He wanted deck holders around the country to have a stake in a success of this New Enterprise so he took the shambles of the debt situation from the revolutionary war rationalized it and he established the mans. He got a system of finance going that was critical and unappreciated by historians. Maybe people will look atge hamilton in a more serious way. The critical reason why we went from a small east coast nation largely farming to the mightiest industrial nation in the world within 100 years come extraordinary and even more impressive than what written did hamilton put the system and that made that possible and we take it for granted raves to make every have you seen hamilton on broadway . Guest i havent. It will probably be three years before i can get a ticket. They are hard to get. Host 202 is the area code if you want to continue with her conversation is steve forbes free will put the phone line and social media dresses up and we are going to put up the text addressed by this is for Text Messages only and it is 51034055 59. That again is Text Messages only. 0 if you would like to send one please include your first name in your city so we can identify you that way. I would be great and i do want to go to a text message that we have been holding here to desist from scott and wilkesbarre pennsylvania. Mr. Forbes, would you consider a cabinet position in the Trump White House specifically secretary of the treasury . The answer is if any president cause you take the call and is not likely to happen for a whole variety of reasons but im glad scott thinks that i would be qualified to get the call. The key thing is to make sure the ideas are right in the key thing to is whoever is president not only understands it but wilg make clear to his or her staff dont get in the way of the reforms that are needed. One of the veins of the cabinet secretary shipped today and what really frustrates governors is when you come in you find out the president is not your boss. You have all these white house staffers who think they know more than you do and dont mind trying to show how smart theyy are by mark or managing you. Whoever is president whether it be donald trump, which can change but whoever it is i will be sending my ideas even though im a scotsman i will send them a free copy of my book. Free host why do you say would not happen for a variety of reasons . Guest one they are our whole calculus of decisions and factors that go into picking a cabinet member. I would be taking care of certain parts of the country and certain parts and groups thatt you want to show that you are attentive to or there may be headlined about some crisis in asia say my somebody who is a recognized expert. A hole for the things i do not just one post. Its number of posts that go into this thing. When you. How the cap entry has actually done its a helterskeltern thing. Its partly science. The beginning you say we will come up with 10 million blob loblaw and at the end they say this person might be good but we have to use with akel capital to get him or her to congress and i think his senate and even though they might be good maybe weigh should save our Political Capital for something else. E im keeping my day job for now. Host raymond and tyler texas please go ahead with your question for steve forbes. Bocco thank you, steve. My question is on the goldq standard. The gold is a solid currency in regard to keeping our sovereignty as a nation and having a solid currency that is impenetrable i other nations. St it is a standard. St bad currency drives good currency. When other countries go up and currency or whatever it hammers us. So we get the same all a punishment that they are getting but it affects everybody in our country, every citizen. The law doesnt respect personality. Its solid. Either we conform by an act of our will to have something stable like whats going on nowa in the government, honesty. Honesty can be considered a currency of exchange as well. W host raymond can you wrap this up and we will get a response. Caller yes and it doesntal choose sides. To wrap it up, the principle wea need to get back to, the basics that we would yield to and go ahead, im through. Guest thank you in the key is having a currency with a stable value like Alexander Hamilton recognized more than 250 years ago. That is a critical reason why we have this great growth that we had and we discussed earlier we had a Gold Standard for 180 years and it worked. We had the greatest growth of any nation in history. A lot of factors at work that we got the money right and since we have been off the Gold Standard are average growth growth. Has been far lower than what when we are on a come average over time. Our Economy Today if we had the same growth we have home we were on gold we would be 8 trillion bigger. A over 40 years compounding it hurts because investing is risky pretty they dont know what you were going to get paid back in you get less productive investing and when you have a fixed value for the dollar guess what happens . You have less currency trade. He didnt need it. When you go from texas still, you have to worry about what the dollar is worth in oklahoma versus texas. The same currency. Rth today having all these currencies, currency trading on a daily basis is 5. 