Exceptionally broad and clear overview of the state of economic life. The actual conditions we face how those relate to those dark stories that we hear in our politics to the conditions americans havens experienced. Its fair to say that things are much better than politics and the critics of the market economy would suggest that we face risks but that mood are the most important it is a controversial thesis as a conservative i am resistant and being told everything is fine. But it is a very powerful argueof thesis. A thoroughly supported thesis in the book so to respond to the argument is one of the smartest social analyst and policy thinkers in washington. He is the chair and senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution director on the future of the middle class author of important how the american middle class is leaving everyone else in the dust and what to do about it. The format will be very simple we have an overview and then we will offer a response i will help moderate a conversation and then we will draw that with q a lets welcome michael strain. [applause] thank you all so much forr coming. And also for the very generous introduction. The battle of the book contains the argument i am making that the American Dream is not dead and the subtitle makes a secondary argument that populism might kill us. That is an excellent cover and theres no reason so what do we mean by this . And with a comfortable retirement and homeownership is the popular imagination. That is based on theas economic success. In the matter that particular i definition. With a large economic component that your kids will be grown up to be better off and to do better your self with hard work to see the economic outcome. And then the idea there is a rags to riches strong economic component and then to become president , that sort of thing. Part of the American Dream i focus on in the book because it is so central to a shared understanding for that concept. So that is dead the mayor on donald trump with a new wants has said it is dead. This is during the primaries of the 2016 cycle after he was elected the inaugurall address. He has proven in the last few months this is a defining isaracteristic of the presidency. And how h his family came to america and didnt have a lot of education across generations. He was running for president in 2016 as an example of the American Dream. In the past few years with the enstate of facts and thats a longer possible. The rich get richer. And Bernie Sanders is a nightmare how to see a real wage increase in 30 years. And from the Clinton Administration the american economy. And that the American Dream is lost and that and saying that the American Dream is dying. So this is bipartisan from elected officials and from uspublic opinion readers. There is a consensus so my ogoal is that to show that americans have High Expectations and for their successs and america does face serious economic challenges from what i think are the most serious. So i am not trying to diminish or sugarcoat to ignore any real problems that we face but i am trying to be accurate about the broad picture of how American Life by most people in those circumstances. Focusing on the pockets of real struggle for the common experience facingop people. They keep hearing their experiences the same of the people in those places that they were really suffering and struggling. I dont wantre to deny that but i do want to say that is the atypical situation and the common experience is much more positive than what the narratives suggest. Wages and incomes have not been stagnant over the past two decades and then to improve significantly. Middle income jobs have been hollowed out we hear a lot about that Creative Destruction and creativity and as you look you see that starting to form where the old middle was eroded. Characterize with upward economic mobility. The narrative of the American Dream matters and then to advance the dream for the next generation. So very briefly i will be appear for 20 minutes and i will give richer the opportunity to respond to have some discussions i cannot cover all of that but i will do the best i can. I thought it would be better to have some real disagreement than have the stand appear lecture for an hour. The economy is delivering for workers. In the bottom 10 percent have grownpe over the last several years. The Unemployment Rate is further below the longterm average. Wages for nonsupervisory orders. Overall average wages and the argument that the game is rigged against workers. This is not supported by the data. Right now currently with a wide swath in the second argument. So this is a graph of wages. It is a graph of the wages of production workers in manufacturing and construction and nonsupervisory workers. These include that includes 80 percent of all workers you can think of them as workers and what i have done is plot the average for that group and adjusted for inflation and i want to make some simple observations. Throughout the 19 sixties so there was the for the workers for the mid 1970s that this group did not do so well. It is stagnant and declining wages. In the early 19 nineties. Lacey wages going up i dont see them being stagnant are they growing joined the 30 year period . Yes. But if you characterize this as stagnant then it is quite clear the most accurate way is that it wages have been increasing. Lets look at this. It is common to go back to k1973. And then to argue those comparisons is too long of a window. Its common to go back wages have risen i wouldnt call that stagnant or spectacular but i wouldnt call it stagnant. And with the policy community here in washington for the price index used to adjust for inflation. I want to say what we really should be debating more time debating the actual. Of that so why do that 1973 or 1979 with the 30 year period wages have been going up. I argue this started 1990. Why . Because wages have expanded for decades. They are there wages those currently working. 