happens when you read the briefs, not when you hear the oral argument. and the oral argument partly has an entirely different function, which is that it gives us an opportunity to talk with each other. we don't talk with each other about a case before arguments. arguments are our first opportunity to convey to your colleagues what you are thinking about something and that can be quite important, actually. when we go to conference, we go around the room in seniority order. and that means i always speak ninth. and everybody else will have spoken and have cast a preliminary vote by the time i get to speak. and there are some there are good things about speaking ninth. it's definitely a lot better than eight or seven. but one bad thing is that there are a lot of votes cast before you ever get to say anything, right? for me, if there is a distinctive take i have on a case or something that i really

want my colleagues to think about, or i think that for whatever reason they might not have focused on, i will try to use argument as my opportunity to do that. >> so you bring out a certain angle on the case that you think is relevant. >> sometimes. i mean, not every time. sometimes i'm asking questions because i really want to know the answers to them. sometimes i am asking questions to try to convey certain points to my colleagues. and i think all of us do that to some degree. >> would it be better -- and i realize it is not the tradition, but would it be better if people talk before the oral argument? or is this a better structure? >> i could see why it might be. i think it can work either way. >> just to flip to another topic, one of the things that is very striking about your career, you know, you've talked about being open to different opportunities and that it makes sense to be open rather than

just say, this is what i'm going to do at 35 and this is what i'm going to do at 50. you have had a series of very important jobs, very high stakes. how do you prepare for them? dean of the law school, or solicitor general, or justice of the supreme court -- how do you prepare for these new challenges? >> well, you talk to people about what is involved in any of them. and you know you are not going to get it right the first day out. solicitor general, that is actually a good example. because when i was solicitor general, i had never argued a case in front of the supreme court. in fact, i had never argued a case before any appellate court. and if you ask me the moment in my life when i was most nervous and most insecure about whether i was going to have the necessary -- you know, everything necessary to really succeed in the job, i would say

it was that job. and i had just talked to an enormous number of people. i talked to pretty much every living solicitor general, all of whom were incredibly generous with their time, who talked to me about how the office worked. there were a lot of different things that had nothing to do with actually arguing the cases, but that go into being a successful solicitor general, and also to talk to me about arguing. and in terms of my argument, i spent a lot of time with my colleagues, especially my first argument was citizens united. it's kind of a big argument. [laughter] it was the re-argument of citizens united. the only saving grace was that everybody said, well, you know you're going to lose. in ordering re-argument, the word had sort of signaled which

way it was going to go. i really did not think that all of campaign finance was resting on me. i pretty much thought that the argument was not going to have a lot to do with this case. but still, it was important, and i knew that everybody was going to be focused on it and it would was important not to fall on my face. i spent an enormous amount of time with all of the deputy solicitors general, who had just incredible experience. each of them has done 75 or 100 oral arguments themselves. and with some of the assistance -- assistants as well, to talk about what they had done in court and to talk about each case in particular. when you go into something that is new to you, just reaching out to all of these new people, who know a lot better what is involved and not being afraid to

say, you know, help me, is a really important thing. >> before you became a justice of the court, did you talk to other justices? it is a unique job. how do you prepare for it? >> a little bit less so, actually. one of the things that struck me was that when i got on the court , i was struck by the fact that all of my colleagues were like, now you are just one of us. there's no -- in some ways, the court is very seniority focused where we do everything in order of seniority, but in some ways from the day you get on, everybody assumes, hey, you know as much as i know. it is quite clearly not so. [laughter] but it is actually a lovely part of the institution, that everybody treats you from the very first moment that you are there as a full equal member of the institution.

an sort of pretense that you know is much as they do. and to the extent and you go in and ask somebody for advice, their first inclination is to say, you don't need my advice. just do what you think. you just have to push them a little bit, which is actually a really nice thing about the court. >> apart from your colleagues now, do you have a supreme court justice in the past that you think of as your role model? >> the one who is on my wall is thurgood marshall because first -- because of my personal connection with thurgood marshall. that is very important to me. i am a huge justice brandeis fan. he was like the greatest writer ever to serve on the supreme court, and think he was a very deeply wise human being. i love the way justice jackson writes, and i love his sort of very practical and

commonsensical and institutional approach to law. i guess those are my two favorites, brandeis and jackson. those are great role models, right? >> they are great role models. we are running out of time. two final questions. is there anything that you didn't know when you graduated from law school that you wish you had known? it's a big question. >> what is your answer to that? [laughter] >> i think the teamwork part. when i graduated from law school, i thought it was all about how smart you were. i thought it was really about doing it yourself. i think that's one thing i've learned over the years. >> it helps to be smart and all that, but it is so much about how you get along with people, it's so much about your

emotional intelligence -- the eq as opposed to the iq. that's pretty much true in every single job, even the ones you think of as more about really instead about anything else. it turns out that's not what they are about at all. it is in large part about how well you listen to people, how well you work with people, how will you cooperate with people, how much you can sort of put your energies together with theirs to do something that neither could have done on your own. >> and the final question, people are getting ready to graduate. is there one piece of advice you would give them? >> can i say again, what is your piece of advice? [laughter] and i will just agree with it again. >> to go back to what you said earlier, being open to opportunity. i would say, one thing i think

is important that we always stress is to have some goals about what's important for you in your career. is public service important to you? what are the things that you want to achieve during the course of your career? and keep those in mind. but at the same time, life isn't planned. things happen that you can't anticipate. it's very important to be open to that. and not to think that the job you have at 28 is the job you are going to retire from. >> it's almost certainly not. especially now, but in the way the legal profession has changed. i think for many decades, it's one of the great things about a lawyer's career is that you can move from one thing to another and that you can experience different kinds of work in your life. and the ability to recognize that life is long and there are

lots of different opportunities that are going to present themselves to you, and it gives you a sort of freedom to think about your career. i guess the other thing is that in thinking about that, just to reflect on, and this changes over the course of somebody's life, but to reflect on what fills you with a sense of meaning and purpose and value. i think mostly the lawyers who are happy are those who find some way to accomplish something for people outside themselves, and what that is is going to vary enormously from person to person. but to think about the kind of work that you do, because of the way it makes a difference in the world, is going to fill you with a sense of mission accomplished. some feeling that you did something that matter to somebody or something that you

cared about is pretty much the most important thing in making people really happy to go to work every day. >> that's a fabulous way to end. i actually have -- after the microphone gambit, i think i've done ok since then. i'm going to give you a tchotchke that i hope will not drop on the way. this is something that as people are really about to embark on a great journey, as lawyers, and you will have incredible opportunities, and i think the opportunity to sit down and to hear from someone who has had the kind of career you have had, and done so many different things, and also to go back to your last point, giving back, in so many profound ways. and it really made the world a better

place. it's a real privilege for all of us. i would like to present you with this plaque, our first inaugural lecture to the graduating class. i would like to thank you for being here and i would like to lead everyone in it a round of applause for justice elena kagan. [applause] thank you so much. >> and i hope you will join us. we're going to have a reception in the health and fitness space but again, thank you justice kagan. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> there will be an update on the israeli-palestinian negotiations tomorrow.

nationalmocratic committee chairman meets with the international press club to talk about this november's elections. it comes one year after counterpart spoke about republican losses in the 2012 elections. live coverage begins tomorrow morning at 10:00 eastern on c-span three. i have concluded -- yes, i would be glad to you. when he had opportunity, because i look to both sides in the only gentleman on that side that even made a move was mr. walker. the gentleman did not stand, the gentleman did not rise. i resent the statement of the -- >> well, i am sorry. and if anybody stands, i would have recognized them.