3 trillion more than stocks and bonds put together. Tens of thousands of the best minds in the world focus on trying to make money trading currencies, a huge waste of resources, huge waste of brainpower. Thats why we have got to get back to the Gold Standard and also you hit the word trust. Trust is what makes a currency work. Trust when you lose trust, it leads to all sources sorts of social problems. As soon as you have 12 inches and a footer 60 minutes in an hour a Stable Currency would make life a lot better than what we have been going through. Host years of text message from northern virginia. What are your thoughts on bitcoin . Du quoin rose up, you might call it a hightech cry for help. These and other cryptoto currencies rose up because of a lack of faith in the dollar and a sense of wanting privacy. Challenge with bitcoin as i see it is a still unstable and valuable. Ta one where you could buy coby before steaks and so they have to find a way to stabilize it. What is coming out of theseur crypto currencies like that coi is a new Payment System. We dont realize how expensive and complicated our whole bank and finance payment is today. We think we can go to the storee and swipe our card. As matt magic . Yeah it is but asked the merchant why do i have to pay three to 6 for the . D s so what bitcoin is showing is you can do this for a fractioni of this Payment System of what we have today. Not good news for some of the credit cards, not good news for American Express and in terms of electronic banking one of the countries that leads the world in electronic tanking because they have to they have no choicn is kenya. Handhelds because they can have a traditional system and so herg Technology May come to the rescue not only in the cost of transactions but for developings countries just as handheld devices in terms of cell phones. You have to have all these telephone poles in the traditional infrastructure. Couh these handheld telephones and handheld devices, so too on banking. You may not have to have all the infrastructure we have today. You already see online lenders beginning to emerge who can do it at a fraction of the cost and far more efficiently than the traditional system. So, if you arent thinking its not just government regulations killing you, the web may do to you what it did to the print industry. Host in your book, freedom manifesto, we are taught in grade school that Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb because he wanted to create better lighting. True or false . Guest he always wanted to do things better, but what this goes to show is that Human Emotions are there and the key thing is to channel them in a productive direction. Thomas edison was mad at the gas man and in those days gas was the chief source of illumination and being this he was always flowing behind at his bills and we have a note from his grandfather in 19207 edison a note about this legend about why he invented that incandescent lightbulb. Edison wrote back to my father and said yes, it is true. I was paying 5 a day to postpone a judgment on my small factory, then came the gasman and he cut off my gas. That made me so man that it ran up eight Gas Technology to see if what electricity could me used to replace gas and i stuck to it, but i did not hurt that all except lately, 40 years, so his anger at the gasman and edison go for the incandescent light bald and traditional to replace traditional gas, so when you get angry think of how you can make money as of this. Host joseph in carmel indiana, hello. Caller i would like to hear your critique on the ferret tax and whether you think donald trump would be opposed to the fair tax because it would hit rate big real estate products a hard . Guest in terms of the fair tax is, its National Sales tax and we discussed extensively in the book several pages and effective race rate is not the 23, its the real rate of 20 , so if you go in the store and buy something for 100 you will pay 30 sales tax on it and its meant to replace the income tax payroll tax and primarily, but the challenge with the National Sales tax is severalfold one is political and when you say 30 rates, people recoil. You can talk about embedded prices all you want and you just think oh, my gosh i will have did buy a new house up a 30 tax yes, he will, so that is a challenge for the other challenge, which is also important is the 16th in the mid to the constitution. 16th amendment allows washington 21 income tax. If you dont repeal the 16th the memo to the constitution i guarantee you you will eventually have as you have in most countries and in both states both on income tax and a sales tax. Like in europe, they have high income tax and a value edit packs which is sort of a sales tax. So, you have to repeal the 16th amendment and then you have two challenge compliance. Its one thing to put a tax on a product, but what about services . When you get high rates, then people have a huge incentive to get around that. Kid comes and cut your lawn, you going to pay 30 tax on the . I dont think so. We talked about the fair tax, that they are 30 tax on a new house, but not on an existing house. Then you get in the problem defining what is new and at what is traditional house picked lets say you take a traditional house and you got the thing and keep the sod baby and redo the whole thing. Theres a 30 sales tax applying to that . You have to deal with these particular questions. Then, who collects the tax . Fair tax people, they say they want the states to collect it, but