1973 was 47 years ago. For the purpose of the policy debate that was more relevant to those that are working and was pretty straightforward so the summer of 1990 is close to a structural break in the series and what i mean by that is if you start in 1973, you are conflating the period of stagnation and decline and that seems to be statistically inadvisable. Calculating growth were injured on wages are growing and they dont conflate the two if you get a handle on what wages are doing. 1990 was roughly 30 good years y ago and that seems like a reasonable time to go back its hard to adjust for inflation one of the ways we could sidestep these debates on which price index is not go back 50 years. If you go back ten years they agree a lot more strongly than if you go back 30. So one way not to get meyer down on a shorter time. So even if you do want to go back its not a complete picture to argue that wages have been stagnant instead even to characterize those twoif different periods we should be saying that they stagnated throughout the eighties and nineties and then wages have been growing that is a complete characterization. 34 percent growth over the last 30 years slow growth for the top 1 percent a significant increase and we should not be content with that. So fast but not fast enough and lets acknowledge but it is more wrong than a right. And instead of one third increase the purchasing power and so quickly to make the point about the price indices. That adjust for wages using growth the closer you get and then there is another argument not to go back so s far. Median wages have grown by 24 percent wages for the 10 percent are about one third and wages for the 30th percentile are roughly around there as well. And the working class in the low income wages, yes. What about income . We can use two different measures of income if you look at the post tax and post transfer income that is gone up 44 percent Market Income is gone up by 21 percent if you look at the bottom 20 percent it has gone up by two thirds. Again thats not stagnant lower but not stagnant. If you look at the income series and the coefficient which is a Standard Measure of inequality you see a significant increase in the eighties and nineties and then the Great Recession when concerned about inequalityy exploded 7 percent decline in this measure of inequality and if you look at Market Income with an increase of 2 percent so this is another example of how workers have not kept up with the data. Wages were stagnant in the seventies and eighties inequality was growing rapidly over the past decade its been growing much more rapidly this is more straightforward with Weekly Earnings for the 90th percentile and other measures as well to not show any Significant Growth over that. So i will come at this very briefly this chart shows concern about inequality by a graph against actual inequality so Public Perception whether the rich are getting richer versus the actual behavior there is that much of the relationship and in fact it is negative. This is a graph of inequality and the wage growth. Youu can see what is a growing threat and concerned is going down. Combine those facts together. Measured on inequality is going up concern about inequality is going down and wages are going up. That says people care more about how they are doing that yactual behavior of the rich poor gap. My third big point that goes without saying i like to show this graph its very important to me personally. You can see Significant Growth in those homes of airconditioning over this. So perhaps more seriously there have been more significant of Transportation Safety with the idea that life was somehow better 30 or 40 years ago even for the White Working Class borders on the absurd if you take that argument seriously it is impossible to imagine if in timewould go back no matter the current social Economic Situation iss now. Middleclass jobs. This is the chart that shows the hollowing out of the distribution. You see employment losses in the middle. Production workers and clerical workers. These are the jobs in the trump era. And you see an increase of those low skilled wage jobs. This has been the source of considerable economic dislocation suffering in the lives of many people in going between expectations and reality and a very serious mireality of economic and social life. To put some numbers on it if you look at low middle and high occupations of total employment they are spread equally looking 70 through the present when we constituted 23 percent of unemployment with a significant decline. So what happened to these workers . A whole lot ended up moving into a higher income bracket. So you can see in the chart the share of householdst making between 35 k and 100 k has gone down considerably but replaced withn households earning more than 100 k not less than 35 k. So is a story of disruption but has those positive elements to it as well. I will skip over this in the interest of time that if you focus on the production jobs they get the political attention you do see a total share of employment but if you look there is Significant Growth of those little wage jobs transportation occupation personal care and services actually there is a lot of growth in that occupational category. So here i have a list. Food Service Managers right there at the bottom. So the moral of the story is Creative Destruction it destroys but also creates and we dont hear about the nreativity but what is happening in those little wage occupations and that economy where Technology Comes along but that creates a new opportunity and that needs to take advantage of that and in doing so but to be moaning economic change has to hurt the very workers you are trying to help. So rags to riches i want to explain this in any