elections commissioner talks about why he opposes requiring independent campaign groups to disclose where they get their money. >> we are looking very carefully at the economy, trying to judge whether or not the loss of momentum we've seen recently is enduring and whether or not the economy is likely to continue to make progress towards lower unemployments and more satisfactory labor market conditions. if that does not occur, we have to consider additional steps. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--] host: good morning. it's friday, july 20, 2012. ben bernanke, one of many people in politics talking about the economy and jobs creation. and that's where we're going to start in our conversation with you on this friday morning. job creation, what works? we will show you some video clips are the house, from the

senate and from the campaign trail. but ask you what do you want from washington or the private sector in order to create more jobs in the country? here are our numbers -- our question on this friday morning, what works in job creation? and as we begin this friday morning before we get to our question, the country's waking up to a terrible story out of the denver, colorado, area, the suburbs of denver, where a gunman opened fire at a movie theater in the premiere of "the dark knight rises" overnight. the tally right now stands at 14 killed and 50 wounded at an aurora movie theater. here's just a bit of what they say. 1314 people were killed, when shots rang out in a movie theater during a premiere showing at a "batman" movie.

a 24-year-old suspect is in custody. more details will become available as the day progresses. but we wanted to make sure those of you who are starting your day with us knew about it. let's move to our question of the morning, which is about jobs creation. the number of proposals on both sides of still and the parties disagree about what the -- still and the parties disagree with what it is. let me show you a little bit of some of the stories in the newspaper this morning about on this economy p. this is "the washington post" this morning --

host: here's more from "the washington post" -- "new york times" this morning. economy remains soft and output and housing. data on home sales and factory production weakening u.s. commitment americans bought fewer homes in june than in may. manufacturing in the philadelphia region contracted for a third number of months and the number of americans seeking unemployment rose last week.

we like to ask you, what's the most effective way to create jobs in this country? let's begin with a phone call from debbie, a democrat in philadelphia. good morning, debbie. caller: good morning. i notice yesterday with the outsourcing to stop the outsourcing of jobs. that's not going to help. we need those manufacturers to come back into the united states so the people can work and get good jobs and good benefits. and then we talk about how no one is -- the president is not doing anything. everything he tries to do to get this economy moviing, they block it and it's not because i'm a democrat, that i'm saying it, i'm just watching what's going on down there on the hill. they voted 500 times to block the health care act. but yet, no one wants to put on the floor to get these jobs back

into the country. host: thanks, debbie. from our facebook community, also, debating this topic this morning. there needs to be standards set for private employers. too many employers misuse and abuse workers, thus the domino of the turnover rate. and mark post this on facebook. the american economy thrives on the balance of private sector, individualism and government -- next is a call from woodstock, georgia. good morning, sherry, a republican. you're on the air. caller: we need to cut the corporate tax rate. when corporations are strangled by government and e.p.a. regulations, they're going to jump ship and that means leave america and go where they can afford to operate. the stock holders obviously invest their money on the corporate structure.

if the corporations cannot make money for the stock holder, what good is it? less government means more jobs, more jobs means more people that are employed, that are buying goods and services that that's what will keep america running and keep the corporations in this country that do create jobs. government has never created a job. i need go back to ronald reagan's strategy, it works. host: our first caller decried the inability of the senate to pass legislation about the outsourcing of jobs. i would guess you would disagree with her. caller: i mean the outsourcing of jobs is basically because they're jumping ship. they can't operate in this country under all these regulations and government taxes and all the control and now we want toed a even more to the pot and expect everything to produce and to run smoothly and raise

taxes on top of that? by design, america, what is left of her, is being destroyed. host: next up is philadelphia. joe is an independent there. go ahead, please, joe. caller: yes, good morning. thanks for taking my call. i wear a reflector -- reflective of the previous caller. most world war ii, we were the ace -- post-world war two, we were the greatest nation on earth. they told us the russians and the chinese were going to annihilate us as a society. we had all these jobs after world war ii and all these politicians got hold of making our lives better and they run all over our jobs, overseas and everywhere else, where they don't have to put up with all the -- there's one who tried to pursue a dream is subject to once they decide to pursue that dream. it's disgusting.

what this climate to doing in the world where trigrand kids are going to grow up in is unacceptable. these people have sold us down the river. you're going to have to be a genius to figure out what they've done to us. the kids don't stand a chance in this country. and we've got to stop this government regulators because they are doing everything they can to stifle the american dream. good morning to all and enjoy your day. and i hope we get this on track. host: next up is tim in iowa. tim's a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i can't even know where to start i'm so irate. the job problem, it's not about competing with overseas. it's all about corporate profits. all you've got to do is look at the charts. look at the data. you can see that the executive pay has skyrocketed. we give the facts that the

billionaires on the right ring wants to push the war machine every time they turn around. they want to send the young people to die for their profits and they want to park their money overseas in foreign investments for tax shelters and then they say that we can't compete. it's not about competition. it's all about their profits and that's all it boils down to. we need to get behind the president and support him on an actual jobs bill, we can get some jobs in this country. host: thanks,ty. the first of several clips of video we want to show you. here is harry reid yesterday talking about the legislation that sailed on the outsourcing of jobs. >> the past decade, it's remarkable in a very negative sense how many jobs have been shipped overseas. about two and a half million. call centers, manufacturing jobs . but it's fairly easy to see why

republicans are blocking our bill to stop outsourcing. they're obviously defending their presidential nominee who, of course, made fortune by shipping jobs overseas. so it's no wonder republicans are free to even debate to shipping jobs overseas. the republicans are afraid to defend their support for outsourcing as mitt romney, as they are to release these tax returns. and senator mcconnell said yesterday this debate is an unimportant issue. an unimportant issue. i think that says it all. host: and here's reaction from the other side in the "washington times" this morning. and a story headlined "g.o.p. sees mischief in jobs legislation." --

host: grove, oklahoma, is up next, and this is jerry who is a republican. we're talking about effective job creations. you're on, jerry. caller: well, i think one of the issues in effective job creation would be to have the government

and agencies, local government, big governments, and federal governments start purchasing from u.s. manufacturers themselves. the last figure i see is the federal government's purchases was only in the 65% raping where they were purchasing locally. and the argument would be it's too expensive. we can buy cheaper overseas. that's what everybody else says and even what the consumer says. get the monkey off the businessmen's back. get the government and its regulations and that includes the unions and get them off their backs so they can and be profitable. and let's have the democrats one sensible thing. businesses are profit centers. they are no social institutions. the poor never gave anybody a job. and it is up to businesses to survive and those moneys which they survive with go into

returns for governments, i mean for shock holders which goes to teacher's unions, firemen's unions, retirement for everything. so there has to be a realization by unions and the government as they have got to work with business and not look upon business as some sort of a cash cow. thank you. host: charles on twitter offers this. first, everyone needs to pay down their personal debts, not that attractive but true. next is a caller named mary from yorktown, virginia, who is an independent. hi, mary. caller: good morning. this day president has the ability -- this president has the ability to open seven plus million jobs and illegal workers still have to this day but he

