Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20150901

You are talking about, sir. Lets hear from cheryl in florida, the independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Very glad to be here. I would like to ask the guests this morning if he thinks the United States of america is too dependant on chinas money . Go ahead. Its true that the largest external creditor for the government is china. If china had not been able and willing to lend a lot of money to the United States, who would have . Somehow the u. S. External deficits had to be financed . Its just so happened china had large surpluses and the credit to invest in the u. S. Treasuries so thats an uncomfortable situation where china is the largest creditor. How much debt does china hold now . Of the federal treasuries, its according to the latest treasury information that i have seen, about 1. 3 trillion worth of treasuries, but thats not the sum total. Chinese hold significant interests in freddie may and freddie mac, and and they hold significant amounts of Municipal Bonds and corporate debt. The money the u. S. Owes to china is much larger than the 1. 3 trillion. Mark from washington, d. C. Go ahead, mark. Caller i wanted to know how much of the financial free market economy thinking has china embraced, and has that contributed to the easy credit environment that china had in the last few years leading up to this crisis . Also, i wanted to make a quick comment, i remember hearing the strength of the American Economy was that we had different regions and doing Different Things, making Different Things and that was the strength of the American Economy, when one part was working or the other part was not working or being laid off, and so there was a diversity, but what i hear or what i see now, theres not that kind of Diverse Economic mechanism, and we have a lot of the financial as you just said, the large financial pot in one country and in one type of operation, so i think Going Forward thats a little bit scary, and i will take your answer off the line. Thank you. Okay. Well, with regard to your question, sir, about the Financial Sector developments in china, its important to remember the opening up process of chinas economy that began in the late 70s was focused for the first few decades, certainly until recently on commodity trade, not an investment from Foreign Countries and not in the Financial Sector, and the chinese kept their banks and Financial System which has grown quite big in the meantime, essentially close. This has indeed began to happen. But there is still a very relatively close situation. What is happening now is that u. S. Financial companies, brokerages, banks, investment companies, are beginning to be participants in chinas Financial Sector development in a very significant way, and now that the chinese economy is beginning to contract, the problems extend also to the Financial Sector in the u. S. This is jack from ohio. Jack, good morning. Go ahead. Caller hello, i am calling to ask if the gentleman sees unions forming in china . Also, what chinas governments position is srevisavis unions . Unions the way we know here in the u. S. Are unknown in china, and its illegal to form unions across the industries, and at the same time the chinese require individual enterprises to have trade unions but at the enterprise level and not beyond the enterprises, so collective bargaining, the kind we have in this country and europe and canada is virtually unknown in china, yet theres movement, and its illegal to strike but strikes are all over the place in china so theres a lot of emerging power in china. And helen in maine. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question about chinese investments in the United States, particularly in the area of real estate. I live in maine and we have slightly more than 1 Million People, and recently we learned that we have recruited almost 1,000 Chinese Students to come to maine to study and we also have old factories and nearby towns that the chinese are looking at purchasing for the purpose of opening up a shoe industry again and also purchasing buildings, old buildings, to refurbish to house individuals, medical terrorism with a local hospital complex. I am wondering what your guest thinks about this in terms of bringing the dollars here, but what impact this might have on our local economy and our own Unemployment Rate . Before you answer, theres a story from yahoo addressing this, it says worldwide chinese investors bought 6 billion invested in the United States and most of that going to properties in manhattan. Thats an important point. I am not sure that i know all the facts on that subject that is happening here now. The outflow of private capital from china often takes the form of investments in Real Estate Properties in the United States and in europe, but not only there but also in australia and new zealand, all over the world you see real estate in china, and its driven by the economy in china, they want to put part of their money in Foreign Countries and real estate is considered one of the safest investments. Thats from one of the private sources in china. In addition to that, you have a chinese direct investment in many industrials all overt world, including the u. S. And the chinese investments, the investments from china from enterprises, not individuals, has always become important. Maine happens to be part of the United States where the chinese are particularly interested, and its not only maine, but california and the northwest and northeast. We have brokerages focusing on chinese investments in real estate. Theres a large amount of investable resources, not only the Chinese Government but the private sector and we only have the beginning of the process until we get a financial crisis in china which is possible but not likely, in my opinion, this outflow of investment from china is to increase in the years ahe ahead. What are the liabilities for the whose liability . The liability for the u. S. . I dont think china is different in that respect from other sources of Foreign Investment in the u. S. The u. S. , invests enormous amounts of private money from europe and the arab countries and new zealand and canada and also from mexico, and china is the new major new source of investment in the u. S. Economy, which will create many which may create many legal problems and liability problems, depe depending on how all this is evolving, and its a industry for the law firms. Timothy from california, you are next for our guest. Hello. Caller yeah, i guess trump made his 5 billion from the chinese, but my main question is what about terrorism . There seems like theres going to be a lot of explosions, one last week and one last night, and it seems like 140 some six people died in the first explosion and we dont know how many died last night. How bad is terrorism in china right now . Is it worst than what we think or is it just normal . I dont know if theres such a thing of normal terrorism. You are asking about terrorism in china and industrial safety, which is a big problem illustrated by the major explosions. Ten days ago in the large port city of beijing, and i believe there was another Major Industrial explosion in china yesterday or the day before. Terrorism in china is different from what it is in many parts of the world. The weaker population, turkishspeaking population, china is much more concerned about the weaker population, and terrorism emanating from other minority groups, including tibetan elements and they are from the muslim middle east isisrelated terrorism. Its a serious problem. The chinese are very, very alert to this problem, and protecting themselves in many, many different ways, but its unrelated to the industrial explosions that you mention. That has no link to terrorism whatsoever in my opinion. Cnbc says one of the things that came out of it exposed lax safety regulations within the country. Yes, this is an illustration of one of the problems that have emerged as a result of the extremely rapid growth in the last 3 1 2 decades. As a result of it growing, many aspects of the governments capability to supervise the economy in the society have lagged behind the output gross, and that is also reflected in many problems regarding industrial safety, food safety is another aspect of this, and many food safety problems in china, but the industrial explosions that we have seen in recent weeks are an illustration of the relatively slow enforcement, lax enforcement of industrial safety regulations. And the former chief World Bank Resident here as four guests. Michael, go ahead. Caller is it true the Bush Administration is the reason we ow owe so much debt to china . I dont think its fair or realistic to put the blame at the foot of any particular u. S. Administration. The u. S. Debt to china is mainly the result of very large trade surpluses by china. This started well before the Bush Administration, and it was already big under the clinton administration, and china became the cheapest source of supply for many u. S. Emports, and china had a relative comparative advantage in exports as many countries were able to develop large expert services, and developing huge amounts of liquidity in the hands of the government, some of which were lent out to finance the deficits in the u. S. , so its unrealistic and fair in my opinion to put to make the Bush Administration or any particular administration responsible for that. These are longterm Economic Developments that go from administration to administration, and its still going today under obama. There are stories theres the potential to expose hacking. What is the longterm impact on both countries . My knowledge is limited to what i am reading about it in the newspapers, and the possibility of u. S. Sanctions as against china related to the hacking that we have heard about in recent weeks, particularly from the office of personnel administration, are very serious, and if we are sure the source of those hackings is china and if we are sure those hackings are sanctioned or condoned by china, and the timing is sensitive because we are expecting the chinese president in washington in the next three weeks, so if the u. S. Administration comes to the political conclusion that they have to impose sanctions and announce that in the next few days or weeks, there will be a serious problem in the relationship with china. Do you think during the