great detail but the calculation to see what share of people born in the bottom make it to the top and at about 7 percent what share of people that were born from the top make it to the bottom . I cant read that it looks like a percent so this still happens in america. Is i not common. Is not normal or to be expected if youre bored in the bottom 20 percent, but you can go from the bottom to the very top inopn america. If you want to temper that. You see considerably more than the bottom 20 percent and end up rising into the middlee class. So the measure of upward mobility does not alter ranking but instead are you doing better than your parents did . And what i have done is look at those who are in their forties today in their Household Income. If you are 40 something years old today are you earning more than your parents are when they were the same age . And about three quarters of people in their forties to have a higher Household Income than their parentsve had when they were in their forties. If you were born in the bottom 20 percent, 86 percent of those 40 yearold have a higher householden income than their parents were in their forties this strikes me as considerable upward mobility. How much more . Its up across those generations and raised at the bottom its 153 percent. What about earnings . That includes governmenten transfers. So i say of the men in their forties how many earned more money than their father earned . Its about 60 percent. Raised inn the bottom is 80 percent. The reason it is 60 percent that people in their forties today are raised at they top a lot of them earn less than their dads did. So it is the norm for men to outer their fathers and if you were raised low income bracket three quarters through 80 percent go on to out earn their fathers. How muchs. More . But on the popular set of the o American Dream but in interest of time i will hold on that through discussion thats why we will advance through all of this. I copied this pretty much verbatim from the Washington Post today. Everybody should go read that but what you really should do with his by the book. And then read the oped to stay consistent. Now i would like to invite richard up to the stage i want to thank him for doing mass on doing this. Aei has a competition of ideas but the ideas of tackling in this book are difficult. They are not straightforward. There is plenty of room for reasonable disagreement. Thinking of how to put this book together i thought it would be better to have that on display here at the event rather than just have me stand up and present my version of this situation. So i thinksi to myself who was the most thoughtful person i could find to present a compelling counter narrative he was not available so i asked my friend richard if he could come and he was happy to do so. [laughter] [applause] thank you for that kind introduction michael strain has written a clear and compelling and grounded and well written book. Congratulationsri very briefly we will outline areas of agreement and focus on areas that i think will be useful disagreements and then make over theomments border debate. It is true we are overly pessimistic so lets start with the agreement first of all i agree there is an overstatement of the broad trends that are affecting us american carnage i think thats true there is a bipartisan overstatement so the fact wage and Income Growth is solid. Not spectacular but not stagnant. And with very strong growth followed by s stagnation and then havingxc an economy and get a lot of upward mobility. Coth all contemporary economic debate. And it was not the norm. And the china shop. It was real but it was small. And geographically targeted. That the impact of the china shop looks back on the population ratio. So the link to prosperity with protectionism and from racial animosity. The dynamism which michael does not talk about. The sharp decline of mobility this is way beyond economic utility. With a 335. And those who need it most. The first disagreement and those to be anti populist. And of your governmenten bureaucrats. But what seems to me and it takes two to tango. With innovation hard work. And i put prefer to think of the governments as you balance your way. And the way the government in the fear of the future and of the Conference Room at of chancellor in the uk with a very strong arguments that you dont have to worry about where your healthcare is comingyour from. I dont plan to get into that particular debate right here. You can have it strong with the open ended economy and with that debate and politics. And to achieve them. And have the nt government approach. And one example of wastefulness. And forp every dollar with the trade adjustment assistance and then to spend 25 and to spend that kind of money but not on elite colleges but on the workers and that they might start to think in those 25 a going to the elite. And the difference between the quality levels and the second thing i will be brief is that we are not in great shape. And i will say one thing in particular. You can make an argument with the project designed to help the middle class and this is Household Income growth. Going back through 1979. And with that cumulative Income Growth the blue line below is the bottom 20 percent and the red line is the middle. With 80 percent plus increase if it is twice as much. And those that are going left behind. And those with a Congressional Budget Office and includes the value of healthcare. But the bottom 20 percent and the reason why its kept up with the top 20 percent is because government provided health care and health subsidies. The way i interpret this over the longer time. The top 20 percent pretty well with the bottom 20 percent reasonably well and those that have not been quite as well. And as michael says on page 87 i find it difficult for the downward mobility. I will not enthusiastically cheer