will only pay those states one quarter of 1 to collect. Not much of incentive. The state will make sure they get their tax, but they dont care about uncle sam. You take the 30 rate and combine it with states like california to eight or people think 38, 40 sales tax is hard to sell and yet the definition problem, the definition of on example sales tax you buy for your business and you dont pay the sales tax, thats what fair tax people say. Lets go to home depot and by some lumber and say im using it to build furniture for my business. Whos going to check to make sure you just didnt do it for your own Home Improvement and you used it to sell something online . So, you have real thorny compliance problems. You can probably get around these, but i went changed now and a flax tax has been done around the world. We can do it quickly, maybe fair tax can be done with education in the next generation, but we need action now. Host someone wants to go out and buy your book, which of your books would you recommend . Guest well, all of them. They make great you dont have to go to college and you can just get these books. I think in terms of the political season, reviving america explains in ving america explains in a great board way big things that need to be done and we have to get these issues out there, not just in the election season, but next year at the federal level and also on the state level. Healthcare, 20 of our economy. Gets the most personal thing possible and affects all of us. Clearly, it is not working and the whole idea into this is where the candidates fail, you can turn what looks like a hopeless collocated mass mess into Something Dynamic like hightech when we all come out ahead. This is exciting stuff. Host from your book money what kind of society sells a lifelong burden of indebtedness to people and experience with money . You mentioned college. Guest well, we all now its even two, three years ago college debt was beginning to emerge as an issue, but now its well over a trillion dollars. One of the things that has happened with good intentions is that cost one cup, government came in, subsidized loans, pell grants and the like and what he did end up doing . It ended up raising tuitions and so you are on a vicious cycle. Look at the growth of administrative costs of these institutions. That is the tell tale sign that goes up faster than teaching, actual Real Laboratory research, Scholarly Research and so there is a lot of bloat out there, a lot of nice big buildings and swimming pools. Nice, but not the essence of learning, so the students and that coming out of college especially graduate school where you really see it where you have a mini mortgage and no house to show for it. Right now, because of these mistakes weve been making it is pummeled the job market and so prospects are being able to get this off your back in a few years received in the environment and within the government has incentives where if you work in government you get a faster payoff forgiveness than if you work producing things in the private sector, which is bizarre. We want people to produce things. So, its battle around. By the way, it can be done in terms of controlling costs and i think parents should wake up to this. Just talking to the present of Purdue University who has huge experience in this town on budgeting. He is successful executive in the private sector, very successful governor where he turned a state i was in trouble into triplea credit, midwest, no energy, no hightech, real hardware. Because he has been able to put in the system and control expenses for almost five years now they have had no tuition increases. If you look at phenomenal institutions, most are 60 plus thousand. For purdue its still 48000 and when he first put in the policy no more tuition increases, it tells the story. The Admissions Department said this will hurt us attracting students and he said what you mean, if our price is less than others people will think we are unable to hear your where we cheaper. Must be we are not as good. Now does the opposite. Now they say can we say again there is no tuition increase. He also makes a very good point, this again gets too we have got to get pressures from parents and others he said you dont go into these institutions and think you take a axa cut off a lot a fat. A better analogy is that the fact is marmol throughout the animal and so you have to get people inside to work with you and put incentives inside to cut out these unnecessary costs, but over time it adds up. That is the model of produce. Host mr. Fords, you are the father of five daughters. Have you figured out how much you have spent for College Education . Guest i dont want to know. [laughter] guest yes. The thing is, parents want to do it. But come i think now that initial admission Admissions Department response to mitch daniels, president daniels is that parents are now saying more and more, what are we getting for this money . What are you getting as a student . One of the and this leads to pushing kids to do more economics, more business, but you also still want to have a system where they can do the humanities. Steve jobs understood humanities , sciences are not pull her off assists each reinforces the other. They are intermingled like that marble in the animal. Norman forelock, the famous norman l prize created the green revolution which saved hundreds of millions of