a network. i learned that when i was a prosecutor. look at the facts. according to the african wildlife fund, poachers have

claimed more than 900 right now across africa. -- rhino across africa. it increased by 3000% in south africa alone. black market prices are surging with rhino horns more valuable at times than gold. 23 metric tons of illegal ivory were sealed last year, and the net effect is more insecurity, more violence, and more corruptions, not to mention the devastation of existing and potential opportunities for tourism and economic development, and ultimately the deprivation with respect to the stability of whole regions. given these very real risks i am convinced it is incumbent on all

of us to ask what is causing this resurgence in poaching and what can be done to combat it? the demand side is crucial. east asia is the primary destination for ivory and other products. people are by in it. the chinese government and others have made substantial seizures, but clearly a lot more needs to be done to eliminate the legal marketplace. on that front taiwan's to recognize the work of the u.s. fish and -- i want to recognize the work of the u.s. fish and wildlife organization, prosecuting illegal importers in the united states and working collectively with asian countries to reduce demand. we have other countries -- options as well, along with other members of this committee,

including senator cones and senator isaacson, who wanted to be here today, i have introduced legislation ,s-2318, to expand a rewards programs to include trans-national crime to reduce traffic in of all kinds, and we will hear from our witnesses that the international community has also expanded efforts to attract money into follow that money throughout the -- track money, and to follow that money throughout the business. we need to strengthen partnerships with regional law enforcement services to enhance their capacities to protect communities, patrol borders in space-bar natural resources. i am pleased to -- patrol

borders and protect their natural resources. i want to welcome our distinguished witnesses. dr. -- dr. iain douglas- hamilton visited with me last week and we scheduled this hearing on somewhat short notice based on that. he is the founder of save the elephants and has spent 40 years working elephant conservation in africa. john scanlon, secretary general of the convention on international trade and endangered species of wild fauna and flora, and tom cardamone is the managing director focusing on illicit flow internationally. we welcome you and appreciate you being here. since this is out-of-the-

ordinary, i will ask for opening comments and then we will proceed with the testimony. >> thank you for calling this hearing and thank you to our witnesses for all you are doing. i was just sharing with dr. -- with dr. iain douglas-hamilton, that my own experiences including visiting a national park that had been almost completely empty of wildlife. this was in 1987, actually. i was left haunted by the disruption to god's creation caused by human conflict, and in the decade since there has been a virtuous cycle where recognizing the value of conservation, preserving elephants and other majestic animals for their own sake has led to improvements in the prospect for the element for the nations that host these

amazing creations and creatures, and has led to a steady drop in the benefits, the proceeds from the illegal trade in animal poaching. what we are here to consider is an unfortunate for tax that is going in the opposite direction. a number of countries have suffered from the lord's resistance army because ava lack of organized control, and coordination. so, we put at risk majestic species, biodiversity, the ability to preserve the amazing wildlife, and the prospects for conservation, development, humanity, and there has been a report that details just how many billions of dollars go into the coffers of resistance movements, terrorist groups, those said operate at reaching those that operate at the

margins or outside -- those that operate at the margins or outside the rule of law. we reflect a community that cares deeply about africa and we bulk of your efforts to make sure we put conservation at the top of our agenda moving forward for the people and the nations of africa. >> thank you, senator. again, thank you for your concern and leadership in this area. it has been enormously important. dr. iain douglas-hamilton, thank you for being with us. why don't you leadoff and we will run down the table from their barracks -- from there? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am deeply grateful for this response by the highest political heir -- levels.

i am honored to appear before this committee. i actually. in the 1970's and in the 1980's and the same issue, and have testified three times before congress. we are now again in that situation. what is happening to elephants is appalling, and more so since we have been through these ivory crisis before. we should and found solutions by now. there is an escalating crisis. it is driven by demand in china. it exceeds the supply much of the trading is led by organized crime, which undermines good

governance, destabilizes security, and causes the legal killing of elephants on a massive scale. urgent action is critical to stem this decline. the solutions are to increase funding for anti-poaching and for programs managed by u.s. fish and wildlife service, including usa funding. we should explore to -- opportunities to use resources to address this global security threat because otherwise if allowed to develop it could breed something that comes back to hit you. we should use new ways of thinking outside of the box, using high-tech solutions, and above all, we should work more