not mean tod suggest you are not acting with fairness and all. what i was suggesting is that we have a consensus deal that you have worked with the president of the nights -- >> that is now what you said. you said i had a -- and it wasn't. it was a normal procedure. global this magnitude, i would never do a thing like this. there was not a man on either side of the aisle that stood. >> i respectfully suggest that i did not mean to offend you -- >> what you have offended me and i will accept your apology. 35find more highlights from years of house for coverage on our facebook page. c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local or cable or satellite provider. >> a discussion on global challenges including climate change and fiscal austerity.

we will hear from author and professor eric attenuates. chris hill is now the dean of the international study schools at the university of denver. >> donegal for coming. all is panel 1 -- thank you for coming. this is panel one of our sessions with global thinkers. we are very pleased to have 100 globale top thinkers here at this panel which deals with global challenges, climate change, austerity, and the return to authoritarianism. we're going to have some science, we're going to have some economics, that would be the dismal science, i guess, and

that we will have some issues of politics and security questions with the return of authoritarianism. what i'm going to do now is introduce our three panelists. i will start with eric who is sitting in the middle. he is the co-author of the book "why civil resistance works." along with the co-author, they have founded campaigns -- found that nonviolent campaigns are more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts. while research has shown that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more peaceful democracies less likely to regress into war. , seated topanelist the immediate left is thomas herndorn. a doctorate student.

we are going to have three inches of snow tonight, just to make you feel at home there. the university of massachusetts a amherst and the co-author critique of reinhardt. in the essay, he and the co-authors point out errors in the widely cited economic study, thereby undermining the economic foundation of austerity programs. we look forward to hearing from him on this. to have we are pleased on the extreme left of the stage , not on the political spectrum, is stephanie herring. she is weather and climate extremes leads that noaa.

she published a report that saw find a connection between human caused climate exchange and extreme weather events like hurricane sandy. i think that we're going to start with erica. i have a set of questions and i think you of all had a chance to look at these questions. i don't think there are any curveballs or knuckleball some these questions. let me start with the first one. your research with maria show that nonviolent resistance is more than twice affected as violent resistance in overthrowing authoritarian governments. explain a phenomenon. >> the main finding is that nonviolent resistance is quite a bit more effective in the main reason is because the power of participation.

people power wins because of the people power involved. what we saw as the average nonviolent campaign in raw numbers is four times longer -- larger in terms of active participants as opposed to violent campaigns. if you look at the overall participants as a proportion to the overall population, they are 11 times larger. what happens is when you have these large numbers is that the campaign is generally more inclusive and representative of the society as a whole, which means the participants in the campaign might know someone in the police forces, they might know someone in the internal security forces, they might be friends or neighbors with economic elite. those are the pillars of support obedience thehose authoritarian relies. so there is more opportunity to sort of leverage those internal relationships with society. it is important to point out that we are not making the argument that nonviolent resistance is morally better.

it is not taking the moral high ground. it is actually choosing a method of conflict that allows for more people to participate who ordinarily would not participate in a violent campaign. get more women, children, people who are elderly, people with disabilities that are able to participate. that is what starts to build power from below and draw power away from the authoritarian regime. kind of like extreme weather, there seems to be in your field as well a lot of data points maybe even since her research. i don't know if it captured the arab spring. if you can tell me, are there any adjustments to your approach given the cataclysmic events around the world, especially in the middle east of recent years?

we have started updating the data sets on which our book was based. it ended in 2006 and we started updating the data. with the help of research assistance, and the most amazing 2313 the success rate of nonviolent campaigns back from 1946 through 2013 is 51% in the violent campaigns is 26%, which is almost the exact same proportion that we had in our book. one important qualification to that is we're talking only about campaigns that have already developed a significant following. we're looking at campaigns were there are at least 1000 observed participants. they are not the small demonstration in the street that goes away does not become anything. they are immature to a certain point. -- they have already matured to a certain point. when we look at them side-by-side, the violent ones

are less effective. the one recent blip on the radar is that since 2010, the success rates of both nonviolent and violent campaigns have gone down. violent campaign successes now weigh less than 10%. it is almost never happening. successnt campaigns have gone down about 15 percentage points. this is why i was interested in talking about the return of authoritarianism or what you might call a authoritarian upgrading. is a sweep of nonviolent challenges has made a way that authoritarian leaders who repress a bit smarter. instead of going out and doing coercion,rsion -- which as we saw with? -- with yanukovych, does not work. dissidents -- they say

that political dissidents are terrorists, whether they are violence or not. the third thing they tend to do rule the to divide and opposition by exploiting sectarian tensions. they counter mobilize their own groups of people that the acs supporters, even if they have to pay them. they will bring their own people into the streets and they will do the streetfighting. technology, it is much easier to engage in surveillance and that has undermined any of the technological advantages that social media age to activist. >> your theory even works on the divide,rs' side of the that even the authoritarians are doing better with nonviolent methods? >> i think the most authoritarians will try to use these methods to divide the opposition. once they get undivided, there is plenty of violence used against them.

at that point, the legitimacy of the opposition has been undermined so that it does not produce the same level of backfire if it might if the opposition was quite -- >> so you agree of the overall proposition that everywhere these days, authoritarianism is somewhat on the rise due to put it -- due to these more sophisticated methods? >> i don't think it is on the rise in terms of raw numbers. thanve way more democracy authoritarian regimes. there are two new ones that are coming around but what is happening is those regimes are more durable than they have been in a long time. they have protected themselves against some of these more recent currents. i don't think this is a permanent trend. i think what happens is anytime we get some kind of new knowledge like this than the other side gets a chance to gain it. i think we have a situation where there will always be a strategic interaction, but

historical records reveal to us that when people rely on nonviolent methods that allow for large degrees of popular inclusion that undermine the narratives that they are terrorists, that are locally legitimate in a way that undermines the rhetoric that there are foreign-promoted, they increase their chances that any method the government uses to try to repress them will backfire. >> you are not pessimistic about democracy? >> no. i think i am a little bit pessimistic about the ways that we have developed to counter authoritarianism and i think that authoritarians have done a pretty good job of protecting their offices in recent years. think morep to us to creatively about the tools that we have our disposal and maybe nontraditional tools. they be we do more to step out of the way but engage with governments in ways that bias time -- buy us time. >> i should mention that erica

seems to have half of the student body at a school change it to various desk. [laughter] i sort of worry about the human rights of it all. crunching data like you would not believe. i must say, you have done so much for our students to understand the empirical nature of some of these issues and the fact that one can go into non-empirical subjects with very empirical means and then come up conclusionsle that allow one to understand that phenomena. what should the u.s. do about all of this? should we have more people on television talking about it? what can we do as a country? >> when i look at the recent failures of civil resistance campaigns or was that devolved

into violence recently, i think of maybe four different things the u.s. might try. one is to stop up our attempts to -- step up our test to mitigate repression or the way governments acquire the means to repress their population. the second is to demand when these movements set on. that foreign journalist must be allowed in to observe events. many of these leaders have taken to kicking out foreign journalists immediately once they perceive the threat. that allows them to reinforce their own narrative about what is going on and it deprives people on the ground the opportunity to be truly witnessed in the court of world opinion. the third thing the u.s. could try doing is developing a system to coordinate defection. when there are security forces that want to leave, how could it be made easier to do so? how could it be made easier to do so without taking their weapons with them and setting up

shop on the border of the country from which they can watch armed attacks -- launch armed attacks? >> the other thing would be re-examining aid to countries that are abusive. in recent cases, the threat to freeze aid will provoke shifts in loyalties. civilian bureaucrats, economic elites, once they get the threat that their assets might be frozen there quite willing to change their loyalty. coming up with these types of inls, which are not coercive the sense that they don't require a lot of treasure but are using clinical power that the u.s. has at its disposal but also not directly supporting the campaigns in ways that would undermine their own domestic basis of legitimacy. >> i have a follow-up question. what is a marketable about this group here, and you hear from