people around the world from a famine. Huge advances in seeds. He majored i think in chemistry or whatever in college and i remember him addressing students at a graduation 20 years ago and he said to students, he said dont specialize to early or if you do, make sure you take courses outside of your comfort zone. He said you never know why to you might need to draw on in life. When he started to make the breakthrough in the green revolution he said he knew about economics, which i did not study very much. He said he needed to know about politics and all of these things that were outside my immediate sphere. See it as a way of exercising the mind and one thing purdue does come i think i get this right is that daniels discovered when he went there that they had a core curriculum, but it had 363 courses. Like ceramics. So, what he did what they did is put together what you mica a package of courses. So, you take real humanities courses because most of the kids who go there are engineers. The incentive of taking this package instead of taking a course or that might be easier or not have to go do class on saturday or sunday or whatever. If you take that package of a certificate, not just a diploma, but her certificate that you completed this course and humanities. What next to thing you can add it to your when you go out into the workforce. So, yeah, colleges right for entrepreneur innovation. Host john, Ocean Springs mississippi, on the line with author steve forbes. Caller hello mr. Forbes. I am interested in your thought on the Obama Health Care repeal and i wonder why you didnt look at the bush care Prescription Drug program to be repealed. That Program Costs about 70 billion a year and has the highest drug costs in the world, i believe. I have the va programs and the negotiated drug prices are half of what [inaudible] caller no negotiations in it steven lets get a response. Thank you, john. Guest in terms of what they call i think part d of medicare which is the drug plan, i think thats it, maybe its part c, but anyway the challenge there is again the whole medical system, Healthcare System does not have real free markets. One of the things that badly needs are formed is the whole area of approval of new drugs, fda largely still has the mentality of the 1950s. For example, they love clinical trials. Back then it made sense, but for a lot of these new drugs today for cancer, why should you have to take a placebo when there might be something already there that can help you out with a disease that can kill you . So, they have to radically reform and i think if you get effective reform there so you dont have to spend 2 billion to bring a new drug to market, which is what you have now, when you go overseas, for example, those countries when they buy drugs from our companies here in effect get it at low cost because they dont pay for the research and development of 2 billion that winning to create create the drug. So, if we get reform there you will get more drug rate hurt makers. Right now i coming that starts out with a promising drug often has to sell out or partner with an existing drug company to get through the maze of the fda, which ends up costing us. So, again i think that would be ripe for form and what george w. Bush did on that part even on the cost came in below estimation, one thing where government didnt underestimate the cost, youre right, its part of the whole problem and cause a lot of anger among republicans. This eventually led to their defeat in 2006. So, gap more free markets, more consumer Patient Choice and we will get again not a utopia in healthcare, but it will work where you will get more for less. Host jim, anchorage, alaska. Hello, jim. Caller hello and thank you for taking my call. I got a small question concerning healthcare. Currently, when a person is discharged from a hospital he or she can receive bills one, two, three, six months, a year later and these bills come from labs, the doctors, the hospital and they are also harder to read. It looks to me as though with computers and if all groups that bill knew this that when that patient left the hospital they would have one bill they would have their bills there on time and the patient would more easily know if the charges were applicable to that particular operation or whatever. Im just wondering what do you see as impediment to this type of billing . When you get a car fixed to get one bill. You dont get a bill for the knots, and the bold, the person thats working someplace else. You dont get different costs coming in and im just wondering what your thoughts are on implement in such a procedure. Guest you hit on a system where the patient is rolling out the customer, but third parties. Government and large insurers, the insurance commies, the government and employers and if you go to to a hospital or a clinic today and you ask what a treatment will cost because we have grown up with the system we dont realize how strange this is, you get a very strange look. Its means either you are uninsured or crazy. Why would you want to know the price . Whats it to you . They tell you insurance will take care of it and then we will send you if you oh anything, so they want to keep you passive and they want to keep you ignorance and invest the way the system is geared. Whereas, if you make these reforms where the patient has that Consumer Power they know they have to and you are going