welcome back. we're back with our panel. john hilsenrath, ed rollins. steven ratner, chairman of willett advisers, former counselor to the u.s. secretary of the treasury. steve, thanks for joining the conversation. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to ask you about the economy where we are. tim geithner just out with his book "stress test." it's been seven years since the dark days or six years since the dark days. how would you characterize things? >> actually, i'm in the middle of reading tim geithner's book, and it gives you nightmares. it just brings back all of the fear and how close we really came to the abyss. and i think tim is a real american hero for what he did. and we're a long way back. we're not all the way back. we're in a slow growth economy for a whole bunch of reasons. and i don't really see that improving a lot. but at least we're growing. >> you know, part of the real stimulus and the boost to this economy, john, as you know, has been the federal reserve. >> right. >> and the qe-1, qe-2, qe-3. we're coming to the end of that