Today's speaker Daniel yankelovich is one of the of America's most respected analysts of changing social values as chairman and founder of yankelovich Skelly and white corporated back in 1958. He pioneered many marketing and social science research techniques, which should become the standard in the field today. He is currently chairman of the Daniel yankelovich Group Incorporated and president of the public agenda Foundation a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the quality of public debate on important policy issues. So you can well imagine how well he fits in with us here today. Educated in philosophy and psychology at Harvard and the sorbonne Daniel yankelovich interests are legion ranging from the US Soviet relations and nuclear arms policy to getting America back on the economic and political leadership track. I might add a personal note also that he is a formidable tennis opponent. During mr. Yankelovich talk. Please jot down questions on the white index cards that are at your table and then hold them up during the question and answer. Which will follow his formal remarks. Dr. Steven Young. Dean of the Hamline law school and Jane MARSOC executive director of our Minnesota meeting will move throughout the audience with microphones and approach those of you who have raised your hand with a card in it. Where that instruction I will now with pleasure present to you Daniel yankelovich. Thank you very much. Sandy wants me to bring the message back to New York, but this is normal weather for Minnesota. I will do that. But let me start on a mildly political note. So we don't know who they candidate for president is going to be candidates for the 1988 presidential election. But we have a pretty good idea of what the number one issue is likely to be almost surely the top issue will be how to strengthen the competitiveness of us products and services in the new global economy. Many of you who are Business Leaders and hold other positions of community leadership will sigh with relief and say it's about time. In fact from the early 1980s on most Business Leaders and policymakers have known the seriousness of the crisis. I research shows that by 1985 more than 80% of the nation's policymakers had concluded that America was losing its Competitive Edge in international trade. After one study a few years ago, my associate's concluded in their report the quote the problem of the Japanese challenge to American industry arouses more concerned about American is a concern among Americans leaders than any other social or economic issue. We have studied in the last 20 years. I'm quote. Several years ago one of the nation's most thoughtful leadership groups the business higher education Council issued a report that clearly recognized the urgency of the problem and the need to form a new National consensus and how to deal with that. They concluded that if the country failed to develop a national consensus on how to tackle competitiveness on a global scale quote it will be increasingly difficult. If not impossible to maintain a just Society a high standard of living for all Americans and a strong National Defense. I'm quote. He's a strong words, but all the evidence underscores the correctness of these two conclusions first that the competitiveness problem must become a matter of deep is concerning priority for Americans. And unfortunately, this is a challenge to which most Americans a psychologically unprepared at this time and second that is in the past when we Face the grave crisis the nation needs to form a consensus that will permit all Americans to Rally around a new policy or approach capable of winning the first Ramen injuring support of the public without partisan divisions and without constantly flip-flopping and direction. Let me spend just a few minutes elaborating these two conclusions. One reason the public isn't yet taking the problem as seriously as it will in the future is that it is upset recent origin. These past few decades have been the time of sweeping change and there's always a gap between changes in the time. It takes people to catch up and the first few Decades of the post-war. You will call the productivity of the US economy outdistanced out of his foreign competitors to an extent that seems almost unbelievable today repression the average American worker outproduce the average Japanese worker 13 and 1/2 * Our economy was a stand-alone giant independent of imports or exports. We imported only 4% of igmp and exported a comprable fraction less than a third of our products and services 30% with subject to competition from abroad our standard of living was not only the highest in the world. It was twice as high as the second-ranked at one point in American foreign was the world leader in every product category except bicycles. Most Americans are simply unaware of how swiftly the US economy has been internationalized and how poorly us products of fearing competitive like today more than two-thirds of all products Americans produce 70% of vulnerable to competition up from 30% Our share of World Trade has been cut almost grown more independent on imports and exports. We all know what has happened to Industries such as steel and Automobiles of the inroads of imports are not confined a 2000 just raise their young 1960 Foreign imports of shoes into the United States with a paltry 2% of the shoe market by the mid-eighties that exceeded 60% foreign penetration of the u.s. Machine Tool Market has quadrupled its market share over the past two decades. In consumer electronics Japanese and Korean competition of taking over the US market this year leaping from 9% to 90% For almost a century from 1893 to 1970 the US trade balance was positive that you're negative for the first time in 1971 beginning about that came in the 1970s that fluctuated regaining some of its strength when the dollar was it was weak and American products with a bargain for rabbit hunt by the 1980. It really began to run downhill in 80 the US trade deficit was 36 billion it grew and grew and grew in each subsequent year until last year. It reached a hundred and seventy billion and it has not been stopped