to be saying yes or no on whether they get paid, they will have a different attitude here even with computers today, you cannot read unless you are a genius the bills that you get. You try to file for a claim and by golly he wrote about trying to cope with bureaucracy and you feel absolutely lost and bewildered and no hotel where as you pointed out or car repair would dare give you a bill that you normally get from a hospital and because it is thirdparty payer not you the patient, you end up getting they say that Insurance Committee takes three months to decide how much the 500 think is they will cover and how much you will cover. They have over 20000 different diagnostic diagnoses, whatever they call them, so you have to talk to your doctor. If its one kind of the ticket diagnosis, insurance wont cover it or maybe over cover 50 , but if it is almost like it they will cover almost 85 . Its an insane system and thats why we have to get it simplified, back to user consumer and we wont get these crazy situations and you will know in a dance. When you are in and charge hospitals will tell you this is what it will cost. You see signs in pennsylvania there is a hospital chain called geisinger and several years of the instituted legally they cannot call them warranties, but in effect if they dont do something rights the procedures on them, so if they botched the operation the next one is on them. You would think a normal market everyone else would quickly have to do that like with automobiles if one come he says we will give you a 10 Year Warranty the others quickly follow suit. Has not happened in healthcare because its thirdparty pay. Its not you the patient and so you get hospital rooms that look like an old boarding house with everyone jammed in and we have grown up with it so we dont realize how unnecessary and crazy it is even though a lot of that equipment is fantastic with a lot of smart people. The system itself just is not working. Host gary is calling in from lopez island, washington. Hello, gary. Caller hello, steve this is gary your friend from freedom fest. We did some stage plays together see to oh, boy. Caller wanted to ask about the Gold Standard. On the state level some state legislators are advocating gold. Some state School Systems are stockpiling gold and overseas Central Banks like russia and china and so me others are favoring gold over paper. Is it possible that that kind of creeping gradual Gold Standard will start internationally and here in the United States . Guest well, i think getting a Gold Standard and this is one reason why we wrote the book is so the people get an understanding of what the thing actually is, not this myth encrusted thing that we are told by economists. Its very simple like having a ruler with 12 inches, does not restrict the size of a building you wish to construct. It just means you have a basis of measurement to make it possible to do construction efficiently and safely. Same thing with the economy having a Stable Currency. So, what you might call the idea of framework is beginning to be laid. The chinese have been studying this foramework is beginning toe laid. The chinese have been studying this for several years and i would not be surprise within the next decade they dont mess up their Economic Reforms they are trying to do now. China goes to a Gold Standard before we do. They are beginning to realize the necessity of a Stable Currency. So, i think yes, its beginning to happen and the more we get people studying it, what it really is and what it is not, i think you are correct it will happen. State level, the states can contribute to it by doing what you talk and others have done and one of the things we could do in the meantime in this country is remove the barriers against alternative currencies. So, if you want to establish your own currency you are free to do so. You dont have to worry about the fbi throwing you in jail. Thats not counterfeiting, just an alternative currency and especially with high tech. Becomes more and more feasible, so remove all those barriers, tax barriers, regulatory barriers and something might emerge in the marketplace that we cannot even conceive uptodate. Host heres a text message from the 717 area code. I think thats pennsylvania; mr. Forbes, what you think that mr. Crumps idea of bringing jobs back from china . Guest we wont bring jobs back, what we will do if we do things right here as we outlined in the book Foreign Companies will be investing here on a level we cant even imagine. You got a little favor of that the 80s when we started to move ahead in the rest of the world. Auto manufacturers came here because it turns out we could make cars as good as anyone else we do not have crazy work rules. Chemical companies are coming here now because we have low energy costs. So, you get the right environment and capital will flow into this country and who knows in terms of manufacturing. What will be done, 3d printing and other technological advances in terms of making robots. Robots have been with us forever yet we dont realize a washing machine is a form of a robot. Instead of washing with hands we have machines, same things with dishes and the like, but now with Laser Technology they can be precise in a way and cheap in a way where you can make close that are now done in a third world and you may able to do a. You wont need many people, but Laser Technology is very promising. Instead of thinking of us losing, creating, i want an environment where Everyone Wants to come here because we make good currency, good legal system, good tax system and you want to be here. People when they look at their uncertain governments they are around the world even now with all of our troubles, we are in trouble, but we are better off than most of the rest of the world, which is why they want their kids to go to school here and why they want real estate here. They realize this is a safer place then just about any place else in the world. Host and the most recent book by steve forbes and elizabeth ames, reviving america. Want to play some video and you will be able to see it right there and you will know what this is about. Its from march, of this year. They put me down at 4. 