[applause] jim wang xin of new jersey transit. [applause] herb jackson for the bergon record. [applause] michael yesses, aol chief. [applause] and christopher chambers, professor of media studies at georgetown university. [applause] >> our guest today is not shy about criticizing the hand that feeds him. [laughter] the point that we are eating our assets alive. joseph boardman has been president and chief executive officer of amtrak since 2008. last year the board said they were so happy with his work that it was extending the contract by another two years. during his tenure the writers should has risen to a record 31.2 million in the 2012 fiscal year. he told congress last year that in a flight of, amtrak for 88% of its operating costs and gained passengers along all of the routes even on long-distance trains that traditionally have battered the company's bottom line and that the administration tried to cut. a 2013 brookings institution report said the amtrak riders increased 55% since 1997, more than double the growth realized by the domestic aviation sector. nowhere is that

. >> patrick wang, joining us from evercore partners, thanks for joining us. jimeill is still with us. it's interesting they said they were hurt by the debt ceiling in the fourth quarter. do you think there will be many others that will share that? >> when you look at the macroeconomic data, it doesn't look like there were big effects. but i think government spending will be down in the fourth quarter. certainly there were some shutdown effects in there. overall, it looks like gdp growth in the forty quarter was at least 3%. right now, my forecast is 3%. if anything, the numbers might be adding up stronger than that. that comes after 4% in the third quarter. but i'm sure there could be individual cases. from a big macro perspective, it's not obvious in the numbers at all. >> the key here is it was interesting, down 6.7%. how much of that is around the participation rate? and then how does that feed through into any point soon anybody being able to ask for higher pay? >> well, i mean, that's been an ongoing debate. to the extent that the drop in the unemployment ra