thomas and stephanie, the way that data is really the basis of this. leading one to servingons, not simply conclusions already reached. , you mentioned using sanctions. do you think it is possible to put together a database of the kind you have done on this issue of nonviolent change, nonviolent movements -- could you put together a database to determine whether sanctions actually work? >> it has been done by the international computer institute for economics. they have a database on economic sanctions dating back to the early 20th century. scholars have addressed the

question of whether they work and i have to say, like stephanie's collies, the jury is out on a question. it is controversial. there are many reasons you might imagine that want to have to come to the point of using sanctions, the chances that they succeed going down because your -- you have to pick different environments. hand we know some kinds of guns increase internal divisions among the regime a -- regime elite, which is how they end up ruling. there might be some conducive effects. we looked at whether international economic sanctions directed specifically at regimes targeting unarmed resisters help the campaign. we found they had no affect. it could be that they had no

effect in some cases and in effect in others, but it was zero. we are collecting data on different interventions. targeted sanctions i'd be more productive than generalized sanctions. my guess it was a very contingent relationship and more will be revealed. >> thank you very much. i should mention after we talked we wills and stephanie have an opportunity for questions. maybe we will figure out how to make this microphone a little havemovable in case people trouble getting out of the seat. your experience to me is quite extraordinary. you take a couple of well-known made a certain conclusion about the role of fiscal austerity, and you found

there were problems. why don't you explain to the audience exactly how that happened, what your conclusion was, and where do we go from here? i always worry when economists talk about something, and now you have made me completely frightened about it. >> thank you very much. like i mentioned earlier, the project started as a homework where the assignment was to replicate a major work in the field, and that just means reconstruct it from scratch. it's really good for a student. you got to learn the new techniques in the research frontier and all that. when iised me, too, was unable to reconstruct the extreme results. was not at all what i

intended to find. results.at the i thought they were a little implausible, but given the results, i thought the interpretation was wrong. the original plan was to quickly replicate symbol results and use more modern techniques we have about whethersk their interpretation was right, but i was just able to get to that step. throughout the process when i was able to replicate basic i lost confidence in the beginning, too. i was like, what's wrong? when i first found errors i thought chances are i was wrong. there is a well-known study. it has been cited throughout the at the higheste, levels. i thought i just made a mistake. >> you should be able to do a

simple homework assignment. there were some conversations i thought i could do better as well, but he was incredibly supportive at every step of the way. techniques when i was doing this. michael really helped me out at every step of the way, suggested new things to try to reconstruct the results, but none of us thought i was right when i first found this. it was only through the process of triple checking your work, making sure there were not any typos in the statistical script you wrote for the programs, all those things. do that, you do gain more confidence. i did find a couple of typos i made, but they didn't really change the results. i the end of the semester i convinced the professors and myself that more likely than not

i wasn't the one making the mistake. werewe got there we quickly able to identify a set of problems. one was just a straightforward excel error 32re the average live was 34. the other was how they select cases and process the data. we thought they didn't represent the tendency of the distribution. once we published this, it set off a firestorm. it was quite the honor to be able to contribute to that discussion. i learned quite a bit seeing the other side of the media, and it also taught me about the interface between economic research and the telephone game between how it is presented in , so i was quite

honored. i assume you get at least a b plus. now that you did well enough on , at some point you are going to be putting on another hat, and that is a policy hat. what is the deal with austerity policies? at that now,ok having researched it? >> it was interesting. the austerity policies have a long history. there has been a lot of times if they can test to see work. a lot of the common wisdom in economics professions that you see in any textbook is during a recession, cutting the government budget with austerity policies is really damaging. that economyract

more than 141. iat was one of the reasons thought the research was implausible at the beginning. it helped my confidence a little --see that a sick wisdom that basic wisdom we learn from polling the world economies from the depression was actually pretty accurate, and i think the profession forgot that wisdom. >> i thought the austerity was the bunt as far as the hoover administration, so how did it a comeback? >> that's an interesting question. it reminded me of something the olish economist said. when you see an idea debunked over and over again, like during the great depression and the new deal, we went into a double dip recession because roosevelt tried to balance the budget. he was like, we have the initial

round of public intervention. it's doing good. let's pull back, but when they pulled back the economy just collapsed. saw that as good evidence that it was really bad. i think there are political reasons for it. i think that has a big part. when you see in idea that keeps coming back after the data and the individual case studies and all those things suggest it might be wrong, there are more political reasons. there is opposition to public intervention and the economic sphere. there are very practical things that public institutions can do and really need to do when the private institutions are capable of getting out of a recession on their own. be morewe need to open-minded. when you are talking about the issue of debt, it is difficult. there is a lot of moral language

that it is immoral to borrow at any time for any reason. when you look at the role public darling has and the conditions under which you would expect it bedo good, which happened to the conditions we are experiencing now, none of us are saying you should borrow from here to infinity forever, but it has an important role in getting out of the recession and public debt can -- if the economy has problems with aggregate demand, that means if there is not enough spending to buy all the goods and services the economy can produce, and this won't produce that much output. back on that. they will cut back on employment. publicshort term the deficit is a private surplus. they can close that gap. one thing we saw coming out of the great depression and world war holdt's good for banks to

public debt on their balance sheets. it's a much safer asset then mortgage facilities. crisis this can be an important thing to clean it up. i think there are a lot of reasons why you would expect it to be effective right now. i think the weight of evidence is on that side. there are likely elliptical reasons. for example, the people who supported austerity policies supported them before the paper and they still support them after the paper has been debunked. you would have to ask them what their opinion is on that, but i think it is really a telltale sign of more political than technical reasons. just ask. are we going to turn on cnbc at

some point and you are going to be talking on cnbc? are you going to write some academic books? it seems to me you have got some real possibilities. >> i am going to try to continue to do honest research. certainly, that's the point -- to do honest research such as on the central policy issues of the time. that's why i became an economist. i thought we could do a lot better. of an interesting thing. the slogan coming out of the great depression and world war ii was unemployment never again. the great depression was a period where there was an

immense amount of unemployment, like 25%, and it destroys the social fabric and causes so much tension, but they found out during the war that with public intervention we can have full etc., but, armaments, after the war, if we can have full employment by making tanks and guns and bombs, we can have it by making schools and parks hospitals, roads. from a technical reason if you have unemployed people and things that need to be done, you can do that. unemployed construction workers. we have potholes in the road, then they can go fix them. to dosources are there it. it's wasteful not to do it. then again, there might be underlying political reasons why these policies aren't pursued. not a law of nature we have

to have unemployment. if a failure of our institutions -- it's a failure of our institutions, and we can do better. fromw that i have switched one inspiration to another stephanie, you are in a field where just listening to the training, it's really quite extraordinary. i don't think there is a person better prepared for dealing with it. it's so affected by people who it inolitical views of which people don't like to be confused by the facts. i wonder if you can talk about some of the change -- challenges of dealing with this highly and makingield people understand things in an analytical way.

