Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20131202

Years that ive learned that there was a process you are supposed to follow. I just went out and keep bugging people until they give you as much dollars as you needed. You have commoditized it for small companies. We get on average a couple of hundred emails a year that say hey, i have got a great idea. How do i get started . That touches on one of the key problems we saw that exist today. If you are out there raising capital, what are you not doing . Youre not talking to your users or your customers. We are not building your product or services. Fundraising becomes a huge process, a huge effort. It is a process. To break it down and make it real for you and give you a sense, while youre barely keeping your head above water as it is, you are also willing to meet with groups such as angel groups or pitchign to vc firms, where you sit in a room and they ask questions and you say thank you very much. You have a little side conversation. You get all of the checks together. If youre lucky, you are able to wrap it up and keep going. Clearly, that is not how founders would design the experience. I started a couple of companies. I have raised 30 million of Venture Capital. It really opened my eyes to the good and the bad that was out there. There was a takeaway. To a certain extent, im an angel investor. A lot of people come to me and say, will you invest in the company . I know i want to invest in this person. I like the idea. I will invest x if you get a certain number. If you get half of the order filled, i will take the next 10 . I do not know how else to get a deal on my own. I think what you guys do is make that process. You do a lot of the vetting work for us. I went on to become a startup investor with my cofounders. His core initial issue was knowing what to invest in and understanding how to do Due Diligence on these opportunities can be complicated. What is quite shocking is in this country today, there are 10 million credit investors. These are people who have high net worths and are legally allowed to invest in startups. If you are not high net worth, if youre not a million, you cannoot legally invest in startups, but that is for another panel and topic. Of the 10 Million People, only 250,000 of them, Something Like 5 , invest in startups the reasons are partly for what you are talking about. We are trying to increase the level of transparency and lower the bar and review opportunities and understand and have a group that is not reliant just on your own ability to vet a deal. I also think as an investor, one of the things that you do, if i want an investment, i have to go through a private equity firm. I have to select a private equity firm and i have to trust their selections. From that point, go forward and make a decision. I can do that through your site. What is the minimum . I will address what you are saying. The Venture Capital industry as a whole is a quite humbling fact on average, vc funds do not return capital to investors. Are you allowed to say that . Im happy to share the facts. Because of that, clearly they are being paid. A lot of people are asking, hey, if i am paying capital and theyre not making a return on my capital, maybe i should deploy it myself. It is sort of in the way there are investors who pick certain strategies or even specific stocks in the public markets. We make that possible. That is a very dramatic difference. Another reason there are so few Angel Investors or investors to invest in startups is the minimums to invest are really high. It is like 25,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 at the seed stage. If youre putting 50k in one company for one year, it is probably not a sound or diversified portfolio strategy. How can we slice and dice that so there is an entity that can be the investor who is deploying a large amount of capital, but where individuals can provide a figure at a time. You see so many companies. You have invested in 50 or 60 companies. 51. That is only last summer. Talk about some of the deals you have seen at early stages that makes this whole exercise really exciting for you. Sure. The reason we created this in the first place is because we truly believe that there is so much potential out there in the world for people to get involved and start new things. There really isnt as much capital out there to support efforts as there could be. Only 5 of people who could start startups, if you could get enter entrepreneurs to try if it would be half a trillion in the u. S. A year. We do not pick favorites. They are all wonderful. Some are more interesting. There is a company that is revolutionizing gesture motion input. The mouse and touchscreen and keyboard, they have created a device that you wear and it reads your muscle signals. It knows before you even move your hand moves what youre going to do with your fingers. That is what i need. [laughter] riding around and looking like [laughter] ideas like that are making accounting more understandable that plugs into all of your banking systems, checking accounts, savings accounts, etc. And rather than working with quickbooks it gives your updated Balance Sheet everything in between. In order to change and transition an industry, you have to be transparent and make their products available to a lot more people. It sounds to me this idea that american investors, consumer investors and even credit investors, have the strive for mediocrity. We are happy with average because we do not lose. It supports everything we have said about the returns. Is what you are doing going to change that entire approach to investing in startups . It does not necessarily hey, im doing this or taking a free shot. I truly think so. On the check size front, when you used to be deploying 50,000, that is a gamble. Still pick and choose, but diversify. Spread across just like professional investor professionals have portfolios. Once you start to enable diversification, you are able to mitigate risk. Were not proposing that people spend their life savings. Because of that, it is more for diversification. Define highrisk . You could lose all of your money. [laughter] where are you going . What is the statistical chance . There are at least 4000 startups in the u. S. Seeking capital. There is no way that 4000 merits that capital within that time. As an investor, you have to be careful of where you are putting your money to work. The aggregate trends say it is Something Like one in 10 will eventually be there 10 years later. It do Something Like that. It is a fraction. Is this the new frontier . When i got to chicago in 1980, the new frontier was the markets exploding because we had all of the derivative marketplaces. That was the new frontier. Is this the new frontier . Are the new frontier startups able to acquire capital and make it more mechanical than it has been for the last four or five years . I should point out that my first advice to entrepreneurs is not to raise money if you dont have to. Get Product Market set before you go out there. My advice is exactly the opposite. Take as much money as you can get if anyone is willing to give it to you. [laughter] because when you need money, you can get it. When you dont need money, Everyone Wants to give you money. You shouldve taken the money. Always. The way i think it is the new frontier is it is not like the new wild west and it is such fun. It brings the concept of startups investing and creating more of a dialogue. There are people here. Theyre trying to change the system. You are bringing 10 Million People in the u. S. Alone who have never been able to invest to be able to, but how many of those do . That remains to be seen. It is raising the profile around this entire group of companies. The individual investor does not have an opportunity anymore to really invest in companies when they are first starting out like twitter or facebook. We were growing up in the same era. We could invest in apple. And the ipo is sort of high growth. And facebook with their ipo that would have been unheard of 10 years ago. The changes that have occurred are creating this pressure from regular investors who used to be able to participate in that innovation and Value Creation on the public market. There are not many mechanisms to participate in what they used to be able to. Alex has built an incredible company. It is an awesome site. Fundersclub. Com. You should check it out. Thanks. [applause] i will need that sometime. All right. Coming up next, we have two amazing women that i have had the pleasure of working side by side with for the last decade. First up is christie. The cfo of a company. They asked me to recommend some people in finance and technology. I did not go further than our own backyard. Christie is now the ceo of dough. Com. She will introduce to you the next generation of finance on the local platform. Hey. Hey. [applause] thank you. Thank you for coming out. As tom said, i am the ceo of dough. In my background, i came from sink or swim. I have 20 years of experience in and around the trading industry. I would say that these last two years, i have been in financial media. I have learned a lot. What we have done now is that we have pulled together all of our experience from sink or swim and we have rolled it into a Company Called dough. Right now, we believe that the industry is ripe for innovation. We have let me just get my slides here one of the things that we truly believe is that banks and Brokerage Firms and Wealth Managers have an opportunity to tap into the Younger Generation. We think there needs to be a new approach, but with a new visual and with a new design. And we need to go to that Younger Generation with how they use technology today. They are highly mobile. They have they really they want information to come to them. I want to introduce to you a sneak preview of dough. We will be launching dough in a few weeks. It combines trading and an engagement platform for the Younger Generation. I will show you a quick video. [video clip] one of the things that we have done is going back to the thing that adam said. It is simplifying and trying to roll this into one platform that simplifies having problems with the clicker. Sorry. I want to talk about the Younger Generation in general. They expect everything to come to them. There is a Big Convenience and easy access and everything to be mobile. There is 10 of the u. S. Population that already uses mobile devices just access their bank accounts. Of that 10 , you have 54 of that are accessing the checking and savings accounts. You go further into 36 of their credit cards. 