closely in partnership with china to reduce demand at the highest levels of diplomacy. i want to thank quickly the role the u.s. has played in helping to conserve african elephants. he funding for u.s. agencies, specifically u.s. fish and wildlife service, has provided consistent funding for the african elephant conservation fund, and then there is u.s. aid which has helped save landscapes where elephants live and collectively, working together with the state department, these u.s.-led efforts have made a huge impact in the past. i cannot forget the ngo's when critical role on the front lines -- wwf, the wildlife

conservation network, after the wildlife foundation, among many -- african wildlife foundation, among many others. we have been here before. elephants were nearly exterminated in the victorian era. it was only in the early 20th century that they were able to recover when new gane -- game laws came in, and this culminated in the 1960's, a global -- a golden era for the national parks. unfortunately, d-three -- the ivory trade surged mainly based on prosperity in the far east were ordinary people could not buy ivory. this cost major disruptions.

the estimated elephant population dropped from 1.3 million in 1979, to half of that number by the mid-1980's. in most of the savannas of east africa, central africa, with the few exceptions in southern africa, there were massive drops in numbers. the evidence now is the strong demand for ivory has resurged again. i want to talk about a case study in northern kenya, where save the elephants, my organization, conducting a detailed research by recording the birth, death, and population dynamics of about 500 elephants. this has allowed us to report the elephants recovered very

well in the last two decades up until about 2008. we found there was a steady increase in poaching and eight tipping point was reached in 2008 where the elephants nosed over, starting with a big drop and a decline that is ongoing at the present. this has caused terrible suffering for the elephants. the big bulls have been largely wiped out, and now the big powers are being attacked. the matriarchs are removed, leaving summer -- suffering among some family and a higher death rate among offspring. the worst-hit place in africa is central africa. there is very good documentation of this by the wildlife conservation society

member with a paper that will show central africa has lost more than half of its elephants in the last 10 years. all these threads of information had come together, crossed triangulated, and quickly there are front lines, as scientists, wildlife departments, there's the press, and journalists, and there is the ngo's. the second line is the international union for the conservation of nature. they have a program that coordinates reports coming in and increasingly this is being put immediately on public record. the next group are traffic -- a joint group of the wwf. they have a service that tracks illegal ivory and it relies on

very hard data that gives the big picture across the world. in 2009, 2010, and 2011, there has been a rapid escalation in seizures of illegal ivory 2011 -- 53. 2011 exceeded all others. finally, the program that allows us to get a handle on what is happening is monitoring the illegal killing of elephants, which is a program on the convention of endangered species. this shows that a legal killing matched what happened with the ivory data, increasing from 2006 on and last year was a record

year in the killing of elephants. this covered all four regions of africa. once again, the center was shown to be the worst, but east africa was bad. west africa is so small and nothing was left there, but now south africa had levels that were beyond the level the experts think is sustainable. the implications for security are enormous, and this crime is optimistic -- opportunistic. in large parts of africa, the poachers target the softest populations. the reason we became so worried was because it was a well- protected population and that could happen in a well-protected

population, we feared it could happen elsewhere, and we wanted that to be on the record. the worst case that has been recorded recently is this terrible incident that took place in cameroon where upwards of 400 elephants were killed by heavily-armed, well-organized militia that traveled probably 1,000 miles on horseback to get there. they may have come from sudan or chad. it is interesting that they are now avoiding chad because it has received good funding and has become a slightly harder target to hit.

also, in dirham the, there has been a recent massacre where an army helicopter was involved, and again, a group of elephants were shot down. despite the fact that the overall picture is dire, there are a success stories the point to what could be done. the have been successes recently in places that have received good funding and could programs with strong ngos support. this includes parks in chad, kenya, central african republic. in is a, -- in sucuma, the death

toll dropped to seven last year. in the largest national park in kenya, posting gains have been confronted and the number has been observed from their independently confirmed. in northern kenya, a similar surge has resulted in a notable decrease in illegally kill dolphins over the last six weeks. the way that we have to tackle this problem, there are three main ways, to confront it in the field, reduce illegal trade, and reduce excess of demand. the methods i know best are used in northern kenya. this is an ngo that makes deals with communities so that they can benefit from the conservation option. the nomadic people of kenya are

being helped with of these ranches and they can adopt a conservation option which would benefit them. it is my goal that when they do so that they do so with good governance. the movement in northern kenya is to get that good governance so that the community elects an official, chairman, treasurer, has an accountant they do not escape the criminals that could lead to corruption. then you get support from the communities. we have seen an amazing increase in information about poachers coming in and out. they also need a good informant networked that comes from the rapid response team, skilled trackers, local volunteers. in northern kenya, we want to create models of conservationists who will be

