Good morning, everybody. [inaudible] its great to have you all here. My name is kevin and im delighted to be with you today as your host for this summer. The iif has put together a fantastic program for you focusing on prospects under the new administration for financial services, regulatory reform, Infrastructure Investments, energy policies, and much more. We are honored to have so many highlevel speakers who have given up their valuable time to offer their perspectives today. The iif is delighted to organize this meeting partnership with we all look forward to hearing from the president and ceo Mark Weinberger later today. If you are unable to stay for particular session today, everything will be available on the iif website after work. They keep it as a great job making sure all that content is uploaded and, therefore, your disposal when you need it. Most importantly for all of us who are wired in today, the network for the wifi here is Ronald Reagan building. Log in the 2017 iif policy, and the password is iif policy. If youre planning to tweet, and who doesnt nowadays, please do use the hashtag iif policy summit. The traffic also has an excellent meeting at where you can find the needing program, speaker biography, then you map and so on. Trust me, you do not want to be milling about later with all the school kids cannot have you iif app downloaded. Go to the app store you can find the tickets under the iif meetings app and you can send questions to the moderators or each of the Panel Discussions through the app. So please make sure would you download it you take your questions in. The password as well for the policy app, im sorry, for the iif meeting at this also iif policy. If youve any questions please direct them to india the iif staff. They will be able to help you with it. So you can use your app to network with other attendees here. So without further ado i would like to kick off our program this morning by introducing the iif president and chief executive officer, tim adams. [applause] great, thank you kevin. Eager to get started. Let me also share my welcome and thanks to all of our member firms here today. As is every time i work for you, were here to serve you. If you need anything while were here please let me know. I want to welcome our boardmember so here, sprinkled throughout the audience. We also give thanks and welcome to the why, my good friend Mark Weinberger we were colleagues can Work Together for a number of years and its always an honor and a pleasure to be on the same stage in the same organization, the same effort with mark and his Wonderful Team has been great to work with. Weve got a huge, huge day here at a washington policy summit. Weve got more senior government officials in any location outside of the cabinet meeting. So it should be an interesting day. The first time weve had this number of senior officials on any single stage. But its not just today. We have a busy week. Tomorrow we have a session on Digital Currency for Central Banks that were cohosting with city. We have an event at the Italian Embassy and the british embassy. On saturday we have a european policy dialogue, and on sunday we have our Standard Capital emerging markets roundtable where we bring and policymakers and industry representatives. This year the topic is Political Risk and its impact, potential impact on capital flows to emerging markets. T. S. Eliot once that april is of the cruelest month. I think you wrote that in washington in the midst of changing weather and lots of pollen. So if i lose my voice today you understand why. Anyway, let me start by accentuating the positive. I like to start with positive aspects. And, frankly, we gather here this week, we hear today but everyone who is in town for the spring meetings at a time which the economy looks pretty good. In fact, we are witnessing some of the best Economic Data weve seen since the prices and the really is a sense of confidence and buoyancy. The imf this week raised its Global Growth projections to 3. 5 for this year, 3. 6 next year and that the first time i could remember where the cayman and provides upward rejection projection from previous forecast. Pmi for mature and emerging cardconsare suggesting a genuinp in the global cycle and Business Confidence markets are buoyant, maybe a little boy and, will have discussion later about whether this soft indicators have become divorced from the hard indicators. In the news out of china earlier this week from the First Quarter looks much better since china seems to avoid it a hard landing than seems to stabilize the fairly robust growth. Certainly would be a topic for us today and throughout the weekends. Emerging markets generally are doing much better and those that are engaged in appropriate policy regimes that they slow external vulnerabilities will outperform. Others will see some heterogeneity, some differentiated markets between emerging market. Whatever for two plus of its productivity, protectionism and populism. Big three share lead pays below the level needed that our population have come to expect and demand. Its one of the most complex and perplexing issues that given the amount of technological change is occurring, and why do we see a showing that the imported dvd . It will be with the next panel. Growth in product and it is much higher than we are witnessing. From the perspective of the protechnologists. Many notes and corners as a panacea for some nostalgic previous time in the great prosperity. The protectionism does not generate prosperity. Its an issue in a political challenge will continue to spacebar the foreseeable future. We see populism threat name