28 of those for the investment accounts. We know that this environment is ripe. Theres also the expected growth of 30 per year for the next three years. One of the things that we did at sink or swim is that we were at the forefront of the Technology Area for online trading. We have been at the forefront of the content era, really. The amount of content that gets consumed through video every year is enormous. We need to make sure that the content is relevant and entertaining. But what is important is to make sure that the technology that is provided is pushing the content to the customer or has the ability to curate the content to make sure it is organized and easy to find. On top of that, make sure that video or that data is all on demand. They want it now. They expect it. The younger demographic expects that it is all easy access wherever they are. Also, that it is free and shareable. Thinking beyond mobile access to your bank account, taking it one step further, something that is simple. Something that Brokerage Firms do today. You can get your debit card. You can write checks. You have access to more options. It is really important. You need a flexible alternative than just a bank account alone. It is time to think differently. Our approach is a different approach for that younger demographic. Providing not only an entrance through gaming and entertainment, but also with content and access directly to their trading accounts. It is time to think differently. Creating a culture within we take that startup mentality and we need to place that inside a larger organization. Tom will pull me off stage. [laughter] the one thing we need to think about is taking that startup mentality and placing it within larger organizations. Give them the chief innovators hat and start to create a culture of innovation. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Next up is nicole. Nicole and i first met when a Company Acquired sink or swim. She now runs the largest trader group and Trader Technology in the world. They do over 3 billion of transactional business every hour. When you think about las vegas, they do about 2. 3 billion of transactional business every year. Just showing you how huge that segment is. Nicole. That is a lot of benjamins. A lot of benjamins. [applause] great. Like tom said, i used to work for him. When he went to start his new media company, he plopped off all of the smartest people and left me behind. It is great to be here. I want to talk about some of the things that our firm has been focused on from a problem solving perspective. I have been spending a lot of time recently studying generational migration trends. Riveting, right . If you think about it, im responsible for the growth of the trading business at Td Ameritrade. When i looked down the road, im concerned about what will happen with future generations. If you look at this graph, were looking at the census from 2010. In the green, baby boomers. As we look a few years down the road, 2020, that population is going to drop down below 20 . The millennials will be at 19 of the population. Pretty much everyone in Financial Services have always been talking to the baby boomers. But a few years down the road, we will be targeting a different individual investor. I have been studying these individuals. Some themes emerge that has me concerned. 11 believe the stock market is the best way to prepare for retirement. That is not many. If you look at generation z, 40 believe a savings account is the best way to save for retirement. That is concerning. As we all know, the best way to build wealth over time is through the stock market. We teamed up with two guys who are millennials themselves. They have a Small Company out of kentucky. They are great with social and finance. The genesis of the problem that we gave them was how do we get in front of young kids and keep them teach them to think differently about the stock market . How do we get them less concerned about the risk of the stock market and get them to cultivate a genuine interest . What youre looking at on the screen is a graphic that we found in the huffington post. That is the genesis for the idea. The 10 publicly traded companies are the top 10 companies in this diversified foods sector. Most people know that nestle crunch is owned by nestle. They may not know about nespresso. Young people have an amazing sense of brands and labels. They are genuinely interested in brands. They know a lot about them. We thought what if we could get young people today to think about products they interact with not just from perspective of i brush my teeth with crest and i got a Pumpkin Spice latte. What if they could think in terms of having a different way . That the products that they interact with and talk about on a regular basis roll up to publicly traded companies. If they invest in those companies, they could potentially make some money. That is the genesis of the idea. It is a new site. What it does is it comes through all of your social interactions. It looks at all of the tweets surface the companies that you and your friends are talking about the most. It is not just the companies, but at a product level as well. If you say you are enjoying a Pumpkin Spice latte, you know that the publicly traded company are talking about is starbucks. It is an amazing database. You can see one of the investors, his likefolio is up how it plays out, you can see a 12 month Price Performance chart of yelp. The different bubbles will show you what your friends have to say about that particular stock. My hair salon mentions if you go on to yelp and do a review, they will give you 15 off of your haircut. Wow. They want people to get on yelp. My friend jason miller says spread the good word. As soon as i saw that, yelp is a verb. That is a Product Developers dream. That investment is now worth 2600. It is a different way for young people to think about the stock market. One other thing i want to mention quickly in the interest of time, another thing we are building is Td Ameritrade u. What we are doing with Td Ameritrade u is taking our paper Trading Software and putting it in colleges and universities completely free of charge to allow young people who are learning about the stock market the ability to trade and see how one another are performing. It is basically a virtual environment for them to kick the tires and see how they would do in a trading environment. What you can see here is a professor, dr. Smith. He is teaching four classes and he is running competitions in his classes. He can see exactly how the students are taking in the insights and concepts they are learning in class. Angela livingston is trading on the platform and can see how her traits are performing and also how her friends are performing as well. Here you can see angela is ranked seventh in the paper trading competition versus matt maguire who is in first place. You can click on matts name and see what he is doing to outperform her. There is a learning curve. There are challenges were facing in how young people are thinking about the markets and of Innovative Solutions that can help them think about things differently. Thank you. Good stuff. [applause] i have got a couple of minutes where i get to throw some notsosoftball questions. Id told them i lied to them. I told them that i was going to throw them all softballs and i decided that is no fun. Ok. I expected it. The average investor is about a 50yearold white man. That is it. The industry is a 50yearold white guy. How do you change that . You have to do something incredible. You almost have to burn the forest down to restart it. What both women are doing or Building Companies and parts of Larger Companies to address that. Here is the issue a 21year old may understand that they have gotten a starbucks latte, but that doesnt necessarily help them improve upon the law of big numbers or big averages where you ultimately finish with a mediocre result. How do we change an entire generation of twentysomethings . How do you get that to something you were talking about . How do you get that 21yearold to learn how to apply this . Make it applicable . Going back to the concept, likefolio was created to spark that interest. It is not enough. They have to learn about the fundamentals. They have to learn about Risk Management. More and more Companies Like Td Ameritrade are taking all of the education and insights that they need to know and delivering it free of charge. Is that like the casino . I do not think so. In terms of the sustainability of my business, i will continue to have a job. Education is a key component of that. The more successful our clients are, the more successful our businesses will be. Next question. The amount of options and derivatives in Td Ameritrade at the time was about 9 of volume. It is now in the mid40s. That is incredible growth. There is a different climate. How do we move this huge growth down to this Younger Generation . How do we make it so that it is investable for them . Absolutely. This goes back to what i was saying before. Make sure you are providing the tools for that Younger Generation. Think about how they live now. They are gaming on their mobile devices. It could be video or written. They like to follow and interact socially. That is one of the things that we have done with dough. We provide all of those avenues for the Younger Generation and to learn about trading and follow other traders and watch what they are doing. Kind of similar to what you are doing in the universities, but we are doing it with live trades. We do it with providing a number of different types of people that you can attach to. I believed that one of the best ways to learn is that handson learning is learning by doing. You can also watch someone do. With dough, you can stand over a professional traders shoulders and understand how they are maneuvering the markets. Then you watch those individuals making the trades and understanding more about why rather than getting some subscription to some newsletter. It is great. The complexity of certain Product Types did not fit the technology or the technology did not fit the complexity so that the Younger Generation was at a disadvantage. As you go out to all of these institutions and address these college kids and recent graduates, it is the exactly the opposite. I think that is the case. They have an amazing perception for brands and products. A lot of the products that young kids are interested in today tend to perform well. They have got all of this knowledge and a lot of spending power as well. It goes back to the 1980s when a book was about investing in what you know. Think about the brands that we all know and use. Netflix. Looking at your world through a different lens. There is a company that makes this product . They might be performing well in the market. It is about thinking differently. Exactly. Taking it to thet next progression, how do we engage . The big picture is you are one Small Company. How do you change a culture that most people want to open a bank account . How do you change that culture . Why would anyone want to open a brokerage account . A couple of things. First of all, a basic account versus a brokerage account, i do not know why someone would not want one. There are many capabilities you can do with that. You can have your debit card and checking and have it all in one place. One of the things i will say is talking about the engagement is taking that brokerage platform and putting on top Something Like dough where you have the engagement, constant engagement. At sink or swim, we merged with a company. It was a Financial Education company. We saw that when someone had the educational core, they had confidence to trade more and try Different Things in the market. They traded two to four times more after they took that class. After a while, they dropped off. The engagement was missing. Taking that content and providing continuous financial content, commentary, and entertainment, something useful on something relevant is really critical. Providing that sort of content in the same place where they are placing their trades is also really important. Adding the people that you can follow and learn and have that in one place is ideal. It is almost expected these days. Nicole, a quick question on Financial Literacy. The idea that a new generation grows up with Financial Literacy as one of their backbones, which it never has been, it changes the way you do almost everything. Even if you do not invest or even go to work, we are more technologically driven toward math. Wont that change the entire Growth Industries . Everything. I think it absolutely will. Look at all of the young people who are here today and are looking to share ideas and learn about what other companies are doing that is new and innovative and different. To me, that is what Stock Research is all about. It is looking at Innovative Companies and what they are doing differently. As they are problemsolving, how will that play out in terms of the performance of their company . That is what the stock market is all about. If we could get young people focused on developing that passion for the story behind the company that is out there making money, not only will it change the ideas that would bring to market, but they will be in a better position when it comes to retire. How hard is it Building Financial technology . How hard is it to address things that have never been addressed before with technology . Building scalable, Financial Technology that has never been done before, is it risky . Is it difficult . I will start. It is both. It is difficult. It is risky. Youre not really sure if it will ultimately provide that or fulfill that need that people have out there. If you say i know who that demographic is that i am going after and really understanding how they function and how they live and how they get their information or how they naturally expect to use it, you can build it there. It does not always easy. You have to constantly be ready to change. That is one of the most important things. I will change the question a little bit for nicole. In the industry, as we teach people as you teach people to become more financially literate, how do we apply that with respect to owning your own results . The problem i have had with the financial space is that everyone prefers to blame instead of taking the onus on themselves. As you build Cooler Technology and deliver a message, shouldnt the transition be obligation to the user . I think so. We call our space a Self Directed space. We have spent so much time over the past few years. One of the many reasons we acquired sink or swim is that i have an amazing infrastructure built into the technology to help investors know what they were getting when they were pulling the trigger. They knew what they stood to lose and what to gain. I look at my job as a technology innovator. I have a responsibility to keep raising the bar. Help give people the tools that help them better understand what decisions they are making and help them make better informed decisions. It is a responsibility. Is the future of Financial Technology content or functionality . I actually believe it is a combination of both. You cannot have something that stands alone. You need to provide so much more than just one or the other. Content, we are in the content area right now. Content is king. But technology has got to be amazing to go along with it. It is both. What i would say is that within our sink or swim platform, it is the number one trading platform, we have done so much over the past year to integrate more content into the system. It helps to better inform the user. Within our platform, our client can watch a show where he is talking to them all day long about Risk Management and trading. The content delivers through the trading platform. You have never listened to the show . I have never talked about Risk Management. I have never mentioned it. Anyway, this was great. Thank you so much for coming. [applause] all right. I will grab this bio here. We had a late change this morning. My guest is coming up from the ayn rand institute. I have no idea what i am doing here. I got an email about someone canceling on this session on money. Do you want to fill in . You offered me a stage and an audience and i will always say yes. What am i going to say about money . This session is not even about money. It is about investing and making tools and technology. There is a most nothing about money. I have a feeling that most of you came here to talk about investing in technology and i would rather listen about that stuff. But i wwant to talk about money. I was trying to think. There are all these wonderful presentations. I started thinking about it. There is a connection. We have this attitude in the culture we live in towards money. This is particularly true of younger people. It is not a positive attitude. We all want and need and use money, but deep down theres something uncomfortable about money. It is selfserving and greedy. That is reflected in the financial world we live in. Why is banking such an entangled mess . That is an expression. It is exactly 100 years, by the way that the fed began that tangled mess in 1913. We have got to tangle financial industry because we do not trust it. We do not trust money. Pursue money. We do not trust people who pursue money. We try to regulate them to death. We need a startup to come in because no existing bank can even oppose. It is a disaster out there. They are is barely surviving. If you think what about derivatives that is hard for kids to even connect with, the last five years, all we have heard in the news media is how derivatives almost destroyed this country. We were on the brink of complete financial collapse because of what . Everybody in the media that you ask would say it is those evil derivatives markets. People have got a shield up against that. We live in an economy that is growing what . 