refuses to do that. to stop blaming romney and other people for the outsourcing. and also, when this president took office, the democrat has full control of the house and senate. they had the majority vote. they did not do anything about the tax breaks for the rich. the oil subsidy asks the oil spending. they had full capability to stop all that. they didn't do it and they're blaming on the republicans. i'm sick of it. hold them accountable. tell obama open the seven million jobs that the illegals have and get us back to work. now he's talking about giving work permit to all these illegals here? this is exactly what we don't need. and he's sitting here telling y'all to blame -- and he's talking about outsourcing? it's like the pot calling the kettle black. hold him responsible for his actions. throw him out in november

because he is not helping us. host: this is an article -- from the other side of the congress and capitol hill on the other side of the aisle, let's listen to house speaker john boehner yesterday talking about the republicans in job creation. >> the house has passed legislation with common sense reforms. we've done our job. but our president has not lifted a finger to work with the congress on jobs or to resolve these big issues. he doesn't even have time to meet with his own jobs council. he's campaigning every day looking for somebody else to blame. republicans only control one half of one third of our government. but we're the only ones in town who are offered a plan to

address both the threat to our security, that's poised by the defense sequester and the threat to our economy posed by the coming tax hike. republicans are leading on jobs and while this white house is checked out, and i think the american people deserve better. host: from the opinion paint this morning, robert systemleson, a longtime writer about the economy for "newsweek" and "the washington post" -- host: a new report from the project non-partisan research group compares the incomes of 40-somethings now with their parents in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

host: that's from bob samuelsson this morning. we're talking about what works in job creation. your thoughts on that. next is new rochelle, new york. germane, you're on. -- jermaine, you're on. caller: i've got two comments. first of all, what works in this country was -- is apprenticeships.

if you're getting ready to graduate, why don't they offer that? they don't do that anymore. i also go to college. i have a lot of college student, they get racked up with a lot of debt. let's say community college. they go there for a year and transfer to a university. and they get racked up with all these debt and they end up dropping out. and there's no way for them to pay back because there's no jobs. they don't pay anything. now, the reason why i'm bringing up the apprenticeship factor is the fact that not everybody should go to college. not everybody wants to go to college. me, personally, i'm a public service worker. i worked as an emmitt -- emmitt smith on the ambulance. some people like to work on computers.

and to a lot of republican colleagues that are calling is the fact that they don't bash the president because given the policies, he's put out a jobs act the people in congress, the republicans have said no and vetoed everything he's put out. and most people, i don't know if they know how to govern their works but the president can't make magic happen. that's why we're not a dictator, we're a democracy. the president can't just sit there and just say you know what? i'm going to pass the jobs bill no matter what. if congress isn't working because the election is going on right now. so anybody out there that thinks anything's going to happen, it's not going to happen right now. it's after the election. period host: how long ago did you graduate from high school? >> 1999. host: public caller: yes. host: so there was no -- you

talk about apprenticeships. they didn't offer any shop classes or anything like that in your high school? caller: no. even the counselors, the only thing they're concerned is if you showed up to class or if you're late. no advertisements. for those people, that say that government doesn't provide jobs, it's not just regular federal government, it's also state government too. embassy -- e.m.s., firefighters, police. instead of working these minimum wage jobs, you work as a restaurant or waiter, you're not going to make anything, especially if you have kids or family, forget about it. host: thank you, jermaine. later on in the program, dr.

groves is going to be leading that post next month to return to academia. he's has been very much involved in our numbers by the segment to talk about trends in the past decade. one of those is the change of employment between the private sector, the public sector and both state and federal jobs. next up is shreveport, louisiana. hello to keith. a republican. caller: i want us to go back to when ronald reagan took over as office as president and what he did and the things that he did that created so many jobs. he begin to talk about the exceptionalism of the american people. if he talked about how the entrepreneurs were the people that created the jobs and these were the people that created the ability for people to have jobs. he begin to cut taxes he begin to deregulate government and begin to create a smaller government and begin to say that this country is created and jobs

are created by those entrepreneurs that take risks, spend money and yes, you might call them the rich people, but they are the people that create jobs and create wealth for those and everybody moves up together. i don't understand how obama is talking about the middle class. there's a middle class people that create jobs. it is the entrepreneur that create the jobs in this country and allow for a massive of tax revenue increase because of the policies that ronald reagan. people people that are voting were not alive when reagan was president. it would be twies see what did our president, ronald reagan do that brought such prosperity in our lives? host: thank you, keith. we will have michele flournoy in our program, former june

secretary of defense. she stays in the policy community on foreign policy issues. she's here to talk to us primarily about syria as the crisis continue there. we learned overnight that rebels have taken several of the border and we're going to talk with her about the u.s.' position and what the international concerns are as syria continues to descend into increasing violence. next, lebron is on the line. lebron is an independent. welcome to the conversation. caller: yes. i would like to just comment on the callers and i have been watching the different news stations over the last couple of weeks and i noticed considerably that the republican bible won't

spin anything they can off of any sound bite that they can possibly spin it off of. i would watch one side, three different stations for the last three or four days and i can tell you that they're doing it constantly and these poor ignorant people that are out here thinking that triple down politics is going -- the trickled-down politics stuff is going to give them a job. it's just amazing that they can't remember just a few years ago what that got us. and they're going to give this good man that we have in the white house now, all of this trouble and the republicans have sat there and told him, told everyone that they're going to block everything that he tries to do. that's why we don't have any jobs. if you people want to go out and vote for these people that are wanting to put you in a same situation as george bush put you

in, only on steroids, you will deserve what you get because i will move out of this country if this other nut case gets in there. i mean, he is just my nyquil. he is going to ruin this country . if anything that's going to anything for us, it's obama. they've already set their agendas, both romney and obama. and it's very clear to me, if you're a rich person, what you should do is vote for romney. if you're anybody else, you should vote for obama and support him. host: thank you. donna on twitter says this to us. if the middle class doesn't buy the product, no one is going to hire new workers. and from twitter, adam writes this about job creation. if voluntary interaction between human beings creates the guns. get the government out of it. and tizzy writes we have the

need in the physical structure, -- next is orlando, florida. carlos, a democrat there. good morning, carlos. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. just want to speak on this outsourcing thing. people need to kind of put themselves in the mindset of large companies. even though they outsource these jobs obviously to gain profits and large corporations can gain profits, keeping their jobs here, you know. they may not gain as much, so hence the outsourcing and that's the same with material costs. let's go buy materials overseas because they're cheaper than our other american companies selling us the same materials we would

get. and that's what people need to understand. these large companies outsource because they want to keep their profits on a level of increasing every year versus hey, we're not going to make as much if we keep the jobs here and that's sad. that's a slap in the face to the american people. i don't necessarily have the answer for what works on job creation, but you take numbers like four million job openings, 13 million ploy unemployed and these numbers are not accurate but a lot of the workforce -- why don't we train these people to fill these positions in and that will crush a large percentage of the unemploy. and boehner, backing obama for being on his agenda of winning this next race and not paying attention to the things in the white house, it's very similar to how two years ago when they

took over the senate and they trash their feet on the important issues, you know, where are their comments on that? what are the people saying you kind of trashed your feet on very important issues but let's give it to obama now because that's what we do. i just want to make those comments. thank you so much. host: thank you, carlos in orlando. back to facebook for just a second. set up the guillotine and stop lobbing off some airs accuratic heads. let me show you some newspaper about the financial crisis.