looked up to and will fund a conservation effort based on local values. local ranges can become elite. i believe that high-tech solutions can help and we have to think outside the box. tracking by gps and satellites that had been pioneered in kenya, central, and south africa. it is improving elephant security by developing and algorithms to detect wounded animals and relate that to the patrol centers with instant feedback. if there were ever the possibility to engage in such a u.s. agency to harness those intellectual and financial forces, the small investment could enormously help sieve elements -- save elephants and promote stability. we dream of promoting a high-

tech measures to aid. we want to track ivory and rhinoceros horn as it goes through illegal movements. the other main priority is to tackle the man for ivory. currently, china emerges as the leading driver of illegal trade in ivory. 90% of the ivory sees it involved a chinese national. since 2007, the amount of illegally ivory has gone up. in hindsight, it looks as of the new spike in demand resulting in the crisis was exacerbated by the decision in 2008 to allow the sale to china. this has stimulated demand, as

we predicted might be the case. it does not seem to be problematic and now for chinese consumers to buy ivory of some of it is legal and some is not. it creates confusion. i visited china in october to see how they regarded their own elephants. the last of the while chinese elephants, i learned that they highly valued their own wild life and in district the protected. if china would develop a leadership role in africa might as well as in their own country with respect to elephants, much of the problem could be solved. for the first time in history,

large numbers of chinese are living in africa but and are individually shipping out ivory. there's more disposable income in china than in their history. ivory is a luxury commodity. the ivory trade in china has broken down. those who are imagined to be at the heart of sales have failed. the united states government could and should use its considerable diplomatic influence to join with china in a leadership role to take immediate measures to end the illegal trade. the recent actions in china are welcomed, but they need to be sustained over the long term. ideally, the u.s. government could share awareness of the situation and work with the

joint leadership in china. if china would declare a unilateral moratorium on illegal ivory imports it would be a better future for everyone in africa and and serious legislation must be enacted to control the illegal ivory market. the government should ensure that those countries driving the demand are held the task at the upcoming conference for the party is in march 2013. maybe the u.s. should consider an application for an amendment in the sanctions process with laws offered and cases where these are being seriously undermined. i can think of no situation more serious. thank you for giving me your precious time to listen to the plight of elephants referring to pre historic elephants 10,000

years ago when they lived here in this country. i hope we can avoid repeating the haunting that led to their demise. >> thank you very much, dr. hamilton. i understand you have a video? how long is it? >> it is one minute or two. >> can we show that now before? >> it comes from bbc. >> the largest animal on earth is under threat. but they're being decimated at an alarming rate. >> learning about the future of elephants, almost all of them. >> there being hunted for their ivory despite of a trade ban in place for more than 20 years.

>> these people are very well- off. >> even the youngest are in the minds. they have a clear wound and poaching and illegal ivory is that a new high. >> this can be summarized in one word -- money. >> we go undercover to find the ivory dealers. >> $10,000 for one? >> v.c. the new technology being used to track down criminals. these poachers are hammering the same area over and over again. we go on the trail of the poachers, smugglers, and the organized crime. we attract them from southeast asia and beyond to the biggest

importer of all. >> china is the future for elephants. if china can curb its demand, the elephants will survive in africa [unintelligible] >> can the demand be stifled? or is it already too late? >> i think that sums it up pretty effectively. thank you very much, doctor. >> thank you, mr. chairman and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to make a connection between illegal wildlife trafficking and national security.

global financial integrity is a d.c.-based research organization focusing on the opacity of the global finance system facilitating role in the lack of transparency in money laundering and the threat it poses to the security of all nations. ivory poaching, like all forms of illegal wildlife trade, it is very profitable. global financial integrity estimates the value of the illicit trade in all forms of wildlife, excluding fishing, at up to $10 billion annually. in recent years, organized crime syndicates, militia, interest signet its have taken notice of the profit that can be made in wildlife poaching and this is posing serious concerns for the u.s. and our partners. organized criminal networks involved in illicit trafficking routinely use sophisticated

money laundering schemes to move profits and shield their organizations from protection and prosecution. use of anonymous shell companies laird across multiple jurisdictions as one of the most effective tools available. obscuring the money trail and impeding law-enforcement destinations. there frequently used not just by traffickers but terrorists, drug cartels come up armed it dealers, tax evaders, rogue states to illegally laundered their money. unfortunately, the united states is a breeding ground for these shell corporations. it is estimated that nearly 2 million companies are established in the u.s. each year and the vast majority of them are not required to provide any information company their names and addresses, about the true owners of the firms. this lack of information means that shell companies with head and owners are opaque to law