1 a year . It is hard to gain confidence in all of this. What is it . We live in this environment that is hard for young people to get engaged in these financial kind of thinking and decisions. We live in an environment where few people understand but money is. The Federal Reserve is paying millions of dollars per month. Is that money . How does that affect us . What is that stuff . This paper that we carry around . What does it represent . Where does it come from . What is money . What is this stuff . Purchasing power. This allows me to buy stuff. Why is this cool . Who invented this . It wasnt the Federal Reserve. Money predates the fed reserve a little bit. In the really old days before i was born, what did we do when there was no money . You bought it. I will trade my cows for your chickens. Not a good way of doing stuff. We come up with something, something that facilitates trading between chickens and cows. Half a cow is not worth half a cow if it is dead. Not very useful. Bartering is a cumbersome and inefficient system. We come up with this exchange that we call money to facilitate these transactions. It makes a possible to buy stuff. Tobacco was used in money in colonial america. Cool looking rocks have been used for money. What is the obvious one in the last 200 years . Gold and silver. Precious metals. What do you not want money to be . You do not want it to be too plentiful or too easy to create. Then you have a lot of money coming. What happens . Economic 101. The price goes up. Everyone wants the same goods. Prices go up. The fed is spending billions of dollars a day so we have more money. The economy is not growing. What happens to that money . I see they have a trick up their sleeves. It doesnt go to purchase more goods. Where is that 85 billion dollars going . Some of it is going into the stock market part of it is going into the bank reserves. The fed is paying banks interest on that savings account. The fed is printing money on one hand and paying people to keep it in the reserves on the other. That is one of the reasons prices are not going up despite the fact he had the same number of goods. So money, you want it to be something precious and hard to come by, something that can only grow so much. You do not want it to be plentiful. You wanted to have some value. Gold could be turned into jewelry or a crown. That is how money evolved. If you think about a guy who was supposed is talk instead of me, he was going to talk about bitcoin. Notice that they created some characteristic of bitcoin to make it look like a precious metal. Limited supply. Only so much is released at a time. It will only be a certain year that they stop the use of the. There is only a finite amount of this stuff. People are willing to accept it for transaction. Why . Why would you accept this . It is basically a string of encoded is zeroes and ones. What is that . [inaudible] someone is willing to accept it because they believe someone else is willing to accept it. Why . Interesting question. I do not necessarily have the answer. I suspect that you can buy illegal goods with it because it is not traceable. One guy was caught in San Francisco buying and selling drugs. I think it was heroin or cocaine type stuff. You can use bitcoin, it is untraceable. You cannot trace who is buying more who is selling. The encryption is so difficult to trace. It allows you to buy illegal stuff. What else . In an era where we are losing faith in the dollar and losing faith in money, traditional money, it is an alternative. It is used primarily by people who are somewhat on the fringes, suspicious of the dollar, suspicious. It is on the fringes. It allows transaction to happen invisible to authorities. In a an era when the nsa is listening to everything that we say, you can use bitcoin to avoid all of that. It is a bit of a phenomenon of the state of the world, about your ability to be anonymous online. That is what bitcoin provides. It gives you anonymity. No one can trace that dollar back to me. This is anonymous. So, money is this mirror of exchange. Medium of exchange. How do we get money . We get money by creating stuff. We get money by building. We get money by being productive. By being innovative. By going to work and working hard. The more productive we are in an economy that works right, the more productive you are, the more money you get. Money is a reflection of our own productivity. It is a reflection of the work that we do. It is a reflection of our success. Money is never it shouldnt be money is not an end in itself. Why do these wealthy guys still work . They could three generations or four generations could try to spend this money. Why do they keep working . Why do they keep making money . Because money measures our success. It measures the amount of value that we create. You get money when you offer someone a good and they are paying you, what are they paying you . Because it is valuable to them. Money is this beautiful mechanism by which we transact value to value. Bill gates becomes a gazillionaire or by selling a product that we hate or despise . No. It is a product that we value. You pay 100 for microsoft it is a lovehate relationship. We could not survive without it. You make money by providing a good. Money is a measure of how good you are. It is a measure of how valuable people out there values the good, that value that you have created. Money is being portrayed as the root of all evil. Money is the root of all good. All it is is a measuring source. Stick, a tool that we have to measure success, to be able to use that success, to use that money, and measure their success. The product or the service that they make your life better. This is trade. Who loses in a trade . Who loses in a trade . I buy an automobile. More than 20,000. How much is it worth to the seller . Less than 20,000. You enter you buy a lemon once in a while. You enter trade as a winwin transaction. Money is a facilitator of win win transactions. In that sense, it is one of the great wings that we have in our culture. We should celebrate money. We should change peoples attitudes toward money. If we do, they will start using all of those tools that we have for them. Thank you. [applause] i was listening and i was thinking, where do we get money . My kids always said it came out of a cash machine. Just go get money. Iwould like to end on a feel like it is important to have a take away. You come, you listen, you need to take something away. Were going to base this closing off of a New York Times editorial from a couple of weeks ago. It said, complexity is free. I wanted to test it for myself. This is the generational change. This is the take away from todays discussion. We are a attacking topics and issues. We are attacking projects. We are attacking content that 10 years ago was ridiculously complex. Too complex for the do it yourselfer. What were seeing now is a move toward complexity being free. It is because it is so investable at this moment. I will give you an example. Live, on the air for the last couple of weeks, we suggested to 40,000 or so listeners solve your financial problems. We offered nothing. It is all goodwill. Solve something. Go build something better. Go build a better model. Go figure out exactly what the risk is. And solve something that nobody has ever done before. Do it for nothing. The idea that complexity is free is a game changer. What we have seen in response is hundreds, if not thousands, of complex and really brilliant formulas. 50 pages of spreadsheets. Ridiculous calculations. Crazy stuff, all coming in for free. We offered up nothing, other than an opportunity to participate in free change. In complex issues and make your own mark. That becomes your legacy. It is crazy, what comes into us. Thousands of really complex formulas and ideas. All of that will change the world of investing, of finance, and truly of dollars. You want to talk about money, the future of money is we used to feel it was too complex. No one understands money in this country. We could barely understand the exchange rate. When against down to it, that is the reason that we focused on moving this to a Younger Generation. Rather than waiting until youre 50 or 60 or 70, the idea that we think this stuff is complex it is really simple. The ability to adapt to that and deliver it is fascinating. I just leave you with that. Were changing everybody here aced on their ability to act like sponges and adapt everything and make it investable. If it is not actionable, it has no valuable value. Were trying to make complex ideas simplified and turn them into something that everybody can apply. Thank you so much. [applause] up in 15 minutes, we will go live to the white house where president obama will make a statement on World Aids Day. That is scheduled for 1 20 eastern. We will have that life. Also, the house is back today at 2 00 eastern. Theyre getting the week started with speeches. Items being debated today, expanding the ban on the sale of firearms that are undefinable with metal detectors. They will also discuss the dodd frank law. See the house live when they begin today at 2 00. Legislative work will begin at 5 00. The Supreme Court has announced a couple of divisions today as they return from the thanksgiving break. They are refusing to consider thawing out new york state taxes on websites like amazon. Com. The law forces them to remit sales tax. Another division related to the Health Care Law the justices are leaving in place a federal appeals ruling dismissing a suit from Liberty University challenging a portion of the law that requires most employees to provide Health Insurance to their employees. On the fed page in the Washington Post, the Supreme Court is lacking cases to consider. Instead of the usual 12 cases it has been hearing in recent years, the justices have only seven scheduled for the february sitting. It is a diminished pocket on the court. So far, justices have found fewer cases than usual worthy of receiving full re think and oral argument. You can read the rest that art article in the Washington Post today. 