Chairman of the American Enterprise institute or trustees. Its my pleasure to welcome you to aeis irving urban kristol e summit, featuring renowned scholar nicholas eberstadt. Nick holds the chair and political economy at aei. Nick is being honored with this years Irving Kristol award and is simply put one of aeis and americas great intellectuals. At this moment in our nations history, his work and his lecture today will point the way forward for our country and offer a vision for how to revitalize our nation and oppose pandemic world. His scholarship and that all of aei scholars has served to help americas leaders navigate our nations the story challenges throughout the course of this year. Although many challenges still lie ahead, aei is wellpositioned to meet these headon by supplying the visionary thinking and actionable policy solutions that our nation needs. Aeis college will promote free people and free markets, increased economic and social mobility, revitalize constitutional order, bolster american civil life and promote americas leadership in the world. On behalf of all of us at aei, thank you for your support that makes our vital work possible. In the spirit of Irving Kristol, who loved his country and believe in the power of ideas, i know that together we can build an even stronger, more resilient, and more prosperous america for our generation and for those two. Two,. Thank thank you, dan. Good afternoon, everyone. Im robert doar, speaking to the life aei headquarters in washington, d. C. Here on behalf of the entire aei Community Welcome to our annual Irving Kristol award lecture here we would like to thank all of our generous friends who supported this years event including the chevron corporation, exxon mobil, Liberty Mutual and the Peter G Peterson foundation. All of us at aei could not be happier to honor our dear friend and esteemed colleague, dr. Nicholas eberstadt. In the four decades he first came to us he and aei have grown together in so many ways. Since 1985 nick has nick has influenced and shaped the institutes work and today the humanity of his work stand as great reflection of our most dearly held values. The Irving Kristol what is the highest honor given i aei renamed we need the support and honor of Irving Kristol because he believed in the endurance of American Values and intentional Eventual Success of the american experiment. Irving wasnt in knoxville anchor of the conservative community. He advised president s and he meant toward the generation of young conservatives. He was also an optimist who defended the ideas that are at the heart of aei. Irving was steadfast in his convictions that would circulate a few hundred you could change the world. Today, our values are under attack. That is true, but like irving i am an optimist who believes that aeis ideas provide a really bad for a confident, humane and flourishing america. These ideas will not only indoor, they will prevail. And when reason for my confidence is todays honoree. Since joining aei, nick has been one of her most productive and influential scholars. He has changed how we think about issues as diverse as poverty, world hunger, global health, security challenges of the korean peninsula. Nick has been here so long it sometimes feels like hes been her his entire life, but thats not true, and i have proof. Here in the upper lefthand corner is a young nick line up with this Football Team at the Buckley School in new york. I dont know about all of you but it gives me some joy to know that before nick turned his attention to the great issues of our time, he spent a little time on the gridiron blocking and tackling and maybe even throwing a forward pass. And here looking especially dashing his next senior picture. The records tell us nick was, not surprisingly, Student Council president , president of the Economics Club and the winner of the highest award in german and history. Sadly, he didnt continue his football exploits. Nick is a scholar with a moral compass. Hes a demographer who never forgot. Demography is not the studied human population. Its the study of human people and that is been the driving force of his careers worker over the years nick has had little time for those who dismissed the innate human inclinations of freedom. Instead he has defended both academic and moral clarity, the american experiment most cherished values. In his work, he is a deeply in the 1990s nick became a strong critic of chinas one child policy. That only because he felt it was bad for chinas economy and politics because it was morally wrong. This speaks to a deeper courage that underlines all of his work. Nick is there been afraid to defy convention was in. If the was into particular conclusion, nick is that no challenge to great, no fight too daunting. His intellectual rigor example feiss very best qualities of our institute. Nick has always said that people are our greatest assets. And if thats true, then Nick Eberstadt is aeis greatest asset. Hes an ideal colleague, gracious and understanding. Nick is also an extraordinary mentor. He has cultivated an entire generation of scholars to carry on our important work. In that tradition following next lecture we will be having a Panel Discussion on new volume edited by yuval event that compiles vice to the next president ial administration through several of our scholars. Nick is written a a chapter ine book with the title restoring americas promise. As many of you know, weve often given this award to Prime