i see bob rubin here. chairman voelker, i will tell you that we invited you here today to talk about stuff we wanted. but when your institute is set up, we would love to invite you back to talk about the things you want to talk about. >> good. >> let me have elizabeth baker to take the stage. thank you again, chairman voelker. >> thank you very much. we now have second in our all-star lineup this afternoon secretary robert rubin, chairman of the council on foreign relations in conversation with gregory gep. he is the correspondent for "the economist." thank you. >> i'm going to resist asking you what that joke was you just shared with chairman voelkel. i said you ask who is the better fly fisherman, paul or me. >> and his answer? >> we each have a different answer. i said me and he said he. >> i think this is an interesting time to have a conversation about the economy. how much has changed in terms of the perception of the landscape in the last two months. if we've been having this conversation at the end

have the sequestering kicking in and the debt ceiling sitting out there, and your former colleague bob rubin has measured ate it as an important moment for the country, and ed rendell said if we don't do something in the next five months we are cooked. how would you put as the next big priority? >> i am not sure that there is one priority, and if i have learned anything over the years, it is that nine months is a long time and that the world may look differently in november than it does right now, but i would make these three points. first, the single most important determinant of almost every aspiration that the country has whether it is healthy government finances or rising wages for middle-class families or whether it is reducing poverty or whether it is maintaining leadership in the world, is the rate of growth is the economy over the next decade. so, if we do not succeed in maintaining sustained economic growth at a rate that puts a rising fraction of the population back to work, we will not succeed in anything else. including we will not succeed in repairing the government budget situa

and i thought it was very interested in bob rubin's observation that nobody saw it coming. well, we all kind of bought into it. we're all in the establishment. people in this room center left establishment. i tend to hang out with the center right establishment, but we're all the establishment and we blew it. we're the ones supposed to be keeping an eye on it and we didn't. in fact, we enjoyed it. we enjoyed it in the '90s. we enjoyed it in the 2000s. we weren't being skeptical. my message for today is the public out there is mad at us. because they hold us collectively responsible. you know, the usual line in washington is to sort of poopoo it. they don't know what they're talking about. they actually do. if i could leave you with a thought today is that we all in the establishment need a little bit more introspection because we did a lousy job and we better start focusing on the quality of job we do rather than saying, oh, it was the other guy's fault. >> so that's a very -- a very laudable goal. [ applause ] what is the key to actually making that happen, what you're tal

of glass steagall is an example of the revolving door between wall street in washington you know bob rubin you know come over a strike or treasury secretary. led the charge to get glass to go or move in the one over the city where he made over one hundred million dollars that it was basically super i mean as a reward. i mean class the goal should exist i mean banks their public policy is to hold the positives and to make loans and if they're going to do that then you could somewhat justify the bailouts of keeping banks you know because he's a functioning economy needs a banking system yeah but if if they're going to sit there on borrowed zero percent from the they're going to make loans a very limited circumstances and they're just going to act like a giant hedge fund with customers money where the customers don't share in the upside and go to london and go thirty one leverage you know why are we propping them up before we go broke with this yes or no answer are your customers going to get their money back i think they are right they will damn right there well thank you for being on our sh

bob rubin is here, and chairman folk are -- [applause] we invited you here today to talk about stuff we wanted but we would love to invite you back to talk about the things that you want to talk about. let me invite elizabeth baker keffer to take the stage. thank you again, chairman vulgar. [applause] >> more from today's economic conference is coming up on c-span2. in a few moments, lawrence lindsey and economic adviser to president george w. bush. 's time warner chairman and ceo jeffrey spoke tonight at the economic club of washington. >> lawrence lindsey led the economic council during the first two years of the george w. bush administration. at "the atlantic" mega-zine form on the economy today, he said neither democrats nor republicans have credible economic plans. he was interviewed by "the atlantic" editor-in-chief. [applause] >> thanks everybody for joining us. former governor, former director of the national economic council. we are just going to dive right in. there has been a lot of discussion about how difficult the last decade has been in the global markets and global ec