1974, the Vice President was sworn in as the president of the United States. This is what she was wearing during the swearingin ceremony. She was less than excited about becoming a first lady. President ford encouraged her and said we can do this. She resolved that if she was going to have to do this, she would have fun doing it. The fun started immediately. Within 10 days, she had a state dinner to entertain king hussein of jordan she hit the ground running. First lady betty ford. Span three. Pan and c also on cspan. Org. Once again, president obama will make a statement on World Aids Day at 1 20 today. We will have live coverage. Right now, a discussion on enrollment in state health care changes. Host for a closer look at the future of the Affordable Care act, we turn now to Emily Ethridge. Lets start with yesterday press briefing on fixing the federal Insurance Exchange website. What was your take away from the briefing . Guest the department of health and Human Services says, pretty much, they give themselves a passing grade. They think they hit their deadline for making the website work for most people by november 30, this past weekend. They say they did a whole management overhaul and the site is up and running more than 90 cent of the time, up from about three percent of the time in october. It is a huge dump for them. They say the Response Time is less than a second. The error rate has gone down. If you like they have addressed a lot of the big issues with the website in terms of the consumer experience. Host we read this editorial from the wall street journal today. Obamacare mission accomplished. I will not go it go through it again for our viewers. This briefing, did you get that sense . Guest it was not, because they get a huge emphasis on, we still have a lot of work to do, this is by no means a perfect system, we have got it to where we wanted, but there are still a lot of things that need to be fixed. This is still an ongoing process to make this thing work better and better. They still it knowledge there are a lot of parts of the website they need to continue to work on. Saying, yes, we did it, everything is great, and we will take off now. Host what is the measure of success to look at . Guest Insurance Companies, are they getting the Accurate Information they need in order to enroll people and give them their coverage, receive the payments from those getting subsidies, and that will be starting january 1, how many people will actually have insurance under this law, how may people are successful going to the doctor and paying the bills, Insurance Companies getting copayments and all of those things. We need to see it working in real life. Host the issue of how Insurance Companies themselves will use this, the subject of several stories today. Here is one from the New York Times as well as graphics. Tell us a little bit about what insurers are actually saying about how theyre using the site. Guest insurers are saying at the back end of the site, where insurers see, when people in role, how much those people over owe. Is there a government subsidy, the actual registry of people enrolled, and the separate insurance plans. People are now saying, i have been enrolled in the plan. The consumer things that successfully been enrolled. The Insurance Company is not always getting the information. The Insurance Companies as we have no record of you actually having been enrolled here they say right now that is manageable, but if there is a big spike in enrollment numbers, as expected in january and march, that could be a bigger and bigger problem for Insurance Companies. They are really concerned about that right now. Host we are talking to Emily Ethridge about the Affordable Care act are the announcements on the white house saying they met their goals for functionality of the website that the vast majority of folks can use the healthcare. Gov website. If you have questions or comments, give us a call. Phone lines are open. As folks are calling in, news from last week on the Supreme Court taking up cases that have to do with pieces of the Affordable Care act, what are the biggest cases were looking at . Guest the big one we will see the Supreme Court take up his this case of dealing with whether forprofit companies at no cost to their employees or the law requires that. It requires insurance plans to offer no charge contraception. Religious extensions get an exception. It creates a workaround. But there are forprofit companies saying they should get the exemption as well because of their religious believes. The main one is hobby lobby where they brought this case. We expect the Supreme Court to take up and will on next year. That is really a thing that has attracted a lot of attention in congress. Host the timeline for this, oral arguments likely in march. What is the white house response to the Supreme Court taking up these cases . Guest it ministration asked the courts to take this up and lets have it through lets have it resolved so we can go ahead and roll out the law the way we expect. They say they believe they will win in this case. They want this resolved because it has been going on for many years. Host calls on this subject are coming in. Tony is from fort worth, texas, on the line for democrats. Caller my comment, question, host go ahead. Caller my comment and question is, the president has had three years to get the straight. I voted for the president twice. I never liked obamacare. I fought for them because i trusted him. He had three years to get it straight. Nobody told it was that. Now, we wait for mediocrity. I heard Rick Santorum went on talk shows yesterday and say going for payment and registration is still not working properly. If we take 90 days to get a straight, it will take 90 days. Just get it straight. Tell us when exactly it will be fully functional. The law. We do not have a choice about this. Let us deal with it. Instead of trying to appease half of us. Host emily, the president announced yesterday the website is working for the vast majority of people who use it very is there some target date set for when it will fully be functional . Guest they never really said when it be fully functional for everybody in all aspects of the site. They obviously expect it to happen by march or the end of march, because that is when you must enrolled in order to not have the penalty for not having insurance, by the end of march 2014. We have seen things change and deadlines move, especially in the last couple of months. It may be moved again. We are not sure quite yet when there will ever be that, everything is good now and there will not be more problems. Host the caller brought up some of the comments on the sunday show yesterday. A republican was on meet the press on sunday. He criticized the obamacare websites security functions. I want to play you a bit of that clip now and get your comments. Guest completely not. Well overstated. They have made progress and brought in private sector folks to try to get the functionality up. It still does not function right. Their own cio said he believed if they had the ability to get up to 80 functionality, that would be a good day for them. The functionality is right, but here is the most important part of this discussion no one talks about. The security of the site and the private information does not meet even the minimal standards of the private sector. That concerns me. I do not care if you are for or against it, republican or democrat, we should not tolerate the sheer level of incompetence securing this site. Remember how much personal information is not only there, but all of the sites the hub accesses would expose americans personal information in a way rest taking week that. Host explain some of the Security Issues the congressman was talking about in that issue. Guest this is a big concern for him because his crown is intact. He has been bringing this a lot with hearings. The one part of the site the administration said worked really well is this data hub. That security has not been a problem. There have not been successful hacking attempts. There have been tries they said they stopped and prevented. They have really emphasize the administration that this only transmits information. It does not store any personal information. It is not kept in a database that has been hacked. It just sends it along from one place to another, and then it is gone. It does not stay there. They said with all the problems they have had, that is the one part that is not had any problems and has worked as it should hear it even though republicans are really quite interested in that issue. Host with interviews like that and the concern out there, is the white house doing enough to show it is concerned about these Security Issues . Lori from indianapolis, indiana, writes us an email guest absolutely. One of the problem the administration is having right now is they tend to respond when asked a question about it. I think people might be more assured if they came out without being asked first and said, heres what were doing and here is our system and here is all the privacy