for downward mobility but if you want more people rising up into the 20 percent it is a matter of math more people after fallout of the top 20 percent in a more troubled by that. Of any quality for different chart to the one michael showed its a famous one in social science showing the chances of being better off than your parents, dropping from 90 of your born in 1940 to 50 if youre bored and 80s theres all kinds of this chart household size et cetera. But what they do is and think how much of that is in you being better off t they near parents or the distribution of that growth. What they show, by running to counterfactuals is what it would be like if we held inequality at the same level, what would it be like if we done the opposite. So essentially shows that more of the dropping downward is driven by a change in distribution of growth rather the amount of growth. Think that something we need to take seriously. The distributional part for the story. I just want to make a couple of broader points. The first thing as michael suggested, you can choose your story and go selector data. Michael is commendably hands above the table. I dont because you get into a longo discussion about this. It is cumulative since growth not dollars. Of wages. What ive done is a is a different data sets and michaels i put my data set up in his data set to reassure you theye look pretty similar. That having a focus on my data set. This is michaels preferred time. You see pretty healthy, average real experts great. Now, if i use the median rather than the average, thats not quite so great. So be careful will be said the typical american et cetera using average or median . I can pull it out a little bit. Ive already brought it down. Now we get a little bit lower, multi what i will do i use a different inflation measure, the one michael doesnt like instead of what he does like. For not going to get into a discussion about that. There are seven people who care about this in three of them are in the room. [laughter] for what its worth you can argue ones better for wages one is better for household and comfort of done that i brought it down. Want to get a bit lower got an election to win. Go back further go back to the late 70s and they get bad we go lower at work 3 i think i can use stagnant now. I really want to be able to say stagnant. I will not say its falling and now i got a really. [inaudible] the point is not that any of these right or wrong necessarily you can make big arguments which is the right one which is the wrong one bubble more having these debates its important to be very hands above the table. Why are you only looking at men . There are women and the workforce allocation edmonton notice. Made that point because the way stagnation is an improper story that we had to be careful we dont choose our narrative and then by the facts to support it. But hands above the table as we possibly can potomac to brief comments in closing. Expectations really matter if you cant read the whole book, read the exchange between henry olson and michael strain. Think on the right to think about these issues right now thats a very interesting exchange. It depends of people expect, what do they expect . How much wage work did they expect and why . Because of the race . The color because their gender their fathers are that much et cetera. Quantitatively i think michael makes a very strong case. But qualitatively think people without work they compare themselves to the previous generation. Especially those like then workingclassti white men compared to the workingclass White Fathers parade that may be the wrong thing to do but it seems to be a people are doing for the last thing i want to talk about is why, why is it then we are drawn to these stories . First of all politicians are going to do because theyre not going to get elected they have to say its a broke so i can fix it. Donald trump is the example, American Dream is dead and now according to his statement is brought back to life. Its in his interest is as a broke and thats why need to come and fix it medium narratives are withdrawn to the extreme and interesting on the right although in passing that the pessimism danger is forced to the left in the right prayed the governorates done a heck of a lot more. Theres more and more Government Investment will were still in bad shape. I think you can say worded all that money go . I think the government has done pretty well the last 30 years. This brings it a bit closer to home. We should be honest about the fact that something of an intellectual glamour about both pessimism and. [inaudible] my hero said in the middle of the 19th century quote itth is thought essential of any man who knows anything of the world, to think ill of it. The study of people looking at book reviewers, some are negative some are positive to rate theat intelligence of the reviewer. The reviewer is a negative is much more clever than the reviewers who are politics prayed something rather dull andle stupid. About optimism into many of our minds. Think the danger particularly in the policy think tank like we do are selling books as we are the danger over stating problems to justify our solutions is very great indeed. Especially iff those solutions are the colons. In order to gain a larger share public attention will get more people signing up to our idea. It is attractive. Incentive to do so are strong. It is even more than to michaels credit, he has managed to produce an argument not all of whichch i agree with, but it is provocative. He has managed to bee reasonable, modulated and he is responsible. But without any loss of intellectual brilliance. Rather the other waybu around. That just makes it even more annoying altogether. [laughter] i congratulate him on his work. [applause] thank you both. Michael, congratulations on a great book. Richard thank you for being here for great