The russians . Since you cant, then its how you do it with the russians rather than whether you give the russians a role or not give them a role. And nobody here is, looking at age bracket here very few would be naive, frankly nobody here believes that any of us pursue policy without an interest. We obviously have an agenda. Be obviously have an interest. But the Positive Side i see in all of this is we all know we cannot do alone. So there will be a point in time we will have to start engaging the other. And probably there will be setbacks where we move away. I am from my contacts with russians over the last year, they now clearly that there are major operations are not sustainable long term. That they need to move from that phase to political phase. And i would argue also, i dont think that the vienna talk ss took us to a new level, but theres no question that the intervention by the russians created a sense of urgency be it that the west got scared that theyre going to play their ro
Whatever we discuss regional events. We take great pride in being multidisciplinary, cross disciplinary and in this case we have the Eurasia Center and the Hariri Center for the middle east working together on this fundamentally crossregional issue. And even as american russian and middle eastern diplomats are together new york wrestling with the same problems well be discussing here today. We would just like to go to our experts who began speaking. I should note that at the bar principle discussions here today, speaking from papers they will be presenting early in the new year so you are getting a prepublication. Ambassador hoff if you would like to begin. Thank you frank. This is the paper to which frank refers will be published to think in the new year. It rests basically on five assumptions. Number one, the russian and our brand were separate but entirely compatible reasons want to keep the shah and assad in power indefinitely or the foreseeable future, at least in part in syria. T
To the poor economy during this downturn . Do you worry about increasing the amount . Of course. I am always worried about it. Sometimes, i have nightmares about it, which i shouldnt, but it is something that im trying to put a dollar in a piggy bank every day just to make sure that i can at least put 50 towards that or at least towards the interest that is accumulating. It is definitely something that is worrying me. I hope to get through it as soon as i can. I just want to say that loan forgiveness is one part of how we need to respond to this staggering student debt issue. She is facing a worrisome amount , if you but imagine want to go on through college and med school and become a physician, and we desperately need more primary care physicians, the amount of debt involved. We are going to have to look at the types of Public Service and work that we want people to be able to afford to do. We want teachers to be able to afford to have a good standard of living and not be crippled wi
Variance report to you, its not a requirement. It doesnt say that we absolutely have to keep a certain level of can reserves given how much revenue were generating within the year versus taking fund balance out of the equation so the money is actually held in reserve and invested with the the citys treasurers pool and not idol or lost in that regard but showing that the credit markets that were able to with stand now and the water enterprise. Some of the reserves, once you have built them, you dont have to keep build them. Thats right. You can fill it up and stop filling it up at some point when you think you have enough so that when we talk about the amount of money that needs to be added its a target to achieve over time. Thats right. Are you suggesting that you would be coming back to us at some future meeting with proposed changes to the reserve policy . I think based on this conversation, if there is if it sounds like that is something that would be acceptable i would at a minimum
Reserves given how much revenue were generating within the year versus taking fund balance out of the equation so the money is actually held in reserve and invested with the the citys treasurers pool and not idol or lost in that regard but showing that the credit markets that were able to with stand now and the water enterprise. Some of the reserves, once you have built them, you dont have to keep build them. Thats right. You can fill it up and stop filling it up at some point when you think you have enough so that when we talk about the amount of money that needs to be added its a target to achieve over time. Thats right. Are you suggesting that you would be coming back to us at some future meeting with proposed changes to the reserve policy . I think based on this conversation, if there is if it sounds like that is something that would be acceptable i would at a minimum request adding the Current Ratio to our policy i think that would be a prudent thing r if us thing for us to do at