that would get contractors to come up and say, this is why we get sick there if you go on amazon. Com or use online banking. We have similar policies in place. That is what they say, but only after being questioned by people like congressman rogers. Host a healthcare reporter for cq roll call. Have you always covered Health Care Issues . Guest pretty much. I started in march 2010 right after a law was signed. I have been covering it ever since. Host you can follow her on twitter and see her work. A few callers are waiting to ask you questions and offer their comments. Jackie is up first. Good morning. Youre on with Emily Ethridge. Caller good morning. A couple of questions. I watched the hearings when they brought sibelius before the congress to ask pretty important questions like, why was this not working and why were they not more prepared. Am i to understand they did go outside the United States to hire the web older for this, and if they did, why . We will leave this discussion to go live to the white house for president obama. He will be making remarks on World Aids Day. Ladies and gentlemen, on appreciatee, i valeries remarks and want to make sure that you all did have a copy of our report. This is the white house report. The president has been briefed on it. It is a very important document, full of data, full of the information that valerie went over very briefly. Strategy that the the president released three years ago, an update on how far we have come in terms of focusing on the evidence and concentrating resources. The epidemic is most concentrated both in cop and populations and geographically. Treatment ishat prevention. People who go on treatment are 96 less likely to transmit hiv to others. Early treatment is critical. Early treatment prevents long term complications. Now, in the United States, treatment is recommended for all People Living with hiv, regardless of the immune status. We think that over the 30 years, how far we have come. It is my pleasure to introduce the president of the United States. [applause] hello. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Everybody, please have a seat. Thank you for your outstanding leadership. Of the office of National Aids policy. Thank you for being here. This is a pretty distinguished crowd. It is wonderful to be here. I should say, actually, welcome back. Many of you joined us before. We have marked new milestones in our fight against hiv and aids. I am honored that you could be here to commemorate World Aids Day, which was yesterday. This is a time for remembering friends and loved ones that we have lost. Extraordinarye progress thanks to some people in this room that we have been able to make. Most importantly, recommitting ourselves to the vision that we share. Which is, achieving an aids Free Generation. I especially want to welcome ministers from our partner countries. Members of my administration, including secretary sebelius and secretary john kerry, congresswoman barbara lee, mark from the global fund to fight francisd we also have collins from the National Institute of health. Michelle from you and aids. , who is carrying on the great work as our acting global aids coordinator. Thank you all for joining us today. This is a moment to reflect on how far we have come. Lived throughho the aids epidemic know all too well the fear and the stigma and how hard people had to fight to be seen or heard. To be treated with faith basic compassion. You remember how little we knew about how to prevent aids or how to treat it. What we did know was the devastation that it inflicted. Striking down vibrant men and women in the prime of their lives. Spreading from city to city and country to country seemingly overnight. Today, that picture has transformed. Thanks to the courage and love of so many of you in this room and around the world. Awareness has soared. Research has surged. Prevention, treatment, and care are now saving millions of lives. In some of the poorest countries as well. For many, with testing and ask us to the right treatment, the disease that was once a death sentence now comes with a good chance of a healthy and productive life. That is an extraordinary achievement. As president , i have told you that you will have a partner in me. If the United States wanted to be the Global Leader of combating this disease, we needed to act like it. By doing our part and leading the world. That is what we have done, in partnership with so many of you. We have created the first hiv aids strategy. Accesserson should get to life extending care, regardless of age, gender, race, or ethnicity. Support theinued to ryan white care act. Entry ban sod the that people with hiv are no longer barred from the United States. That led to the aids conference being held here last year for the very first time in over 20 years. Ans summer, i issued executive order to boost our federal efforts to prevent and treat hiv. The organ, i signed policy equity act to finally allow research into organ donations between people with hiv. This was achieved with bipartisan support. Thanks to the Affordable Care act, millions of americans will be able to be tested free of charge. The uninsured will know hot access to Affordable Care coverage. No american will be denied Health Insurance because of their hiv status. Announcedids day, i an additional 35 million for the Drug Assistance Program, which will help to pay for life saving medications. At one time, the need was so great that over 900,000 people were on the waitlist. Weve got to get those numbers down. We have cleared that waitlist. We are down to zero. [applause] so we are making progress. But we are all here today because we know how much work remains to be done. Here in the United States, we need to focus on investments to communities that are still being hit hardest, including gay and bisexual men, african americans, and latinos. We need to keep up the fight in the cities. This includes washington, d. C. , which has reduced infections by nearly half. We will continue to pursue scientific breakthroughs. I am pleased to announce a new initiative for an hiv sure. We will redirect 100 million into this project. Because the United States should be at the forefront of these discoveries as to how to put it hiv into remission. Better yet, eliminated up lately. Eliminate it complete lee. Of course, this extends beyond our borders. We have helped millions around the world receive lifesaving treatment. We have not just sustained efforts, we have expanded them. We are reaching and serving even more people, especially mothers and children. Earlier this year, we reached a milestone. The one millionth baby born without hiv. That, alongside [applause] that, alongside the rapid decline in new hiv infections and deaths from aids in sub saharan africa. On my visit to africa this year, bishoped a clinic run by desmond tutu. I have the honor to spend time with some of their extraordinary young patients. Every day, they are doing extraordinary work for it when you visit this facility, you cannot help but be inspired by what they do. Each and every day. In part, thanks to the support of the United States of america. Theyre saving lives and they are changing the way that their country and the world approaches this disease. That is work that we have to continue to advance. Ago,rld aids day two years i said that we need to increase the number of mothers that we reach to prevent their children from becoming infected. We need to help 6 Million People by 2013. Today, i am proud to announce that we have not only reached our goals, we have exceeded our target. We have helped 7 Million People receive lifesaving treatment. [applause] which is why, after i leave here today, i will be proud to sign the stewardship and oversight act to keep this going strong. [applause] at count on the legislators to applaud the legislator. Looking ahead, it is time for the world to come together to set new goals. Were working hard to get a permanent leader in place. Once we do, one of our first items will be to convene an a meeting early next year. Can sitners worldwide around one table and develop joint hiv prevention and treatment goals for the countries where we do business. We will hold each other accountable and continue to work to turn the tide of this epidemic together. That includes keeping up our support for the global fight. Success speaks for itself. Were hoping over 6 Million People in over 140 countries receive antiretrovirals therapy. It is time to contribute to the fund. Total from then United States. The United Kingdom has made a similar promise. [applause] so, today, i want to urge all of those who are attending the replenishment meetings to take up this commitment. Do not leave our money on the table. It has been inspiring to see the country most affected by this disease has fast will he increased their contributions. Tot should inspire all of us give more and do more so we can save more lives. After all, none of the progress that we have made could have been achieved by a single government or foundation. The result of countless people moving including some in if you, working together. Philanthropies, universities, media, civil society, activists more than anything, i think it is due to the courageous People Living with hiv who share their stories. You let your dignity be recognized in the fight to spare others from this disease. We cannot change the past or undo their wretched pain. What we can do and what we have to do is to chart a different future, and guided by our love for those we could not save. That