everywhere. It starts this coming sunday. Weve had a variety of locations around the world. It does threaten and kept the peace for 70 years, looked at poverty and the hundreds of millions into the global middle class. Anytime in argentina and populism and protectionism and the amount of change that has to occur is really pretty sobering. Venezuela. Populism, protectionism and product dignity are key challenge is not only for this week, for this month, but of our time. They are dressed throughout the day to day and that is can the u. S. Economy be a driver of growth. Can it be the consumer of last resort. Weve seen the Administration Come in with a whole host of very policies he let me just take of those with greater depth throughout the day. They are eager to take on a reform the tax code. Speaker ryan, chairman of the house ways and Means Committee kevin brady has a plan on capitol hill for a number of years in the media expansion. It is one of the most sweeping proposals in 1996 act. The administration is quickly gathering his own proposal i will hear more about this today from secretary mnuchin and hopefully gary cohn of the tax policy and hopefully over the six months or year would be able to see and produce an outcome that Capital Formation. 46 years and theres a reason reason for it. Although this provision exists for a reason. There are winners and losers and already weve seen adjustability with the lobbying campaign for neck and am ill make it difficult for that component. We have a great tax bill later this morning the second issue is issues. The president ran on Infrastructure Spending that the campaign. Weve seen mckenzie and others who have done studies that 2 trillion per year by 2025 year the question is how do you pay for it. When using the tax code, purchased using public or the partnerships and there are direct appropriations. The United States needs infrastructure. He came from new york on the inch outcome of this if youre on the wagon and you know what that feels like or just flew into dulles. The u. S. Needs infrastructure. We will hear from transfer later today. Thats one of the issues in his wheelhouse in my polycrystalline silver will be interviewing him and hopefully he can shed some information. Financial regulation which is important to mean im a membership, but they sweeping review of Financial Regulation coming herding doddfrank put the ball of promoting greater expansion. But not undermining Financial Stability and avoiding any taxpayer support. We are not asking a repeal of doddfrank. I wonder reportedly says why are you asking for a full repeal of going to scream because we are in our. There are parts of doddfrank that are important. Title ii and Regulation Authority allows us to do regulation and especially crossborder crossborder resolution of the minute information makes it difficult to do that kind of resolution in times of crisis. Other components we think need to be addressed. Dissent stressed the process is frequency in qualitative components. It is hard to see chairman has remained 2. 0 introduced yesterday components to look at the process. The volcker rule which needs to be tweaked to provide greater clarity. The process which is especially onerous for nonbanks. We will see some progress there. Some of the Liquidity Provision need to be its impact on overall capital. The leverage ratio and treatment of high quality assets. We will hear more about this issues today with the good financial reform panel later this afternoon. But they say to my member firms is we are meeting with the administration on capitol hill or even mobile standards, we addressed these issues for several key principles in mind. The first key principle is to preserve the role of International Standard setting and coordinating and the two shows. We believe the Committee Advances weve play an Important Role. Later this morning wearing this hat is the assist be. They play an Important Role because creating standards, minimums entered allows us to avoid fragmentation. Which could lead to excessive capital inhibit Crossborder Capital flows and greatly increases compliance costs. It is more brittle and unstable. These institutions are not perfect. They are calling on and reform themselves. Greater transparency, greater accountability and we hope they are leaving the organizations here today because if you dont read on reforming institutions, yoga pressure from other parts, including United States congress to do so. You should never new regulatory role should undergo rigorous costbenefit analysis and the regulatory body should conduct comprehensive cumulative impact analysis. We should identify any excessive costs, unintended consequence for any impact on stability and growth that were not intended. European officials who in 25th team started their call her evidence, they are well ahead of the u. S. And other parts of the Global Economy and the impact of regulation and unintended consequences especially with respect to Capital FormationEconomic Growth and job creation. I applaud the administration suffered on this behalf. Third principle is they need to retain the capital structure delegated on appropriate pricing of risk. Before the crisis we priced the same asset differently. Now we run the risk of pricing different asset the same way. The strong Economic Growth, job creation, greater price. He and look forward to engaging with the administration and their critical review. Finally, let me conclude i taking on the issue and not as inclusive growth. We need to ensure that everyone and every part of our societies benefiting from Economic Growth at its great to talk about 4. 5 unemployment. Its great to have about 2 to 3. 