commentary about im eager to open that up people in the room. Mica, went to give you a chance to first will respond to richard or is it anything that struck you as particularly requiring an answer . No. [laughter] so great thats okay but go. [laughter] [laughter] love a push on one point, mike. It seems like in some of the arguments youre having with some of our friends on the rights, there is a lot of traipsing carefully around the questionableio women. Guest yes much carefully in the case of tucker carlson. Host i think mr. Carlson talked about mother and the workforce is a disaster, thats not an undercurrent but a statement. [laughter] ofguest i wonder if first all you think you do that yourself . There areou y places in the book or you mention that men have had it worse, certainly populism is driven by the fact that men of had it worse. Theres not a lot of discussion what to make of that in some of the debates we are having. That men are lagging while women are rising is one that because of the other . Is it resulting politics best understood through the lens of the difference between them . What you make of the economic effects of women entering the workforce . Guest think i did not want to get bogged down into discussions of specific subgroups. Host im in a bog down. Guest i didnt want to do that here in the book i wanted to focus on the broad picture. Since you are asking, male workers who are relatively more educated have been doing fine. But if you are a man, and you did not graduate high school, you are in bad shape. And the opportunities available to you in the labor market are significantly limited. That is a minority of workers ofin course. It is still imperative that we have better Public Policy to help advance economic equality to those workers. It is also right that, that group of worker, particularly in some of the american heartland have been driving a lot of our current political movement. Youre suggesting that not wrong . Guest im suggesting theyre not wrong to think their opportunities are less than they would hope for. They are not wrong to think their opportunities are less that they could reasonably have expected with their growing up. I think the conservative and where i take issue with some of her friends on the right, the conservative response to this reality has been deeply disappointing we had in the 1980s and 90s debate about welfare report and trend reform. Conservatives got very accustomed to making the argument that low income africanamerican single moms should be expected to work, that the argument that was somehow beyond their capability or beyond their ability given their circumstances in life was denying them. Theres ample Economic Opportunity of Public Policy was crafted to help them create it. The bill that eventually got passed into law had the phrase personal responsibility in the title. That is what reformed welfare. Now only talk about white men in the heartland who dont have a college education, all of the sudden they are victims of a rigged game. They are victims of the elites. They are at the wall street elites opened up chided to free trade to enrich themselves. That has a ms. Rated them at their expense. In the conversation on the right acts as if they do not have responsibility they do not have agency. They are not able to take advantage of the opportunities they have. I find that disconnect to be extremely troubling. I also think the narrative on the rightist analytics fleet wrong. We certainly need better policy for those workers. But there is ample Economic Opportunity for many of those workers in the currentic economy, certainly more so than the public debate would suggest. Highly, i would say i think they would respond better to a different message. And we need some of our leaders to give that a shot. Host which i to weigh on this . Guest i would like to weigh in on that it is true men in the median, idle thing anyone disagrees with that where theres been significant wage growth for women. You put them together theres a different story. Economically they rise above women been hugely beneficial with our economy labor force access knowing denies that pair whats at stake here is something about the fact the capacity, you got some people on the right and some does only focus on men. Theres a good reason why that is wrong. We need to take seriously the capacity of men to be a bread winner in the traditional sense its significantly less than it was today the economic requirement of women that they are with a man is significantly less than it was. The expectation that men have of themselves, and to a large extent women still have of men is to have that breadwinning capacity. You have to take that quite seriously there could be a lag between the ability of men in the current market to perform the traditional world and the apparent ongoing expectations not only of the part of men but on the part of women that they should do so. That puts a lot of meant a difficult situation and that might be the heart of the problems were seeing. Host m1 open this up in a questions or think about the questions you want to have. Ive one for the related question here. To begin with the premise the American Dream is to to great extent about economics. Then you wonder why people complain even though the economy is doing fine. Maybe the complaints mean the American Dream is not is fundamentally about it . Guest that may be true its a complicated concept. Think a lot of the complaints are driven by the Great Recession which was an economic event. The recession was tremendously disruptive. Millions and millions t of workers and households suffered a normal slave the consequences ofus it. That disruption is really the spark that lit this populace fire we are still living through. This is part of a pattern. If you look back over the last 150 years, you look at 30 or 40 of the worlds leading democracies, what