i'm fred altman. i was also recently the project director of the cfr independent task force on u.s. trade and investment policy chaired by tom daschle and andy card and started with the evidence that the u.s. has been an export underperformer and talked about how to improve things on that front. i'm delighted to be moderating this panel. we have a superb set of panelists with us to take us through the issues. on my right, samuel allen, the chief executive of john deere. his full bio is in your material. to his right, hall sirkin, managing director of the boston group and then to the far right, dave thompson, chief executive of orbital sciences. i'm just going to give a little bit of introduction. the title of our session is "competing around the world." i would suggest this is a particularly fluid time to be trying to address this question. just to sort of frame it, on the positive side some of might have seen a recent article in "american interest." it makes the argument the u.s. is poised to become an export powerhouse, notes since the end of the recession exports have accounted f