or even a slow just buy some Draconian measures in it and weakening the dollar. The loss of market share is not confined to the whole Market. The United States has been steadily losing its share of world markets in Machine Tools Plastics and synthetics industrial chemicals semiconductors office machines and computers and and most recently even in banking. It is a Monumental problem. With each passing month we see in our surveys growing awareness of the gravity of the problem and I believe that the 1988 presidential campaign is an important opportunity that the nation cannot afford to miss to debate this issue finding a solution and shaping New National consensus the more time the slips by the more difficult. It will be to remedy the problem. The window of opportunity is a narrow one a good National debate in 1988 concept the nation's course on this issue for the 99 days, but unfortunately up to now the public has been excluded from the debate, which is largely taking place among the economic experts the experts do not deliberately exclude the public but they tend to frame the problem in technical terms for example is a problem in monetary exchange rates. There's a problem of trade pause. These are the kinds of problems that are settled by tiny groups of officials meeting behind closed doors. And if the problem could actually be solved that way if it could be solved by small groups of bankers and Economist and bureaucrats meeting in Zurich a London, Washington. You don't need the fuss and bother of a national debate a consensus. It would be okay to exclude the public. Up to now most US policy makers have treated the problem in precisely this way on the assumption that it is a technical economic issue to be solved by the cleverness of the few rather than as a human political problem that requires the commitment and Judgment of the public as a whole. Fortunately, there are some farsighted leaders who know better. One of these is Ruben mettler of the chief executive of t i w who's thought about the subject and written about it in Great depth over the past few years in explaining why our society has fallen behind and worldwide competition meth with States as a nation. We simply haven't put High political priority on the need and means to be competitive compares the difference between winners and losers on the international economics scene winners. He has committed to a high National savings rate investing in the future developing technology and pursuing an ethical quality responsibility and hard work losers that committed to consumption over investment into various forms of government protection. In other words, the defining Mark of winners in medical terms is not protect Nicole scales. Economist and financial wizards, but the strength of the nation's political well and the active participation of American voters consumers jobholders and taxpayers. what McClure describes as the loser Outlook putting consumption over investment and seeking government protection is unfortunately a precise and accurate description of American public opinion today over the past few years Americans have steadily drifted toward ever lower levels of national savings preferring consumption instead and pull after poll shows Majority Leader leaning toward protectionism since the late 1970s approximately two-thirds of the Alexa app supported putting government restrictions on importing foreign Goods in the interest of protecting American jobs, and now I'm hoping to ride the wave of protectionism into the White House. If public opinion processing this pattern, I believe it will be very bad for the country. The first stop it seems to me and becoming winners again is to understand that the competitive issue is not at heart a technical issue a problem for the experts. It is fundamentally and issues of values and commitment unless the American public has the stomach for the competition that Liza had this little the experts can do our economic competition with the Japanese is not going to be won or lost by the decisions of a few Economist government leaders and corporate Executives. It will ultimately depend on whether Americans are truly willing to make the sacrifices in commitments necessary for America to compete better. If the energy is not the experts cannot compensate for its absence by that technical Magic. Once we stop thinking about competitiveness is something for only specialist to worry about and start thinking about it is an issue with values and commitment for the voters the possibilities of forming a consensus begin to look a little bit better. There were several instances in recent American history when a national consensus was form swiftly and successfully won in the early fifties in the aftermath of Sputnik in more recent times the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 gave impetus for a national consensus to strengthen our military defenses. Mr. Reagan solution to 1980 vastly increasing the defense budget while reducing domestic programs United the majority of Americans in both instances, the national consensus was formed with amazing swiftness and the country move vigorously. Today, I would like to stress what I believe to be the single most important requirement performing a national consensus. The solution must fit the values of the American public must pass what I've come to think I've as the values test. What do I mean by the values test there are four important values that voters bring to this issue. It's helpful to think of these two image. These four values is forming a square. The only way to create a stable and enjoying consensus is to be sure that America's competitiveness policy fits within the boundaries of the square without violating any one of the four values. It's not difficult to think up a policy V one or two for bad news, but this only leads the instability and volatility if you want a consensus that will last for a while at least a decade the new strap. Cannot run counter to any one of the four the what are these four values that form the boundaries of political acceptability today? The first is protecting and preserving American job opportunities Americans are very