>> i work for the national oceanic administration. one nice thing is we are a science agency. we aren't the epa. we don't regulate things like carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. i think it is really important that the united states continues and from an organizational if, that the agency is doing a lot of the work to understand how it is changing, why it changing, and the impact of those changing is separate from the discussion of what to do with that information. science has a seat at the table, whether you are a republican, , therat, or a moderate information should be the same. what they choose to do with that information can vary greatly. he may have different models they trust. they may have

different values. they may have different beliefs of how to grow the economy. different ideas of what will hurt the economy. it's not universally accepted that austerity measures are good or bad. -- in particular for climate change, it's important that they are at the table. it's important that we continue to advance our understanding of science, but science is just one piece of information our society is going to have when it comes to making decisions about what to do about climate change. one it isssion is important we all engage in and that we look at the information we have and not try to disparage it because we want a particular outcome, but deal with it frankly and acknowledge the thingation can say one and people can have different responses about what the right

thing to do with that information is. it doesn't change the fact that our planet is warming. we are experiencing consequences, and the extent to which we understand the consequences -- obviously, the jury is out in some areas. we have more confidence in some areas than others, but it can be ony challenging when people both sides try to make more or less out of the data than is really there. i think it's not as simple as saying this is something that ort environmentalists do just republicans or conservatives do. i think it's a trend in economics. i think it's a trend in physical sciences and social sciences were you have the desired outcome first and you either take the data you want or you ignore the data you don't want or you disparage the data you don't like. i think regardless of what field bigare in, this has

implications for society. austerity measures have huge implications. the taxes we pay to how the money gets spent and for climate change -- because of the real present issue of the planet warming, what we decide to do about it as a society has huge implications for us. >> let me drill down on this issue of extreme weather. i think you are making the point that at this point we don't know. -- one point i think is clear, when i say whether i am talking about meteorological phenomenon like floods, heat waves, tornadoes, hurricanes. those are all extreme weather events. the degree to which we have certainty of the way climate change is impacting those extremes really differs race on

the extremes, much like doctors have a better understanding of certain types of cancer over others. you don't think of cancer as one thing where we have information about. the sameeather is thing. the confidence level is much greater -- we have much more confidence that the climate change is impacting those events. for tornadoes and hurricanes it's much more difficult to say. the storm surge -- another example is that we know sea level has risen because water , and the glaciers have begun to melt. they are putting more water in the ocean. we expect ice sheets and other areas to also impact sea level rise. does that mean? that means when you have stormed the amount of water that can be

pushed onto land increases. we call that storm surge events. we know the storm surge is increasing. how are the patterns of the actual storms increasing -- changing? a good hand on that. there are extremes where we have more knowledge and extremes where we have left knowledge. hurricane is an extreme event, not necessarily related to global warming, but the fact that it is so extreme, the fact there is this surge could be a global warming phenomenon. >> a group looked at this and various locations along long island and the eastern shore where hurricane sandy hit. they weren't looking at the hurricane itself. they were looking at the storm surge, but because of the rise there hassea level, been an increase in the likelihood of the high storm

surge. these are areas where our andntists can come forward say something about individual extreme events. say something about the actual hurricane sandy is more challenging. >> i am from rhode island, and there was something called a 1938 hurricane. through all my youth evil talked the 1938 hurricane because in providence, rhode island, it was 10 feet of water. the whole town was under water. i don't inc. about -- i don't think we have had anything like that since, but you have to talk about how many events you are having, where you get that type of search, and clearly, that's on the increase. foreign-policy issues, i think this gets to some of what erica is dealing with. we have more of these effects of climate change.

we are seeing droughts become more serious. seeing storms become more serious. how do you see this affecting us in terms of foreign-policy? withhing we have to deal is people turn to us for , and we are aid running through that much more quickly than in the past. >> it's really interesting. we were all invited to an event well, andton, d c, as it focused more on foreign-policy rather than policy change. to interactesting and hear from folks like current ambassadors, people who are defense advisers, people who work at the pentagon, and in almost every single panel discussion we have, climate change came up as an issue. these are not scientists.

these are not activists. this is not a convention of environmentalists by any stretch of the imagination. these are realists looking around and saying there is evidence the climate is chang ing. we have people. where are they getting their water? where are they getting their food? we may not know where these changes are going to happen, but we had better start thinking about these things. from me, but you can also take it from our leaders in the national security community and in our community of world leaders who are saying climate change is something we need to be conscientious of as we think about how the united considers our national

security and where our foreign assets are located and where we expect future problems to occur in the world. i think the perspective of a scientist it's our job to try to make sure we provide that information in a way that we can best make a decision. is there uncertainty in it? of course. these are smart evil. at the same time, is it something you should disregard because we don't have 100% confidence? bes information that can very valuable in helping the united states inc. about where future issues arise. one way we think about that is you have extreme weather events. then you have your exposure and vulnerability. when extreme droughts hit the united states, our farmers have been impacted. economically, we have been impacted, but has it caused

great social disruption in the united states? no, we are pretty adaptable. withe a developed nation developed resources. we have air conditioning. the united person in states is not hugely impacted. take that same level of extreme heat and put it in a country that doesn't have the resources we have and is already unstable economically or socially, and it can have huge consequences. it is a vulnerability for the people being impacted by that event. from a foreign-policy aspect the united states needs to be identifying those things. i think we are. >> take the example of the domestic issue. there was a pbs program a year or two ago. i can burns documentary about the dust all. -- a ken burns documentary about the dust all.

what was extraordinary was how we began to take the switch rass, and the consequence was that it had consequential effects and you would have dust storms everywhere. would be an example that if we understood it in the first place we would tell farmers you are not going to do we eat. are there more examples where we understand the phenomenon better and can prevent those things from happening? >> absolutely. many parts of our economy are making major invest and. -- major investments. coastal communities are a great lace to look. we know the storm surge is going to get worse. rebuilding after sandy.

certainly the insurance sector to this.ensitive whether it is linked to climate change or not, the insurance rates are very responsive to natural disasters and extreme events. i think the other part of this is we are talking about the adaptation side of things. there is a certain amount of climate change. even if we were to turn off greenhouse gases today, there would continue to be a rise in temperature. we continue to live with the consequences, so how do we adapt to it? individuals are making some of these decisions i choosing where -- by their homes choosing whether to buy their homes, whether to do higher mitigation because they are worried about forest fires. there are also big companies

investing in this stuff. the company -- they bought the company, and they try to what to do about the climate in the local area and how to make decisions on the cultural perspective. they invested a lot of money to try to understand climate change because it impacts investing in the future and where they can be selling the crops in the future. this is not just some government rebuilding after sandy kind of effort. this is something that cities and corporations and towns are taking seriously and spending a lot of money on. it's important they have good information so they can spend that money in a way that is helpful to the community. encourage like to people to stand up in front of the microphone if they have a question. good. >> i have a request for thomas.

i have aquarius for erica. query for erica. that inould you comment the united states the response of the government to the occupy wall street movement, which was was excessive? consequently does that encourage violent opposition to governmental policies? >> right now? right now. >> it's interesting. street was a highly localized movement. there were places in the country where there was an excessive reaction to it. in the short term those reactions backfired. was standing there, the

lifecycle of this movement, i don't think it had any more popular support and legitimacy than it did the day after the guy at uc davis pepper sprayed those students in the face. i think the day after that happen the movement had more support than it did at any other time in its life cycle. think the said, i lack of unity present in the movement -- the lack of consensus among many of the different occupy -- local violent about whether means should be used and under what conditions and the fact that those two conversations, having took over the general assemblies in a way that drove people from the movement, are a good reason for why it has the izedlized -- demobil

somewhat. i have a friend who wrote a good book about it. a lot of times repression makes nonviolent movements bigger because people are drawn to it, but it depends on their organizational capacity, the ability to discipline themselves, the ability to , andt nonviolent action some kind of collective vision that draws more people into the movement. i think the explanation for why demobilized is less likely to be excessive and more related to organizational structure. like you to turn your gaze on the question of the minimum wage. i amwould just say that lucky there has been an amazing byunt of new research done

the professor in the course, who has gone and looked at a lot of the evidence and found the research designs were not as good at separating causality, and once you correct for them, the minimum wage is not going to cause mass unemployment and will reduce poverty quite a bit. there has been an excellent research done on that by one of my professors i respect quite a bit. thank you. beone lesson that may not apparent is that at kane can be canod investment -- a cane be a good investment. i did not hear the word population in what the speakers have talked about, and i think this can be addressed to all

three of them, because population is at the heart of global change. thinkingif people are what would be the ideal population for the earth, and how do we over a long time get there? tossup. i going to give it to stephanie. >> that's a great question. i am not a population demographic expert. i am sure from a research perspective they are better able to quantify that. we talked earlier about older ability and exposure to extreme event. that's hugely based on climate change. one number that gets thrown around is the increase in billion dollar disasters in the united states. those are generally on the rise.