more repeatedly, the district court in manhattan -- back to phone calls as we ask you what works in job creation? next up is a call from madisonville, kentucky. good morning to roy. you're on. caller: hey, ma'am. good morning. thanks, c-span, for answering my call this morning. i just want to say a point of view on some things. there ain't no jobs out there that really can help me to go to college. i got a bunch of colleges calling me and wanting me to go to college but if i could do it online because i don't really want to go online. i want to go to college nearby, but i don't know if the job's going to hold or anything.

but i want to vote for a woman president. i like sarah palin on a lot of things. she says good things. she's wanting the government out of all the schools. she's wanting all the government out of everything. and i think we lean too much to the government for handouts. i think everybody keep asking me i just -- i don't depend on the government for nothing. i don't call my daddy for money. i don't call my mom. i don't ask my daddy to give me a health care package. i just work for a living and i get out and i work on a farm. i work doing roofing right now. but i want me a full-time job, a 40-hour a week pay and i can't find that. so i don't know what to do. and i don't know what to do about colleges and they keep calling me, wanting me to go to college online, which i don't know if it's going to be a good

college degree or is it,, you know, they want my money or what. host: what would you study if you were going to college? caller: if i was going to go to college, i want to go to like, you know, a destruction job. go to a -- construction job or a steel mill job. go to an oil rig. host: do you need a college caller: government has shut down so many jobs it's terrible. i want the government out completely. host: you've made that point. thank you, roy. good luck. madison, kentucky. a regular viewer in seattle, washington. -- and this from blake watching us from indianapolis who sends this e-mail --

and finally this, jerry ashby -- and our viewer that was extoling role reagan's job creation policy has gotten an number of responses from twitter. here's one -- host: here's chris from the independent line. caller: here's what people don't seem to understand. our government doesn't have the ability to help the private

sector. we should have learned that when we try the stimulus package. i knew it wasn't going to work from the beginning because if you do the math on it, $850 billion, which is a lot of money for our government but our private sector is way too big for our government have any effect by throwing money at it. and that's a good thing. we should be happy about that. we don't want our -- the government to be big enough to do that. it just isn't. so $850 billion sounds like a lot of money but if you were to make $50,000 a year and you weren't making it and somebody's going to fix everything for you and gave you a little bit you were $3,000. one time. not per month or per year. it's not going to make a dent. that's why it doesn't have -- and they can't. but the only thing our government has the ability to do is to hurt the private sector in the form of taxes, corporate taxes and regulations. no matter how much people think

that it's not high enough which is what most people think, there's no political will to address those things to help the economy, but no matter how much they think they're too much, it's the only thing our government has to help the private sector is to not hurt it as much. i mean, we can't tell china to raise their wages. we can't control that. we have no control over that. we can't lower our wages down to china's level. of course. so what can we do? there's only one thing our government has the ability to do is to not hurt the private sector. it's the only thing we can do. host: bill bailey on twitter -- from the "washington times" over the house debate over the defense spending bill. --

host: u.s. military defend money to the yemen. the latest sign of washington's

deepening involvement in yemen's battle against al qaeda. the u.s. military is preparing to give more than $100 million in aid to the arabian country this year. host: and the president authored on op-ed piece on cyber security which is printed in the "wall

street journal" this morning. the president writes an adversary unable to match our supremacy the battle -- next up is new york city. good morning to craig, a democrat talking job creation. caller: yes, good morning, sue. i'd like to say that business has itself hands around the american people's throat so bad that they're ready for a as fair type of -- laissez faire type of situation. i would also like to say that all the people that call in and say that i never got a job, i'm

a poor person. all the people who work for minimum age are hired firemen, teachers, police officers, all kinds of workers that do services for the very people that say poor people never give them a job. if you're a minimum wage worker, you're hiring people through your taxes. host: thank you. back to facebook. vinny says stop waiting for the politicians to act and just do our part of the deal. larry says less government interference -- we're talking with you about what would work with job creation in this country. next up, a call, berkly springs, west virginia. paul, a republican there. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm 73 years old.

i had a full-time job until i was 71. i have three neighbors in my neighborhood right here in their 40's and 50's. they're telling me that you're crazy to go to work on your age. they are telling me it's so easy to get government money. all you've got do is hire the right lawyer. the lawyer will get some crooked doctor to write a letter. and then you can sit at house, sit home, watch tv and draw your check from the government. that's the problem with this country. you've got 49% of the people robbing the wagon and 51% pulling the wagon. it's not going to work. it's going to drive us into bankruptcy. and if we don't get obama out of there, it's going to be -- this is going to a sociali country. pure and simple.

i mean, government only has so much money. they're borrowing money from china right now. and as far as that stimulus package, he can't even -- mitt romney was shipping jobs overseas. part of that stimulus money went to china, fin land -- they're building electric cars in finland, windmills in china. that money went overseas. you people better wise up and get off your butts and go to work because if you're going to turn this into a socialist country, it is not going to work. you just got to see what happens to soviet union. you're taking away the incentive for people to get out and go to work. host: thank you. you me a that point. thank you for your call this morning. suzanne on twitter writes get rid of the big banks. help the little guy, not the big guys.

similar comment from jeff who on facebook writes poor people spend 100% of their income for goods and services. rich people hoard the money and this slows the commitment paul martin writes -- next phone call, this is joy who is watching us in spring hill, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling to make a couple of comments. for to the who keep insisting that government don't create jobs, you forget to understand, for example, defense. defense has contracts to individuals. the main source of income is the government. those people that -- they then hire other people. they extend contracts to others.

they then pay minimum wages to the folks who are physically doing the work. that's one example. health care. governments have contracts to health care providers. their main source of income is the government. those company in turn hire other people and in most instances, paying them minimum wages. why do you think the former vice-president for the first time since he left office was in on this show the day before yesterday? because he's talking about taking money from defense. halliburton. that's his company. so you can't always say government don't create jobs. all of these things have domino effects. the government -- if i'm a manufacturer producing products on the face of the earth, i need roads to get from it point a to

point b. who's making those roads? government. so i think what is here is a lot of uneducated people and it's poor people who have been lied to don't -- they don't understand their own interest and listen to these people repeat it over and over again. host: thank you, joy. keith carr on twitter writes curtail trade with oppressive communism countries and made in china will be replaced with made in america. next is bruce, a democrat in beachwood, ohio. you're on, bruce. caller: good morning. by listening to what everybody is saying, you know, one way that jobs can be created is to first, you have to try to get them supposedly, you're going to have to try to get the manufacturers to bring those overseas jobs that they have outsourced back to the united states.

you can do this by giving them tax break just like obama to give these companies a 20% tax break if they would bring those jobs back -- if those companies would come back to the united states. will that work? maybe, maybe not. because let's be realistic. a lot of these companies go overseas because they can hire workers overseas for less than minimum wage. minimum wage here is $7 an hour, and $7.50 an hour. you can go overseas and hire somebody for 2 -- $2 or $3 in india. all of these places that these items are being made by these companies are being made by somebody who's making less than minimum wage. now, will a tax break bring back a job or bring back these jobs to the united states? maybe, maybe not. but it's a start.