visit the topic of the stock market will come up as far as the discussions between the two leaders tph leaders . I think it has two. Its an important aspect of the bilateral relationship. The Obama Administration will be well advised to not only put the trade relationship and the currency relationship, and also the hacking, the internet safety issues on the table. Whaeufplt kind of posture do you think the conversations will they will probably deny the source of the hacking and certainly deny if theres chinesesource hacking that the government is condoning or sanctioning it, but how that will evolve, i have no idea. Here is hurbie from mississippi. Good morning and go ahead. Caller good morning. Listening to the conversation, sounds like communism is trumping capitalism, and the trouble in america is capitalism, and were selling out our country and with the communism being able to do for more in china with their middle class rising when in america the middle class is declining, i think that capitalism is the problem and america should try to rebirth more of a Socialism Program in order to help many instead of a few. I would like him to shed light on the difference between capitalism and communism when it comes to the stock market and whos benefiting out of it . I think if we want to seriously discuss the issues socialism versus communism and capitalism, we need more time than we have. The word communism is useful or accurate to describe the system in china. There are very few genuine communist lefts in china. Capitalism, its increasingly becoming a huge thing with the state retaining the decisionmaking on processes on large parts of the economy, land ownership, and significant ownership of the Financial System. Whether the u. S. Should move more in socialists direction as many people are beginning to contemplate now is beyond my capability to discuss in the limited time available. If you look at the u. S. Economy in the first few decades after the second world war, the federal government had a much greater role in the economy than it has today, and even today we should not dismiss the influence and the impact of the u. S. Federal government participation in the economy, we often forget that we still have fannie mae and freddie mac, and thats after 2008, the 3 out of 4 houses in the United States are indirectly or owned or guaranteed by the u. S. Government. The u. S. Economy is in some way more socialists than we realized and whether we should go further in that direction or retract and have a more capitalists model is way beyond my brief at this point. From arizona, here is i think its race from arizona. Caller yes, thats correct. Good morning, buddy. My question is, i believe you can probably clear it up for me is that roths are controlling i am talking about roth child and build aburger. A lot of the representatives are on the payroll, so to speak, and i cant think of a better word, and they are not representing the American People. Thank you. I am not sure, sir, i understand the implication of your question. Are you suggesting the roth which i wills could you sharpen your question . He is no longer with us. Oh. Lets go to ivan from new jersey, the democrats line. Good morning. Caller yes, my question is, how politically feasible is it in china to tax the wealthy and redistribute the income so there could be an increase in demand and the economy can become more modern . How politically feasible is it that it has been next to impossible to do it here in the u. S. . I will take my question off the air. Could you point a picture between what the comparison of those wealthy in china and middle class, and what is the difference . It would take us a lot of time to explore that issue. There was no middle class in china to speak of 30 years ago, and today we have a large and rapidly growing middle class and the rich part of the middle class is really rich, about a million millionaires in china, and even a substantial number of billionaires. The tax problem is a serious problem. There was never a significant personal income tax in china introduced at the first time at the National Level in 1994, and the systems you need to effectively tax and control the taxes, supervise it, and audit it, the time you need to build such systems is very significant, and china is nowhere near the point where they have a truly efficient tax system. Taxing the rich in china is a problem because tax evasion is very large, its not very different from what it is in the u. S. Income inequality in china has become a very serious problem in the last several decades as part of this the enormous distortions that developed as a result of the super charged gross in the last three decades. I think the current financial minister is focused on the problem of social inequality and addressing some of the inequality for a more efficient tax system including the taxation of the very rich in china. Democrats, 2027488000, and republicans, 2027488001, and independents, 2027488002. They were not initially invited to join the negotiating partners to which it was politically motivated by the u. S. Is very hard to say. The u. S. Officially claims china would eventually be welcomed to join, and when the chinese realize how important the negotiations were, they began to make noises to the effect that at some point they might be willing to join. How serious they are or were about that, we dont know. Time will tell. Ppp is not the reality as you know, but this is a very important issue. I think there are a little nervous about the ppp initiative, and they have launched their own trade initiative in the form of regional apecbased and nonapecbased nonregional strayed initiatives, and the a speckbased initiative involves the chinese trump card, and if they get enough interests in the proposals, the u. S. May be faced with the very difficult choice whether to join the Chinese Initiative or put all of the eggs in the ptb basket. I would think it would be good for the u. S. To join the chinese apecbased initiative, the specific trade initiative, which is still in the early stage of proposals rather than ignore it, so this is a huge issue for the Obama Administration, and its a huge issue for china and for the u. S. Is the tpp effort gaining leverage over china . Obviously. Because if japan joins tpp and the other Nine Countries sorry, the other 11 countries, if they all join tpp you have a pretty massive trade block, which is all around china and china, by not being included tpheurblgly in the tpp tends to suffer trade loss eupbeslosses. Tpp, as we know, its not a reality yet, and it still has a way to go. This is a work in progress, and i think the chinese response to tpp and the future u. S. Response to the chinese trade policy initiatives, some involving apec and some involving other countries, very important. Our caller. Hi, there. Caller i wanted to question regarding the counterfeit going on in china, and its called the counterfeit culture which developed in china, and a lot of the people in china from generation to generation to generation is learning how to replicate products and merchandise that is being sent around the world. My question is, you say that the middle class is getting richer. Is this counterfeit of these products they sent out worldwide part of the money they have made in china . Thank you. Would you mind repeating the main part of the question . I missed certain words. You are asking about counterfeiting . Counterfeiting . Its a major issue. Its not a uniquely chinese issue and the u. S. Is one of the leaders to try and bring order in the world trade elations involving counterfeiting trade protection rights and especially intellectual property rights. The chinese gross model in the past 30 years depended heavily on the implication of foreign technologies and some of that was legal and some of that was a little dubious in the sense that chinese gained access to Foreign Technology partly through their trade policy negotiations, because they were leveraging their enormous market size to gain access to technologies faster than they otherwise might have, so its a big, big issue. News this morning coming in saying china stocks got off to a rocky ride in september, and weak manufacturing data, maybe a repeat of what we saw a couple weeks ago . I dont know what happened in the chinese stock exchanges yesterday, but as we all know, theres a huge turmoil since the middle of june, the main stocks in china had fallen by 40 , wiping out all the profits that had been racked up in 2015 so far, but we should not forget that the rise in the chinese stock market value started earlier in 2014, and that relative to the beginning or even the middle of 2014, we are way ahead, so the we had a bubble situation in chinese stock markets like we had at one point in the real estate sector, and i think thats largely behind us now, and the correction in the chinese stock markets that took place in the middle of june has surprised many chinese and has affected Global Financial markets in a major way, not because Chinese Markets are open to Foreign Investment, but because indirectly commodity flows, whatever happens to chinese wealth is a very important factor, affecting trade flow is the chinese flow. A question for peter bottelier. Caller i have a question for the learned professor. To what extent is government corruption a serious drag on its efforts to stimulate the domestic economy and as they go along and is this going to become a serious issue . What do you see happening with this problem that, i guess, i am reading about in terms of government corruption . Two points. Corruption is a serious problem, but paradox its a strange situation, it has observed that china is one of the few countries where corruption became seriously, and it doesnt seem to have slowed down Economic Development. Now the anticorruption drive, which is at the center of the agenda of the Current Party secretary is very important. It probably is motivated less by the economic considerations than by the perceived need to make the party moronest and accountable internally. They want to push the party in purity and there by regain some of the purity lost as a result of the corruption. The connection between corruption in china and Economic Development are not very clear. Indianapolis, indiana. Paul is up next. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was wondering to what extent do you believe china is going to be able to be willing to make sacrifices for Global Warming. United states is making significant sacrifices on the clean power plant and on the premise its going to encourage the rest of the world to join us without doing much in the United States, so is china willing to follow the United States and make significant changes in its Power Systems to reduce co2 emissions . A very interesting and important question, and we dont have enough to really explore that. Theres a paradox, again. China has become the largest emitter of Greenhouse Gases in the last five or six years, and as a result of the fantastic Economic Growth that receded it since the late 1970s, and we have a huge problem, and china is the largest source of Greenhouse Gases, and the accumulated total over the last 50 years or so originating from china is much smaller than from the United States or rich european countries. So International Discussions or Climate Control where the objective is to reduce the emission of Greenhouse Gases, theres a big issue. The chinese are saying you are the major source of the problem today because you preceded us in the Economic Development by decades, and sometimes by half a century, and we are latecomers in the process of Economic Development, and on a per capita basis we are smaller emitters of co2, and other greenhouse glasses than the United States, so the chinese take the position its a serious problem but they are not at this point willing to commit themselves to binding or enforceable targets of emission controls, and the u. S. By contrast is the leader in the forthcoming climate talks in paris this year insisting on binding targets and enforceable targets. Now, the paradox is this. China is the largest emitter, but its also progressing very fast in the development of alternative energy sources. Almost all turbines come from china, and china is making enormous investments in the development of alternative energy divorcsources, and it ha reluctant to bind itself to targets because they have a ways to go before they have a more comfortable economic situation, and its still on average a poor country, and the per capita income in china is a fraction of what it is in the United States and its still a poor country but such a big country that the volume of Greenhouse Gas emissions is enormous, but its incorrect to suggest that the chinese are not doing anything about it, and they are doing more than any other country. This is carol from new jersey. Hi. Caller hi. I have a question for the progresser. Hello . You are on. Go ahead. Caller i have a question for the professor. There are two items i have come across in the news, and one of them is the chinese recently opened an Infrastructure Bank. Now, as far as all the great minds are concerned, the Infrastructure Bank that china recently opened, 58 countries have signed on to it, amongst those countries are the united kingdom, italy, india, france and so on and so forth, so her all our semifriends. Okay . Thats number one. Number two, as far as the co2 goes, i think its a rescue for the petro dollar which seems to be going into the ground at a rapid rate. All our economy is based on anymore is the petro dollar, the worth of oil since our gold supply has been rel agated to the dust heap in history. Up in siberia, i recently found out, that the two Russian Oil Companies working in conjunction with standard oil and bp and all of the rest of the known Oil Companies were just about out of time so we will let our guest respond to the questions. The first question you raised, i think its a very important Chinese Initiative. The bank that has just been officially established a few months ago is called asian Infrastructure Bank, aiib, and you are right, there are 50 countries that joined, including many of the european country. The u. S. Stayed out of it and i believe that was a mistake, and u. S. Has joined as a Founding Member but its an important Chinese Initiative and the Bank Officially and legally exists and has to make its First Investment operation, and that is expected before the end of this year. Its a Multilateral Bank and owned by well over 50 countries, so its not purely a chinese bank, but its china was the initiative taker and is the largest single share holder and will have a major influence onboard decisions. I see it in a different light from many different u. S. Politicians, and i see it as one of the better Chinese Initiatives that we have seen in recent years. Very constructive. The world is desperately short in many parts of the infrastructure and the chinese are willing to devote some of the money to Infrastructure Development in central asia and Eastern Europe and north africa and the middle east, and why not . This is what the u. S. Should have been part of. Thank you for your time this morning. Thank you. Coming up, were going to be joined by New York Times writer john markoff. He has written a book and we will have that discussion with him coming up as washington journal continues. Tour, working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. This weekend we are joined by Charter Communications to learn more about the literary like of grand junction, colorado. The mining of a certain mineral had a longterm importance in this part of colorado. All over the Colorado Plateau , we are surrounded by an morrison rock. We find a lot of dinosaur bones, fossils. That has intrigued platonists for a long time. Is ather thing we find carnatite. Lled carl it contains radium. It also contains been 80 him which is used to strengthen steel. During the buildup to world war adium was of extreme value. Uranium is one of the best sources for atomic power and weapons. Congressman Wayne Aspinall was largely responsible for his area upon agricultural development. This areas agricultural development. He fought to preserve water for western colorado by making sure we got our fair share. His state career and going on to his federal career, he climbed up the ladder of seniority and was able to exercise more power than you might normally have. Certainly in the United States congress where he was able to make sure colorado and western colorado would be treated fairly in any divisions of water. His first major success was the passage of the colorado river. Torage project in 1956 see all of our programs saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Washington journal continues. Host John Washington journal continues. A Science Writer for the New York Times and also the author of the book machines of loving race the Common Ground between humans and robots. When did you see this interaction . I started to report more about robots in the 2000s. Chal. A lot of fun to write about. Host darpa is the pentagon project for technology. Guest it was created in the last does treated in the 1950s because of sputnik. Done research for much of what Silicon Valley has developed. Host how much are robots used in the manufacturing world . Are there other places with a are used . Guest the manufacturing world was the first to adopt robots on a broad scale, particularly Industries Like the automotive industry. Robots are largely in cages assembling cars. They are beginning to do other things in the world. That is what is interesting. They are coming out of the cage is a bit but they are still basically in cages and basically machines you dont want to be too close to. The challenge is building machines we can work in collaboration with. Host you say they are doing things in these cages. We are used to seeing robots on manufacturing. What other things are they doing . Guest when i was at stanford working on this book, i went to the golf course. There was a good coffee place at a woman drove up in a tesla. She got out of her car and took out her golf cart and walked off and the golf cart followed her. It was a robotic golf cart. I freaked out. I went to google and you can buy them. Cars are getting closer to self driving. Parts of many modern cars now capacitiesdriving but not complete self driving. Host the London School of economics did a study on the use of robots. Some of the things they found our that in 17 countries the use of robots increased by 150 . It was the use of those robots that led to preup led to productivity in wages. Some impact was done on the lower and middle skill sets. You find that in common with the things you research . Guest one of the most fascinating things about where we are now is the spread of the spectrum of different interpretations of what impact robotics is on the economy. You can talk to the International Federation of robotics and they will tell you robots will lead to the biggest job renaissance in history and you can go to computer and they will tell you there will be nothing robots cannot do in terms of human jobs by 2025. It is a nuanced problem to pick apart. Robotics are having a dramatic impact on our economy but i think the situation the picking apart is more complex and people thought. We seem to become anxious about automation about every decade. One of the points on one side is, if you look at america now, there are 140 Million People working in america. More people have worked to than ever in history. People say, the Labor Participation rate is down and when you start to pick that apart it is down for a lot of reasons. Technology is one of them. It is dangerous to take a snapshot. The economy has always been changed by automation going back to the dawn of industrial automation. Seem to have this ability it was came to said wh you said technology does not destroy work. I believe it is more new wants to situation. Us. john markoff joining 202 7488000 for those in the the eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 in the mountain pacific time zones. You can look around the economy. Not just mechanical robots. One of the things that happened corporationsecade, are hollowed out by Companies Develop and ibm who technologies that allow you to reengineer business processes and a lot of clerks disappeared. President obama got in trouble that bankr noting tellers have been displaced by atms. People jumped on him for that. It turns out that because of the falling cost of computing, we have branch banks about everywhere there is a starbucks. Banks like to have humans facing their customers. The number of bank tellers has actually stayed flat. He picked the wrong part of the banking industry. The people who used to shuffle checks are gone. A neutron bomb went off in