Good afternoon from washington washington it is 12, noon eastern on cspan2 book tv. And once a month, we spent three hours in depth with an within author and this month our guest was scheduled to be steve forbes who this morning you might have heard was on a train en route from new york to savanna georgia when a derailment took place just south of philadelphia. He is safe and now en route back to new york city and joining us live on the phone. Thank you for being with us. Good to be with you. What a morning you have had. Explain what happened. Outside of philadelphia the train was moving along and then it made a sudden jerk like it was going to make an abrupt stop. It wasnt a normal slowdown you have when you come around the curve. Then it moved a little bit and another stop. Then it came to a complete stop and there was smoke and it felt like the brakes were smoldering so we just sat there wondering what had happened. The electricity was knocked out so there was no system. So the rumors started to fly but after about 20, 25 minutes one of the crew came back and then started to explain what happened. But the first two cars were hit pretty badly. But we were fortunate we are in the paper in the last part of the train so we felt the impact obviously that didnt get a smashup of the first two cars where it was explained the explained by some attractive reducing maintenance and an between maintenance and an investigation will have to be had why was it going on when a passenger train was coming back on the track and the engineer was trying to slow down but one of the things you are taught at an early age in science is when an object like a train is moving ep miles an hour it takes a long time for it to come to a halt. It happened about 8 00 eastern in pennsylvania. This is a debate tournament at around the same area and other derailment took place just outside of philadelphia. It was and the question why theres a maintenance problem was a maintenance problem and a communications problem. But we will certainly try to get to the bottom of this thing but the most disconcerting thing is there were no injuries in our car but not knowing what had happened. When something happens the captain comes on and says something has happened or dont worry we are going to be all right. But we know you dont come to that kind of an abrupt stop without an emergency not knowing what it was. And as the time passed and they took care of the injuries in the first two cars with they came back and were not off the train. They admonished us at the beginning dont leave the train because there are two live tracks on either side so dont leave until we see that its safe to do so. We eventually made our way off and went through for the path of the woods and came to this church and the United Methodist church they had a large gymnasium so theres plenty of room over about 350 people overall. So that was a good place to make our way but by tomorrow morning as you say spin again we have to thank you i know youve been in touch training every effort to make it for the conversation and everything that has happened to you this morning we wanted to make sure that your first safe and desist from new york to savanna georgia the passengers on board 31 injuries according to amtrak none of the injuries hospitalized with lifethreatening if we did intend to talk to you about this but as someone that travels what does this tell you about the state of the infrastructure and for the next president might need to do when it comes to the roads, bridges and the rail . One of the things looking at the larger picture is figuring out how to get more of the Publicprivate Partnership because when you have a Government Agency the maintenance tends to not get the priority that it should. With airlines you occasionally have access but they are very uptodate on maintenance and theres no problem in terms of availability of aircraft. You may not like the seating arrangements but they are kept up to speed. The same thing in the freight trains. We have to make sure that the unglamorous things like maintenance which isnt like the same thing that happened in newbridge basic maintenance is given a high priority because thats where the bad stuff happens. So the private Public Partnership just not private mobilized money with private capital with a little bit of imagination can be brought in and the only way that you will finance a lot of this. Governments dont have a lot of money these days especially with their pension and health obligation so we have to come up with new ways to get the infrastructure in shape. It can be done but then you also have to Pay Attention to the glamorous thing that glamorous thing known as maintenance. Host we have been monitoring the development that you were a part of. Final question i want to go back to the fact it took 20 minutes for you to be notified by amtrak officials of exactly what was happening. Just describe what was going through your mind into those fellow passengers as we watched outside of philadelphia. Since they didnt know what had happened we didnt know a couple passengers that were veterans of amtrak were wondering if the brake system had gone wrong or Something Like that. There was no panic and when the officials came back they were relieved because a couple of cars there was panic when you got closer to where the hits took place but it was just waiting and waiting and wondering when they were going to tell us what happened. But we all knew, dont beat the train. We didnt have to be told that. We are going to show the audience from politics and prose the book called money give us a quick primer on what this book is about the latest in the series youve written about the economy and the u. S. Dollar. The book that you made reference to it so the subject that isnt very glamorous but