it's a way to do it. a good way to create jobs is for the government to help small businesses and when i say a small business, i'm talking about a business that may have 100 people or between 100 to 200 people. that's a small business, help them grow in the united states. give them the capital to help these people grow to help these small manufacturing companies that are starting in the yirktse help them grow. when those businesses start growing, they hire more people. host: ok, we're just about out of time. oversight of g.o.p. on twitter says best for job creating, reduce employer's payroll taxes and lower income tax credit. and finally, ben is our last caller on this friday morning discussion topic. ben's a republican. you're on. caller: last but not least, i guess.

i don't really have too much to say anyway. host: so ben, how would you create jobs in the country? caller: go back to first, you have to stop the whole -- i don't know, indoctrination, the ideological fight, the riffraffs in congress that. to -- that want to stop. people argue on line, they come online and we don't know what goes on with a lot of those men. there's a lot of elbow rubbing between them. but if there's someone who wants to put a wrench in the system, they've got other obligation. they're like a puppet but who's really behind them? saying i'm not a going to name names. they're not just the only ones. any powerful source, they like what they say. they have lobbyists. they find guy. they find someone that can represent. they push an agenda. even a president can be outnumbered because the congress can make taxes and it can change the constitution. but it can do it slowly over

time. i don't get a lot of advice from friends. i like to go to a source that's like credible and in 1984, a detector k.g.b. said lot of talking and doing -- trying to waning american patriotism to the simple core that we are the last free place anybody can go. and if we are following the lines that he said, his dad was a high ranking k.g.b. it's all about psychological warfare. you get one generation and it happen to be the late 1960's like the men who are in power right now, who they're in their 20's and late 1960's and they pump their heads with ideology and now they roll with it. and we're stuck with that. so the jobs creation -- we're in destabilization right now to where it's never going to seem like it's going to feel right but we all have to remember to keep reality in check and that

we are the people and like -- imagine 30 million people go no, i'm not going to do this. well then you know what? now the senate's going to run around really trying to make sure they do their job. host: thanks so much, ben, from california, who is the last on this topic. you see the headlines of about syria. yesterday with the united nations and the failure to find a diplomatic solution. and then this morning, escalated fighting, including the rebels taking a number of border positions. we're going to learn more about the u.s. position from michele flournoy. she recently served as undersecretary of defense. stays very active in the foreign policy community. she'll be our next guest in just a couple of minutes. ♪

>> this weekend on american history tv, -- >> 30 years of the administrations of ronald reagan and bush and clinton and bush and obama have done more to confirm marks's prediction of the rich getting richer and everyone else flowing behind than the soviet union, perhaps. >> socialism in america. eric phoner on the rise of socialism in 20th century america. more are the contenders. our series on key political figure who is ran for president and lost but changed political history. this week, thomas dewey. he rose to fame. the new york republican would lose to f.d.r. and harry truman. "american history tv," this weekend, on c-span 3.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: michele flournoy is at the table this morning. former undersecretary of defense for policy, serving in that role from 2009 to just recently. she now is the co founder of a think tank in washington. yesterday with the failure of thetown find a diplomatic solution. and the news that rerebel -- that the rebels are fighting back. where is this all going, do you think? guest: i think we are in a new chapter on the ground in syria and things are deepening into a civil war and this is a real important moment. -- in that the obama administration has been pushing from the beginning for a political transition --

transition process. he's killed his own people by the those. he has no standing anymore. he is not going to be part of the future of syria. the real question is how do you engineer a transition where he steps away and there's some sort of democratic process in syria? there's a very strong international consensus around that with the europeans, the other iran state asks the united states in the lead. the two holdouts are russia and china in the u.n. context. so right now, the real push has to be with russia in particular to say if we don't engineer a transition now and ha sad doesn't step away, this will become an all out civil war. it's not in the interest of the united states or any other country around the world. host: some of the analysis, particularly in the "financial times" columnist suggesting that hassad would be the type that

have the interest of fighting till the last breath. guest: that's the risk and yet, he's very dependent on the few states that still support him. we have done a lot, put pressure on the hassad regime and isolate the sanctions, financial measures. he is very isolated. so i think if russia were to use its relationship to press him to step down, that could make the difference. he lost their support, the only support he would have left would be in iran and that's not going to help him very much. host: can you explain tour viewing public why syria should matter to them? guest: syria is in the heart of the middle east. it is a country that borders a number of states. if it goes into chaos in civil war, that will spill across its borders. we've already seen some of that with violence trickling into lebanon with flows of terrorists

and arms going back and forth across the iraq border so this could go from being a civil war to a situation of regional instability very, very quickly. in addition, syria has one of the largest chemical weapons stockpiles still left. and there's very serious concern about the loss of control over that arsenal both in terms of could it be used against civilians? but also could this weapons fall into the hands of terrorists? for that reason, i found some -- host: the united states should bomb the chemical supply area. do it before the israelis do. do you have any thoughts or reaction to that scenario? guest: it's one of the things that sounds good until you really look into the details. it's very difficult to take out a chemmle -- chemical weapon

site that would travel across whatever the geography is. it sounds good in an op-ed but it's not a realistic solution on the ground. i think that the sinner -- syrian government has been pressed that it is -- it will be held accountable for the security of those weapons and making sure they don't fall into the wrong hands. the truth is what we really should be pressing for is ultimately the syrian government giving up its chemical weapons and joining the chemical weapons convention but i think that's something that should be considered for post-transition. host: russia has basis in syria, is that correct? guest: yes. host: what is china's interest in syria? guest: i think china's interest is primarily against international intervention. they have a principle in their foreign policy.

they don't like to see u.n. resolutions that authorize international intervention inside of countries. mainly because they worry about their own situation. they would never want to see the international community decide to intervene in some part of china or in some area that china deems to be in its strategic interest. so they in principle, are against any -- authorizing international intervention in these situations. host: we're going to be talking about syria but also larger foreign policy and national security issues. if you have questions on those with michele flournoy, here is one item in the "washington times" today, related to this. yesterday, the house of representatives and we've talked about this had a vote on the defense spending. and in the midst of that, there was a vote on boycotting russian arms to syria. here's what a little bit of what the associated press said --

host: your reaction? guest: well, it's not surprising. i think russia's position on syria is untenable and i think that if the issue leads to a deepening civil war, you will see other impacts in the relationship. but the truth is we have a lot of important business where we cooperate with russia. daily cooperate in terms of supplying the nato troops in afghanistan. we cooperate in terms of putting the most serious sanctions against iran that's ever happened in history. there are a lot of areas where we need russian cooperation. and yet, their position on syria is really not only wrong for

syria but i think it will endanger some of the relationships more broadly and the willingness for countries to work with them. host: from the international page of the "new york times," says chaos grows in syria, worries grows on the sidelines. two stories. one is about teheran. teheran facing the loss of a most valued ally and from israel, the situation there is forcing it to rethink its regional strategies. will you take each story independently? guest: with regard to iran, iran and syria are very close allies. and here beyond the positive aspects of a political transition of -- in syria for the syrian people and for stability in the region, there's tremendous opportunity in breaking that alliance with iran and isolating iran. a change in syria to democracy would leave iran with no allies

and that would be significant for the broader region for iran policy. i think with regard to israel, with the iran -- with what's happening in syria, there's so many changes on their borders that they really are having to think through a number of different contingencies throughout. what we've tried to do or what the u.s. government's tried to do with israel is to reassure them them is at every term, we will stand with them and we will continue to ensure that we provide, you know, the security assistance they need to be confident of their situation. host: one column in the "financial times" this morning, complimentary to the united states about how during this administration she says we've navigated the mine fields in the middle east the exception to that is syria. here's what she writes --

is this kunterfied into getting the country militarily if guest: i wouldn't put it that way. i think the administration understands the severe risks and costs associated with military intervention. in syria, i mean, the president has been clear that we're prepared for all contingencies. but given the stakes, given the costs, given the risks, we owe it to ourselves and to syrian people to try to resolve this through diplomacy, through pressure, and without a military intervention that would only for at least a period of time significantly increase the violence and the number of deaths on the ground and so forth.