5 billion thats worth. Im not complaining, but its much more than that. I couldnt understand why is it that forbes just raise me 400 million this year. I should be happy; . What difference does it make . Can understand, wire forbes numbers so much lower than the value i dont. Host what was that about mr. Forbes . Guest donald trump always thinks we underestimate his wealth and we go through this every year and the essence of it is putting aside various properties. The essence of it is what he thinks we should put several billion value just on that i love his name. In terms of how we value wealth, we say you monetize it and then we will counted as value and we do this for everyone, not just donald trump, but opera and others pick they may have value, but you monetize and charts were something. Thats the biggest, thats the big difference, but he is irrepressible. I have to tell you a story i shouldnt, but i will. Its in the magazine. We did a story on his wealth last fall for the 400 most richest list and he disputed as he did their. He thinks its more and so editor when up to his office the same day that pope was a new york and so trump tower has a balcony, so went out on the balcony and a lot of latinos down there and so there are some cheers for donald trump, but there are boos as well a trump turns around and says he, 90 approval. Then, he says the shows that youve also under estimated the value trump tower. The pope chose this building to begin his new york parade and so he is its like steve jobs. Trump tries to make the world as he thinks it should be and it can be a shortcoming, but it can also be a source of his strengths. He doesnt see whats there, he sees what he wants it to be. Thats what has made him in real estate he made these buildings with his name on them, he made it happen. By the way, whatever you think of him, whatever reason he exceeded against all expectations number one, he people knew him because hes been on tv for 410 years. People felt they knew him. He started out with even higher name recognition than jeb bush. People felt they knew him. People felt what also helped was because hes in real estate. A building just doesnt happen. People could see. Big building, he made it happen. You dont give a speech at a building rises that. He made it happen and thats with gave him that initial credibility. This is more than software. You cant feel it the way you can see a big building or bridge or golf, whatever. Thats what gave him his original authority. Again, as we were discussing earlier his challenge now that he is the nomination locked up is taking it to the next step and recognizing everything he says now will be examined. He thought he was examined earlier, he aint seen nothing yet to what they will try to do to him. He has to put that Team Together and take it to the next step. Host where did the forbes 400 come from . Guest came from my father back in the early 80s. Thought it would be fascinating to see who had it, who was losing it, who is making it, what areas it was coming from and so he said to our editors we are going to do the 400 and he picked 400 because that in the late 1800s a man had the 400 of the new york most powerful people so it sound like a good number, so my father went with it. Our editors fought him tooth and nail and said, this is not like a publicly traded company where you can decide what shares are worth and what capital is an all that type of thing. How can we do this, cant be done, so finally my father said you are not going to do it, im going to take im going to do it myself. So, finally they got together and put the Team Together and started to do it. As we made clear these are estimates. In some cases you get cooperation and in some cases you dont. He talked a bank or spirit you talk to competitors to get a good idea of the range and my fathers hunch was right. The volatility each year, yet five, 10, 15 change as people move up, go down and it lists whos on and who came off and who was on a few years ago and fell off. Energy sector, a lot of those people had taken a huge hit, so that churn is quite amazing and you see the same thing around the world. When we think of wealth we think up piles of gold, no, its here today and gone tomorrow as we have found out as we look at the price of oil. Host do other people like donald trump dispute or want to be on the list . Guest donald not only wants to be on the list he thinks we never get it right and we are always too low, even though we have gone up. Several years ago it was 2 billion and he thought it was for now, we have in a foreign half and he thinks it