Ministers, Supreme Court justices, spiritual leaders as well as public intellectuals. And from time to time we are lucky to be able to recognize what uppermost exceptional scholars. So this is the part of the program where im supposed to pop out my chest and Say Something about how proud i am to present the Irving Kristol award to nick. But i have a better idea. Much better idea. Lets let the people who worked the closest with nick over the years do the honors. The American Enterprise institute has honored itself and its ideals by presenting the Irving Kristol award can nicholas eberstadt. Nick is joining and aei pantheon that includes Ronald Reagan, bernard lewis, thomas soul, michael novak, gene patrick, antonin scalia, charles murray, clarence thomas, and many other great thinkers and doers. And, of course, a Irving Kristol himself, a friend and mentor to nick whose brilliant insights into american politics and society shine brighter with every passing year. I couldnt be happier that Nick Eberstadt is the honoree at this years Irving Kristol lecture. He is so deserving of the honor and epitomizes everything that is wonderful about aei. Everything and learn from Nick Eberstadt is so eye opening. Everything from the roots of american poverty to Foreign Policy. He is one of the most original thinkers ive ever seen and met. Nicks work helped ignite the National Conversation from the state of the labor force in america. Nick called attention to the impact of our failing culture on the welfare of working age man. Nick is a scholars scholar, erudite but not pandemic, groundbreaking a deep and always, never boring. And like all great Public Policy work, his writing put it to the promised a better system, one that recognizes and rewards the dignity and longterm benefits of earned income. Nick eberstadt is a numbers guy with a moral compass. As he is written, demography is the study of human numbers but it is the human characteristics of those numbers that define world against. Honestly, its a little unfair that god granted a world demographer and north korea expert, a pop a skull and an intellectual renaissance men into the same body. And most importantly, nick is aa family man in the best way. He adores his beautiful wife, his wonderful kids. He loves and cares for his aei family as his own and is, to put it as irving might put it, i mentioned. A minch. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 2020 Irving KristolAward RecipientNick Eberstadt. Thank you, robert is on honor is also a sentimental pleasure. At aei im what you might call a lifer. Still enjoying extraordinary privilege of serving here 35 years and counting. My debts of affection and gratitude to irving himself are immense. Not least, i might not admit mrs. Eberstadt if yet not harder at the Public Interest magazine. Mary and i are just two of the legion aspiring young writers irving went out of his way to encourage over his long life. Like his remarkable wife, Irving Kristol is an unforgettable inspiration. I only wish everyone listening could have known them. Aei kristol lectures like the boyer lectures that preceded them, wrestle with weighty issues of the day. But its fair to say no one could have anticipated last year when this prize was awarded, the path on which we now find her sales. So todays lecture could hardly avoid addressing our Current Crisis. Two very different paths for america live before us at the end of the covid pandemic. One is to the future of stagnation and division. The other is to a future of revitalization and hope. And the choice is ours to make. I am going to argue we can grasp the future that includes National Unity and progress for all. It is entirely doable. We already pretty much know how. We just have two want it, and to not lose heart. My message is directed specialty of americans, those of you who dont really remember our country for the Great Recession, before 9 11, before the spread of the new misery. You will be the ones in charge of the american experiment tomorrow, the ones who will have to do most of the heavy lifting in revitalizing our nation. Like your fairbairn forbears, you will learn firsthand americas amazing capacity to mend its flaws and prove and advance. We have record of doing this again and again and again. For almost 250 years, your country, your fellow citizens are worthy of the unalloyed devotion, deserve it actually took some day you will be able to tell your children why the american future is always worth the struggle. Now my lecture. America is in the midst of its greatest crisis since the second world war. The Novel Coronavirus is a pathogen with which humanity has no previous experience. When we will create a safe and effective vaccine and how many ways of contagion will roll through our country before covid subsides are at present unanswerable questions. Under the pressure of the pandemic, fault lines in our have been painfully exposed. We endured not only a socioeconomic emergency, but an explosion of anger and radicalized violence in our streets. These troubles have historical roots, problems long festering and long ignored. Washington has responded to the pandemic with an unprecedented peacetime mobilization with national resources. Congress has authorized trillions of dollars in spending to support distressed businesses and households, and the Federal Reserve system has committed trillions of more, with no no d get inside. In relation to national income, todays state outlays for the covid prices are