nervous about the threat throw two jobs posed by Imports in this is the principal reason that there's so much support in the country today for protectionism. As I suggested a moment ago politicians a good at reading public opinion polls and some of them see protectionism as an opportunity to advance their careers, but this tactic is extremely short-sighted. It is not only bad policy. It is also bad politics. This is because the public support of protectionism could not be more volatile and unstable. It is a mile wide and an inch deep. It reminds me very much of public support for the nuclear freeze in the 1984 election campaign at that time opinion polls repeatedly reported a two-thirds majority of the public supporting the fries. I know that these poles and misled Walter Mondale because he began to support the fries. But as soon as counter arguments were raised against up this two-thirds majority support simply vanished in interpreting opinion polls. It is very important to distinguish between mushy opinions and firm solid opinions. An opinion will always be mushy and volatile at the public has not yet had the opportunity to come to grips with an issue. And this is precisely the case with protectionism what was seeing in present-day polls of the mushy opinions of the public before they have engaged the issue of competitiveness such a critical point in understanding what's going on on this issue in the country. I'd like to spend a minute and try your patience with the few statistics in order to document this point and make it very concrete some of the more thoughtful Paws demonstrate what I've been saying in an unmistakable fashion. It's when you bring up the other three values to people the values of the other values the public cherishes that the majority support for protectionism begins to get soft and disappear on you. This is best demonstrated by the second value the forms one of the boundary survey value square II Valley was the public desire for quality products at competitive prices. Let me have a strike the way this Dynamic works all things being equal Americans would greatly prefer to buy products made in America if they got comprable quality in value for the money and overwhelming 94% of all us consume estate and phatically that they would prefer to buy the American product. If however the import is of equal quality, but costs about 10% more than a preference for buying American drops way down. If it is 20% more say $250 instead of $200 preference for buying American tsums down from 94% majority to a 36% minority. The American consumers concerned with quality and value is a major reason the public support for protectionism is so much hate Americans are willing to make some sacrifices to save jobs for Americans in their protection is Tendencies reflect that willingness but the limits of the willingness to sacrifice. I seen most clearly when there is a direct conflict between protectionism a consumer values a recent NBC Wall Street Journal poll shows that fewer than two out of five consumers are in principle opposed to protectionism. When are the values when consumer values are not mention. So you start with that 38% level who opposed to protectionism in that particular Paws now they what happens then If you start asking people to sacrifice consumer values, you see that opposition grow. If you ask them to sacrifice variety of choice opposition to protectionism grows from 38% to 55% If you ask them to pay more for domestic products, it rises from 38% to 60% If you ask them to sacrifice product quality opposition to protectionism rises from 38% to 76% In other words the poles that show a two-thirds majority of the vote is supporting protectionism could flip flop overnight and become a two-thirds opposition. If Americans were convinced of protectionism, we're forcing them to sacrifice product quality or pay more for comprable Quality. So let me say just a word about the other two values that form the square the third value in the square is the national wheel to win the competitiveness struggle Americans have a fierce desire to regain America's competitiveness title as number one to be a winner once again, and for this reason the public vigorously supports competition just as business manager, but the desire to win is more than support for an abstract economic principle of compass. It is an expression of national pride and patriotism and it is it is it Americans? It's also an expression of South American country to win because individuals they themselves play the game to win probably for the prizes of winning but also for the sheer zest of the game in America to win competitively is to prove to 1 South. The one is a winner in The Game of Life and this value and Spirit Carries over to our competitive struggle with your very much song 4th value in the square is the principle of fairness the value of fairness is always important in overall in the overall American value system and it is particularly important here Americans feel passionately that it is not fair for a person to lose his job through no fault of his own. It is not fair for the Japanese to have access to our markets without having access to there's this is more of a psychological than an economic issue. In fact, it is not fair to close plants without warning. It is not fair to reward Executives and bad times with bonuses while demanding that work is give back benefits this emphasis on fairness bring to light a tension in the Publix on values. The tension is between Market values on the one hand and communal values on the other market value support the free enterprise system competing with other countries to bring to the consumer products and services that give best value for the money is a market value. Communal values are those that the public records are so important that they wish to preserve them. Even when they run counter to Market forces. It is indispensable policymakers understand the safeguarding job opportunities for Americans is a communal value as much as it is a market value Americans have compassion for the victims of economic change which can often be brutal. They do not support a law of the Jungle in