Blown away by the fantastic talk that there was on sustainability. Thank you, again, for that wonderful tour deforce of the imperative for sustainability in our future. Allow me to recognize and thank our sponsors for their support and commission for the council. And i want to thank lockheed martin. Pepsico, snapon, deloitte, air chairman sponsors asu, university of california san diego, as well as our benefactors and patrons, hntv, michigan state, university of michigan. Verizon, Marquette University and white cap investment. Without this we could not do the forum and we thank you very very much for that. Well, we have a full day of very exciting talks, as well as the release of some of the critical annual policy work at the counsel of competitiveness. Calling for our clarion call that we will release shortly and i want to really just frame that in a few overarching facts about the good and bad of our economy right now. The good news, of course, is that gdp growth over the past two quarters has been very strong while productivity was flat through most of the year, its rebounded recently and unemployment is low. In fact, the lowest level since 2000. We know that consumers and investors are optimistic and inflation remains game. We are seeing action on longterm Council Priorities such as reducing the Corporate Tax rate and implementing a territorial tax system to repatriate the offshore earnings of american corporations as well as a much more balanced friendly commitment to regulatory reform. The fed just recently raised its expectation for growth this year and next year, on the economy, expecting us to be about 2. 5 . Not at the level that tim says that we need to be at 3. 5, but nonetheless, thats great, great news and of course, unemployment is expected to continue to drop and we hope to see some gains in wages. But, of course, we know in competitiveness that theres not a Silver Bullet and this is an eco system and theres still a myriad set of challenges facing the country. As we say, they continually increasing growing deficit, and ensuring the ability of our middle class families and ensuring that the crown jewel of our Higher Education systems does not have an unfortunate impact coming out of this new tax legislation and very importantly, we want to work very hard as this u. S. Investment in our r and d, particularly, our basic research, continues to decline. At todays form forum well look at competitive prosperity and youll hear from the board about the state of our agenda about the clarion call and we will look into the future. Were excited well hear from the ceo and chairman of deloit on the latest report of the Councils Partnership with deloit on counsel of technology and advanced manufacturing. We will have a discussion about the director of the National Science foundation and two University President s on the work coming out on exploring frontiers that laid the groundwork for commission on frontier that we will release later today. We know, of course, that energy and manufacturing are inextricably linked and well look at deep dives of our economy and bring the forefront the challenges of educating our work force as we discuss energy and manufacturing throughout the day. I think all of you are going to love our luncheon talk by the are to of body builders and that will be substantive and entertaining. This afternoon we are going to have a series of mini talks taking a look at disruptive frontiers, eight automation, Cyber Attacks and the rise of the robots and what that means for american workers. So i want to thank all of you for coming and supporting the council on competitiveness. I want to thank our tremendous leadership, our chairman, sam allen, our vicechairman, the global advice chair of pepsico or for university. Dr. Michael crowe, as well as the members of the executive committee and of course, the great staff of the council on competitiveness. With that i would like to invite the board and the executive committee to come to the stage for the formal release of the clarion call for competitiveness. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] welcome, everybody, im larry webber and im going to moderate this panel this morning and welcome them all. I understood there was an introduction that i was not in charge of, but we will go away from that. I think im the second longest member of the council and i have to tell you, in almost 30 years that ive been here, the work on competitiveness probably could not be more important. The kind of challenges that were facing and in almost every aspect of our leadership on a global basis are being tried every day. Today, we have obviously debra, we have sam allen, mike crowe from Arizona State university and from pepsi. I wanted to start with the first category of tax since when i woke up this morning at the hotel that seemed to be on the cover of every or the front of every newspaper and also was in my smartphone. And maybe, sam, ill start with you. One of the biggest, at least benefactors of what the tax reform is, is Corporate Tax going down to 21 . I guess, the question is, one, how do you see that as, you know, a ceo and chairman of one of our major corporations in the globe and how is that going to help you . And second, how do you think it could hurt, maybe, you know, in our competitiveness and in any way, and will it actually create more jobs or more innovation and competitiveness in our country . Well, thats the 100 question right now. Its interesting. This week ive been out with our investors all over both coasts, and thats one of the first questions everybody asks and we start out by saying, well, the devil is in the details, however they end up writing it. What it its not, maybe, from our perspective, you know, our tax rate today is roughly 34 , normally what we pay, about 55 of our earnings come from the u. S. So, if the rate does go down to 21 , our effective tax rate will probably go to 26, 27 in total. And people have a tendency to lose sight at most multinational companies, its not going to go down to 21 , it doesnt have earnings coming