comparable to our peak defense effort in world war ii. Just as in the second world war, we are now embarked upon an enormous expansion of government reach and public debt. Eventually we will achieve our National Objective in the struggle against covid19. Victory in world war ii was followed by Rapid Military demobilization and wholesale dismantling of wartime economic controls. The what of the postpandemic e . How will we demobilize the super welfare state hastily thrown together to pop up shaky businesses and cover shortfalls in personal income . How will we renew Economic Growth so we might, among other things, cope with our vastly increase public debt . If we simply muddle through, were likely to model into a nightmare, an american future defined by a new socio corporate welfare state, a stagnant politicized economy, and deep Financial Dependence upon officialdom, both elected and otherwise. In such a future, democracy would be degraded, freedoms lost, the visions inflamed, tomorrows promise squandered. Where we could settle for such a future, we would be the americans who chose against exceptionalism. We decided that thing just another sluggish, demoralized social democracy was good enough for us and for posterity. To steer away from this grave danger, we need a very different vision of the future. Such a vision for the course positive, rapid and orderly build down from war style mobilization by the u. S. Government and its central bank. But several restoring the precovid status quo antiis not a heal many of us would be willing to die on. That was a world where the American Dream was already faltering, where too many americans, especially younger americans, were mired in a previously unfamiliar new misery. As we look beyond covid we have the opportunity to repair americas prepandemic flaws. We should be seeking a social and economic revitalization of our nation, a bold and thorough overhaul of our public and private ways to spark a dynamic upswing and progress for everyone. The vision, the design, should be prosperity for all. This can be done and a revitalized america is a prize worth fighting for. Lets start with the longrun implications of the Current Crisis. The bad news is that the pandemic has made the task of revitalizing our nation more difficult. But the good news is, it has also made the need for such revitalization more difficult to ignore. To prevent collapse of the u. S. Economy and Financial System during the nationwide covid lockdown, washington unleashed a tidal wave of public resources. With the economy in free fall, the impulse to act urgently and go big was surely the right call. Yet, urgency also meant that the single largest state surge in American History was necessarily improvised. Characterized not only by intended consequences, but unintended, unconsidered ones. Government transfer now account for much more of the American Family budget than ever before, and will continue to for an indefinite duration. Since all the covid stimulus is deficit spending, public debt is soaring. To what heights is still anyones guess. We will certainly exceed world war ii debt ratios soon, and additional rounds of covid driven deficit spending may still lie in store. The Congressional Budget Office just projected that the federal debt would be almost twice the size of u. S. Economy by 2050. 2050. 2. 5 times the prepandemic ratio. Apart from japan, virtually no country on earth grapples with such a debt burden today. More on japan in the moment. However, the full dimensions of the governments new role in u. S. Economic life were not revealed by the numbers alone. For those overlooked the colossal budget item, important not only in 92 but in nature. At the behest of congress and the treasury department, our Federal Reserve system has crossed the rubicon. With its new pandemic rescue mandates, the fed readies to the role of managing and even micromanaging the American Economy through credit allocation, potentially lending vast sums that on to Financial Institutions but also directly to firms that judge suitable for government support. The fed already dominates the market for u. S. U. S. Treasury t and mortgage debt as result of previous, lesser crises. Its by no means inconceivable that the Current Crisis will propel it to comparably dominant position in domestic commercial credit. These dramatic transformations of our economy, remember, are the intended consequences of our pandemic measures, but a host of unintended consequences are also embedded in these policies. They pose direct risks to American Freedom and prosperity the longer the measures remain in force. Consider the special 600 a week pandemic Unemployment Benefits. These came on top of existing Unemployment Benefits, regardless of ones wealth or income. The year before the crisis, about a third of all jobs in the u. S. Were paying less than that 600 a week. When added to regular Unemployment Benefits, this push payments for the jobless above the median wage level in 36 of the 50 states. Welcome to a will be gone job market which all men and women can get an above average salary, so long as they do not work. One study estimated spending my pandemic and the public recipients was 10 higher after the onset of the crisis than before. Pandemic benefits, in other words, could be a jackpot and you can actually have to be unemployed to take the bonus home. In september 2020, about 12 million americans were looking for work, but over twice that number were collecting some form of une