absolutely critical in this country are the Monetary Systems and what the book was designed to do was to explain many very straightforward way theres a lot of mystery of a language that surrounds it but its very basic it is like a claim check. It has no Intrinsic Value but its the claim on a certain product on the products and services it depends on trust and stability. We made a series of catastrophic errors which led to the housing debacle. Theres a lot of contributors to the dollar was critical to it and when its gotten stronger its like a watch is either too fast or too slow so we argue from the book the have to undergo drastic transformation. What what weve done in recent years has been a disaster and its hurt the investment. Its like a watch that matches the number of minutes in our changing each day. We all know they would be chaotic. We have to figure out is that nominal, inflationadjusted, new york minute, dc minute. We know in terms of things like the number of minutes to an hour having that instability would be crazy. But thats what we do with money. We know we need 12 inches in the foot. But since the destroyed the towards International Monetary system we have had nothing but problems. The 80s and 90s have a little bit of stability, not great enough to get some prosperity that in the last 50 years this started eight years this started under the republican administration. The volatility continued under the Obama Administration in the Democratic Administration so this isnt a partisan thing. Theres plenty of blame to go around. We have to get that back again. We explained very simple ways to do it. Starting with the Federal Reserve to start reducing its oversight portfolio and lots more money money go into the Banking System to explain how the entities of the economy that are hurt by this are small and new businesses. The job creators no problem problem, for the government, no problem getting credit. But the guts of the economy are very difficult and that has been very damaging so we explained this in the book providing america we also have a section as well. A lot to talk about when they get you back we get you back here to talk about your books. The one question i was going to Ask Donald Trump in the interview that is in this mornings front page calling for what he said would be a potential economic collapse in the catastrophic collapse of wall street looming ahead do you agree or disagree in that scenario into those concerns by donald trump backs you never rule out anything these days. But i dont think think that barring a disaster overseas there will be real problems. I dont think that we would have this recession. What we are stuck in as the second tier then its followed by the disappointing report so its like a patient you feel pretty pumped about it and thats where we are now were about to begin the baseball season hitting 350 and instead we are heading to 50 just cant seem to get out of the rut. Thats where we see the evidence in the political system today. The panic was a downturn disaster but since the early 2,000 we should have made a quick recovery but we havent and people feel we are in the slowmotion decline and thats what has people worried even when things start to get a little better but not at the peace we had in the past. Thats led to a lot of anxiety and worry and frustration which is now expressed in both parties with donald trump on the republican side and Bernie Sanders on the democratic side. Steve forbes on board that train 89 en route from new york city to washington, d. C. He is safely heading back to new york city and they will reschedule. Thank you for being with us. Safe journey back and we look forward to another time on cspan. Thank you. We want to continue with our coverage on and eventually covered politics an event we covered politics and prose and again the book is titled money how the destruction of the dollar threatens the Global Economy and what we can do about it. We are privileged to have a recognizable figure in the media and the business world. He is the editorinchief of Forbes Magazine the nations leading business magazine and he has headed the Media Company that includes not only asian and european editions that the number of Web Properties focused on politics, sports and financial market. Many of you will also remember his spirited campaigns for campaign for the republican president ial nomination in 1996 and in 2,000 during which he promoted the idea of among other things a flat tax along with a new Social Security system, medical savings account, term limits and a Strong National defense. This evening, steve comes to us as an author which isnt a new role for him. Hes shes written five previous books. His latest one money how the destruction of the dollars in the Global Economy and what we can do about it is every bit as emphatic. Anyone familiar with his freemarket libertarian views will not be surprised to read his criticisms of the Central Banks and existing Monetary Policy with the fed winding down its quantitative easing he sees an opportune moment to rethink our Monetary System and ensure a sound and Stable Currency by returning to the Gold Standard. He writes in the book freeing up the dollars from gold was supposed to make the United States stronger but instead it has made the country weaker. Something has to be done. Ladies and gentlemen come up here to explain what needs to be done along with his co blogger who is a communications if it is steve forbes. [applause] thank you very much for coming out. As brad indicated the book is about money, Monetary Policy command of money particularly the Monetary Policy is one of those topics that seems to intimidate a lot of people for some strange reason and as a result, the Federal Reserve for example has less formal oversight from capitol hill