we calculate that over the years, and we have seen it go up. there is a pretty good argument that the reason it has gone up is because our population has gone up, and the infrastructure has also increased. certainly, population has influence. there is also the rise of population and the rise in global wealth has contributed to the amount of greenhouse gases we are emitting as a population. of the carbon emission side, i am not sure the question population reduction or thinking about what technology is we can try to make more pervasive around the world and terms of reducing greenhouse gases and make our lifestyle .ore -- less carbon intensive want tos, do you comment on that?

>> i think stephanie touched on one of the most important points. in general population growth is good for economic growth. to produce things. the question is about the carbon intensity of reduction and carbon intensity of our methods, so finding some balance between that can happen. there is not necessarily a trade-off between more growth and more carbon emissions. certainly with existing technologies there are, but there is a lot of research that of the green jobs programs they actually produce quite a bit of job, and they help us become more energy sustainable. a terms of green energy, million dollars in the green energy sector will produce almost returns as many jobs as the oil and gas sector.

one reason is not necessarily for moral reasons emma but if you are going to retrofit a building you have to do it here. there is more than a stick content in that type of economic activity, so the question is how can we reduce the carbon intensity of reduction -- .roduction -- there are ways we can reduce the carbon intensity of production. there are things we can do better. >> erica? >> i have no comment on that. they both said way smarter things and i can say. >> maybe to further that, i wanted to see if each of you would be willing to speak about one moral ramification you see. it is very data driven.

why you are credible. i wonder if you will speak more morally. i would be curious about the wielding of nonviolence as a tool for geopolitics and geopolitical interests. >> we will start with erica. >> the preliminary trouble the for the use of violence is that over 1000 years we tried to hammer out the conditions under which it is morally acceptable to use violence. conditionskey somebody has to credibly meet is to make the case violence is necessary for them to achieve their goals. it's not casually being wielded. when the violence is necessary when it is a last resort emma when it is proportional, when it is

discriminating and so forth. what our findings present is a real difficulty because it is demonstrating violence in many cases may not be necessary. moreover, in cases where people are using violence or armed almost never use concerted resistance for a significant time before they turn to violence. many people seem to be turning to violence before they have exhausted all other methods of civil resistance. average civil resistance campaign takes almost three years to run its course, and almost every armed insurgency that occurred from 1900 until 2006 started with it maybe six of theto nine months onset of a real dissident movement. in other words, it seemed like they were jumping the gun literally and figuratively.

nonviolence tong promote, this is a current moral quandary. on the way maria and i argue, some of this is actually a method of conflict. its variable in terms of weapons. the question is under what -- morallycorrelate is this being abused. people are waging civil resistance to subvert a democratic government in thailand. many people make the same claim about ukraine, that civil resistance is being used against a democratically elected leader, and whether we agree or not present the difficulty of when resistance use civil ? i think it is time to spend time establishing a just civil

resistance criteria. >> stephanie? >> i discussed earlier how i felt, that people have to bring their values to the discussion and the decision about whether we as a society or a community choose to do or not do anything about the fact that we are changing our climate system is very much a moral challenge. i think that in part it starts with the question of what our -- what are our morals. how important is it that we get to enjoy certain things we enjoy now? are these changes ok? is the the other aspect moral questions over who was , so morebe impact did heat waves -- can i handle that?

will we probably be ok with a lot of changes to come in the united states? for the most part. larger on a planet much than our country, and the people that are going to be impacted don't necessarily enjoy the economic growth we do. it is a moral question of how much we as a society think about ourselves as global citizens and not just citizens of a very lucky developed nation. there are going to be larger fors much other people around the world. for example with the coastal inundation issue. a lot of the people who are going to be impacted art second-home owners on the east coast. they are truly poor people whom this is where they live. they don't have an option to simply go someplace else, and

they will be displaced. is that our responsibility? i think those are tough moral questions. we have had a lot of conversation about whether global temperatures have plateaued and whether we have to do anything about it in this country, but we haven't spent as much time having this conversation about what is our moraltion -- what is the consequences of these changes, and are we willing to access them? i don't we have had this conversation to the extent of the data and are extreme offense impacted i climate change. it's an important question. i certainly care about the answer. we should have as much of a conversation about the moral impact of the answer to that question. >> thomas. >> economics is particularly challenging. mentioned in your field as well between values and

morals and technical questions -- we have to deal with it. there are top technical westerns about the model. is it appropriate? ,ow to interpret the statistics whether all your conditions are satisfied, but there are also questions about what type of society do you want to live in? there are also questions about distribution as well. austerity is often a distributional conflict. it is tough to navigate. we can help clarify the decisions, but there is real moral implications. one of the problems of the financial crisis is there is a lot of private debt in the run-up from financial institutions borrowing a lot of money to invest in assets that collapsed, and public authorities had to take those bad debts onto their balance

sheets, and there is a question of how to pay for that. is it really right to cut schools, health care, and pensions so we can pay off creditors who often times didn't act with the best interest of people in mind. there are other tough questions, too. by michael:the book e he asks about this. there are periods where you can compromise and have a lot of good things, but these underlying is traditional conflicts come back, and they keep coming back again and again. how to navigate that is very different -- difficult. it's something we have to confront and face.

it's easier to talk about data, whether a correlation is significantly -- statistically significant. these policies really affect eggs. it's really tough. sometimes you have to make judgment calls -- affect things. really tough. sometimes you have to make judgment calls. one of the points about the financial system in his time was one of the main problems was the burden was always on the deficit countries, so they would have to cut wages to become more competitive with the other countries. could there be a more equitable distribution of the burden of adjustment instead of deficit countries having to cut their wages and have prices fall? raise the wages.

that is what of the problems if we increase in germany. sometimes there are times of were breaking down debt can be in the investors interest. there is room to compromise, but a lot of times it's difficult. different forces will try to use political institutions to very much further their own influence, so it's very difficult. sometimes there's room for compromise. sometimes they are not willing to compromise. these are difficult questions we all have to face. >> thank you very much. i am a practitioner of science.

keynes economics are often like dentists, so the question is how to be better dentists. for ericaquestions and stephanie. i agree the problem is a greater one. that was my best advice to study when i left geneva. earlier we did a lot of sanctions. much of it is published. some is not published. for thomas, i have this question as dentistry. it's really about causality. problem with the paper is it is not really about call for relations. it's about correlations. wouldare two aspects i

like you to consider and discuss. what is temp oral. temporal. what happens after death and growth? the other is the conceptual problem of debt and deficit. it is really the deficit that should be more the flow aspect and not so much the stock aspect of debt, which is important, so in a way it is like barking up the wrong tree. >> thomas, go ahead. >> in terms of encouraging people to be more humble like dentists, it's difficult, incorporating replication and promoting the political spirit that makes science -- these things are tough, but it's hard how to promote honest

research. that's a tough question. more critical minds, more students doing these courses. another thing is critical popular engagement. when i look at the history of timesics i think so many when we have seen the development of really excellent new ideas and public policy have to handle the problem been when the public engaged with the discs and -- the discipline and said, your answer is unacceptable. you can do better. when you have critical popular movements questioning, it really think ofonomists to better ideas. andquestion of causality the stock flow thing, those are reasons i thought the results were implausible when those were things we discussed early on.