from other parts of the world. But certainly will, if what everybody is writing, if it ends up being something similar to that, the analysis weve done, first and foremost, for our customers and our dealers will be very, very, very positive. And thats even more important than it is for us, quite frankly, if they do well, then well do well as well. The theres no doubt it will be stimulative. Ive read all kinds of things from economists, it will add to gdp 50 basis points plus, im in the camp it will add 50 basis points plus to gdp, but feathered in probably it wont happen the first year because there are other parts, provisions to it that in your first year are negative from the company standpoint. The company like ours immediately if the tax rate goes down. Youve got to go in and all of your provisions for tax losses that youve had, youve got to restate those, they were at 37 and now youve got to right them back down. There are other sides to this that will have an impact, but in my opinion, if this does go through, it will be very system stimulative over a long period of time and yes, it will help with competitiveness. But i think the stimulative part to the economy is even more important than the competitiveness part, that it may help a company like ours. I tried to get through the 500 pages about you they just delivered it, you know, yesterday to everyone. But one of the areas that doesnt look so promising, mike, is Higher Education. And the way that the tax reform seems to be looking at restrictions and things, thoughts from you and your colleagues on that . Well, first, the tax reform is positive, it needs to be constructive and it needs to think about the entire productivity of the country, but at the same time. Whats happened, many members of congress have become frustrated with universities for lots of Different Reasons and so, theyre, in my view, eking out punishments that no joke, that the proposed now apparently off the table, but the taxation of tuition benefits to graduate students, a taxation of certain endowments which is on the table and the change of overall status of the universities themselves. Viewing the universities as problematic is all a sign of the fact that i think theres two things that are going on. One, theres concern about the responsiveness to the universities to the bigger advancement issues of the United States itself and theres some that are concerned that were not doing what we need to be doing. Theres others that unfortunately are using tax policy to send signals about what they basically their view of the culture wars that are going on and so, you take those two things together and its not well thought out tax design related to helping the university to do what the University Needs more, which is contribute to the most fantastic Human Capital production that the world has ever seen. Like i talked about last night. As well as knowledge capital enhancement and production. Universitying need to also think rethinking the way were communicating what were doing and communicating to the general population what the universities are all about and what were working towards or were going to have this continuing, ongoing argument where tax policy. Student loan policy. Regulatory policy. Structural policy. Governance policy are all going to be shaped by politicians, many of whom are unhappy. Right now, what we need is, the Business Community and other communities to also speak out for what they think the university should be doing and the tax status of the university being largely not taxed entities, has been a critical success variable in them being able to achieve the levels of success weve been able to receive. If the university is just another tax entity, thats a completely different kind of thing and were moving in that direction and we immediate to be very careful about that. Couldnt agree more. You know, last year the council did a longterm study on productivity and id like to ask you to look at where we might be headed in the direction of productivity in the United States and because the council had a longterm decline. Where do you think that will end and what are the sort of levers that we need to look at to get productivity back, moving in the right direction . Look, as we talked last year, and as weve written, productivity, as you say, has been declining to flat now since 2008, 2007, so several years. Excuse me. Now, there is some encouraging data and that is the last quarter, so were trying to see for the first time an increase in productivity. However, the question is is that a blip or is that sustained . And the reality of it is that overall, the trends, as you pointed out. Have been very, very either depressed or negative. What is pepsi doing about their productivity . Look it, were doing what all of their large corporations, were looking at the most efficient way of deploying our capital. The most efficient way of using our labor force, what isnt sort of generally discussed as much as it should be is with productivity and automation and Everything Else that were doing is that it is improving the efforts of our industries, but were not replacing those jobs with new jobs. And so i think more important from my mind is not just productivity, is what types of jobs, and i touched on this last night, are we going to create and invest behind and educate people in order to have a work force thats engaged and the biggest worry over the decades to come is the mismatch between the jobs were creating and the skillset of the work force thats available. That gap is widening. This is the central issue, so, productivity in certain sectors is accelerating at the fastest rate ever. The actual people who are working and developing and so forth, unable to reenter the work force, its accelerating and part of the response to the universities themselves. We havent adjusted also to look at this problem on a different scale. But, if i can just build on that point. Sure. As an employer, you know, people ask me what keeps you up at night. I tell you what keeps me up at night. And the chief technology