allows us to do everything that we can, everything in our power to save those that we can. That is my commitment to u. S. President. The United States of america will remain a Global Leader in the fight against aids. We will stand with you until we reach the data we know is possible, when all men and women can prevent themselves from infection. A day when all women and men with hiv have access to treatments to save their lives. The day when there are no babies born with hiv or aids. When we achieve what was once hard to imagine, which is an aids Free Generation. That is the world i want for my daughters. That is what we all want for our families. If we keep focused and honor the memory of those that we have lost, if we summon the same courage that they displayed and insist on what ever it takes or however long it takes i believe that we will win this fight. I am confident that we will do so together. Thank you very much for your extraordinary efforts. I appreciate it. [applause] thank you. Good work. [applause] thank you everybody. I am proud to be a friend and colleague. I am gail smith. The president s leadership extends all across his administration. I see across this room leaders from across our government. People who work every day to win this fight. It is my pleasure to now introduce one of them, who has been a champion in this fight. He remains a leader for us today. Secretary of state, john kerry. [applause] gail, thank you very much. Thank you for your tremendous leadership and for your cooperation in this effort. Thank you to all of our distinguished colleagues in the obama administration. You, the president named, we are grateful to you. I think i think the president for convening this Remarkable Group of leaders and activists on this challenging, monumental issue. The president s commitment and his follow through and his fundamental belief in the possibility of an aids Free Generation and the hard work of so many of you, have all combined to put that extraordinary goal with in our grasp. Amazing as that may seem. I want to thank my colleagues, secretary Kathleen Sebelius for her tremendous leadership. Hours distinguished leader of a id who is on the lines to make sure that this gets implemented. , who are sof you critical to bring us to where we are. I would like to remark that hiv it has seths the Gold Standard for the world. I am very proud of it. Deborah and julia from the state department are here. They are leading our efforts to implement the blueprint and writing a brandnew chapter in the president s fight against aids. I also want to say a special thank you to bill gates. Bill and i are we share a deep commitment to try to improve the lives of others. He is giving away billions of dollars and i am giving shorter speeches. It is about the match. Many really remarkable aids warriors assembled here. ,cientist and Public Servants researchers and advocates. Republicans and democrats. All of whom who have put party,y, partisanship, even nationstate aside. In the interest of trying to embrace a much larger, more important vision. A more global vision. By reaching across disciplines and different faiths, and reaching across the aisle and ,cross world simultaneously everybody has tapped into what we think are the deepest values of our country. By so many other countries and people around the world. One thing that has stood out on this issue from my point of view i sat where barbara lee is. We were in the same endeavor. Whether it was barbara lee and bill frist or jesse helms and table we came to the to pass this. No matter how deep the differences were, we all managed to be able to find a way to unite us. In our collective refusal to allow aids to ravage yet another generation. Determinationeper to meet our global responsibilities. That is what is happening here. This is not a small deal. To complement congress for continuing the tradition and passing the stewardship and oversight act, which the president just talked about. When you really consider how we bridged those differences and the distance that we have this journey is even now much more remarkable. Remember, back in 1991, when bill frist and i joined together as chairs to study hiv and aids. Very little is known about. I remember the fear. Literally. In politics, it was a tricky thing to talk about publicly. As little as 10 years ago, aids was a death sentence for many. Experts warned that in parts of the world, we had reached the point of no return. What i remember most and what i have been privileged to be a part of every step of the way is how everybody came together to push back against that pessimism. When the leaders in this room and the entire community, entire countries which are ravaged by aids when you looked out and saw this challenge, you did not see someone elses crisis. You saw our shared humanity and our shared responsibility. With this World Aids Day yesterday and this convening here today with the conference that will take place tonight and really renewing that commitment. It is appropriate, obviously, as we do so, to think about all of those who have been lost. Who were too late. We were too late in order to save them. I can remember a lot of friends, many members and supporters of , whoin the Gay Community were going to funeral after funeral after funeral. There was a massive pessimism within the community and the community and a sense that this was overwhelming. Are nowear that we turning very important corner. It is not one. There is major challenge ahead. It will require major commitment in order to complete the task, but to the memory that we want to honor for all those for whom it was too late. Hivubsaharan africa, infections are down by nearly 40 since 2001. Aidsrelated mortality has declined by nearly one third since the peak in 2005. Globally, new infections among children have been cut in half in a decade. Access to lifesaving hiv treatment has increased close to 40 fold. That weased to note have achieved much of this because president obama was determined to set a higher standard. He sort of glossed over it in his own comments. That was a very significant commitment. On World Aids Day two years ago, he challenged us to reach 6 million more people with life saving treatment. Hivrovide 1. 5 alien positive pregnant women with treatment for their own health, mento prevent to provide with services for hiv prevention. These targets have pushed us to go further. Forgemore innovative, to new partnerships, including with many in this room. Result, you all are now reaching more people and more lives are being saved than ever before. Now, to meet the challenge of the second decade, we will emphasize this. We have to transform americas role. Example ofclearer the transformation that we need to realize that south africa, ibia,a, and nvidia nam all you have to do is look at the Country Health partnerships. These are a model for how they are transitioning to providing direct aid and delivering support for locally run and selfsustaining efforts. This is a vital effort. We have global commitments that should give greater cant thisce confidence to mission. I am encouraged by the increased investments from the United Kingdom, denmark, norway, sweden, and canada, as well as germany and france. All of them are extending their high levels of commitment as the president just said. Do not leave our money on the table. If everybody steps up, we will do even more and meet this challenge. It is a great honor to host the Global Fund Conference in washington this week. As i speak this evening, it is safe to say that we really are chartering a new writing writing a new chapter. When it comes to the global fund, there are lessons to be learned. The way that we have leveraged our commitments inspires greater contributions from other nations. We have shown, i think, strategic leadership. I might add, it is fair to say that that engagement, which the president touched on, is frankly inspiring a truly global effort. Were proud that it is doing so. As we continue to confront the Global Challenge of aids, we are literally in a position sold on a Great American legacy. We are, as you all know, probably the nation that defeated the axis powers. Then, we turned around and invested billions of dollars into their recovery. That has made all of the difference to a powerhouse like germany and an ally like japan and to europe itself. Were the nation that faced down the soviet union with the force of our ideals. Without resorting to the force of arms. Now, no exaggeration. And our own time, in this generation, and our fight against aids, yes, in a different way, but no less important we are able to that can an initiative help to define our nation and the golden spirit. If we continue to make the right choices, our work will provide for even greater possibilities. I want you to think about this. 11 of our 15 biggest trading partners as recently as 15 years ago were receiving aid from the United States of america. The truth is, one day, that permits us to hope that our children and grandchildren can say the same thing about our partners today. The 10 Fastest Growing economies in the world in subsaharan africa, the opportunities are obviously enormous. Ourer than view relationship with africa is defined by the obstacles that we ace, we literally are able to define them by the opportunities that we can seize together. And every generation, we are called on to do exceptional things against seemingly insurmountable odds. We know that working to achieve an aids Free Generation will continue to pose an incredible