in congress then do our intelligence agencies. And the thesis of the book is that the topic of money is very straightforward and simple even though it is shrouded in a lot of thought e. Creations, the idea is very basic. Weve gotten away from it and our policymakers today know less about money Monetary Policy than they did a hundred years ago and since the early 1970s even though we had the booming decades in the 80s and 90s overall, the growth rate since we went off off brendan woods system in to print in one system and the Gold Standard in 1971, the u. S. Average growth rates are less than they were before 1971. If we maintain the rate that we had from 1971 if we maintain the rates after 1971 on average, the u. S. Economy today would with the 50 larger than it is now. 40 years compounding and effect reverse compounding adds up to a lot. Savor for a moment having 50 higher incomes what wouldve would it mean for the deficit what would it mean for Social Security and what it wouldve been would mean for a lot of the social divisions today, this thing over time adds up. This is why it takes the families to do with the generations and taxes are a large part of it but the dollar since the early 70s as a critical part of it as well. When this happens and you dont have a Stable Currency, you end up with people not getting ahead of the way they should end the incomes are and the incomes are growing the way they should end up and bleeding as my coauthor will discuss in a few minutes the social fabric and social trust and more divisions in this set is a process that is not one in a million will be able to diagnose. Thats why we wrote the book. Since the Monetary Policy doesnt usually get the heart beating in the way that some of the reality shows to come i will begin by just giving you an advanced reward and that is to give you a travel tip if you ever find yourself in an airplane and coach on the runway watching your life pass away and he was a little bit of elbow room, starts talking about Monetary Policy. [laughter] as a result of the chaos that we have had since the 1970s, the Federal Reserve has got enough in terms of more and more power. But the more power it gets, the worse we are. You take the quantitative easing which i will discuss in a moment even though they are teetering which is a good thing that ended up contracting rather than stimulating the economy. In terms of money its very basic. It makes transactions, buying and selling such as how we prove our standard of living and how we exist it makes it much easier. In the old days we had the barter which was inefficient so how would i get paid . Perhaps with a herd of goats. Im being a little facetious but lets say i wanted to buy ipods for the writers so we went to the apple store and they say i dont want want to go buy one cheap so i have to figure out how to swap them for cheap and maybe have to hire a sheepherder because the sheepherder you dont want the wolves to keep the sheep. I had red wine and he wants white wine and it becomes efficient. Imagine if we still have it today imagine trying to deposit it just becomes very inefficient. So in essence, what it does most of the time it doesnt have Intrinsic Value unless you have gold coins and the like but it makes transactions easier and in that sense it measures value. Thats all it does delay scales measure weight and rulers measure length, money measures value. So because it represents value and it makes transactions easier in that sense it is a form of communications. It lets you know the information to do the billions of transactions we do around the world each and every day. So in and of itself isnt qualified it represents a claim on products and services. Think of it as you would a coat check. They have no Intrinsic Value. But it represents a claim on the coat so it represents the products and services that have already been produced. So if you we stimulate the economy would be like saying if we create more coat checks that will stimulate the production of more coats. No, it does not. It is a claim that represents the claim on a product or service of money. So it works best when it has a fixed value. Imagine what the world would be like, your daily life would be like if the Federal Reserve did what it does to the dollar imagine floating the clock so you have 60 minutes now and monday 48 minutes the next, 22 minutes the next that sued to have the hedges to figure out how many hours you are working each day but say youre baking a cake. You have to figure out is that inflationadjusted minutes, well minutes . It makes it much more difficult. Imagine what would happen if they change the number of inches in a foot you are building a bridge into some of you learned that instead of 12 inches it is now 10 inches. It makes things much more chaotic. So it works best when it has a fixed value and then the question becomes what is the best way to do it and even though it is out of fashion still in the economics profession the way that it worked in this country for the first 180 days of existence is you fix it to gold. You dont have to coated nelson gold. The british with the goal standard with very little amounts of gold but they knew what they were doing and responded to the marketplace and that works through world war i but the fact 1 mile has 5,280 feet does not restrict the miles of highway that you build so to give you one little factoid to show how brilliant you are from the time of our existence of the revolutionary war would reread Small Agricultural nation, whether through a tender the population increased 25 fold to the biggest and distribution of the world. The immelt only when it 3point fivefold even though the dollar was fixed so golden just make sure the value is fixed it does not restrict supply would you have a stagnant economy it is very,