in terms of causality, it was the initial goal of the project the resultreplicate and asked those questions. we never got to the second part because we didn't deal with the first. he did look into that quite a bit. what he found is current growth read it did -- our current debt predicted past growth better than future growth. past growth very much correlated. that is a tall tale sign of reverse causality. he included some really basic controls for past causality and was able to cut the estimate by 70%. are time sensitive or different methods, they have said there is little evidence on

the side it is causing slow growth. it is probably more that slow growth is causing high debt. andquestion about stocks flows, it is very much the deficits that are important. it is the new spending injected into the economy. there are a lot of different tools to manage stocks and debt that could be employed in a lot of ways. there is a lot of other tools that have come out of the experience of the second world war, the great depression, also dealing with the economics of the 20th century that i think public authorities have so many more tools to handle those than the private sector. we should very much look back at the old wisdom that sometimes

was discarded in the profession. >> thank you. question is for stephanie. at lunch you discussed your flux capacitor. what would be the best technology to get the best data. my question is about the technology in getting that data. i am wondering what you are gageg in drone usage to data points. i know they are using some drones and atmospheric research. i wonder where you see the future of unmanned systems in and what thet data landscape might look like. >> good question. we have a program for writing to explore more uses for unmanned vessels, in part because they are cheaper. they can save a lot of money, and that's important. they are becoming novel in their uses is in the ocean and sending drones into the ocean to traverse the ocean

and pick up data and to be able locationsn different within depths of the ocean call them. i think the depth is going to increase. certainly as technology gets those are cheaper, important things. another interesting technology emerging is nano satellites. have spent billions of dollars on these satellites. they are very big and expensive, but they are very accurate and very good. and nano satellite is the opposite where you put out a lot of them. they are not as accurate, but they are cheap. it is a trade-off. the technology is changing our ability to observe the climate, and hopefully that will continue. >> i wanted to thank you all. it has been a very refreshing conversation. about science with all these

moral questions. i want to speak to thomas. withacross an interview you because my stepdaughter goes to evergreen state. think people are encouraged to think about the emperors new clothes, which social science has often been. paul krugman in the new york i and and doors koelsk cited larry summers, whom since he is not going to be famously involved in the federal reserve, actually recovered himself as an economist and has pointed out we have permanent unnecessary unemployment of millions of people. the reason we have this is the emperors new clothes. there is the political aspect of what he is saying.

rich folks don't like government spending money on poor folks, even if it would benefit them, stimulate the economy. the most recent example is they have cut off food stamps for poor kids. i don't know what country the people that want to do that live in, but it's not one i want to live in. the question is, it seems that we have a conflict between the scientific conclusion of keynes that in the depression you should have money to poor folks and wealthy, political interests, which have created , comingat environment

to paul ryan in congress, who liked to cite them and now fights something else. is there much we can do about this aside from some movement from below? is science enough to persuade those who ought to be persuadable on the basis of all this evidence that spending money on poor folks is not a bad idea even from their point of view. you want to talk about these methods. raised are really important. i think it's really interesting. within the economics profession i think it is more politically homogenous than some of the other social science professions. i think that's one reason -- research like this came out of an environment that was open-minded and critical like mission evergreen and umass

amherst. more political diversity and people interpreting things in a different light. that's why i think it was good from a scientific perspective that you have people who question and receive wisdom and critically interrogate it. in terms of dealing with the political problems of a conflict of interest is really difficult. he mentioned that one of the people have been historically proposed to the policy is he says the idea that we don't have to depend on the private job creators for jobs, that the public sector can actually do that, if you take that to its logical conclusion, it implies that the changes are possible. in the past we have also seen compromises. there have been times we have seen compromises. tore has been an attempt

renegotiate those compromises in a way that is more resembling of older social contract before the new deal era, before these types of public interventions were except did, and i think that is seriously problematic. about how to change it, i would lose a lot less sleep if sound research always informed policy. f scott fitzgerald mentioned it's hard to get someone to get something if their job depends not understanding. it's a difficult thing. that's why i encourage popular engagement. i think it's much more democratic. people affected by policies

should have a say in the to the extent they are affected by it. there is something undemocratic by the fact someone is sitting in a computer lab created the best policies for everyone. i think critical engagement is important. that is what we have seen the best ideas that really address the needs of the many. i think we have seen them emerge from critical popular engagement. >> maybe i will close with an anecdote. when fdr was elected president, he got a visit from some african american activists. indiapent years in studying gandhi, and they came and presented a plan they thought would be fair for people living in this country who are

african-american and solved a number of other social programs like this, and they explained it and laid out the justification, and they said, that's great. now make me do it. what they were saying was i cannot stand up in front of congress with an idea unless you show me there are millions of thele willing to show up in streets in support of this. that is where many of the social movements came from, politicians saying, we are not leaders. we are followers. if you want something done, make us do it. , how the regions in africa exactly do you think that

environment is necessary to push the environmental movement, and how exactly do you incentivize them? who is the best actor to bring about the nonviolence movement? and what is the best argument that austerity is used in europe , but once again better, governments just do not seem to stop spending in europe. >> the last one and then a final word. >> the argument that we need to rein in spending now because governments just do not stop theding, if you look at history -- i guess it is two things. it is not accurate based on the facts. ii, therld war

public-sector deleverage and pay down those debts. they did that quite a bit. public spending is not necessarily bad. it really depends on what it is. certainly, if you have public spending used to give politicians a lot of money they can abscond with, that is terrible. but public spending can put a floor underneath the economy. if you look at the history of how a lot of the industrial muchs agree, it was a very public spending on things. developing good for basic technology, industrial policy. there are reasons why those are really good. markets can find certain classes of things decently, but things that have kind of a public grid aspect, they are not always good at pricing them in a way that will get them reducing --

producing accurate quantities. one, i do not think it is actually true that all editions are always -- that politicians are always doing runaway spending, etc. there could be legitimate reasons for those programs. basic, mechanical reasons that you would expect a deficit to happen. more people will need public services if you have mass unemployment. the question is really asking how we can do it better and how we can make sure that there is accountability from the political institutions that benefit all of us, things like infrastructure, schools, etc. right now, it is really interesting that interest rates the borrowing rate.

we will pay back less money in the future. it is almost like free money. that can be incredibly useful. it is asking the questions about how to do it well. getting away from the narrative that expenditure is always bad and inefficient, i do not think that stands up to scrutiny based on historical record. >> thank's a lot for your question and research on where these nonviolent movements come inconclusive. they seem to come out of any type of environment under many different conditions, in literate and illiterate societies. it is all over the map. we do not really know what the causes are. it is kind of a universal, emerging phenomenon. when i was a kid, i knew how to make it really hard for my parents to pick me up. ofould just become a bag potatoes. that was civil disobedience.

i believe that most humans have the capacity to do it. i will answer your question with an anecdote. martin luther king asked a young reverend to go to in nashville and desegregate it at the beginning of the civil rights movement. old andbeing 30 years having martin luther king tell you to go somewhere and desegregate the city. and thees to nashville typical model had been allowing people to boycott buses or sit in places where they were not supposed to. that is your rosa parks example. the reverend was not sure it would work everywhere, so he set up right out of the gate with these types of sit-ins. he spent a year going into peoples homes and asking what bothered them on a daily basis. he was usually visiting when mothers were home with their children so most of the people he talked to were women.

he asked them what bothers you day. they said the main thing is the need -- the indignity of my children having to wear ill-fitting clothes. they were not allowed to let their children try on the clot hes and they did not know what size they were, so they would buy a size they thought would fit and when it did not say, they were not allowed to take it back to the stores. i heard these kind of story -- he heard these kind of stories again and again. and the thing that was resonating with people were the day-to-day indignities of segregated stores. not so much the desegregation, but these shopping stores and money counters. sitting in and trying to desegregate the shopping district of nashville. that was the goal. ultimately, what happened was that through the very skillful this commoning on

grievance, the movement was huge, thousands and thousands of people from universities and women and men alike who would sit in at the lunch counters. the service that this cause was so great that the lunch counters would close and police would come and take them to jail. the jails were completely overwhelmed, but they would still have waves of people doing these sit-ins. it became so disturbing to the general public, by easter, they lost 80% of their income. a went to the mayor of nashville and said something has to be done. what they did was they tried to resort to terror. they started burning crosses and beating people, taking them out of their homes, and they went out to the one black lawyer who was brave enough to actually defend these students in jail. that totally backfired. marchwas a huge silent

and the movement demanded a meeting with the mayor of nashville. right with am out camera rolling and a microphone in his face whether he personally thought that it was morally right to discriminate against something -- someone on the basis of their skin color. activistse of 5000 staring at him, he said the only thing any human being would say, which is that it is not right. that was the kind of moral pressure, the disruptive capacity of that movement with very personal grievances that led to that change. i answer to your question would be i do not know what would lead to a change in a country that you are talking about, but i know that it could not be exported or imported or built from the top-down. it would have to come from ordinary people expressing a common grievance around which they could unite.

>> on behalf of the school and the university of denver, it has been an extravagant privilege to be here. this has been truly a fascinating time. keep up the good work. even if you are not on that top 100 list next year, do not worry about it. keep going forward. you will be on other lists. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> now, a conversation on new health insurance enrollment from "washington journal". this is 45 minutes. s. host: two weeks from today will mark the final day to sign up for health insurance for 2014 under the affordable care act's exchanges that have been set up. here to talk about how the signup process is going is

politico health care reporter kyle cheney. what's the latest we know on enrollment numbers here? guest: it's imprecise but the white house is touting 4.2 million signups. the number is sort of the rough number that we know. host: remind us what the enrollment targets are here. guest: there's been some dispute. i think initially the projections were that 7 million would sign up by the end of march. but then we had the collapse of health care.gov so that was reduced to 6 million. the white house now says we just want millions to sign up. 6 million, 5 million, somewhere in that range is what they're shooting for. but no set number. host: and that 4.2 million that you talked about broken down by age groups, ages 18-25% represent about 10% of those, 26-34 years old represent about

45-5423 and %, above represent 30% of those who sign up. but it seems like the most important numbers at least from the obama administration's perspective is that 18-34 range. correct? guest: exactly and you noted 26% of the total signups so far in that range which is passable i think but to the administration's point of view. but i think they're hoping closer to 40% which would really suggest robust enrollment in that age group what they really need when you have older and less healthier people signing up. host: and there's been a lot of discussion about what the numbers are needed to make the affordable care act work. this is a question that president obama was asked on friday in an interview he did with the website web mm d. here's a bit of what he had to say guest: at this point enough people are signing up that the

affordable care act is going to work. the insurance companies will continue to offer these plans. we already have 4 million people, over 4 million people signed up. it will go -- it will be a larger number than that by the end of march 31, the deadline to get insurance this year. if you miss the deadline by the way on march 31, you can get insurance but you'll have to wait until november of next year or november of this year to start signing up again. the impact in terms of the program has always been based more on the mix of people who sign up. do we have a mix of people who are gray haired like me, and may have some old basketball injuries and aches and pains along with young people who are healthy and don't really have any issues right now. do we have a good mix of gender in terms of men and women.

host: president obama in his web md interview that was released on friday. one of several different appearances he's made to promote the affordable care act and this upcoming deadline. correct? guest: yes. he's been out there in full force as the deadline gets closer to march 31. you heard him talk about the mix of enrollees which i think you're hearing more and more seems to be the act warne chief there in terms of wanting enough young people again to sign up and when he talks about the mix that's what he means, young people versus older, men versus women. that's the numbers the white house is focusing on rather than the overall 6 or 7 million these days. host: as we're talking about these enrollment deadlines that are coming up. we want to take your thoughts and questions our phones are open. democrats can call republicans can call. dependents

and we have a special line set up for those ages 35 and younger who want to talk about the subject. president obama appealing to those folks 35 and younger crowd. he went on the website funny or e to talk with comedian zasm about the health care website. here's a bit from that appearance on funny or die. >> if they get that health insurance it can really make a big difference and they've got until march 31 to sign up. >> i don't have a computer. >> well, then you can call 18003182596. >> i also don't have a phone. i don't want you people looking at my texts. >> first of all, nobody's interested. but second you can do it in person. the law means that inshurers can't discriminate against you if you have a preexisting condition. >> but what about this though?

>> that's disgusting. >> how long have you had that? >> just four months. >> really? >> spider bite. i got attacked by spieders. >> you need to get that checked right away. you need to get on health care.gov because that's one of the most disgusting things i've ever seen. >> what's been the reaction to the president's appearance with comedian zack? >> well, the white house reminds everyone that became the leading driver of traffic to health care.gov. so as far as they're concerned that was the best reaction they could have hoped for. some of the fire stomplee where you heard a lot of criticism this is beneath the office of the the president the white house countered we're going to reach young people as they always say where they are. the media they're watching is not all reading mainstream publicications any more, they're scattered. so the reaction's been across the board but i think in some sense that advance it is white

house's goal because there was so much buzz around his appearance that it got a lot more traffic than otherwise. >> making one of the header columns this week, a picture of president obama's appearance and the headline is searching for the young invisibles. the economist magazine this week. we're here talking with kyle cheney of politico. we want to take your thoughts and comments. betty in chicago, on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. you know, america some of the people in america are really petty. regardless of the rollout, every thing like that has a side good or bad. since october look how many millions of people that didn't have insurance in this country babies old people didn't have it. they're getting it now. why can't the republicans and people like you all move on and get off that enrollment?

we've got people that are being signed up, people that are taken care of, can't you all come from the past and go to the future? also, the republicans keep talking about president obama going on that show. he reached 15 million people what's wrong with that? you get people where you can. this man is trying to get people in this country to have good health insurance. is there anything wrong with hat? host: she was talking about some of the criticism that the obama administration has received on the website and its rollout. how is that -- has that continued today? guest: you don't hear much any more because health care.gov is almost completely functional. you hear scattered bits about people having problems. the criticism you're hearing from republicans now more is about costs, it's about is the

law itself going to work or collapse on itself? to the caller's point, the administration and its allies keep emphasizing that look, millions of people regardless of its 6 million or 7 million, millions of people have coverage now many of which may not have before but we don't know how many were uninsured but we still know that millions of people have enrolled or signed up. so this is the white house's point. that's what matters here the long run this is proof that this is working. host: your story in politico, the headline, how many have paid premiums? talk about the difference between paying for the premiums and enrolling? guest: this is why i mentioned earlier the 4.2 million is imprecise. that's people who go to health care.gov or state exchange or sign up for coverage. to actually be enrolled for an insurance company you have to pay your first freedomium. and the industry is very standard for a percentage of people who sign up not to actually pay and therefore never be covered.