5 growth in the United States there are americans who dropped out of work for us. Bickley sever said in his book entitled men out of work has concluded that 15 of the working age male population in the United States have simply dropped out of the work force. They alien working age men have left the workforce. There are legions of others who remained in the workforce that are struggling to provide for their families and give their children a better quality of life. As i said, we may be close to full employment, but there is despair in parts of this country. There is an alarming rise in suicide, alcohol is the opiate abuse problem in the united seats is devastating. We have 30,000 people died last year because of opioid overdose. More than pills and auto accidents. We have the highest mortality rate among white working class, working age in the United States and weve seen in a long time. Its interesting you see mortality rates dropping across all spectrum with the exception of working age men. Theres enormous despair in this country despite 4. 5 unemployment. We ignore the suffering the roosevelt once referred to as the forgot man. These are fellow citizens. We ignore them at her own peril and they think theyre an embarrassment. So we need policies that do more than what was just discussed. We need to invest in human capital, education, skills acquisition. Policies that support support entrepreneurship, small and mediumsized businesses and fund new ideas wherever they occur, not just Silicon Valley or austin, texas. We need to promote financial inclusion. Opening up avenues of access to capital because capitalism without capital is just another is on. Which is why we need a vibrant, profitable in sound Financial System that serves all aspects of our society. Thank you very much. I hope youre with us all day long. We have a great lineup is the present panels. Thank you for attending. I look forward to interact in front today. Thank you very much. [applause] okay, lets kick off the day with the first of our indepth panel discussion. For a forensic look at the direction of u. S. Economics policy under the Current Administration and the implications for u. S. Growth covets anonymous will join us back on stage alongside jerrod ernestine, senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities. Martin feldstein, the george f. Baker professor of economics at Harvard University and megyn green, managing director and chief economist at Asset Management ltd. Good please welcome tim and his panelists to the stage. [applause] thank you all for coming today. He just heard miramax are there some things that made you want to take on im sure. Before we get to the policy piece, maybe we can talk about her assessment of where we see the economy. The self indicators let pretty good, but they may have softened a bit. Pricing of rate hikes now back to one this year, one next year, one the following year. Some issue about whether First Quarter can function has weakened a bit. It is not what we thought was going to be. Where do you think the economy is . How do you judge it . Where are we going from here . Fundamentally the u. S. Is 60 growth economy could be resolved as roughly 1. 5 growth economy. Its very hard to see us move in a sustainable way. And the u. S. He mentioned bifurcation between soft versus hard data. Some of the soft it is starting to turn. All the hard data catch up with all the confidence or confidence kind of flameout handle the hard data prevail . You figure that out we have to look at much bigger global drivers. Look at some of them in your speech. The implications of that for the Labor Force Participation rate in most of the product to the growth, which has been negative. This is very much a developed world phenomenon that we dont have any product to the growth. Some pieces of batter pieces of data or data measurement paradise, but fundamentally what we can have the shifting the technology played a big part of that. He considered the big global drivers. I doubt that. Based on sugar has been policies said the regulation, may be tax reform. Wont be sustained because the bigger drivers. Fundamentally its hard to move off of 50 growth. Youre expecting policy changes that give a boost to the economy. What are you telling your clients, your members, where do you see happening in washington . Fundamentally the first thing i say is it never has a much uncertainty on this issue. Its hard to say what policies are going to get. I question whether thats going to help with growth. Theres quite a few liquidity squeeze in some households. Corporate tax reform might give them a windfall bubble you said or dividends. Itll be a bit of a sure term stimulus. We might get some deregulation with a little sugar had. Even bullish on this economy for a long time. I think the u. S. Economy is in very good shape now, but i think as we look at employment, not firstquarter growth, but if you take even the first half of the year, it will be in the same range as the for a while. I think the tax changes will help. I think you look at the stronger growth for the next few years. But as you said in your remarks earlier, we must measure Economic Growth in this country. We must measure it is the official ways in which the government statisticians as the main point happens to quality change in product, just underestimate substantially and they do nothing about the products. So when we are told that gdp over the last few decades has grown up less than 2 , versus getting it wrong. I think there is fertility because theyve had a decade of super low Interest Rate and that has led to an overpricing of all kinds of as