which people lose everything through no fault of their own through the chance workings of the market economy. No competitiveness policy that ignores this principle of fairness and compassion for the victims can hope to win the injuring support of the American public. so the question becomes what time's our competitiveness policy if any would fit into the square form by these four values protecting American job opportunities meeting consumer demands for quality products at competitive prices mobilizing the will to win and applying the principle of fairness. After agonizing with this issue over the past several years. Let me share with you my conviction that there were a number of possible policies that would pass the values test a fitting all for public values. They all have certain characteristics in common. Let me mention a few. first they are not defensive like protectionism on the contrary the more they assume the initiative the more the voters will like them the message of the voters is gopher it 2nd and this to me is the most important point I will make today any policies the past the values test cannot be gimmicks or quick fixes or Technical Solutions to pass the values test a new competitiveness policy must address the fundamentals head-on. What are the fundamentals? There's no mystery about after World War II America won its Competitive Edge in the global economy because America was simply the world's best producer of quality products at a fishing prices. We gave the world the best value for the money, but the Japanese did in the 1970s and 1980s was to find a way to beat us at our own game. They did so in a distinctively Japanese fashion that we cannot and should not copy but we should not blink at the fact that they had succeeded in blanching America's Competitive Edge and to some extent replacing it. Now we Americans have to confront head-on. The reality that there are no shortcuts. We have to regain the Competitive Edge the old-fashioned way. We have to earn it through a massive outpouring of energy and commitment aimed at winning back America's form of competitive strength and giving customers the best value for the money and not jesting Hi-Tech products or services but across-the-board. We need to excel once again in manufacturing in applications of technology to product design and efficiency and cost per action and in marketing 9 out of 10 Americans 90% believe I think correctly that the solution to competitiveness lies and producing better products with more efficiency rather than depending on artificial trade barriers such as tariffs overwhelming majority prefer and on protection strategies focusing on tightening a quality standards 93% And increasing our investment for R&D and improving American products and Manufacturing processes. A thread characteristic of a competitive this policy that can win a National consensus is the need to mobilize our single greatest resource the American Workforce. This is where the potentials for the biggest game will come surveys show that only 20% of today's job holders are giving all that they have to give to their jobs and most job holds his want to give more the majority of child poses are not now making the kind of commitment. They must make if I products and services at you regain Primacy your Market values unlike the past and today's economy improvements and quality price efficiency design production and marketing. I'm not going to come from the wheel of a handful of highly paid managers. From the office of millions of Americans working with new technology to create products of superior quality and value one of the most startling changes at least while I understood changes that has occurred in America and in the world is that in the first industrial revolution technology and Machinery made the individual less important you were able to replace skilled Craftsmen with immigrants and off the farm labor through the assembly line making the individual less important the new Industrial Revolution in the technology that goes with it has the very opposite effect computers and Robotics in the like routinized they Monday work and play enormous effort on the discretion of the individual will that discretionary effort of the American in the workforce is now for the most part going way. It is not being mobilized as it can be as people wanted to be as they are willing for it to be and is it must be if we're going to a regain the Competitive Edge? 1/4 characteristic of a consensus winning policy. Is it a must give priority to free market forces and the competitive enterprise system and yet at the same time carve out a new and positive role for government most Americans a pragmatic and realistic. They know the competing with Japan is rough demanding work and the sacrifice will be needed. They are willing to give Market values priority not the communal values than willing to put the market values first, but they insist that the rules before you and the victim's be cushioned the win public support a competitive the strategy May emphasize Market values, but it should not ignore a Trampled Under Foot these important communal values most people recognize that competition brings drawbacks as well as benefits. The public knows that all companies can't be winners and overwhelming majority of people realized that whenever Free competition are bound to be companies that can compete and go out of business. They also recognized that competition produces high-quality products and services at lower prices finding a way to give Market values main thrust and yes often the effects of competing in a brutal World economy for people create a new one positive role for government for organized labor. And for education at the same time that the free enterprise system can be given full opportunity to rise to the challenge. I wish I had time today to elaborate these points and to tell you about some of the policy ideas that have been developed to pass the values test, but I don't so let me conclude on an optimistic note. The public is finally on its way to grasping the seriousness of the problem. As this awareness intensifies. It will stimulate the political process wake people up and shake them out of their old habits of thought especially when these aren't working. Well among our policymakers liberals and conservatives are becoming more pragmatic and less ideological are beginning to find some common ground and tackling the competitiveness crisis conservatives are pushing for adherence to Market forces is they should Liberals are pushing for attention to communal values to soften the working of impersonal Market forces is they shut But the two sides are starting to talk to each other instead of haranguing each other across and ideological void and with the little lock. It should be possible to devise a strategy that a boy's ideology keeps Faith with the Publix values and mobilizes the nation's energy to launch a great new era of American economic. Dynamism. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much been my name is Steve Young and I'd like to start taking questions from this part of the room and then I'll walk over there and Jan Moran check the executive director. Minnesota will be on that side of the room Etsy ma'am. I think you have a question here. Why don't you just read it to do I guess is Reagan 82 date and yet those are the years you give us the figures of having the worst statistical response to that competitive this policy. Could you explain that? The the effects are I don't think this is an issue where you can put partisan blame on anybody. They Japanese started there roughly in the mid-1960s. In 1965 the Japanese were the leading third world country of the world by but they still have a third world economy. For 15 years Japanese productivity outpaced American productivity and roughly three and a half times each year and buy it by the time that 15 year. Was over in 1980. The Japanese had gone from being in effect the third world economy to being a massive industrial Giant in those years. We were complacent we were used to being number one if they philosophy was if it isn't broken don't fix it and the point if you mistakenly was it isn't broken while it was on its way to being broken and people win paying enough attention by the time they started to pay attention. They got hung up on all of this technical floundering around And they add and the public never became aware of the problem because the technicians and an an an ideological thinking was distorting. They are view of the problem which brings us to today so that you have a. I would say from the early seventies when the tip point when the international balance of trade shifted after a hundred years against us where we we we simply have not been paying attention and frankly will not paying that much attention today so that you have as far as fundamentals are concerned you have a situation where the problem is growing ever more serious about that as far as I can see. We're still fooling around. Thank you. We have a question here David. Seems to me the presidential campaigns of the 1980s are really more vehicles of Imogen Blas rather than substance. And if that's true, I'm wondering what the real potential is for the presidential campaigns and indeed the presidency and its early years to be a vehicle for informing and involving the public on this. Of course, they mechanics of campaigns is a tremendous obstacle. But there is a tradition in the country of focusing the Public's attention on critical issues as an opportunity to engage the country on these fundamentals and opportunity doesn't mean it's going to happen. If you have this process of reading Paul's picking up the findings of poles and then thinking that you can exploit those and having that kind of narrow debate. But can it happen? Yes is the public will the public be responsive to someone some candidate with the vision of what we have to go and with the way of framing the national task that enables people to Rally behind them you bet they will there's a hunger for that and if we don't respond to that hunger, it really isn't the fault of the American public. Thank you Jane. I think there's a question over there. Dr. Dankle great leaders are Income Tax impact on the car cost of production such as labor and management, especially capital. And it seems to me that has to increase our cost and effect are coming competitive pricing and how could that be changed collisions that up the will during a difficult to to measure into gauge. One of the one of the things that's happened. America has always been a high-cost producer and I hope we always will be in the sense of being willing to pay people a living wage. But in the 50s, we had many factors to offset being a high-class producer. The capital would have been the open markets. We have the technology with a production skills. We have the marketing skills. And they were offsets. They were more than offsets. Now what's happened is that the offsets have been canceled competitively and the high cost Factor stands out. So we're going to have to do more with it going to have to be more efficient than more productive. But my employer says in studying this problem has been that they philosophy of lean and mean management which focuses on cutting costs and which really disregards the human side of the equation which they say primarily Financial view of the issue is the wrong strategy because of all the things we have to work with the one that where there's the greatest payoff is tapping the energy of the American Workforce, which is the largest concentration of educated free skilled people the world has ever seen that's where you can get some mileage you can't get my Shouted many of the other factors and we're doing a very poor job on that because of the preoccupation with financial management. So I believe that there has to be a different Outlook in a different philosophy. Thank you a question here. You're familiar with the current presidential candidates are any of those presidential candidates reasonably informed on the issues you're talking about. No, would you like a follow-up question? If that's the case, then what is the probability that we will elect a president who will be able to coalesce all of the force is needed to win this battle plans on how I when I said no and