enforcement. most shell companies are likely to be involved in legitimate businesses, u.s. national security is left to chance because of our inability to tell the difference between an llc created by a dentist and one set up by a government entity in tehran. the so-called merchant of death to provided arms to the telegram -- it taliban and sierra leone had shell corporations in texas and delaware. the u.s. is the locale of choice for corrupt politicians to launder their money. it is important to make sure good laws are in place to counter money-laundering and making sure they comply with the law. recent reports have raised

concerns this may not be the case. a recent study revealed that 75% of u.k. banks were not sufficiently complying with anti-money laundering regulations. there is no reason to believe the situation is any difference in american banks. major american financial's institutions including the former wachovia bank, citibank, a chess -- hsbc bank have not been doing adequate due diligence on their customers. congress should address these problems. senate bill 1483 incorporation transparency, law enforcement assistance act is bipartisan legislation that would establish beneficial ownership registry that could be accessed by law enforcement and tax authorities. the bill is hardly supported by the department of justice, treasury, a homeland security

supported.heartily the nation's security will be stronger in the u.s. will secure the moral high ground needed to consider beneficial ownership president -- registries as the new international norm. a summary points by want to make today is that the mechanisms in the global financial system that permits the laundering of illegal ivory proceeds are the same used by drug cartels than terrorist groups. shell companies, secret bank accounts, and host of other opaque entities treating a structure that facilitates trafficking of all types and adversely impacts u.s. national security. addressing this challenge by creating corporate registries should be a priority for

congress. thank you again for the opportunity to address the community and my written testimony is provided for further details. i look forward to your questions. >> your pulte testimony will be in the record as you have read it in full. i appreciated. secretary general. >> thank you, chairman. it is a great opportunity to be here before you this morning. this was adopted right here in march 1973 at a conference that was hosted by the u.s. government. the u.s. has been a very sort -- a very strong supporter since that time and it has been at the forefront of efforts to combat the illegal trade in wildlife. we want to make sure such trade

illegal, enforceable, and tradable. today, we are here talking about another impact, tackling illegal trade in wildlife and this is a growing problem worldwide. the value of this illegal trade is estimated being between $5 billion and $20 billion per year. that excludes timber and marine resources. the extent of illegal trade in wildlife is further reinforced when you look at the published results of specific enforcement operations undertaken by interpol and other world organizations. chair and committee members, it's very clear that organized crime is actively involved in the illegal trade of wildlife. this has been made clear by interpol and by the u.s. commission on crime, prevention, and criminal justice.

doubt thatolutely no organized crime is involved in the illegal trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn. we have heard this morning about a major spike in the illegal killing and traded elephant ivory and rhino horn, and neither reaching levels that cannot -- and these are reaching life cannot be sustained. a lot of these seizures are 1,800 pounds or more in weight. you cannot take 800 kilograms of ivory from central apricot, exported into asia and without very organized and sophisticated networks. these are in place to trade illegally in substances. with the rhinoceros, we have gone from 15 illegally killed

2448 and the numbers are up-- 148 and now up to 200 despite the best efforts of the south african government which are really trying with enforcement efforts. >> we exist with it insuring the survival of a species in the wild. the impact of this illegal trade goes well beyond the impact of a species. criminals and the kids use violence, they are well armed, are very savvy in the use of modern technology, and they are very effective in 14 detection. they exploit local people in some of the poorest countries on the planet. they are wounding and kelly enforcement officers in the field. they are depriving local people of legitimate development choices than they are depriving states of revenue ought to mention robbing state of their

cultural heritage and natural resources. this is undermining the rule of law and undermining security. it must be stopped. the example has been given earlier and rebels were coming across the borders in two states into northern cameroon. they were massacring elephants with the purpose of getting their ivory. can i give you another example? it is in my written testimony, but we are just finishing a video we're doing with the u.n. on the killing of rhino for their horns. we are -- they rely on the rhinoceros for their livelihood. the final comment of the woman was this -- "when you kill the rhino, you kill us." this is destroying the livelihood of local people.

