[applause] [applause] >> thank you, barbara. >> hi, i'm mitchell orenstein from john hopkins school of international studies. i'm bringing to the panel a rather different unique perspective, which is an international perspective on the problem of social security today. my research has focused on pension privatization worldwide on the trend which i'll talk about in a moment of privatizing pension systems. and emphasizing issues of learning from one country to another. countries don't deal with these problems completely with their own resources, but also rely to great extent on the experiences of other countries to consider solutions. i've always been looking since the financial crisis working on a new article on the future of pension privatization pend after the crisis which is quite interesting. the questions that i'm going to ask are rather more comparative. where does the united states fit into an international perspective? how is the united states affected? and what lessons can the united states draw from other countries? so first let me address this question of where the context is

[applause] [applause] >> thank you, barbara. >> hi, i'm mitchell orenstein from john hopkins school of international studies. i'm bringing to the panel a rather different unique perspective, which is an international perspective on the problem of social security today. my research has focused on pension privatization worldwide on the trend which i'll talk about in a moment of privatizing pension systems. and emphasizing issues of learning from one country to another. countries don't deal with these problems completely with their own resources, but also rely to great extent on the experiences of other countries to consider solutions. i've always been looking since the financial crisis working on a new article on the future of pension privatization pend after the crisis which is quite interesting. the questions that i'm going to ask are rather more comparative. where does the united states fit into an international perspective? how is the united states affected? and what lessons can the united states draw from other countries? so first let me address this question of where the context is

it is by happenstance that mitchell orenstein will collapse after other speakers at a chance to give their perspective on the fashion of social security and. so started for my left, we have andrew biggs from the american enterprise institute, charles blaha's and member of the social security -- >> on the public trustee. >> we have ross clahous with the economic policy institute, heidi hartmann. barbara eisenbrey and finally michel orenstein, professor at the school for advanced international studies at johns hopkins university. they said, all of these panelists are experts in one way or another on different aspects of social security, so we are very fortunate to have them with us. address each of them to limit your remarks to about 12 minutes so we'll have plenty of time for q&a and discussion afterwards. so mr. biggs, the floor is yours. >> thank you very much and thanks to all of you for coming. i really appreciate the opportunity to speak today. it's an important and timely issue. i'm necessarily going to abstract the technicalities of social security. usually it over with with nu