the the people who used to shuffle checks are gone. Its like a neutron bomb went off in the back office, and theres still a lot of bank tellers. Because people are using atms and cards to pay online. Banks like to have humans facing their human customers. When did you find yourself changing over this way of thinking . It was an interesting moment. I had my hair on fire and was talking to a wellknown economists and i was saying, look, as oddmation and robotics come to china, theres a real possibility of social disruption. There may be a possibility of disruption in china, and what he said to me, you dont get it, in china the robots will come just in time. I said, excuse me . They have a onechild policy and their workforce will start to shrink, and you have a shrinking workforce, and then you have the other issue of elder care. You start to look around the world, and look at japan and look at where the population is imploding, the New York Times just read about ghost houses, neighborhoods not filled in, and in europe they are spending a billion euros, and the irony, because of the immigration the u. S. Is insulated from the aging problem, and and large 2020 for time in history there will be more people older than 65 than under 5 for the first time in history. When you take a snapshot its a very dynamic situation. Its very hard to pick apart. Those numbers 2027488000 and 2027488001. Caller good morning. I read some of adam smith. He talks about the bad effect of jobs on people when people do repetitive stuff that robots do that people become pretty much stupid. They go home and have a one job mentality and a precision mentality and destroy their family by taking that attitude home. Adam smith to me was quite a rembrandt about economics because he understood that the economy was going to need to mature and change what it compensated people for doing so that we need to change compensating people for doing repetitive jobs to compensating people perhaps for raising good children because we are falling apart from the point of view of educated population. So you know i think that theres a possibility of going in either direction. You can clearly see parts of the economy where you have a deskilling going on where you break tasks apart and automate things because you take a fairly skilled job and push it down. That is a worrying trend. You can point to areas even in the medical profession where it is going on. One of the areas where i reported, where i first saw the impact of the technology on the white collared work force was the discovery that 35 an hour paralegals and attorneys were being displaced by software that did a better job of reading documents. And it is being widely used now and had impact on the structure of the work force. You are starting to see things happen in the medical profession. Ibm has techtology and it is interesting to see how they use it. They can use it as a doctors adviser. My point in my book is this is a human choice. We can augment humans and give added intelligence or displace them. The machines arent doing this, humans are doing this. From hot springs, arkansas. Jason up next. Go ahead. Yes, the thing that im thinking about it is that we have these robots we are making but at the same time we have less jobs coming in. The money value keeps going up and things are costing more. If we have less people working how can that be helpful for the country . I agree. I think that it would be terrible for the country. I think it is a mixed picture. For example, even though in the wake of the recession there was a huge decline in employment actually more people are working in america than ever in history at the moment. The question that is difficult to answer, traditionally new technology is actually boosted productivity. So in the period of 95 to 2000 largely because of introduction of Computer Technology there were jumps in productivity in america. At the moment productivity has been flat. That is a real puzzle. I have read economics and they are all over the map in trying to explain what is going on. If we have this Technology Robert solo said computers are everywhere. We are back there again. Its a huge puzzle. I dont think anybody completely understands what is going on in the economy. I think the greater danger is rather than absolute job loss is the risk of polarization. That is what we have seen since the last recession. People like david otter at m. I. T. Have written about how the middle is dropping out and we have job increases at the bottom and the top. Thats probably not good for democerary. You probably want a thriving middle class. You wrote a piece for publication of Pacific Standard when it talks about the idea of work. One ofrt things you wrote is sth challenge presented by the new wave of Artificial Intelligence n opportunity to design humans into or out of the systems they create. Guest the automotive can you expand on that . The neatest example is at toyota. The automotive world, they have done a better job of automating than most industries. And what toyota found at a certain point is you automate a line and it stops improving. The machines are not designing them so they began to put workers back into the line, skilled craftsman who could look at the production process and evolve it. That is a very good sign. The lines will not evolve after they can be very productive but they wont change. You need humans in the loop and skilled humans in the loop. From tampa, florida. Here is sean, good morning. Caller how are you doing . Fine, thanks. Go ahead. Caller i dont have so much a question, but i just wanted to say that robots are replacing people in every facet of life. If you go into the 1920s with bakers and farmers it was people in the field farming. Bakers had long lines of people doing stuff like making cakes and cookie, whatever. All im saying is robots could replace workers but that doesnt mean the job is more efficient. Well, clearly many jobs are disappearing but many are appearing. Who would have thought there would be a job category called Search Engine optmization and we have people working off google in ways we never thought of. The most interesting example of that dichotomy and the difficulty in sort of picking this all apart is a number of the books that have expressed the anxiety about where we are today have talked about the dichotomy between instagram and kodak, chemical photographic manufacturing company. 140,000 workers. And the implication is 13 workers displaced 140,000 workers. When you begin to unpack that you realize that instagram did not destroy kodak. Kodak destroyed kodak. The proof of that is kodaks biggest competitor fuji made it across the chemical to digital just fine. Instagram couldnt exist as a company until mature internet existed. And the mature internet created millions of jobs. 13 to 140,000 is the wrong way to look at it. 2027488000 for eastern time zone and 2027488001 for pacific time zone. There is this wonderful poem in 1967 and to be really honest i had the poem which everybody went through the phase. Confederate general and when i was first reporting about personal computers in the early 1980s the poem was a sweet poem titled all watched over by machines of loving grace. We have been showing people video as we have been talking. Two types of machines in process. One is a robotic arm building something. One is from manufacturing where robot shelves coming in as pickers and filling orders. Is that what is going on with robots some doing work away from humans and some working along side humans . Robots that collaborate with humans are just showing up. Most robots are big and fast and can hurt people. Every year you hear of a robot killing a human. People die in industrial accidents all the time. In about 2005 andy reuben said something to me after the original vehicle challenge. He said pcs are starting to sprout legs. It took me a year or two to figure out what was going on. If you look at a company like rethink robotics in boston, they made a robot called baxter. The idea of baxter is a machine that can work outside a cage and do very rudimentary work around human workers. I think we are seeing more of those, however its not going to come as quickiely as people thi. If you saw it seems like the robots are here doing autonomous things is really hard and we are taking baby steps. Ultimately the idea of building trust. Trust and perhaps ethics. Thats a complicated subject. It was written about the laws of robotics the machines should have. People are starting to think about that. Cars have to make lightning quick decisions that humans make. Some are ethical and also true of weapons. So all that is happening. I think it is just not going to come like tomorrow. A friend of mine in Silicon Valley says never mistake a peer review for short distance. I think that is something you need to be aware of. The computer mouse was invented in 1964. It didnt become mainstream until 1989. Here we are using it every day. Beverly is next, village mills, texas. Caller hi. Thank you cspan. I just have a quick comment, food forthought. I think a lot of the problems with the Younger Generation now is they dont actually know the satisfaction of work. Im talking manual, physical labor, using your brain. They dont really understand the satisfaction that comes from that. And that could be some of the problems with the young people who have no direction. Just food for thought. Thank you, cspan. Great question or point. I think as a species we are hard wired to work. I think most people in our Society Today get their fulfillment by doing something useful in the society. From pennsylvania brad is up next. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. My question was you spoke of watson and ibm. Could you explain further what watson is and what ibm plans to do with it. Ibm several years ago held this remarkable contest where they built a machine that was capable of playing jeopardy. The machine was able to beat two of the best human jeopardy players. It was a great pr demo for ibm. One of the things you should remember is that all three contestants had to press a button. You have to press in on jeopardy. You have to do it in a window. You can press in too early or two late. It turns out the robot because of statistical algorithms was really good at pressing the button at the right time. It turns out at that level of jeopardy Everybody Knows the answer. Winning often has to do with pushing the button at the right time. Not to take away completely from ibms performance the Watson Program is an ambitious Artificial Intelligence program. Ibm as a company has had a back and forth relationship. They started doing research in the late 1950s and backed away from it because they didnt want to think about theremi their mas displacing humans. Now they are trying to collaborate with humans. Where it is interesting is as machines develop the ability to understand human species and to speak, one of the areas that our economy has grown dramatically in since world war ii is in people who answer questions over the telephone. Call center tech support, call center sales, operators, all of those things which have been outsourced are beginning to come back to the United States but as Software Running in data centers. And the impact of that technology i think is one of the most interesting things to watch. Tim is from New Hampshire for our guest. Go ahead, please. Caller hello. I just wanted to ask, you mentioned earlier autonomous weapons. And i guess i wanted to ask you to comment more in general on them. And with the selfdriving cars if there is an intermediate stage of Driver Assist functionality. I wonder whether there is a similar progression of degrees of greater automation with military use of robots. Thanks. Ill take my answer off the air. Thats interesting. So the u. S. Does not have a policy that bans the deployment of autonomous weapons. At the moment we dont have any purely autonomous weapons in the arsenal. We are developing a Cruise Missile which i believe is supposed to enter the arsenal in 2018. It is semi autonomous. This is kind of a hotly debated topic of what is autonomous. Autonomous weapon is one that can make kill decisions and target and attack enemies without human intervention. The d. O. D. Several years ago prepared a memorandum where they tried to sort of define what is an autonomous weapon and semiautonomous weapon. Semiautonomous weapon a human finds the target and makes the kill decision. In case of this weapon it really comes out of the strategic relationship with china and the u. S. Having to operate farther away from the China Mainland but want to project our military power. So this is a weapons system that has to be able to fly for 500 miles or more. In the last couple hundred miles it is supposed to fly without contact of humans or a network. So when it gets to the enemy fleet it has to pick which ship to attack. So what could possibly go wrong . There is an International Campaign that has warned about the development of this technology and is concerned about the creation of a new arms race. On the other side there are people who argue that autonomous weapons wont create war crimes. Im particularly worried because right now our Drone Technology is particular u. S. Advantage. Our soldiers are away from the front lines. They fly these things from florida and nevada. What happens when our enemies get the same technology . All of a sudden the whole world becomes a battlefield. That is one of the biggest dangers of this technology. The challenge is that technologies unlike Nuclear Weapons are readily accessible to both sides. Graduate students in Computer Science can design these systems. So there is a real possibility of proliferation. Are these decisions or policies that washington has to weigh in, is this a developing policy concern as far as how we use robots in the future. The pentagon has a memorandum. I think it is d. O. D. Memorandum 3000. 09. In the next year the u. N. May embark on a treaty process that if there is an arms race it would be now that we could probably slow it or halt it. Ken from dale city, california for our guest. Caller hi. How are you doing . We have Seen Technology do all kinds of wonderful things like in the 1980s contrary to popular belief that reaganomics saved the economy. It was the personal computer that saved the economy because of increased office productivity. You dont see secretaries typing up the same letters anymore. I could see wonderful robots like that pick bugs off of plants maybe or pick fruit, only the apples that are ripe off the tree so we can get better agricultural productivity and better products. However, my question is, can robotics exist with a capitalist society like we have here in america . It might do well in china where it is able to feed a lot more people. Can it coexist . That is the question for me. I think that robotics is this new wave of Technology Enters the economy machines that can see and speak and listen, its going to have an impact thats much broader than earlier generations. You know, let me give you an example. The impact is very intriguing. There is a group of people who developed a technology to load and unload trucks in palo alto, a Little Company called industrial perception that got bought by google. And they have basically developed a robot arm that can pick up a box in an unstructured environment with bad lighting. The reason it happened, to the callers point, is that there was Technology Developed for the xbox that was the censor designed to watch you play and give hand gestures in the living room. And it basically really drove down the cost of Computer Vision from thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars. When you get that kind of order magnitude change you can do new things. Now they can put the censor on the robot arm and it can grab boxes. What is the consequence . There are probably 100,000 or 200,000 people who do that in the economy and now their jobs are at risk. They are crummy jobs. They are good jobs but they are jobs where you have to lift 70pound boxes, your back gets hurt. As long as we can retrain those people i dont think there is a huge loss if those jobs go away, as long as those people have an opportunity to do Something Else useful in society. A restaurant in San Francisco, customers order from an ipad and pick up food from a cubby. There is no servers or cashiers. I have to that restaurant is opening across the street from the times bureau. I havent seen it yet. I will have to try it. There has been a lot of discussion about the rise of the minimum wage and what it will do and whether it will lead the fast food chains to displace low paid workers. That would be a huge event if it happens. There is another San Francisco based startup called momentum machines developing systems to cook hamburgers. So there was this worry that it would replace the back office automatically producing. And the young Computer Scientist in charge not only have an interesting business strategy. They are not planning on selling to mcdonalds. We have Blue Bottle Coffee where people pay 4 or 5 for a well crafted latte. He wants to do the same thing for hamburgers. He wants you to press a button and walk into this nice place and get a perfectly custom made hamburger. Here is his deal with his work force. He realizes he wants to have human consierges to take the orders. He expects to hire people and he will pay for their education to get a higher skilled job. Thats an example of the designer thinking about the consequences of what they do. Thats very heartening to me. Eric is up next. Wichita, kansas. Hello. Caller good morning. My question is with the Quantum Computers, could they as they try to figure out how we as humans work and how the brain works can quantum computer robotics be replacing. I report on quantum computing. Give us an explanation. It is difficult to explain. Quantum computing machines are approached to computation that uses sort of nonnewtonian physics to vastly accelerate computing speed. You might be able to do Something Like climate simulation that would take a supercomputer dozens of years in real time. There are no working Quantum Computers at the moment. And in the Quantum Computation community there is a debate whether there will be a useful quantum machine. There is this thing in Silicon Valley, the speed of computers has doubled regularly for many years as we have shrunk the transistors that go on our chips. We are in an interesting point because it is slowing down and so there is almost a religious belief that things get feaster faster and cheaper faster. We are realizing that all turn into s curves. If the free ride is over the other unofficial religion is something called singularity. I wouldnt bet on it at this point if i had to pick. Our guests book is machines of loving great. The quest for Common Ground between humans and robots. He has posted a piece the future of work with us or against us. Its a social science publication magazine on the west coast. You can find writings on either of those fronts. Here is jorge from virginia for our guests. Youre on. Caller good morning. Thanks for the opportunity. There is a lot of technique. Right now we are seeing resources for supercomputers. [ inaudible ]. The next generation of supercomputers will require remarkable amounts of electricity to run. We are at what is called pediflock machines. You are going to need the Electrical Capacity of a small city to run these machines. It might be worth going there. For example, scientists believe one of the reasons you might want a computer with that kind of power is you can run a climate simulation on a machine that might be able to tell you how imminent the threat, how much of a threat Global Warming actually is if you can simulate it correctly. It might be Worth Building that machine. They still havent figured out how to build them or the point is true, they will take much more electricity. Thanks for holding on. Go ahead, please. Good morning. I worked as a bank teller and everything was going great and then they brought in a bunch of robots and took our jobs. To me you can look at this as a problem or an opportunity. We can have robots take over the world but we need people to service and maintain those robots. If i was young i would be looking that direction in my education because they may be the only ones that have jobs in a little bit. I think that as a society one of the sort of points and responsibilities if you are in a world that is changing dramatically and jobs are going away, one of the ways to deal with that is to offer people an education to retrain themselves quickly to do something new. You know, we have had sort of giant social experiments in the past, the g. I. Bill was one very effective way after world war ii that we made a generation of workers skilled and made our economy