these syndicates are hard to find. there are high profits to be made. it has gone up to $65,000 a kilogram, above the price of gold. the risk protection as low. but the risk of prosecution is low. the risk of being incarcerated is also low in far too many cases. we know how to beat the syndicates. we have the know-how and the technology, but we just have to apply it with greater vigor. do risks associated with surviving the wild and associated with local people, government, and security is such that we must up the ante. we need to take additional measures operationally in terms of enforcement measures.

we must move beyond seizures. we must move beyond the prosecutor to get convictions and start incarcerating people committing these crimes. it should not be elephants, rhinos, and tigers behind bars but the smugglers and poachers. that is our objective. we need to up the ante politically as well. we need to get a strong and clear message in transit states and consumer states at the highest possible level saying this activity will not be tolerated whether from a range of state, where the poaching takes place, a transit state, or the consumer state. we also need to look for the rat race sourcing in terms of human resources, technology resources, sharing resources.

i can say you can get very high returns for investing in this area for a minimal investment. there is some good progress in a number of areas i would like to briefly highlight. you have seen the creation of the international consortium of interpol, the u.n., the world bank, and the world customs organization signed off on the head of all organizations providing coordinated support including for the network of while like enforcement that the u.s. has been so supportive of. we have seen efforts emerging all over and here in the united states. at a political level, we're happy to see the outcome of the u.s.-china strategic dialogue with pier rep 47 saying the china and u.s. government would work together to combat illegal trade in wildlife and i will have a meeting following up on

the implementation of that paragraph. the global environment facility does not serve as a financial mechanism to this convention. it does serve in others. this is a historic anomaly that we have the opportunity to correct. the 40th anniversary of our convention will be in march next year. this coincides with the 16th meeting of the conference of the parties providing us a wonderful opportunity to take stock of the current situation, put in place new initiatives, to send a very clear and concise message is about not tolerating this crime and look at opening of the facilities.

we desperately need ongoing support. we appreciate the focus you and your committee is giving to this critical issue. i think you again. -- i thank you again. >> we appreciate your leadership. that's interesting about the financial mechanism. dr. hamilton has said that he thinks the single thing that might have the greatest impact and that would really "save" the

elephant is to have the biggest consumer country, china, reinstate unilaterally the import ban. could you speak to that, secretary general? do you concur that would have the single greatest impact? >> the major consumer states of ivory appeared to be china and thailand. vietnam's seems to be the primary destination for the rhino horn. we leave it within the realm of the parties to determine. following the ban in 1989, we will be doing a report in july of this year which will include a thorough analysis of where we are at at the moment with

respect to illegal trading in the illegal killing of elephants. clearly, the issue of demand has to be tackled. if we can curb demand, then we can curbs apply. -- surb supply -- curb. >> how many years was the ban in place? >> best part of 20 years. >> and it was a ban globally on any kind of importation. there were stockpiles from countries that did not have a poaching problem. >> when was the last? >> the secretary-general can better answer that. i think 2008. there had been a previous ivory sales number earlier than that.

botswana, namibia, and south africa, initially. i think zimbabwe's included as well. they were allowed to sell their ivory stocks. they were allowed to sell to only two countries, of which china was one in japan was the other. china came on board at the last moment. they applied to be given that special buyer status. >> who signed off on that? the grant that permission? >> by the standing committee of the convention, i believe. >> cites as the ability to come back and reverse that, does it not? >> i do not know if they do. >> since we have them here. they relaxed the this.

can they reinforce it again? >> there were one or two off sales. the ban on legal trade remains in place. they were one-off sales approved by the conference in parties to only two states, japan and china. the trade were to be reopened, it would require another conference of the parties. >> in these two one-off sales were to japan and china. it appears as if that has, indeed, whetted the appetite. >> there are some who strongly

believe that it has and there are others with a contrary view who do not see a correlation between it. i would say there are mixed views on that. >> there are two or three packages that stand out for their illegal opportunities -- china, thailand, and vietnam? china and thailand for the elephant? >> china and thailand seem to be the largest in state. not the only ones, but the primary driver in state. and vietnam is the primary state in illegal trade of rhino horn. >> given that reality, my experience in law enforcement, certainly dealing with drugs and other issues, but also on this

committee in the 1980's, we did a lot of work on narcotics globally. that led us to do a lot of work on the banking structure and some of these opaque issues, which renders and are very damaging, but the question is -- i think you have to approach this comprehensively. certainly, china getting tougher on the importation, if you can sell openly and everyone knows what's going on, so they will have to join in the enforcement effort. >> i have visited there several times. i have visited the enforcement