and had bob rubin said, "no, the treasury feels this is wrong," we would've been careful. because obviously, the treasury recommends to the president on an issue of this sort. and there was no argument. no one said, "we'll have to think about it." and so a consensus built up. i don't think it started in the fed. i would guess it started in the industry, it certainly got into the congress. >> by eliminating the glass-steagall restrictions we free our financial services industry to maintain its place as the world leader -- >> we dominate the world financial market, and we've done it with one hand tied behind us because we have the greatest economic system in the history of the world. but we can untie that hand that we have had tied behind us. and we do it in this bill by repealing glass-steagall. >> lawmakers inevitably learn as lobbyists tell them things. it's sort of like a doctor being sold new medicines, they can't stay on the forefront of the pharmaceutical technology, they rely on being educated to some extent. >> this bill is vital for the future of our country. if we

defense attorney bob rubin. >> mr. over the course of his lifetime. and as a result he got progressively worse. >> reporter: and the defense made a bold allegation to the jury that hemy's violent act against rusty was triggered by none other than rusty's wife andrea. >> she had planted the seed, she had stoked the fire, and she knew that what she set out to do with somebody who is sick, that she had accomplished. >> reporter: his psyche was so fragile, the defense argue you'd, that it hadn't taken much from andrea to send hemy over the edge. and if the defense team could prove hemy neuman was not guilty by reason of insanity, that he didn't know right from wrong when he pulled the trigger, there was a chance he would escape prison if not a hospital bed in a psychiatric unit. their first witness was hemy's younger sister monique. she painted a picture for the jury of hemy's painful childhood. >> monique, would you describe for the jury your household at 6:00 in the evening when your father was coming home. >> anxiety. >

. >> we are going to have larry summers and bob rubin up here. one of the people coming up as the key job now, the national economic adviser for president obama. looking at the jobs and infrastructure proposals they have put forward -- it looks like a lot of those pieces are things you and austin goals be had worked on, and thought about sometime earlier -- austin had worked on and on about some time earlier. >> our president of the united states -- we have not got that kind of a problem. what we have is the backwash. it is like a tsunami hit us in the financial system. it cost a lot of damage. we have to recover from that tsunami. the tsunami is a debt. that in this economy relative to the size of the economy doubled -- increased by 2.5 times, i think. at the end of the day, and strangle us. for a while, -- has as soon as the policy of going to happen, you cannot handle the debt. people have not saved because it was so nice to borrow -- borrow money. you borrowed your mortgage. you have a record home mortgage loans. your credit cards. it was of

. >> and a little while we are going to have larry summers and bob rubin is going to join us right afterou. their line of people who have been key economic advisers to presidents and one of the people is coming up is the one that has the key job now which is gene sperling the national economic adviser to present on the. when i looked at the jobs and infrastructure proposals that they put forward and as i dug into it look like a lot of those pieces were things that you in austan goolsbee had worked on, thought about sometime earlier and so my question is, do you think the president is three years too late with the jobs infrastructure proposal? would you have sequence, what the obama administration put forward differently? would you have done more on jobs and infrastructure in the front and? >> i have to say with all respect to the united states i would have had a sophisticated program. we haven't got that kind of a problem. what we have is the back wash like a tsunami hit us in the financial system. i did a lot of damage. we now have to recover from that. this tsunami was was dead or good

and i thought it was very interesting in bob rubins observation nobody saw it coming. we all kind of bought into it. we are all in the establishment, people in this room would tend to be the center of the establishment. i tend to hang out with the center-right establishment but we are all these troubles and we blow it. we are the ones that were suppressed be keeping an eye on it and we don't. we enjoyed it. we enjoyed in the 90's, we enjoyed in 2000, and we weren't being skeptical. and my message for today is the public out there is mad at us because they told us collectively responsible. and you know, the usual line in washington is the sort of poo-poo you don't know what you're talking about. if i can leave you with a soft today is that in the establishment we need a little bit more introspection because we did a lousy job and we'd better start focusing on the quality of jobs we do rather than say it was dever guice fault -- the other season. [applause] that is a laudable goal. what is the key to making that happen? >> the first way to solve the problem is simply tal