you see is an empirical regularity. If there is a financial crisis and it is followed by severe recession, you see a big upswing in populace sentiments in the country. You see a large increase of share seats in the legislature that are held by populistt candidates. The United States has fit that pattern perfectly. The financial crisis weave experiences much larger than the typical financial crisis it stands to reason it takes longer for this to work its hey through the system. There are other structural reasons that might take longer the fact that were twoparty system of a president ial system and not a parliamentary system. But i still see this as being driven largely by economics. Of course, people experience life as participants in the market and in their families. And participants in their communities. There are a lot of signs of trouble in non economic realms as well. Im very open to the idea theres something more complicated going on. Host lets take questions. Got a microphone going around thequ room. Please tell tr and try to frame your question as a question. Lets start here. Mike, if you can hear me, what is a populism . And how could it kill the American Dream . Guest populism is a system of animosity at whichop the people are pitted against the elites. That has different flavors and different context for it i would argue theres more than one threat of populism and play in the United States right now. Th its the people fighting against the elites. How could it kill the American Dream . It can kill the American Dream into ways. One way could kill the American Dream is the policies. A populace response to the perceived slights of the White Working Class has been the president s trade work. That has been the most salient expression of populism in terms of Public Policy this been enacted. If you look at the trade work, its raise Consumer Prices is reduce the amount that people can buy, to dampen x for growth. Its hurt the stocks of the people and companies address must be helped by. The most t recent evidence suggests the trade war hasas reduced manufactured employed versus increasing it. These policies are bad for american workers. Bernie sanders also running a populist campaign his economic agenda would be a disaster for american workers. Even though you get a small fraction of the past that sought a lot of solace. I think there are policies also affect longterm prosperity. The president s with extreme animosity threatens the role as the destination for the best in brightest and most talented people in the world to come. That is a direct threat to longterm prosperity for the president attack on the institution and the norms of government that are carried out. Scared atticus the people against the system threaten longterm prosperity by weakening those institution by the fed and weakening in terms of governance. BerniBernie Sanders would have similar facts. Billionaire shouldnt exist by thats exactst opposite message not morville unit billionaires but fewer billionaires that should not be sending a message should be something they despise. They are serious, serious risk from the policies and the posture populism. The second waits deeply damaging to the American Dream is the narrative. Precisely because it is not true that the game is rigged. Precisely because it is true that hard work pays off, workers enjoy the fruits of their labor, wages and income are not stagnant, americans abroad were the upwardly mobile all people here is that they are false, that condemn their aspirations and reduce their energy. It can sap their dynamic ism. Fave work less hard, aspire to lesser economic outcomes will suffer. O i think it is kind of a double threat. Its not just the policies to be worried about the narrative is also troubling. Can i still agree with it and disagree with that . I dont think we can discount the idea theres certain aspects of our economy that we dont use the wordpo rigged. Complete work of much more effectively who are in positions of power than others. Does a strong case in the Housing Market is rigged in favor of those on the right think there other examples Higher Education system thats complexity its a weirdness et i cetera rigged in favor of those who are well educated strongly in their favor you cant discount the possibility that some of the populace anger against the system doesnt seem to be working for me, not in middle america, the median but its working like others. We cant discount that. Where i come from originally and tightly bore inward open. Scott left and right seat is closing it that is very dangerous and damaging for the reasons michael said about immigration and protection part i agree with that. I think both breeds and feeds on pessimism, which is the heart of the argument here. I am going to agree with you its a very careful we cant be pended but we have to take serious these problems. Capitalism in general and american cap attract capitalism as we run out of a need to take risks it will pay off in the future. Theres a reasonable future will come from that investment we start to believe it wont,e why move . Why risk college by starting a business . You cease to believe theres a Better Future the real enemy is not socialism its pessimism. Thats the reason we can try to find a more reasonable defense around this everything is not right. I disagree with the role of government fixing them but when neither were going to hell in a handcart, if you believe that you are indeed in the handcart. Smack it think we have time for just will more quickly will take when right here in the middle. Glad i got the other end. Its hard not to comment a little bit sounds like you are simply defending the status quo at allsi cost for thats what it sounds like. Real other quick comments all taxes or all taxes make prices go up. Not just tariffs. Income taxes, property taxes will eventually reach the price tag in