competitive. I think we might think about doing Something Like that in the future. John from michigan, you are next, please. Caller hi, john. I was one of the people that was in on the automation of general motors, if you want to call it that. And the first thing they did was him in and told us not to look at things as an arm and to seek different ideas. I said it is impossible for us to do that because we are given a product and a process and we are unable to change that. What you are talking about is continuous manufacturing. When you talk about censors, a lot of that manufacturing process was set up on prop switches which didnt work real well. Well, one saturday working overtime we took those off and put photo cells on and worked like a charm. But every time you try to improve the process they didnt want to hear it. So now theyre into the new thing and they complain they cant find anybody to run the numerical control stuff or even teach it. Well, at the time they couldnt wait to run us out of there. Now they are looking for people to come back and run it and teach it. Im all done with it and retired so i think as they go down this line like you are talking about, the s curve on the computer end of it is going to be interesting to see how they handle the new automation process Going Forward. Thanks, john. Appreciate the call. You know, i agree these things are often rough patches. I tried for a long time to get to china because it was such an interesting manufacturing story and the Chinese Government has a quaral with my employer, the New York Times, so i could never get a visa. I found an amazing automated facility in the netherlands. Phillips had been planning on basically moving production of high end electric shavers to china. Instead they decided to keep it in europe and built this remarkable line consisting of 128 connected robot arms, whats called the lights out factory. They were building things far more complicated than cell phones where they still use humans. Thats because the cell phone models change so quickly that it is difficult to reprogram the machines. Shaver models only change every decade or so. The machines operated at two second intervals. They had eight women at the end of the line in white coats. The way they did qa was they listened after they came off the line. That was something they hadnt automated yet. The people tended the machines the way he was describing and they fed the machines and this factory was capable of producing 15 million shavers a year. That is the future of manufacturing. One more call and this is tom from new jersey. Hi. Caller hi. Good morning. Im curious what ideas and thoughts are on Artificial Intelligence and selfawareness. I have read a lot of books where people think it is inevitable in the distant future. I wanted to know what your thoughts in regard to that are and how that will Impact Society through robotics. Its a great question and a central question in Silicon Valley now. I have to tell you there are a number of very, very smart people in Silicon Valley who believe that we are kind of incubating a new species and we will create these selfaware machines. I have to tell you the majority of Computer Scientists and neurscientists, the consensus is we still dont understand how the human mind works. And even though we are now making rapid progress in a. I. Herbert dreyfuss who is a philosophier once criticized researchers saying they climbed to the top of the tree and saying they are making Good Progress on the way to the moon. We dont know how far we have to go to make a selfaware machine. This is more about us than the machines. The machines will speak. They will listen. They will see. Thats not the same as thinking. The book is machines of loving grace. Also if you go to the Pacific Standard website you can find the writings of our guest, his latest piece the future of work john markoff thanks for your time. We want to get your thoughts. If you are satisfied with the direction of our country, a poll talked about satisfaction. If you are satisfied or dissatisfied and want to tell us why 2027488000 for democrats. We will take the comments as washington journal continues after this. The signature feature of booktv is our allday coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the count a signature feature of book tv is our all day coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country. Here is our schedule. Beginning this weekend we are live from the 15th annual National Book festival from our nations capitol. Near the end of september we are in new york for the brooklyn book festival celebrating its tenth year. In early october the southern festival of books in nashville then live from austin for the texas book festival and then two book festivals from our nations heartland the wisconsin book fe festival. At the start of november we will be in portland, oregon for word stock followed by the National Book awards from new york city and a at the end of november we are live from florida for the Miami Book Fair international. Thats a few of the fairs and festivals this fall on cspan 2s book tv. Washington journal, continues. Host washington journal continues. The pollster did a poll asking people about their satisfaction level with the United States. Two percent said they were very satisfied with the way the country was going followed by 26 said somewhat satisfied. 30 saying somewhat dissatisfied. 41 saying very dissatisfied. If you were to break it down by Political Party it shows that between republicans and democrats and if you go to the very dissatisfied segment, 61 of republicans saying very dissatisfied with the way the nation is today. 15 of democrats, 50 of independents showing up. For our last time your thoughts on the satisfaction that you have with the United States and if you are satisfied with the direction that the country is going. The lines will be on the screen. Democrats 2027488000. Republicans 2027488001 and for independents 2027488002. The lead story of the New York Times takes a look at murder rates within the nations cities. This is based out of milwaukee. It says that Law Enforcement experts say disparate factors are in play. No one is sure and claiming to know why the murder rates are climbing. Some say Intense National scrutiny has made officers less aggressive and emboldened criminals. Rivalries among organized street gangs and availability of guns are cited as major factors in some cities and cites washington, d. C. , st. Louis, baltimore and other places, as well. That story is in the New York Times. John is up First Talking about satisfaction levels of the country. John is in virginia. John, go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Im not exactly [ inaudible ] because the reason of it is something that we believe. We lost all things that we were [ inaudible ] we are losing economically. We are losing everything you can think of it. All we care about is who we vote and dont care about the country anymore. People always say every time we believe something and we see something go wrong we stand up. Our country right now if you look economic wise we have more unemployed people. Thats why i am we just listen to politicians like telling us things are getting better. Bob is next asking about your satisfaction with the direction of the country. Bob from florida. Caller good morning. The only thing i can say is im 72 years old and i am extremely dissatisfi dissatisfied. The country is in such bad shape and the fiber of the American Public has been so disintegrated that the future of the country is a question now. And its not caused by anything more than two groups in washington, d. C. Creating this animosity and division between our own people. And all of the fighting and the bickering as long as the fighting and bickering continues in washington it keeps the American People divided. And i see this as such a serious problem that if there is ever a revolution in america to get rid of the u. S. Federal government i will join it. Thats how serious i think this thing is. Bob, as you see it, there is no way of reversing the trend as you see it . There has to be a way. There will be a revolution but there will be a lot of blood shed and a lot of destruction. Its just thats way down the line here. People dont take it seriously here this fighting in democrat and republican crap has got to stop. I think thats exactly why we are in the position we are in. Nobody is going to win in this situation between these two fighting with each other. They certainly are not American People, the politicians in washington. They are there for their own benefit. They are enriching themselves. Its a great cushion. Get elected. Thats all they need to do is get elected and they are set for life. They dont care about america. They really dont. Thats bob from venice, florida. This is david from flint, michigan. Democrats line. Hi. Caller how are you doing . Im kind of satisfied with the economy. Flint has had a lot of unemployment. My god son just got a job and his mother got a job in the suburbs of flint. My other god son had his first interview and he has a second interview. So im happy with whats going on because i can stop having to pay so much of their bills. Im retired and i took on my god sons to help the young people out because i dont have any kids. I think obama has done a great job as president. Im glad he opened it up where people are treated equal and not discriminated against because of their sexual desires or the ways of their life and everybody is treated better. Women are treated better. Im really satisfied with what is going on. Im happy. Are there specific things happening in michigan that you can point to, maybe the reason why things are turning around in your god sons case . Caller i think the auto industry, gm is making nice products. Our stuff is really selling. My god sons have gotten work in the small factories. I will have to drive to get him to work. It is worth it until he gets a car. His mother got a job and has been unemployed for years. I am excited. I think it is good. Lets hear from thomas in boston, massachusetts. Republican line. Caller hi. From a country that lied to us 100 times by a president that lied to us 100 times. Thats a no brainer. I can tell when they are lying, when their lips are moving. We have to get somebody else in there that can get another plan than what we have today. Thomas in boston, massachusetts calling in. We