should be eight half or 10 or pick a number, so we are always 50 behind in the way he calculates, but a lot of others want to be off of it. I think that classic case was in terms of complaints was a fellow called up several years ago furious and it wasnt so much our estimate that he took issue with, it was that he was on the list because hes in the midst of a divorce and he did not want his wife to know what he had. [laughter] guest we found it. Host who is Sabina Beekman . Guest my wife. Been married now almost 45 years. We met 46 and half years ago at a party and sitting next to each other. Amazing what chance plays on these things and i being a smart alec offered her a cigar. We were at a posh club and without missing a beat she took it up and delete it up. [laughter] guest she said if you want to play that game i can, also. Host you have five daughters how many are involved in forbes media . Guest right now, one, moira who heads up the womens side and various conferences here just had a very successful one on womens conference. The others, to are scattered around the country, one is from dallas and one is from seattle, so but they all got through the team years thanks to their mother. One thing i recommend for parents especially with teenage daughter and one is the mother just brace for it, you get it more than the father does and remember, very different context what lincoln said, this too shall pass. Host scott tweets into you fathers day is coming up. What do you miss most about your dad . Guest just the everyday interaction. He was one of these originals. You never knew what was going to. He was always thinking, so it was constant. People base their addicted to their handhelds and always wondering what will they come up with next likely couldnt even conceive the like that issue of the 400 and he was intrepid. Talking about motorcycles, i would not ride one. I love looking at them. They are beautiful things, but as he got older, he rode them more instead of less. In his late 50s he would come into new york on a motorcycle and even worse, he started to write in the city. New york city streets with all these potholes. Generation role reversal. Kid telling the father, daddies are dangerous. You could hurt yourself. Be careful and he did have at least three serious accidents on motorcycles and one nearly killed him. Didnt stop him. Guest purple passion, and it was, personal perfume that kind of gesture, yes he loved to doing that. Host do you still have the plane where the ship . Guest we dont. The plane was a 727 and talk about fuel consumption, no. It does not work. And the boat, no. Six years ago it became plain. Good for advertising and getting business because no one else had one, but it lots its ability to attract business, so a scottish flood came and, costeffective, no. Beautiful, but not cost effective. Again, that gets to the tools, change with the times. Host next call for steve forbes. Dave. A low, dave c3 good afternoon at cspan and the wonderful cspan audience and good afternoon to you, mr. Forbes. Im a reader of your magazine the last 50 years on and off and its giving me some wonderful ideas. Guest thank you. Caller going on to Social Security, im really a little bit upset because if i talk to 99 out of 100 people everyone thinks its not going to be there. Its going bankrupt and they are so misinformed by i hate to say it a lot about media. Now, the question is this and i will draw the picture, you remember the early 80s when greenspan, tip oneill and Ronald Reagan in a day or two Social Security had a 50 billion surplus. In other words, it was close, but not bankrupt, but it was close. Today that surplus is close to 3 trillion. Now, you started up in the program. Your datagram father said money should bring happiness, not pileup. Dont you think it would be a wonderful thing for our economy that the people who helped get that surplus, mainly the baby boomers, now get additional benefits before someone comes in and takes it and literally steals it cracks your thoughts, please. Guest interesting question and the sad news is the money has already been stolen or its already been spent. That 3 trillion surplus or socalled trust fund, the trust fund in name only. The only thing that trust fund has our ious, nonmarketable from the us treasury department. Social security money comes in when our payroll taxes they are immediately spent and given ious to the Social Security administration. Remember five years ago, we nearly had a default on Us Government bonds because we were not going to raise the debt ceiling and there were fears people would not get their Social Security checks. Well, if you had a 3 trillion surplus and marketable government securities, that would pay for benefits for four or five years, six years. But, the money was not they are. It had already been spent. If a private company did that, took money from their workers, spent its and then gave a nonmarketable iou, those executives would go to jail, but in washington that is considered high finance. So, that 3 trillion, to an apt 3 trillion does not exist and one of the things i hope the next president will do is take some of these nonmarketable ious and substitute salable government bonds, take them out of the federal reserve. Did that complicated, but i think it can be done so that if you do get a crisis again you dont have to worry about people not getting their social