i think the president has his eyes wide open and believes rightly, i think diplomacy is the right course of action as long as it has a chance of succeeding. host: a memo in "new york times" suggests that focus on the election campaign might be one reason that the president is not getting more involved in syria. he writes and you can respond. president obama spent a day in the oval office conferring with his national security staff and took off to spend the rest of the day on the campaign trail but the white house in campaign mode nearly 24-7 many of the biggest initiatives have been pushed off the back burner until the election. in peace talks the administration is mostly playing for time, trying to avoid decisions that could land the president in trouble or be romney.ed by mitt romne

guest: that is not consistent with my experience with this president. on matters of national security he has been an incredibly strong and responsible commander in chief. i have never seen him weigh politics as a major factor in his decisions about how best to protect and advance u.s. interests. i think if he judged that the right approach at this point was military intervention i don't think the fact we are in an election season with stop him. he is very clear about what his commander in chief role is and shouldn't confuse or color his judgment about how to protect the united states and our interests. again, my experience over three years, i never saw him sort of polit politicize national security

decisions. host: david brooks from "new york times" where bottom shines he writes it won't help with many votes but barack obama has been a good fortune policy president. he, vice president biden and the rest of his team have created a style of policy making that is flexible, incremental and adapted to the specific circumstances of the moment following a fortune policy hedgehog he has been a pretty effective fox. michele flournoy our guest this morning and as we have told you see spent self years at the pentagon -- several years under secretary of defense now involved in creating a foreign policy think thank th -- tank tt helps to shape policy. here is our first twitter question. guest: i don't want to comment

on intelligence operations but i think that what u.s. strategy more broadly has been trying to do is create multiple forms of pressure on assad so that he understa understands that there is no future for his regime and that syrian st thing for the people and for himself is to accept a political transition process. i think there are multiple ways you can apply pressure and i think the u.s. and frankly the international community, with the exception of russia and china, have been applying the full rank of instruments. host: next question, this is jason from eugene, oregon. caller: good morning. i was wondering what you think the repercussions could be if an all out conflict were to occur. because it seems it is speculative in terms of that

they have chemical weapons. it sounds like almost iraq part three. i really want to know what the u.s.'s role is and i really want to know how bad the situation can turn if there was actually a military conflict with u.s. involved. because it seems like china, iran and russia are creating a block against u.s. interests there. the second thing i want to say is in terms of g.d.p. and production throughout the united states, how is syria a threat to the united states? they are in a civil war, but when you say interests of the united states what are you referring to first off, and second off, do they really have a chance of being a global threat against the u.s. and allies? guest: that is a great question because i think sometimes those points are not clear enough in the public discussion. i think our goal in syria is to see a political transition toward an inclusive democracy

that includes all sectarian groups, that protects the rights of minorities and so forth. the reason we have an interest in that is that that's the only really path to returning stability to syria. the interests -- our interest in syria really gets to stability. and if syria goes into civil war and brings other parts of the region with it, that will have huge effects for our ally israel, it will have huge potential destabilizing effects on other countries. we care about iraq, lebanon, egypt, elsewhere. and it will also, i think, have profound economic effect. if you have a war in syria, you can be sure that it will affect

the price of oil and energy resources and that will have serious impacts on our economy. so, i think that there are a whole host of reasons we need to care about this. and it can get very bad. unlike the iraq situation where there was speculation and it was erroneous about their weapons of mass destruction programs, we know what syria has in terms of chemical weapons. there's been years of information and intelligence on this and there is no real dispute that they have a si sizeable arsenal. we have a very strong interest in making sure that arsenal doesn't get into the hands of al qaeda operatives to be used elsewhere against us. host: next is jim who is in london for the olympics, an independent. caller: you can google james morris and see war for -- host: we are going to let you go

because he is a regular caller to the program. we ask people to wait 30 days between calls feel next is a call from long island. this is a republican. chris. caller: i'm talking about way back when the arab spring started there were meetings at the white house with the internet people of mark zuckerman and facebook and getting them riled up and starting this garbage and they are making millions and the blood sled is still happening. that is all i have to say. guest: i think certainly the various internet instruments were used by egyptians, for example, on the ground to organize themselves. but i think it would be very erroneous and wrong to suggest that there was any sort of direction of that by the u.s., by any part of the u.s. government. these tools are widely available

in the arab world. the arab use them to organize democratic peaceful, largely peaceful protests. at this point, really, the only way to stability in the middle east is through reform. we have an interest in making sure the democratic transitions are successful and that they are done as peacefully as possible. that is what the administration has been focused on. host: related to that is a question from twitter. guest: i don't think we have had a hands off policy. has led the ates consensus with the international community across europe, the arab world, and others. the only holdouts are russia and china at this point. we have tightened a whole host of sanctions against the assad regime and that has caused some members to start defecting.

we have continued to press not only at the u.n. but broadly for a political transition. and we have also provided a lot of non lethlethal assistance, humanitarian and organizing assistance to the opposition. the judgment has been military intervention by the united states is not in our interests at this point in time. host: let's listen to comments from your former boss talking about syria. [video clip] >> it is obvious that what is happening in syria represents a real escalation in the fighting. and all of the concerns that we have investigated about the need for assad to step down, a need for a peaceful transition, the

need to achieve a peaceful solution to that situation, by ignoring those appeals by the international community, that the violence there has only gotten worse and the also of lives has only increased. which tells us that this is a that is rapidly spinning out of control. for that reason, it is extremely important that the international communi other ty, working with communities that have concerns in that area, have to bring maximum pressure on assad to do what is right, to step down and allow for the peaceful transition. host: any more to say about that? guest: no, i think he is absolutely on the mark. this is the time for the international community, particularly russia, to press assad that he has to go. host: here is a comment from

k.p. potatoes on twitter who writes neither bahrain or saudi arabia but the u.s. and israel don't want regime change there. the agenda is israeli hegemony. guest: each country's circumstances are so unique and different but the general principle it is best served by moving toward democracy has been a key principle of u.s. policy and in bahrain we have worked behind the scenes very rigorously to try to get the regime will to open up its to more participation by minority elements, more dialogue, more discussion and so forth. the same with saudi arabia. so, we obviously have a profound interest in the security and safety of the state of israel, and we will -- i think u.s.