are asking you to give your thoughts on the direction of our country and if you are satisfied with it. The Supreme Court made two decisions. The first one saying on monday it turned down a kentucky county clerks request from being excused to issuing marriage licenses to samesex couples. The involvement in a series of legal battles. The Court Without comment turned away a request by kim davis, the elected clerk who faces fines and jail time if she doesnt begin issuing marriage licenses. She has argued that doing so would violate her religious liberties. Her resistance led to most prominent of legal lately has encountered resistance particularly in the south. That is in the washington post. If you go to the pages of the Richmond Times dispatch. The former governor in the news saying in a surprise to some observers the Supreme Court allowed Bob Mcdonnell to remain free. In a one paragraph order told the court of appeals to hold off on making the ruling upholding the 11 corruption decisions permitting him to be on bond. Should the justices not take the case will end automatically. If the court takes the stay will continue. Asking about the satisfaction with the direction of the country. Caller good morning, america. I voted for obama twice and i am not satisfied, but not for the reasons you think. Im not satisfied because the republicans spent all this time obstructing him, outsourcing jobs, doing everything that they can to stop this economy from growing. So, if we look back we see what bush did and how he left the country which was the reason why we voted for obama twice. And it only shows that republicans put their party before the country. And this is what the Republican Voters have to look at. They are moaning about the economy and the republicans are steadily outsourcing jobs and giving tax cuts to their corporate buddies. If they want to change they need to vote democrat. From West Virginia here is peggy up next. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. I am very sad for the caller who called you because ignorance is really what is bringing this country to its knees. People are uneducated and uninformed. The schools dont teach history as they should. They are illiterate. Some are coming out of school and cant write a complete sentence. There are people unemployed everywhere. I am 52 years old and making the same amount of money i made ten years ago. We are no longer a country united. We are a country divided. The caller that called before said there is going to be a revolution. I am very sad that that is the talk going on. Everybody i talk to feels that way. Nobody is happy that i know. What do you think is driving the sentiment . Caller i feel washington is driving a wedge between the people. The federal government needs to go. There are lifetime people in there with their own agendas. Nobody is looking out for the people. Nobody in there has a real feel for what people in my shoes and the rest of the middle class are feeling. Its a total disconnect. Can you point to a specific instance where washington doesnt look out for people like you . Caller take Social Security. Years ago president clinton included the Social Security to balance his budget and it has not kept up the rate. People are working less hours for less money. Not as much money going in. And all they want to think it is an entitlement. I have been working since i was 13 years old. I have been putting money into that system for what . Thats number one. Number two, they keep talking about we created jobs. We havent created jobs. We are keeping i feel like everybody i know is treading water. The jobs that are created are not high paying jobs. As far as outsourcing everything, outsourcing has been going on since they made the trade agreement with mexico years ago. They have been outsourcing jobs as much as republicans outsourcing jobs. It is all of them. They all have their fingers. Until they have somebody in there not looking to become rich on the backs of the american citizens, this country is going to keep going the way it is going. That is peggy in West Virginia. Lets go to lionel in tampa, florida. Caller i think the country is divided. I think it is not a republican or democratic thing. I think people in washington are all looking for their selfinterests. The lobbiests, bureaucrats, republicans and democratic lawmakers. I think they are a bunch of crooks and should have put insurance executives and bankers in jail. They never put anybody in jail anymore. These people are capable of making money. If you dont put them in jail they will keep doing what they are doing. The only thing they understand is going to jail. The state department making available a new set of emails from Hillary Clintons private server when she was secretary of state. Washington times has the story saying that it is increasingly finding classified information on those emails declaring secret material on nearly 3 released late monday night up from emails and raises questions about whether a new set of emails is more troublesome or the administration being more strict after repeated warning that mrs. Clintons messages contain matters. All told the government redacted parts of at least 125 messages because of secrecy released monday as the state department rushes to comply with the judges order that all 30,000 messages from her time as secretary be made public. The latest release this is from the Washington Times this morning. Samuel is up next from sarasota, florida, asking about the direction of the country. What do you think . Caller hello. You are on. Caller thanks for taking my call. I am a teenager so i dont know if i have a lot to say about polit politics. I think the bipartisan grid lock is a problem and the attacks on other politicians need to stop if we make progressive change in the country. From morgan town, West Virginia. Caller my comment is im a democrat. Im 69 years old. I voted for obama twice. I voted for bush once. But the reason i think the country is in such bad shape, its all for me in my, the way i see it, its all racism. I believe in my heart that the only reason why obama was elected is to make him look bad so there will never be another black president in the United States again. Now, the republicans have done everything they could to keep obama from doing anything that he want to do. Now, they have dr. Ben carson. Hes not going to get elected. Everybody knows that. There never will be another black president of the United States because of racism. Thats all i have to say. Usa today sends out a tweet taking a look at the stock market. Stock volatility continues into september as dow plunges more than 300 points at the open. Bill from indiana. You are up next. Asking about the direction of the country and what do you think about it . Caller here in indiana we lost a lot of jobs to outsourcing. One of them is rca which is a real big one. And then after that unemployment. Then the unemployment said our unemployment went up real high. Then everybody used up all their unemployment and werent eligible to have unemployment. So now they tell unemployment is way down just because all the jobs 30,000 jobs are gone. Everybody is driving out of town now. Thats all. What are folks in indiana or local government or the state doing to counter act that . Are they doing anything . Caller there is nothing being done. Everybody is on their own. There is no for rca, some of the people made a big mistake letting them buy them out. As soon as rca went everything went and they have program for rca workers only. All the other jobs that followed, trucking companies, just everything else, restaurants, everything it was the biggest thing in marion. It went to mexico. From joe who is in largo, florida on the republican line. He is up next. Hello. Caller this is joe. Good morning. Just wanted to comment on the direction of the country. Two things that are really hello you are on, go ahead. Caller sorry. Just two things i am kind of making me dissatisfied with the country personally. First is lack of accountability. We are in this position today because of the mortgage melt down crisis we had in 07 and 08. I still havent seen anyone go to jail for that. Over 2 trillion of the nations equity taken out of the housing industry and spread across the country. That money is gone and never going to come back. That took years and years of savings by the American People. Now all of that money is gone. I still havent seen really any type of investigation on that point. So this applies to more than just the federal government. It applies to state governments and other places, too, because the lack of accountability is seems like the people are able to get away with things and not have to discuss why they did what they did. I have seen that quite a bit. The second thing i think is we have ten percent of our population incarcerated in this country. And that ten percent is how many people are incarcerated. That means 25 or 30 of the people in the country know somebody in prison or jail or stuck in the system. What we have is many, many people getting fines and being assessed in the system for fines they will never pay. Probations they will never finish because probation costs are so high. That causes extreme dissent not just from the people who committed crimes but from the people who are families and people related to them, too. I think the combination of those things is really starting to work on the fabric of america. The incarceration and throwing people in the system and having them never be able to pay their debt to society and never get a good job because they got five speeding tickets and got thrown in jail for one of them and then never able to clear a name from that. Or making ten dollars an hour and get a 400 speeding ticket you cannot pay that. Thanks joe. Joe from largo, florida. The president is in alaska to talk about issues of Climate Change. He will tape a television program. President obama with stood six years in the white house but how would he fare in the alaskan wilderness. Nbc said mr. Obama who is traveling this week will meet with the Outdoor Adventure and tv host to observe effects of Climate Change and the two men will come together in the alaskan wilderness adding president obama will receive a crash course in survival techniques. Also, there is ohio reaction, Ohio Republican reaction for the renaming of mt. Mckinley to denali writing the congressional delegation from