of course the goal of the affordable care act is to actually cover these people signing up. so when we talk to people in the industry you hear more like 80% of people signing up is actually paid and so the anrollment number may be somewhere south of 4.2 million, could be in the 3's which has some bearing on whether the administration is enrolling as many people as it hoped. host: have a special line set up in this segment for those 35 and younger. that line is on your screen. in the meantime we'll go to thomas waiting in west virginia on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: it's actually kevin. no problem. host: go ahead. sorry about that. caller: that's quite all right. this segue's perfectly into my comment. because from october to now a percentage according to the numbers, people who would have normally gone for free health care relief anywhere because of the unemployment because of the

economy, because of people losing jobs, it's built on a lie. 28 different speeches. you want your doctor you can keep -- the whole thing was constructed under a wicked, cruel man iptive lie to gain control of aff sixesth of the economy no matter how much ky it takes. it's a lie. host: talk about how that what the caller was talking about the statement that the president made if you like your health care you can keep it is going to play in the 2014 elections. guest: that's been coming back to haunt him since around november when people or october when people started getting these cancellation notices that basically said their old health plan didn't meet the requirements therefore you have to select a new plan or you're out of luck. if you like your health care plan you can keep it line is a staple already at this point and it's not going anywhere any time soon. and there is actually some

concern we might see another wave of cancellations right on the eve of the elections this year, although the administration has made some maneuvers to prevent that from happening. but that's going to be a potent line again it's a fixture of the special election campaign in florida last week, that was that played front and center an a republican won there. so that was a bell weather in some analyst's minds for what we might see. >> on twitter. guest: i think the closer we get you're going to hear more of that. but the idea was always is that you don't want people to be able to sign up the second they get sick. there is there has to be a window where they have to make a decision and so the goal for the administration is to get the word out and educate people but you need that deadline for insurers in particular for this to work for their bottom line and make sure they're sustainable. they need people signing up for insurance for the possibility

that they're going to get sick not when they actually are sick and picking and choosing. host: let's go to dan waiting on that line. he's in new hampshire this morning. dan, you're on the "washington journal." guest: calling in lee sponse to the woman from illinois who qualed. as to why it's just republicans that are bashing obama care and why young americans aren't signing up. i'm a young american and i'm an independent. and i live in new hampshire. and we're told that we are going to have all the choices in the world and we're stuck with one inshurens company now. i live in a major city, and it has enormous hospitals, and i would not be able to go to that hospital. and that's for the majority of the major cities in new hampshire. which only have 1.4 million people in the whole state. so i mean, personally i'm not going to sign up. -- all the the part

enrollee numbers coming out are skewed. they're not really enrollees. they're based on how many people selected a plan. so i think it's going to be a huge disappointment when it comes time to have these numbers actually come out the real numbers on how many people actually are enrolled and purchased a plan is going to be way lower than what everybody has been projecting and how many people have been enrolled. host: when do we know that those numbers, that the caller is talking about, when are those numbers come out? guest: it may be months. there are still components that aren't built yet and the administration says they may not be built until the summer when we see that data. so it could be a few months at the least. although you can get a rough estimate around 80 to 85% of

the people signing up are paying so you sort of ball park it. the caller is correct we don't know how many people have been enrolled at this point. host: another question on enrollments. guest: that's another one of the mysteries we would like to know. we have seen some surveys that suggest started out earlier at 10%, gone up to 25% of people who are again enrolled are new newly enrolled or newly insured. and again that's what strikes part of the heart of the law is to get people who were uninsured into coverage. so knowing that number will be a big help but one of the mysteries we don't know yet. host: on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: thank you for take mig call. way stion is, with the the government has been with the health care, with obamacare

started, we had a crash with the obamacare. and my question is, how can we avoid that from happening again? thank you. guest: talking about the website itself? when you're talking about that? caller: yes. the website itself. guest: and again, i mentioned earlier that the website is now for the most part up and running. i think one of the things that that laid bare was part of the problem with the way the federal government contracts with these massive it companies and hands out these massive contracts and the president has spoken to this and says this speaks to the need for contracting reform and the way we select our vendors and the ability to be nimble and flexible when it comes to how we contract and with whom we contract. so i think for any other large undertaking like this, which again this is an undertaking probably larger than any the federal government has ever undertaken, you probably see some kind of reform on the it side in the way the government

contracts. host: as we talk about this upcoming deadline we should probably note that there is a difference at what's happening at the end of the month and then signups for medicaid. correct? guest: exactly the march 31 deadline is the deadline for enrollment in exchanges which is the new market places available for people who are above depending on which state you live in above 133% of the poverty level. many are eligible for tax credits. that's the key component for the new law. for those people who don't have affordable coverage offered by their employers. you signed up for medicaid but medicaid you can enroll in all year. host: a question on twitter. guest: and that was one of the things we heard especially in january when coverage first went live and there were gaps and the insurers hadn't been receiving information from the website and feeding incorrect information from the website.

so that is definitely a fear i think the administration has made some maneuvers using regulations and urging insurers to be reasonable and treat each case with care and not deny someone important coverage that they need. and then they would sort it out later when they actually correct and reconcile the data. so the idea is that nobody would ever appear in the emergency room or somewhere or be told you're not covered. but again, it's been imperfect and we have heard aneck dotes where people have run into that problem. host: a special line this morning set up for those 35 and younger. we'll go to that line now. pennsylvania. good morning. caller: i was just curious. do you think the president dreamed too big? guest: when it came to the affordable care act here? caller: yes. do you think he saw something that he wants it, he saw something that would be great

for this nation. but it just wasn't in reach yet? he just dreamed too big. guest: host: how would you answer your own question? caller: i think that's what happened. the country's not ready for it. we have other thing that is we need to get handled. i mean, our foreign policy's gone to crap. i mean, to hear about it, to hear certain stories, it sounds like the greatest thing ever. yet i mean, have you looked at minimum wage and maybe raised that? giving us the money and the ability to pay some of these premiums and so forth, would that have helped? guest: i think your point is an interesting one because a lot of democrats and his allies in particular say he didn't dream big enough on this law, i think on the left and among democrats the single pair system was always the ideal. which is something that doesn't really have a lot of political

traction. but it would eliminate the whole notion of private insurance, which is -- can be very messy and complicated. and it is in part the push to preserve that private insurance system that again occasionally runs up against what democrats really would prefer, that has created some of the complexities of this and some of the problems that we've seen. so in some sense some people would say he tried to be too -- thread the needle too much to preserve the private system but advance health care to all. and when you do that it creates such a thicket of rules and complicated processes, that that actually is the root of the issues that we've seen so far. rather than reaching too far. host: talk about some of the back and forth on the political side. there was another house vote that had to do with part of the affordable care act, a major part on friday. what was that? guest: the house vote on friday

just remind me. there's a vote every week on elements. host: to delay. >> right. my mind is going because we have a different repeal vote every week. this one in particular again you mentioned the doc fix, a major change to the medicare physician formula the way they're paid. it's interesting because there's been a bipartisan push in health care you don't see that too often these days among democrats and republicanses in the house and senate to craft a solution to this decades old problem of the way medicare doctors get paid. and it was cruising along and then republicans in the house and the senate actually decide it had way we're going to pay for this change is by delaying the individual mandate which again sort of guts big piece of the affordable care act. and democrats can't support that. it has no traction in the senate. so in a sense it derailed what was actually a bright spot of

bipartisanship in the health care arena for the first time in a long time. and so it's unclear if that kills the doc fix for the year, which again is a huge goal in terms of a realigning the way medicare pays its physicians. host: what are the chance force this vote that happened in the house this week in the senate guest: they're nill. the senate won't entertain something that guts a major funding implement. they're back to square one. the policy is still there if they can come up with a pay for it. but delaying the individual mandate will never pass. host: 20 minutes left talking about the looming deadlines for the affordable care act to sign up on those insurance exchanges with kyle cheney, a health care reporter of politico. we're taking your comments on twitter. you can also e-mail us as wel