policy across republican and democratic administrations has kept to that. but we also have a strategic interest in democratic transitions in the region, and i think that the question is how to get those done in the safest possible away with the least amount of blood shed. host: here is a similarly themed question. guest: absolutely not. i think that certainly i can't speak for the previous administration, and i won't speak for this one now that i'm gone, but i think president

obama took a very assertive approach with regard to sudan. it was u.s. leadership and diplomacy that helped to ensure that the referendum went forward that sudan had a chance to become a sovereign state. we are now working to try to make sure that the two countries don't get back into conflict, try it tamp down some issues and resolve disputes and not resort to violence so it is mischaracterization to say the united states hasn't been actively engaged diplomatically and using the full range of instruments to help the people of sudan. host: the next question is from twitter. guest: i think that syrian opposition is very multi-facetted. you have some islamist elements who are politically islamists but not whether we would call violent extremists like al

qaeda. you have others that are al qaeda elements, a very small portion but they are in the mix. then you have defected regime elements. it is quite an assortment. and one of the things we've been trying to do with our political outreach is to try to encourage and support the opposition in syria in becoming a more coherent entity as we saw happen in places like libya eventually. that is going to be very important for them to be able to succeed in sort of receiving the handoff if you will in a political transition. host: the next call for our ellicott, rom ellhe wil maryland, john, a democrat. caller: i would like to make a quick suggestion for c-span that meet the idea [inaudible] some

fact check on that would be helpf helpful. host: thank you. caller: the question was i heard ou explain a hrelittle what china's position is. i don't understand very much about why russia is opposed. you touched on that briefly and i wish you could elaborate on what russia's position is. guest: russia, really, looks to syria as its last ally in the middle east. it has a military base there. it has had a long-time mail t - military relationship and political relationship with the assad family. this has been a relationship that has lasted for decades, and it is really sort of russia's last foothold of influence in

the middle east. i think it is difficult for them to let this go. yet, the united states has been making the argument that, look, if this actually goes into a full-fledged civil war with the risk of spillover into neighboring countries, that would be very damaging to russia's interests. so, now is the time to shift policy and try to be part of a political transition process that will enable good relations for all of us with new and more democratic regime. host: a different story from the region with the "wall street journal" iran plans to disrupt the oil trade, potential attacks on platforms, tankers. tehran is very unpredictable. u.s. government officials cite new intelligence says they have developed plans to disrupt oil. it suggests they can take steps

in a military conflict. guest: i think the other greatest concern is iran's use of proxies and their destabilizing behavior in the region. i think that there is clear support of iran to terrorist grou and others, llah and they have clearly have,

and they have clearly have a number of plans by their republican guard forces to take destabilizing military action in the gulf. i think the u.s., for its part is very aware of some of these efforts. should they try to close the strait of hormuz or launch attacks on oil tankers or what have you, they would see a unified ift and response on the part of the international community to prevent that if possible but top it early on. host: next call is renee from starkville, mississippi, you are on the air. morning.good i think i need to cheer up somethi something. rebels are not in control of those areas. the syrian military has come in and taken them over. that was yesterday's news. now, u.s. are sponsoring terrorism in syria to justify military intervention. this is happening all over the world. in africa the united states is claiming that there are terrorists in africa. yet in africa [inaudible] in

asia the united states is challenging china with military power. so, the united states is the one that is the biggest threat to word peace. ask anybody outside of the united states and europe and they will confirm that. the polls show anybody outside of europe or the united states sees the united states as the biggest threat to world peace. thank you very much. guest: well, i can assure you this is not the policy of the united states. i think that we have been very -- this administration has been very discriminate in its use of force. in places like trick -- africa we have worked primarily with and through partners to go after the small cells of al qaeda that have popped up in places like somalia and other places. so, again, i don't think there's

any factual basis for the caller's theory that the u.s. is a big supporter of terrorism in order to allow for military intervention. i think this president has been extremely judicious with the use of military force, only using it when it is absolutely necessary to protect american vital interests. i think that the record stands for itself. host: next is a call from winchester, virginia. this is chris, a republican. caller: good morning and thanks for c-span. i'm sorry but i'm so tired hearing about the war in the everything that is going on in the middle east. we've got a crippling debt, we have the military coming home with no jobs, 14% unemployment and 25 real percent of unemployment. why are away worried about what is going on in the middle east

and their oil? let's get our own oil. let's go into the gulf and alaska and get our oil and forget the middle east and let them worry about themselves. thank you. guest: i think that everyone is very mindful of the significant challenges we have at home and i think that is one of the reasons why this administration is not rushing to use military force in syr syria. when you look at the debt situation we face, at the end of the clinton administration there was a suppress. after eight years of the bush administration there was a huge deficit and growing debt. a lot of it came from the iraq combined with cutting tax

revenues. so, foreign policy decisions about war and peace have real economic interests for the united states and we have to be very responsible and very judicious before we decide to commit american military forces to a prolonged, what would likely be a prolonged conflict. and i think the president is absolutely right to pursue the diplomatic and other pressure options as far as they can go and not to jump to some irresponsible military intervention at this point. host: michele flournoy is a contributor to the magazine "fortune affairs" and has a piece talking more about university policy role. we have linked it on our website if you would like to read more. we have about six or seven minipulates left in our -- minutes left. next is tyron of new york. michael is a democrat there. you are on.

caller: good morning. was just watching briefly here your discussion on how we feel about being over in syria and trying to have an impact with fortune relations in that region. the united states has to be very caref careful. like you said, in a diplomatic approach to things. i think that is the correct course at this time. if we allow iran and other rogue nations to come in and start controlling things i think that ill have a devastating blow to economics. look what is happening in the strait of hormuz. are you concerned? host: it looks like we lost his pick up his can comments. guest: i think that, again, the right course of action with regard to syria and, frankly, iran is to pursue the combination of diplomacy,

sanctions, other pressure as far as we can go to achieve our objective. military force is never off the table, but i think that the human cost, as we have experienced in iraq and afghanistan, the financial cost to this nation at this time of constraint, those have to be wisconsined very carefully -- wei weighed very carefully before a decision on use of force is made. host: the president authored an on ed piece in the "wall street journal" on the cyber attack threat. what is the level of threat this country faces? guest: i think the united states faces a serious set of cyber threats from sophisticated hackers up to state sponsor ed cyber attacks. certainly they come after government accounts. they also come after critical infrastructure. everything from

telecommunications, financial systems, oil and gas, energy distribution. a lot of that critical infrastructure is in the private sector t. is owned and operated by the private sector. their defenses are uneven. in some cases they are state of the art, in other cases very poor. i think that what the president is asking for is for some legislation that has been drafted on bipartisan basis to actually be passed to allow for closer cooperation between the private sector that holds critical infrastructure and u.s. government so we can share the latest threat information, share the best cyber tools and better protect the country. host: about a month ago a report came out that the united states was involved with a worm people suggested that is true it increases our vulnerability by creating tease thingsed about -- these thingsed about guys can

get a hold of some of the code and manipulate it against us. do you have any comments on that? guest: it is not a matter that i'm really in a position to comment about at this point. host: one other topic i want to get to is sequestration and budget cuts. where are you on that debate? guest: sequestration was put in as sort of the sword that would hang over our heads to force democrats and republicans on the hill to get to a deficit and debt reduction deal and obviously the president has put a proposal on the table that involves both revenues and very significant spending cuts on the order of $4 trillion to get our economic house in order. we have already obtained the process of taking $1 trillion of those.