that flip Manor what I was thinking about is the fact that you have a fragmentation among experts and the political leadership tends to look to Economist to give them advice about the economy seems like a perfectly sensible thing to do but Economist are probably part of the problem rather than part of the solution for very specific reason Economist a focus on some of the macroeconomic policies having to do with exchange rates the dollar the trade policy getting a Level Playing Field in the life. The bees are important factors. You can't ignore them, but they're not the name of the game. So what you have is advisors to the candidates who are giving them good advice on the unimportant, but the less important part of the problem no advises. It will give him good advice on the more important part of the problem. So it's a matter of Holland Cleveland and I were talking at lunch about this about the way you frame a problem. If you frame it in the wrong way, if you frame, it is a narrow technical tactical problem. You never get to the fundamentals and that's what's happening. They they presidential candidates are looking at the issues and they want to be sophisticated economically. They want to they don't want to be embarrassed. So the weight of not being embarrassed us understand the problem from a technical point of view and some of them are very good at that. But if those factors are not the most important factors, then they really aren't well-informed and then you get this kind of playing around with issues like protectionism in exchange rates, but just don't go to the heart of the problem now. I think that as the country begins to wrestle with the problem. We're going to get closer to it. We're going to get closer to frame and get the right way. And there's evidence if that is the case. Let me just give you an example that I alluded to at the end of my talk. Be a diminution of ideological fervor one of the red herrings the one of the reasons that we weren't coming to grips with. This problem was a debate a few years ago between so-called free-trade Advocates and so-called industrial policy Advocates. It was a classic liberal conservative. It was very heated. It shed almost no light they and and it it was pitched with great ideological fervor and it cost us a couple of years. Now those same people who were off on a tangent and ideological tanjun being realistic and pragmatic have begun to realize that they've begun to bury the hatchet and they and they say the word competitiveness is as become the buzzword today because it has a it's almost a code word. It's almost a way of saying, but we're not defining the problem. Any more of an ideological terms, we're looking at it differently in a way that we can unite on. So I feel that even though the candidates are not now and gauge not now framing the problem in the correct way. They're not now certainly frame and got in the way that conforms with these public values that we are making Headway. We are moving in that direction. And the question is can we move fast enough to make the 82nd the 88 election if we don't it won't be a tragedy. This problem isn't going to go away. We don't have to worry about not having it to confirm but it just is going to cost us some real time. And there's no reason things in America move very quickly and there's no reason why you can't happen and I think there's a pretty good chance that it will be there. How do you view the changes currently impacting in the educational establishment being utilized as this next phase of our policy establishment that takes place at education applies as long-term and critical and I know that the education world is going through an agonizing reappraisal of they are of their role. I was on a commission of clockers looking at this issue of global education and the emphasis that he is placing is on young people in schools breaking out of ethnocentricity and learning a little bit more about the rest of the world in the way. The world is truly interdependent learning something about other languages and cultures in the light. Big countries are ethnocentric. The Chinese have been the world's most ethnocentric people the Middle Kingdom thinking that if that China is the center of the world the Soviet Union the United States and it takes time to catch up with the reality that we have to think that we are plunged into a global competitiveness of unprecedented proportions. I don't see how that job is going to be done without the education World taking it on a primary responsibility beginning at the grade school level and at the college and graduate school level helping people with the language side of things and with understanding how to how to deal with this competitiveness world the world of Education. Just beginning to think about these matters the labor movement. Even further behind and thinking about them the government. So we're all as we're in the same boat. I think the the heads of Corporations. Who has been on the front lines of the ones who have the best understanding of the problem? Because they've been wrestling with competing directly with the Japanese and others but there is a confusion between their View and the view of Economist who have you had a different perspective. So the public hears these different voices and of course, it's very difficult for the average citizen to put it together if the leadership is fragmented and now we have a question from a tough-minded editor of a knight Ridder newspaper, but it's not the Miami Herald. Could you come in on the role of unions and the values Square you talked about and competitiveness? Hey. unions are the trade unions are undergoing a very great. Of Agony because they've been losing membership and I've been losing a cloud for a number of years and those Trends I continuing A lot of the trade be the old the values that the trade unions and Brace most vigorously such as collective bargaining and seniority and putting the not distinguishing between individuals a very much at variance with the kind of individualism that is represented by these values. So you have a real conflict that Union leadership and its way of thinking in relationship