ohio erupted i urge administration to find alternative ways to preserve mckinleys legacy. That was tweeted by senator portman. John boehner said there is a reason president mckinley served atop the highest peak because he is a testament to his great legacy. He served our country with distinction and led this nation to prosperity and victory as the 25th president of the United States. Im deeply disappointed in this decision. Christian is next from michigan. Hello. Caller how are you doing . I have an idea to save gas all over the world with having Wind Turbines for automobiles. When they go 70 Miles Per Hour they have a 70 Miles Per Hour wind. The Wind Turbines create electricity and run electric engine. All you need is an engine to get to 70 Miles Per Hour. Thank you very much. Your thoughts on if you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Cleveland, ohio. Caller this is shan. I was just calling to say i have no complaints about the way the country is going. I think people should take stock of what they have and be thankful for the things they have and not complain so much. If anything the problem is people complaining so much. If you take care of yourself and do the right things, you should have no complaints. Thats all i have to say. Magdalen in park forest, ill. Caller good morning, how are you . Great, thank you. Caller i think the direction of the country is terrible. I live in chicago, illinois. And the unemployment numbers are fabricated. I believe that obama has been in office, he has been blocked with everything that he has wanted to do. Our republicans and our democrats, all they are doing is fighting against each other and everybody has their own agenda in washington. We need somebody in place that is for the American People or are for the American People and doesnt have their own agenda. So in the chicago area, whats the unemployment like . Y unless you know somebody, unless youre applying through the internet. Thats a joke. And our gas prices, over in the matter of 24 hours, a couple weeks ago, raised 1. And thats to support, what . Somebody elses fight . Somebody elses war . Its ridiculous. Where were you employed and what kind of job are you trying to get . Caller what kind of job am i trying to get . Property manager. Right now im trying to get anything that pays over 10 an hour. Theyre starting they want to start you out at 8 an hour, which is a joke. Dave is up next, irvine, california, republican line. Caller hello. How are you doing . Im well, thanks. Caller the country is going in the right direction, but all the republicans balk everything thats good for the American People. If they wanted to do something, they would create jobs. They dont want to create jobs. They want to outsource everything. They to want give tax breaks to the rich. They dont care about the poor. Its democrats that are fighting for the American People. Not the republicans. They suck. The only thing theyre for is tax breaks for the rich and more war. And outsourcing all the jobs. So, dave, when you say the country is going in the right direction, where do you look to . What examples do you give . Caller well, theyre going in the right direction because we create jobs. We were almost in a depression because of democrats and the republicans. Both got rid of glass steagall and all these trillions of dollars, like one guy said, was lost. A lot of seniors lost their money and everything. And the thing is, theyve got to bring back glass steagall. Pretty soon, theyre going to do it again because they stole all that money and the banks got away with it. Its going to crash. Thats why in 1928 they put in glass steagall, in 1933. It worked good for six years until they got rid of it. Now theyve got something called dodd frank but it doesnt have any teeth. That means nobody goes to jail. The countrys going right because we were almost in a depression, and now were on the right direction. The republicans dont want to create jobs. They want to build our highways. They just want to send money overseas. Usa today takes a look at whats going on in europe what they call the migrant issue. Migrants coming in. Saying austria, germany, hungary tightened border checks in a new operation cracking down on human traffickers after 71 people died in a food truck near vienna last week. They scramble to find a solution. Austria increased inspections of trucks at its borders with hungary, creating an 18. 5 mile traffic jam on the main budapest highway. And germany introduced traffic checks on its highways near the border with austria. In budapest, hungarian authorities stepped up inspections of trains bound for other countries. The story goes on in the pages of usa today. Lets hear from danny in mill spring, north carolina, independent line. Hello. Caller good morning. Ive been unemployed for, like, ever. I spent the last nine years trying to find something out here that i can just do. Last time i was on the job looking for work, i was just picking up trash and stuff and cleaning up around a construction area. I couldnt get the job because i didnt understand or speak spanish. Now, really, what is right with that . Im perfectly able to do what i need to do. And i really didnt understand it. Then i heard them laughing as i walked out the door, you know . I started to call ins but i would probably just be told to mind my own business. I dont know whats going to happen with the United States here in the next few years. I do know one thing, we are not headed in the direction that i grew up in. We used to be strong. We used to do things out there and help people. Now all we want to do is bicker. People in washington are like Grade School Kids in the yard fighting over whos going to shoot the next marble, you know . Its so disgraceful to the whole world for us and everybody that has to listen to all this stuff. Do you think them people in the middle east appreciate what we do here in our world . Oh, my gosh, they look at us and laugh. Thats whats really bad. We need to get somebody up there that has got some whatevers to do something out here. Thank you very much. From webster, texas, this is robert. Caller i think all the americans are basically saying the sentiment and i agree with most of them. I voted for george bush twice. I voted for obama twice. But like so many of them have said, the republicans and democrats that all worked together for the good of the people, i think its a spiritual thing because they forget. You cant have a whole bunch of people at the top making all the money. And i got all these poor people, all these people trying to find a job. They have outsourced the jobs. If i find comcast, i get someone over in the philippines instead of getting an american. Now, im an american of mexican greek descent. Our country can be great again. Im a positive person of our country, but we have these career politicians. They get in there and serve, what, 30, 40, 50 years. They just give us all this rhetoric. What they need to do is we need to get people in congress that will make a law that they can only serve eight years. Just like the president. And then they have to get out and let someone else run the country. We do have problems. Weve always had problems. Every president is not perfect. There is no president thats perfect. What im afraid of, whats the sense of building all our infrastructure and having all these jobs if someone is going to send a Nuclear Weapon over here . I dont think the iran deal is a good deal. I think president obama, even though i like him, but hes weak on foreign policy. I do worry we need someone in congress im sorry, not congress, but in the presidency thats a strong president with foreign policy. Thats robert in webster, texas, talking about foreign policy. Mentioning iran, four democrats now joining with others who are supporting the iran deal. Jason, san diego, california, democrats line. Hi. Caller hi. My, my, what a short memory we have. The last administration drove this country right smack down in the ditch. Joe biden and barack obama have to laugh as they pull us back from the brinks. We have 40 billion a day for ten years in iraq and he was saying we had a prescription drugs he a plan for prescription, they went in the back room and gave the prescriptions. The people the option of making any price they want. We had the bush tax cuts. Whenever we had a war, we paid for that war with taxes. They put it on the credit card for the middle class to pay for. Dont forget that, people. The last administration drove this country in the ground and they want to give back at the helm and drive it right back in the ground with another wall up. Dont forget that. Barack obama is doing the best he can. Hes doing whatever he can to get this country straight but they dont want to let him do it. Its just the racism factor. Thank you. Thank you. In san diego, the second man to walk on the moon, buzz ald republican says he has a master plan for settling on mars. In the washington post. Hes pushing for a mars settlement by 2040. More specifically shooting for 2039. The 70th anniversary of his own apollo 2 moon landing although he admits the schedule is adjustable. He envisions use mars moons as stepping stones for astronauts. He dislikes the dabl for one way as mission to red planet instead of imagining tours of duty that last at least ten years. The pilgrims on the mayflower came to live and stay. They didnt wait around Plymouth Rock for the return trip. Buzz aldrin has a live interview with special missions leading to mars. You can go to our website for more information on the coverage. National book festival scheduled for september 5th. Go to spcspan. Org for more information. Jean in orlando, florida. Caller hi. The previous callers, i agree with most have said. Our congressmen have really let us down. One thing i dwaer from these recessions is most of these people have not been following congress for the last seven years. Im talking about when theyre in session, trying to present a bill, even when its in the best interest of us all. Keep in mind harry reid, as hundreds and hundreds and hundreds feel that the Republican Party in the house did pass, he refused to bring them up for a vote. Whether its law or not, i consider this obstruction of justice because this goes against everything the people want. Let it stand alone. Let it be voted on. Rise or fall, let it be voted on. But dont blame one house or the other, dont blame republicans ormo