every american knows the sides have to compromise and revenue and spending have to be on the table. but we need to do that before sequestration kicks it because it with make dramatic cuts and would be detrimental to our national security. the problem is that if the congress waits until january to kick the can down the road or get deal, some of the negative impacts of sequestration will have been felt. defense contractors are about to ive warning notices to tens of thousands of employees that they could lose jobs if sequestration goes in effect. that is a terrible thing to do to those american families just months before the holidays and end of the year, introducing huge uncertainty in the business claimant. congress needs to using the budget situation for election politics and they need to get to a deal because that's what the american people want them to do. host: we have a couple of

minutes. we will take our final two callers. this one is from georgia, ken is on the line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. in response to the last point that you just made concerning sequestration, i think that one of the points that mrs. flournoy fails to make is if that policy or that was to go forward, this it with damage and reduce our military strength greatly. and in conjunction with that, i would promote that president obama's policy in the middle east has been one of the worst policies for israeli security and has created a tinderbox and we have not been able to lead through strength as ronald reag reagan's doctrine was and

continued cuts in military will lead to a disastrous outcome. guest: i agree that sequestration would be devastating for u.s. military and national security. that is why the president has called for congress to do everything possible to avoid that. and in terms of israeli security, i don't know where you are getting your facts. the last meeting secretary gates had with the minister of defense of israel he said he wanted to make clear to gates there is no administration in the recent history that has done more for the security of israel than this one. we have seen record levels of security assistance to israel. we have built for them and with them an iron dome system to protect their populations from rocket attacks from gaza and the like. we have increased cooperation on missile defense.

we have vetoed efforts at the u.n. to isolate israel. at every turn this administration has been rock solid behind israel. behind is . i would ask you to check your facts on that. host: last phone call from cuyahoga falls. caller: i wonder what the citizens of syria thing, especially the of the generation, but i wonder if there is a sense in the united nations that once all of this change happens and there is a relative peace and democracy across the border around the world, at some point, we are still going to have the ability to have a peaceful world based on the conservation of our natural resources and relative peace on earth. i am wondering or the citizens

of syria talking about things the way that the citizens of egypt were talking about things? what is the united nations talking about long term? guest: from what i've heard from discussions with syrian opposition and what we have seen from whatever polling data that has been gone, which is not a lot, people want a secure environment. they want a democracy. they want a government system that allows different sectarian groups to live peacefully together, that attacks not only basic human rights, but minority rights. -- protects not only basic human rights, but minority rights. they want to have a democratic form of government, but they also want stability. that is the focus of what we're trying to support with u.s.

policy in syria. host: that is all for our time. thank you for being here. let me tell you what is coming up next. dr. robert groves, director of the census bureau, will be here. this will be his last visit to us before he leaves his position in the next couple of weeks. we will look at census bureau numbers that give us trends about our society in the last decade. then later on, brad smith will be here to talk about money and politics. >> this weekend on michele flournoy -- "book tv" the harlem book fair.

cornel west sits in on a panel examining the next presidential election. and then celebrating the 150th anniversary of the emancipation proclamation. and then sunday at 2:00 eastern, the evil former collegians leadership summit. >> something has happened in the last two decades that are really changing the nature of large corporations, and that is the cycle time. the amount of time they have to stay on the pact has been incredibly compressed by globalization, technology shifts, regulatory ships. in fact, large corporations not only need to do with no customers and products, they need to do with disruption. disruption is when they have a great core business and some

crazy comes along and says, we are going to take of this company. the best examples of this are two of the smartest companies. anybody have a blackberry or nokia phone? i was in finland had a nokia board meeting in the week the iphone came out. they passed around a copy and the fatal quote was " why should we care about this?" >> stanford professor steve blank on innovation and growth. host: on your screen is census director dr. robert groves. he is with us to give us a snapshot on the trends in the country over the past decade. we work with you to choose a set

of statistics to do what? what will people learn from this? guest: in a way, going through what you may call myths of certain economic and social phenomenon in our country. most of them are not real myths but the result of overgeneralizing. when you drill down and you realize the stories are different, or looking at total levels of some phenomenon versus the chance that the phenomenon would look the same. finally, oftentimes we get the wrong impression about what is going on in the country because we are not comparing it to the right thing. we are going to go through a lot of different kinds of statistics and we will try to point out how one general impressions are telling us are not to all the time. host: for the viewers, we have

posted these questions on our website. if you are a twitter follower, we tweeted them out so you had a chance to look at them ahead of time. if you want to ask questions about specific charts, you are welcome to. generally, we are looking at the past decade. we want to hear your story as we look at the broader numbers for society. the first question was, did the latest recession caused home ownership rates to decline for all home owners of the same magnitude? guest: let us go through this one. first of all, let me help you read things. we have a lot of different lines. the height of the line reflects

what percentage of a group is buying or owning their home. as we move from left to right, we are comparing time. maybe the first thing to do -- there are two big gray bars here. that is pointing out when recessions happen. you see on the rights of the most recent recession covering 2008-2009. then maybe the first thing to do is to look at that dotted line in the middle. that reflects a percentage of the entire household population that was buying or owning their home. if you let your i go from left to right along the dotted line, you can see there is a mild decline of 1.8% between 2007 and

2010. overall, home ownership went down 1.8 percentage points during the great recession. but now let your eye compare the different colors. one stark difference, the very low line there is for young households, where the household head is less than 35 years old. first of all, we see home ownership is lower throughout this time could go for them. that has to do with accumulating the income that is required to make a downpayment and so on. then you also see another phenomenon. we have helped you notice that with these black ... -- ellipsis. the younger households declined

in their home ownership by 4.4 percentage points during this period, but the older home owner showed a much smaller decline. that has to do with the fact that as you pay off your mortgage, there are a much larger percentage of older folks that own their home out right. about two-thirds of that older group own their home, and that makes the recession-proof in a real way. the small myth here is that age groups -- the myth would be that everyone had the same effect during this period on home ownership, but it is disproportionately among young groups. host: our phone lines are/age groups. -- divided by age groups.

you can also send us a question by twitter. we will also put our e-mail address on the screen. lots of ways to get involved in the conversation this morning. for whatever the reason, whether it was access to capital or unstable jobs, younger homeowners were disproportionately affected in their home ownership rates during the recession? guest: young households tend to move more often for a variety of reasons, and that requires them to change household identification. host: home ownership and individual net worth are closely tied together. we have seen a lot of stories talking about this. your next question, how is that worth changed by age group? guest: let's look at this one.

here is the height of the lines reflecting the percentage of households that have a negative net worth. that means that your debts exceed your assets. once again, we break that down by age. if you move from left to right, you are watching the movement from the year 2000 to 2010. if you focus on the right side of the graph and look at the movement in the recessionary period between 2009 and 2010, you see the network, those that have a negative net worth of long the youth went down. the only group that did that. much higher on average, in some sense, less wealthy than the

other groups because they have 0 or negative net worth, but they have seen some games between 2009 and 2010. >> once again, 65 and older, relatively stable. guest: yes, both on housing ownership and net worth. host: let's start to take some phone calls. matthew is with us from st. louis. caller: first, i do think the last recession caused declines in home ownership that we should be worried about, but also, my question is, do you think it is

a time to look at a home, the value of your home, whether it is $3,000, do you think that people are kind of looking at that more versus looking at our human, american problems? guest: well, these are statistics on housing. we wanted to point out how different groups in the population reacted, how their lives were changed, more or less, by the recessionary period. i think your question points out the fact that we need up-to-date statistics. and these phenomenon we are looking at are undergoing change right now. our data stops at 2010. this is the kind of thing that we need to keep up-to-date on to make a decision.