to the country's General way of thinking As I mentioned before I think that new technology has made individual performance more important made people less interchangeable Made issues of individual performance much more important. I think it's going to be difficult for the Union's to absorb that reality and adapt their policies to it. But I think it's a matter of their survival if they don't care what they won't survive and I believe they got the Risen roll the damn to play with respect to this issue of a fairness one of those values with respective the issue of protecting jobs and it and I think that there are enough people in the labor movement who will get the message and I will begin to think in these terms but institutional lag is a fact of life and it's going to take time. Jana questionnaire Sensei you vindicator's number one issue and dug a lot of people here probably interested in doing something. What are your suggestions as to what each of us can do starting this afternoon? I wish that I could I'm just finishing up a book on the subject and and I'm still too close to it to be able to summarize it but I have given an a handle a name through the policy but I've been experimenting garage. Thinking about and I call that more for more and they Essence off at is that the social contract in the workplace in America has been at the time of the assembly line and for many years they were after a less for Less type of contract or what you might say is a limited. I supposed to give a limited at 4 it in exchange for limited return. And what is needed now is for people to use this new measure of discretionary effort to the utmost that willing to do what they want to do with the right now doing it, but the condition for their doing that is if they get something in return and so I think that the essence of the problem is that the microeconomics level of the individual company. I'm learning how to manage to get away from the lean and mean type of management toward this but I called this more for more management to get away from an exclusive concern with financial management answer be more effective and mobilizing the discretionary effort of people. And then with that as the main thrust to develop a set of supported policies the government education labor and form with that a cohesive strategy quiet in the way that someone like Ronald Reagan has a genius and Joint that's what he's been. What is where is political greatness lies as in taking large programs in distilling them to the point where you can express them in a phrase or slogan or in some formulation, and and and I think that The only thing I can say in this brief. Of time is that I think that they initiative. Lies with the individual company and I know in my experience and research and business Consulting that the difference between the companies that know how to do this and the companies that don't is the difference between being able to compete effectively in world markets and not being able to compete just not a mystery. It's not a secret but it sure is different from both ski is emphasis on next quarter's profit and the dominance of Wall Street and the mergers and Acquisitions and lean and mean and management and all the other things was doing today. Thank you. I think we have our last question here Jane. At the last Minnesota meeting Jerry Corrigan of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stress. The number of things American people should do to a chain attain Financial stability in the World Market Today. You've outlined a number of other things that we should do to achieve competitiveness. And my question is they all involve self-sacrifice awareness and cooperation that usually has been achieved by the American people only in times of Crisis. What would be such a crisis that would make us aware of our need to be competitive as well as is there a charismatic inspirational leader that can convince the American people that some of these South sacrifices have to be made farrier When the problems get bad enough, you don't have to dream up the crisis. We became aware of the seriousness of the energy problem at the time of the Arab oil embargo in lines at the gas station. You can depend on that kind of Crisis occurring in the next couple of years. I don't know what the form is going to be. This going to happen has to have problems too serious to avoid it. I think the key you're right that where you got the crisis has a way of calling attention to issues. The problem with asking for sacrifice is if you don't give anything in return, it's one of the reasons that the federal budget deficit has so little sex appeal as a political issue cuz you're asking people to sacrifice and you're not offering them anything in return. I think the key to the solution of this problem is if you if you ask people to sacrifice and so do things that they're not now joining you have to offer something you have to have to be an incentive to be something positive not just juicing the budget deficit but the chance to win the chance to compete effectively the chance to improve not only the national standard of living that if the individual level people having a big mistake if they give an entrepreneurial effort, they get more out of it. So I think that a crisis Without a vision is a formula for disaster people will get panicky and that can be a wave of populism anti Wall Street sentiment that it's not going to be pretty and it's not even going to be smart, but that's will happen if there's a crisis without a positive alternative. So I think that if I'm right about this being the number one issue that people like yourselves who are not locked into Technical Solutions, and I'm not looking a framing the problem in an hour away seems to me you had such a wonderful group to begin to wrestle with this problem to bring the collective wisdom of a group of the sort to be are on giving some abstractions of a new policy some concreteness unreality some shape. I know what can be done. It's not a mystery you've done it before there was a wave of energy out there waiting to be top but in order to tap if it has to be I'm kind of a vision. Thank you very much.