officer, the. An age of an american with the training in science and engineering and mathematics working in any industry in this country is now over the age of 50. So the next decade half of that work force of the entire countrys work force will anticipate retiring. Theres no where near enough students that are going to full that pipeline that are coming out of institutions like mine that were going to be able to hire. So the time period its taking to fill a position, actually i look back at my last ten years at pepsico is longer and longer and longer. Productivity cant continue if we cant fill that work force. So we have not only a mismatch, but we have a diminishing pipeline of talent. And in particular, in fields that take a long time to train people in. You cant train a scientist or an engineer or a mathematician in any of these fields overnight. So, somehow the discussion thats going on has got to take into account what are we going to invest behind institutions. I dont train scientists, i dont train engineers, i dont train mathematicians, the universities do. I pick them up from there and weve got a mismatch. And we use today supply them from outside of United States and that is drying, what are we going to do. And a tangent, ill go to you, debra, and science and technology disruption, now computing have been topics of deep interest and obviously, impact productivity, education, everything. Were also seeing at least in my opinion, the recapitalization of the economy where youve got five companies basically worth four and a half trillion dollars. Apple, google, facebook and wondering, you know, where is our leadership right now in science and technology . And where does it need to go . And were seeing all of these, you know, words like artificial intelligence, machine learning, which, by the way, mit had the ai lab started in 1981, but, so, you know, maybe you could give a frame a little about that and then the rest of the panel, sam, i know you guys just bought quite a large ai company and how you see that from a competitiveness point of view. And in general, science and technology education, productivity, and disruption as we move into the next five to ten years . Thank you, larry, well, you know, when the council was formed 30 years ago, the whole issues around u. S. Technological leadership were one of the driving forces of the creation of this organization and weve always made the case that our nation has to invest in the forefront of knowledge creation and deploy the technology to the future in our companies that can compete globally. So, we have been very concerned and this is reflected in the clarion call with in longterm decline in our federal investment in basic research and research and development as a percentage of gdp, it continues to decline. Other nations are surpassing us, japan, korea, a percentage of gdp. Now, we still, as a country, perform about a third of all Global Research, but china is on a track very soon to surpass us on that. So, the investment matters. And the investment matters because through the National Science foundation, through the department of energy, through the department of defense, our universities and our National Labs companies actually come together in these strategic partnerships. Thats one of our real core advantages, visavis the rest of the world and others continue to come and really want to understand how we can have that eco system that moves so quickly, now, the companies you mentioned na are at the top of the s p, they were enabled by huge investments since world war ii in electronics, in the microproce microprocess, that enabled the googles and amazon and facebook to create what they have. Looking to the future, what our chief Technology Officers do, we are really working hard at the counsel and in the country to really focus on how all of these science and Technology Frontiers come together in multidisciplinary ways. And i think well hear when we release our report on exponential technologies, the digital, biotechs, nanoteches coming together and colliding and i think these are really going to be the drivers of productive in our standard of living. But back to our earlier conversation, we have to invest in the people. Without the people to drive this, we will be the ones who do a lot of the core initial research, but other countries in the world will capitalize on it and create the jobs and the wealth for their country. So, this is a big challenge and a great opportunity for our country. Sam, some thoughts . I guess ive been on the line, ive put it in a couple of different categories, first i can tell you from our standpoint, the next five, ten years, next five years, some of the innovations that are coming in are just phenomenal and whether it be in artificial intelligence, augmented learning, whatever you want to call it. The digitization, theres tremendous, tremendous productivity improvements. I agree with everyone that the issue that we have today, everybody has today, is attracting the human talent and its just going to get worse. But as a company, youll find a way to attract the talent to work on whatever it is youre working on to derive value for your company. Free market enterprise will allow that to happen. One that you dont do, you dont fund the basic research and thats the concerning part from my perspective. Companies will find a way to get the people they need to do what theyre doing, but the basic research that creates the platform upon which all of us build are thats where the funding, again, needs to be invested in so that the country itself can stay very, very competitive and you know, if you had a if you only have so much water in a bucket and if you have to say how are you going to divide the water up between companies and free market enterprise, universities, and basic resear research, i would be putting a lot of that water in the basic Research Category, whether it is at universities or whether it is in other areas like the labs. Thats the platform that lets all of us and grow upon it. And well find a way to get what we need, but we don