the silly result in increasingg prices. They say the trump war was bad because it makes Consumer Product prices go up. All taxes make product prices go up not just tariffs. That something people overfocus on tariffs. Smacked us addresses mr. Reeves ill get to a question. Have you heard of the social Credit School out of britain . Gk chestertons distribute is impaired the idea was is not the economy is rigged but has defects. The defectives we have a debt based money system and the problem is consumerism and the ability of people to buy it whats purchase we need a debtfree Monetary System not a debt based monetary ngsystem. Introducing new money t into the economy. Its more about monetary infrastructure problem which government could be involved into a point, like you point out ivy ever looked at that aspect, distribute ism social credit not to be can use with the chinese social credit. I would contend it is a drive through issue of whats being produced because of a shortfall. Guest i am not attempting to defend the status quo. Let me agree with richard that there are obvious areas of improvement for Public Policy housing is one, occupational licensing is another and i dont remember all the ones you mentioned, t Higher Education theres plenty of low hanging fruit there. The book i devote a chapter to describing what i think are some really pressing problems facing the country. And i devote a chapter to discussing policy solutions that could help improve things. So my point is not to say everything is perfect, there is no need for any new solutions. My point is instead, the National Narrative about these issues is so completely disconnected from the underlying reality there needs to be a corrective. Just because it needs to be a corrective, doesnt mean the status quo is perfect. It just means it needs to be re contextualized. Will end their thank you very much the book is the American Dream is not dead. [applause] at the institute in washington d. C. Michael lynn spoke with author jd vance about what he sees as a conflict between a College Educated elite and the working class. Heres a portion of their discussion. There is cultural power in the media. If you dont like the offers for your children that you find on tv or in the movies or whatever, you can just go found your own movie studio or social media platform, that is power. Particularly for americans, the basis of the american creed was 18th century they call the republican liberty, the idea you could not trust concentrated power of any kind they didnt have media back then. Or political power. In diffusing power and having checks and balances is good in and of itself. I think weve kind of loss this with the narrative about its all about money. If we centralize and hoard power, but we give you a 500dollar tax credit or 2000 tax credit every year, you should be happy. Im going to say im not a fan of what i would call kraft materialistic view of economic exide he pretty thanks much more complicated and difficult than that. Its not just not having the job or having a decent wage are not having the money to afford the things you need. Its also looking outside your door and seeing a community that was driving 20 or 30 years ago in a every single store downtown is closed up. Or finding out yet again that one of your kids friends his died about opioid epidemic. Very much the feeling of losing agency, losing power of your own life. The point they make about this and i make this point a fair amount, i think it is important so i will make it here again is you have to understand what the purpose is of the narrative, trump voters or motive of a pure racism or anxiety or theyre just bad people impure races enough to care about their concerns or worries. We know several think substantially about the trump votes. One it is really related to the decline of manufacturing drug caused by the china shop said other people have written about. We also know it was heavily related and tied to the rise in what folks have called depths of despair when you see a rise in opioid deaths in a Given Community we also see us if you get shift from romney to trump in 2016. Well, your focus on the fact that all these people are racist and not concerned about the fact that a member of the elite that he so concerned about actually calls an app you avoid epidemic, flooded the communitys with drugs, killed a lot of people and for not talking about that were talking about trump voters were participating in the class war the elites have already been winning for the past few decades. Smacked to watch the rest the Program Visit our website booktv. Org and search for Michael Lynch or the title of his book, the new class war using the box the top of the page. Book tv in prime time begins now. First up we open up our archives to highlight programs with awardwinning historian David Mccullough and Jim Michalski offers his innovation and competition for start up businesses by Atlantic Council senior fellow jamie with the future of genetic engineering and if it can be used against the fight and covid19 repping up the easiest formal Federal Reserve chair on the actions the fed is taking for the Economic Impact of the pandemic that all starts now, find more information on your program guide. Now on book tv were highlighting. Customer i kinds with historian David Mccullough over the last 20 years hes picked on book tv more than 50 times all the programs are about to see can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website booktv. Org and using the search function of the top of the page first in 1992 on cspans of book notes program David Mccullough discussed his biography of president harry truman the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography was instrumental in changing attitudes about the truman presidency. Here is a portion of that interview
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