guest: this comment on twitter connects -- host: this comment on twitter connects two phenomenon. how does the government track causes for changes in location? guest: traditionally, the system has monitored the prevalence, of volume of different things going on. rarely does it attempt to identify the causes of changes. generally, and our country, that is left to the private sector, academic sector, to puzzle through why things are happening. there is a very large literature on these phenomenon we are talking about, mainly from the academic sector. host: this comment on twitter --

guest: that is right, and when you look at this data and other data we collect, you formed the impression that this young cohort right now is heavily affected by the recession, on getting into the housing market in a meaningful way. it will be interesting to watch this group over time to see, as we move out of this recession, whether they rebound past or more slowly. host: we are asking you about some of your household economic trends in your family and community over the past decade as we look a trends in the u.s. economy in that time period. next is jason, watching from las vegas. caller: good morning. grace and peace. i am right behind the baby boomers. i wanted to ask you a question.

i am watching the trends and the greatest generation was always prepared for any situation, and they did not pass anything along to the young generation. i see such a large majority of men out of work and the trend of all these women having jobs. will we have a strong society when we have so many people? the greatest generation, they were willing to bring their mother and everybody living in the house until they can stand on their feet. all of these young generations want to buy these mansions, me, me, me. how can we learn from the older generation so that we can prepare and have another generation again when they grow older, to have all of these houses and keep the communities up? if you go to las vegas, it is

decimated because nobody prepared. nobody had saved for a rainy day, had a egg contest. when the market crash, they all got foreclosed on. look all over america, it is scary. guest: it is fascinating to study how people's behavior with regards to saving and investment are affected by their life experiences as they go through life. when you do the general comparisons as you just did, we can know, those generations experienced different historical events that shaped their behavior. one of the things that we will all see over the coming year is how this young cohort, which have been deferentially affected by the recession, will make their decisions about human capital investment, their own investment in houses and other

big durable products, and how they pay with regard to savings and planning for the future. this great recession will be a major event in their lives that will shape how they think. host: floor on twitter rights -- laura on twitter writes -- but go to this next one. guest: this is a mistake that many of us have made it one time or another. we have all heard the assertion that the most affected groups are minorities. this reminds us that you have to be careful about arithmetic. when you look at the top, we have two lines here. the height of the line represents how many millions of people in poverty.

poverty, here, is defined by the census bureau definition, income compared to expenses. you can see the recession periods in gray. moving from 1959 to 2012 from left to right. here we see the blue line is higher than the orange line. the blue line reflects whites in poverty. two-thirds of poor people right now are whites. a much smaller number of non- whites are in poverty. contrary to the impression that some people carry in their

heads. often, if you go down to the next chart, the explanation for that myth is the rate, the chances that somebody is in poverty really does relate to minority status. this is a different chart. the height of the line here is the percentage of the group in poverty. you can see the colors of the lines have switched, in the sense that the poverty rate of non-whites is in the higher than the poverty rate of whites, but since non-whites are a minority in the population, you get the volume differences. the other thing that you see in the bottom chart is the dramatic declines in poverty of the non- white. how the two lines are coming together slowly, admittedly, but

dramatically. host: related to that -- guest: we do not have won today, but you can go to our website, census.gov and put in those search terms, and hopefully you can find a table quickly. host: frank is on the line from georgia. caller: we have a problem here. the housing market has slowed down a lot. after the slowing down of the housing market, we understand that there are a lot of people renting now. will that be impacted? there are a lot of people around. guest: first of all, the

problems in the housing market vary greatly across the country. different parts of the country suffer from those problems to different extents. our other data series show the movement from home ownership to renting, you can see it in the country. that has been a switch, exactly as you have observed in your area. it will be interesting to watch that ratio of renting versus owning as we move out of the recession. rental markets in some areas are really quite tight right now because of that movement from home ownership to renting. host: there is a big debate going on in this town about income inequality and whether or not it is on the rise in the united states. the next two questions look at

this. guest: this is across the country, not statistical information that the census bureau collects on its own, but we rely on various organizations like the oecd. they have created a standardized measure of inequality. the height of these lines, if you look at the vertical dimension, is something that us geeks call a genie index. it goes from 0 to 1. if the country were at 0, it would mean that all people and household had the same income. if it went up to 1, it would mean that only one would have all the income. so the higher the line, the more income inequality there is. the lines here are different

countries. we tried to make the usa hear the fattest one, in blue. we have a comparison of the u.s. with other countries. the highest in the quality in the set of countries is in mexico, the lowest is in sweden. we are in the upper middle. we are above countries in western europe that we are often comparing ourselves to, as well as japan and canada. we are on the upper end of inequality. another way to look at it is on the next chart which asks the question, are we getting more or less inequality? tos compares the mid-1980s' the late 2000's on the rate of growth of inequality.

if you try to find the fat line, we are sort of in the middle of growth rates. most countries, and this is what many people do not know, are experiencing growth and equality. the income distribution is becoming more clustered over time in many countries. the exception is at the bottom, france and spain. i do not have explanations for that. the growth rate in the inequality is sort of in the middle of the countries that we are comparing here too. host: also an interesting phenomenon in early returns, sweden has the lowest level of inequality, but they are changing the fastest. guest: that is right. they are still low in terms of inequality comparisons, but things are changing. host: next on the line is jackie.

caller: i am a baby boomer. my father was in the second world war. he came back and i was raised on a farm, on a ranch that was handed down through the generations. i think what has happened, we have lost the definition of who we are. the father went to work, the mother was at home taking care of the children. the children knew the mom would always be there. we were taught to save our money, not go in debt. do not buy something if you could not afford it. you always thought about the next generation. i went through the 1960's and 1970's. was horrible. as i born in the 50's, and

became an adult, i came into this me, me, me. i think we just got to the point where we just became so selfish and greedy and only thinking of ourselves. i started out in a small home and work my way up. i sold that and made a bit of profit and then got the next one. everyone now thinks they should start at the top. it is this entitlement thing that we have going on these days. they do not know what it is like to start out with what you could afford and work your way up. host: i am going to stop you there. thank you. a similar theme on twitter. is there anything about government data and that gets to causality?

guest: not really on this, but i do think it is our obligation, as government statisticians, to give to the people and accurate portrait of all of these things, income variation, spending rates, saving rates across generations, so that these impression that we all get by watching our own extended families and neighbors are grounded, not only in just observations of small groups, but in data that we can trust across the entire country. some of these observations are prevalent in the country, others are not. they are located in subgroups. host: what is next? guest: another income inequality issue arises between men and women. before we look at this graph, we have to remind ourselves,

currently, women at work are making on average about 77 cents, 78 cents for every $1 that males are making. one question is, is that changing? it has changed between 2000 and 2010. in 2000, it was about 73 cents, so things are getting more equal. another interesting thing is why does that happen and will that happen in the future? the why that appears to be relevant here is that women are working in different occupations. disproportionately in occupation that do not have high median salaries. they tend to be more part-time workers. on average, they work five hours less than men per week. they tend to be less in management positions. management positions.