authorities and they probably have one of the largest management authorities. the reason why we are aware that china is such a destination because of the success of chinese come -- customs in making large-scale caesars. we rely on data from the state that actually does the seizure and they are being very effective in closing down a number of its ports. that is why we are now seeing a number of the syndicates tried to go through cambodia or malaysia to get there because of the effective enforcement action in china at the border. late last year, they put in place a coordinated enforcement just a few months ago. they mobilized about 100,000 enforcement officers across the country to carry out a major enforcement activity. they're fully engaged in the enforcement initiative. the area we have to focus on here with china is with respect to domestic controls and whether the domestic controls that allow legal trade in ivory have

loosened and then we need to get them tightened up in a way that does not allow the laundering of illegal ivory through the market. >> i want to come back to the line of enforcement. i know the senator has a scheduling conflict so want to ask you questions without any regard to time to ask him what you need to. it is interesting that we have three democrats here trying to preserve the republican party symbol. [laughter] a senator, go ahead. >> the center leaves me uncharacteristically speechless. [laughter] thank you. ida's wanted to follow up

briefly with some questions. i have an opportunity to meet with people who may be relevant to these few questions. in their reading, i seem that effort,, the u.s. command in africa, is working with -- i see that africom is working to provide some of the logistical support and capabilities to better address poaching. i'm wondering if either of you have been cut or advice on whether that is a model but it is working for replication? do you think it has been contributing to the ticket to the anti-poaching activities? there are other regions that we focus on, central africa, where they are much less well developed in national defense structures and have more pressing challenges, so why would be interested in what you think it can continue to do to support efforts by our african

allies. and also coming u.s. aid's efforts for habitat preservation and conservation. contributor interested in whether that reports -- supports any about it. if you could just comment. >> it has been very effecting in -- effective in botswana. they have the army dedicated but they also have the u.s. forces as well. it would be helpful to have more involvement in eastern africa. there has been a huge amount of money poured in central africa, and rightly so, because it was the worst hit area. we're now seeing levels approaching in eastern africa that were formerly typically had

in central africa. we have to stop it. if we could have much more help in training, maybe, from the u.s. forces. indeed, intelligence and any of the resources that they could have would be of great help. ability to train and assist forces that can prevent this trafficking are very valuable not only to address the very real problem of poaching but be a long line that leads back to regional and national security. by taking the product out of action, you take the money out of the system as well. the rebel forces and other entities that are working counter to u.s. interests are

certainly primary in what africom is trying to do. >> dr. douglas-hamilton mentioned darpa in being able to track coach elephant ivory. you think the illicit pathways by which the ivory makes it from africa to market, whether it is thailand or china, are relatively well known. would it be advantageous in fighting poaching in the trade of illegal ivory to have a more sophisticated capacity to track specific tusks or pathways for illegal trade? mr. scanlon or mr. cadamone? >> we're working on more modern forensic techniques in wild life crime.

we are working to see whether or not they can enhance their in- house capacity because we need to know where the stock is coming from. if we can track it from the destination, that would be advantageous. we have also raised the discussion with china as well and other states in the asian region with respect to using modern techniques for tracking wild like contraband which would make it much easier to carry out enforcement measures. >> i found dr. douglas- hamilton's paraphrases quite compelling in raising this particular issue with national leaders in east africa. thank you for your testimony here today. >> thank you. senator udall. >> thank you, chairman kerry. i appreciate you holding this hearing in focusing on this issue because i believe it is a

very important one. i just recently returned from africa on a trip that was focused more on hiv aids and it's incredible what we're doing there, but that is another sad part of the picture. we had an opportunity when there was a national holiday to spend a couple of hours in a game park in northern namibia. we saw these just magnificent creatures. i really identify with what secretary scanlon said. these are very poor countries were individuals are gaining a living, if you call it eco- tourism or whatever, what they are out there on the ground living and other results of these animals they are able to stay in these areas instead of going to the abject poverty.

i just wanted to focus a little bit. it was incredible just to be there, see that, and have that experience to see the creatures and know that this is a part of their livelihood. these poachers are taking that away from them and i think it could cause real instability on the ground. i would like to focus a little bit, like senator kerry, on some of the law enforcement side of this. it seems to me, and dr. douglas- hamilton, i want you to talk a little bit about this. if you had very strong wildlife penalties and then you have a strong prosecution, you could

nip this in the bud. it has grown to the point where you have 200 armed horsemen moving from sudan so you need a significant counterforce to do something about this, but is there a problem in terms of the penalties? is there a problem in terms of enforcement? what the witnesses here believe we can do about this in order to plug that hold? i think you start there with that issue. please. >> the penalties in general are far too low in east africa. the enforcement of those penalties that exist is far too weak. i can speak to kenya in particular where there is a plan under the new constitution to bring in much more severe penalties. i know the kenya wildlife service and the ngos are pushing the have a law introduced much earlier. it is crucial that the

magistrate should be given a message and the power to punish properly, which they do not have at present. the same is true elsewhere in africa and there are few countries that have strong law enforcement in that respect. >> in all countries where we have the big problem in terms of the elephants being white dog, they do not have strong penalties and they do not have good enforcement? >> and not aware of every single case, but there's always a great latitude for magistrates to take initiative. they need to be given great political direction. if this point is raised to the highest levels with african governments in discussion, then it could be put on the agenda. i think it is really important that the u.s. government and the foreign relations committee taking a real opportunity to do that. >> i think many of us are interested in doing that.

secretary scanlon? >> sometimes a seizure has seen -- is seen as a success. you have to go beond that, investigate, prosecute, and penalize. the whole chain needs to be enchaged, from the law enforcement to the judiciary. those who are prosecuted are at the wrong end at the chain, those that are not riving -- driving the trade but are involved ta at a low rate. we need to catch the king pin trade. dricvinving the

that is why we have put in place training in controlled deliveries in dealing with narcotics. you do not seize the contraband but track it home. you get that person and not the person lower down the chain. we are trying to use more effective law enforcement techniques from a drug trafficking and apply them to trafficking crime. they have over the past few months incarcerated nationals of mozambique's for smuggling rhino horn and a national of vietnam for over 10 years for smuggling rhino horn. they're very hard with respect to anyone coming to steal their wildlife. they put in place the sort of coordinated measures to the national crime bureau at

interpol that are necessary to really clamp down and send a strong message. if you steal our wildlife, you're going to jail. that is a good example when they are still really struggling to deal with this illegal trade in rhino horn. >> do e to these countries having a problem in terms of the elephants, do they have the capability your talking about in terms of getting to the king pin? >> i would say no. the analysis we have done shows the highest rates for the illegal killing is the ones with the weakest governance. were you have the weakest governance, those are where you find the highest levels of illegal killing. these systems are week. >> i'm going to stop because we have another such a that had showed up. we're very excited about the idea that a republican has shown

up to at least question. we do not know what his position will be, but i would yield the floor at this point. >> you're doing all you can make us the elephants extinct and i thought i should come up. i have a serious question. you mentioned the role of governments being helpful, maybe even a critical, in controlling the illegal trade. i think that is probably true in every thing, whether it is narcotics, piracy, intellectual property, or whatever. who are the bad actors? a review by the country's -- where do yuo find the countries so they can work it in to put it in the stream of commerce? who are the bad actors in this regard? >> thank you, senator.

as a general statement, we can say that the risk of detection with the wildlife crime is lower than with other crimes and the penalties associated with it are lower. the risk of incarceration is lower. that is pretty much a general statement. we have seen examples where perhaps wildlife crime is taken more serious where those serious sentences were given by stealing the while whites in south africa. it is a mixed bag with response to the sorts of measures that are in place. one thing we have noticed is what i said before, seizure is seen as a success. seizure is a failure. that animal is dead. you seized the contraband, but the person is still wanting it. that is why we put in place training for control deliveries and other more effective techniques in dealing with

crime, whether it is wildlife or not, because we need to get to those who are actually driving the demand. in most countries where demand is driven, they have quite strong rules. in china, they had the death penalty as the highest penalty for a while like crime and is now life imprisonment. other states vary. in thailand, they're looking at legislation and they do have a problem with domestic control. it needs to be tightened. we are in discussion with them on that. these are very targeted. the secretary works with the state to try to lift them up that would be keeping more with the convention. >> you are not able to identify any particular hot spot? you refer to them as a mixed bag. you do not have one particular. if you can put your finger on

and say this is an area where we need to really concentrate? >> there are certain areas we can concentrate and the main market seems to be vietnam for rhino horn. at a political and operational level, we need to enhance our efforts there. we need strong political signals coming with respect to this being an acceptable and to enhance the efforts being made at an operational level. they have made no seizures since 2008 yet all the evidence is that this is the prime destination. with respect to other states, if we look at africa, they are all states with weaker systems in terms of their rule of law and governance. again, we try to work with these states to lift them up.

there was inadequate legislation and a lack comportment effort. it was lifted at the last standing committee in august following the enactment of new legislation and new enforcement authority. societies do intervene where they see as systematic a lack of efforts to put in enforcement measures. somalia has a trade suspension at the moment. there are certain states that have been identified and have been subject to recommended trades -- recommended trade blocking. >> anyone to comment on that aspect of the issue? >> i fully support the idea that you need to go to the person at the top, the one driving the trade. what is the demand and who is that person or that some ticket?

getting the low level poachers will not get at the problem. the major of a quality of a finding who the head of the syndicate is is the ability to hide behind a legal structure throughout the world in various jurisdictions around the globe and that is even true with the shell corporations that hide their money in secret bank account hiding behind a trustor foundation. there is a layer upon layer upon layer of opacity in the financial system and the corporate structure that enables these syndicates to hide behind. that is the thing that the international community can do as far as an attempt to cut off the money supply. >> thank you. i appreciated. you mentioned earlier -- let me

ask you a quick question. on the seized material, how much of it finds its way back into the market? do you have any sense of that, ?r. hamilton dr where does it go? what happens to it? i saw in the video briefly enormous stocks of tusks, seized material, but knowing how things worked, i'm wondering if that stays in the evidence room. is it destroyed? what happens to it? >> sometimes it gets destroyed. we have a burning of ivory in kenya recently which was a confinement that had been seized that it was from nairobi. the ivory was not canyon but it

had come from other countries. kenya had been used because of its efficiency in transport as a transit point. the ivory eventually was surrendered back to kenya and the countries of origin more identified through detective work and looking at the dna profile of some of the dna found on the ivory. it was agreed that they should burn the ivory to destroy it. it was a very good solution and it sent a strong signal. >> those that need to become the norm? should that be a part of a convention, to require that all stocks assembled are destroyed? if there is a secondary value, teasing and then selling it, or putting a black market after the fact, they're still the same incentive. >> it would be an excellent idea, but one would perhaps need

to tie some recompense to those countries so that the team stocks are dealt with. >> we do have tehe reward bill we are working on and i hope we can phrase something into that. you talk about the need to send strong messages -- the range state, the transit state, and the consumer state. clearly, it is critical to highligh the need for china, heriland, japan, oteh countries, to get them to raise the level of enforcement and a

penalty. what other messages do you have in mind for those three levels -- range, transit, and consumer? >> it is a very pragmatic and focused convention. one of the weaknesses has been the high level of political engagement. with some of these issues, if we do not get high-level political engagement from a strong signals are very hard, we need to lift the debate into a higher political sphere so that in countries at the highest political level, this will not be tolerated. you will be punished severely if you're found breaching this

convention in the national implementation. we're working with all states, consumer and transit states to bring them together at a higher political level to have that discussion about what they will do in terms of sending these messages. we do have an opportunity next year to have a higher level ministerial session whereby we can bring together political figures to send these very strong signals. at then a conversation operational level. we are strongly of the view that you just mentioned. they want to get this on the agenda and send a message that it will have a significant

positive impact. >> anybody, you talk about the high return for a minimum investment. this is with respect to a few of those things. on the front line, in the range states, it to wonder people can get on their horses and come ranging in with their ak-47 and massacre for hundred of these animals, we have a fundamental problem in terms of security forces, law-enforcement, an army, whatever it is. what, if anything, can be done to augment that capacity? could that happen through the african union? could that happen through some other kind of coordinated force or something? it seems that some minimal level of increase deterrent force

would send a pretty strong message. dr. hamilton? >> the point is that this elephant crisis is just not on many people's radar until now, neither in the states nor in africa. all of these should be used. if it were not the need for the nitty gritty, it is to build up forces on the ground to an gauge local people and get them on their side and to use everything in the armory to solve this problem. >> we have three votes in the senate, which generally find their way to end our hearing one way or another, in about five minutes. we have a moment for colleagues to weigh in with additional questions.

as i said in my opening comments, i understand that we are inundated. we have a lot going on. there are a lot of people out of work, deficit issues, just a lot going on. people are consumed. the trick here though is not to lose sight of the connectedness of all these things. this is not just about elephants. this is not just about coaching in one place. the dots connect to the whole issue of failed states, governance, lack of law enforcement, preying on people, the random violence that comes as a consequence of this and enormous sums of money. criminals and the kids are walking away with billions of dollars out of this. one oe