test. With our continued commitment, i am certain that we can all look forward to not only passing that test, but to working with each other to provide a new definition of the character of our nation and the character of our noble spirit. Thank you. [applause] thank you, secretary kerry for those comments and your ongoing leadership. Our next speaker has given the domestic aids community her unwavering support. From implementation of the Affordable Care act to implementation of the National Hiv Aids strategy, her department has led efforts to improve the lives of all people affected by hiv. Please welcome the secretary of health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. [applause] good afternoon. It is my great clays are to spend pleasure to spend time with you today as we mark another World Aids Day. I want to start by inking my colleague, secretary of state john kerry, for not only his leadership during his years in the senate, but his continuing focus on these issues that are so meaningful to the health and prosperity of people around the world. He has done a terrific job and is a wonderful partner. As he said, the effort is really a partnership. Ourre pleased to join partners under the umbrella of the state department with the leadership of the acting global aids coordinator. Theyre doing a terrific job. Also, providing a variety of hhs assets through dr. Frieden and the terrific work of cdc and countries around the world, who are delivering this lifesaving care. It is an amazing effort underway. We also have a number of Critical Health leaders here. And others who are helping to lead be domestic initiative. From who is part of the effort. We have our Global Health office. We will mention a bit about them. And Credible Research efforts are underway. I appreciate not only bill gatesleadership on the philanthropic front, but i appreciate his willingness to come and spend some time today with our cuttingedge scientists and researchers at nah. Nih. He gave some inspirational words to those leaders. Grant colfax has done an unbelievable job. He is coordinating this amazing effort. It really is a uniquely american effort where people are not fighting over turf. Were at the table together, locking arms and trying to figure out how we can go forward together. To those of you in the room today, who are here on the frontlines lines of this effort, not only in the united dates, but around the world, let me just start by saying they queue. Thank you for the work that you have been doing for decades. Thank you for the research and the painstaking efforts. Thank you for the resiliency in the face of the losses that have been so appropriately described. A lot of times you wanted to just give up. That has not happened. The rededication is palpable. Thank you for being here and for being willing to fight on. We are all here because we really do share president obama is believed that an aids Free Generation is within our reach. Work toto continue to gather to make it happen. Clearly, this president has made these issues a priority. That is why we are here today. Together, with your health, we share that goal. Were decreasing the number of americans who have become affected by hiv. We are increasing access to care and improving the health and outcome for People Living with hiv. Reducing hiv related disparity and certainly, you have heard a lot about contributing to global efforts to respond to aids. Moving forward, we need to keep in mind the dream of finding a cure and ending the epidemic. After here a few days thanksgiving and, clearly, there is a lot to be thankful for in terms of the project progress that we have made together. The lives that we are saving and the advancements that we have made. Cutting the waiting list in the United States for the aids Drug Assistance Program from 9000 to zero in just two years is a big step forward. Barbara lee, i have to recognize your tenacious leadership. Those who have not personally tangled with barbara lee, let me just tell you that it is a formidable advocate that leads this effort in the United States congress. We applaud those efforts. Reducing that waiting list 20 is a huge step. Clearly, we have come a long way. When Congress First passed a bill, funding the aids research and treatment, back in 1983, there was a time not long ago that getting an hiv diagnosis was a death sentence. Today, hiv as a manageable medical condition. The science gives us great reason for optimism and hope. There are currently more than already safe and effective antiretrovirals drugs and combinations. Researchers continue to develop new treatments. More, were making progress to new medications and regimens that are longer lasting and simpler to use. Far fewer side effects. Those regimens reduce the amount of hiv in the body. That helps People Living with hiv to stay healthy and live longer. We also know from the nih funding research, hiv transmission is drastically reduced when the amount of hiv virus in an affected person is reduced to undetectable levels. ,eanwhile, our Partner Agency the fda, has approved new, rapid diagnostic test which can be used in a variety of settings to identify hiv in an infected individual. It might not be tested in a Traditional Health care setting. As we speak, nih grantees and scientists are exploring ways to treat hiv infections by administering antihiv antibodies. They have begun earlystage testing of an antibody that was effective in protecting human cells against more than any in 90 of the known hiv trait strains. Last, but certainly not least, we have made significant progress last year. We understand how antibodies respond and how they evolve together with the virus in the body of an infected person. These advances have brought us closer than ever to finally getting an infected vaccine and one big step closer to finding a cure. The announcement that the president just made, about increasing funding for research by 100 million will allow us to further the important work that is being led by dr. Jack and dr. Anthony an Incredible Team at nah led by dr. Francis collins. Thank you all for what youre doing. Ultimately, one of the most important things that we can do to combat this epidemic is to raise awareness. As we work to advance the research, we are also supporting nationally and hiv awareness campaign. Were sharing research with Community Organizations and Health Departments across the country. Last weeks signing by the president of the bipartisan hope that this another step in the right direction. Were making sure that our federal policies are aligned with the most recent Scientific Understanding of hiv. Information about all of these things is available at hiv at aids. Gov. We have a lot of work to be thankful for. We have a lot of work to do. The challenge that we face is substantial. 35 Million People in the world are living with hiv aids. Alone, more than 2 million hiv infections and 1. 6 million aidsrelated deaths were reported across the globe. U. S. , more than one million of our neighbors and friends are infected. Millions more are up acted by the lost loved ones. I want to share a few brief comments on the strategy, which the president launched three years ago. Because of this effort, with your help, we are doing more than ever to fight hiv. To deliver highquality care to those with hiv and to keep them engaged in the care and improve the outcomes of a cam of longer, healthier, and more productive lives. We have also been able to enhance and streamline the coordination of our own federal efforts. As a result, frontline providers can concentrate on what matters most. Providing highquality hiv convention and services. With your help, we will help more of our fellow americans. We arethe ways that working to improve the quality of life and americans living with hiv is to work with states to increase access to home and communitybased care. More People Living with an hiv infection can live in their own homes and their own neighborhoods in their own communities. With all the progress that we have made, it is still the case that here in the United States, one in six People Living with hiv is on is undiagnosed. Only one in four People Living with hiv in the United States is able to achieve control over their own infections through medications. That is necessary for their own health and a critical strategy for preventing further transmission to partners. That is why, this july, the president issued in executive order watching the care initiative. The goal is to accelerate all of our federal efforts to help people get tested, get links to care, stay in care, and get treated for hiv. Today, we released a report with the first set of recommendations. My assistant secretary of health has been working in Close Partnership with dr. Grant colfax here at the white house. The doctors cochaired the group and i want to thank them and members of the group, including cdc and nih, and our partners at the department of justice, for all of their across the government hard work. It is another example of the federal government raking down silos and working together to implement a national hiv strategy. Now, as i close, i would to share with you a few of the ways that the historical secretary of state john kerry, president obama with statements marking World Aids Day. See the rest of it on our website cspan. Board. The u. S. House back in session today. Live now to the floor of the house. Washington, d. C. , december 2, 2013. I hereby appoint the honorable steve womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray