We have still one more item to cover as we wrap up and Terry and myself and several of the of the Genomic Medicine Working Group have been trying to capture some of the major themes that we Highlighted today, and I'm gonna turn the floor over to Terry a dangerous thing to do But we are we promise to end on time. That's the that's my promise to you And I only have 30 slides so it shouldn't be that bad So so what we've tried to do is capture Sort of some you know key points that came up These are not you know the most important points necessarily whatever but things that sort of you know sparked us to think Oh, this might be something we could build on or something We should keep in mind as we you know go through tonight and into tomorrow in the breakout groups and elsewhere and Very much are hoping for you to help us refine these We'll be sending these out to everyone along with a list of Sort of your assignments for the breakout groups and a roster that has everybody's contact information in it So read a chamber should be emailing that to you momentarily But we thought we would just try putting this together Just just to kind of run through and and after it in parentheses are listed the places where we heard those Comments or at least we think we did and and if that's wrong, you know At least at least the folks who were giving those presentations might know that there was something that you said that prompted us to put this up so so at any rate there there was some some Interesting suggestions about the possibility of accessing Anonymized or de-identified however you want to define it electronic medical records in some kind of a general database And we heard that not only from the UK But also from Estonia And I think there there may be some other places that are trying to do that So we probably didn't catch them all but that would be something obviously, you know Very useful models to be shared across countries for how you can do that within your country And then of course there is always the issue of how do you share data in those databases across countries? And that's one that we'll struggle with a bit We heard about a bake-off or comparison projects on both sequencing and annotation pipelines That the UK is taking lead on which is actually just doing which is which is wonderful And it would be neat if that could be a lead for others so that we could you know learn from it build upon it Etc and ways that we might be able to do that or things we perhaps we can talk about over a beer or other ways We heard some interesting models in terms of approaches to genotyping so in some places the UK and Belgium in particular It sounded like specialized genotyping centers were being established and used I know that that's that's a model I think that Canada uses as well In Singapore we heard that the genotyping would be deployed across the existing framework and in France It sounded like it was a bit of a hybrid model where where they were there were some that were dedicated centers But they were within an existing framework So again different kinds of models for approaching this but an interesting Model that we have not used in the US in terms of having dedicated Genotyping centers for clinical care. We we have obviously Competitions for funding genotyping centers in the research realm, but we haven't done that in clinical care And we may want to talk a little bit about You know that the pros and cons of those models and where that's appropriate and where perhaps not We've talked over and over about the critical importance of depositing data in ways that make it available to others Recognizing the challenges in doing that and there was you know mention of the General Medicine Alliance that that we'll be hearing about from My Greek colleague dr. Petrinus George, I think I keep wanting to call you Ari and I know it's not So and then and then also the Global Alliance for global health model. So so again how we can do that It was interesting that the comment that was made I think by one of our Belgian colleagues about looking at Next-generation sequencing guidelines for diagnostic sequencing And I think what what you said was we looked at the guidelines in the US and the UK and the Netherlands And then we kind of you know made our own and it makes one wonder Why are there guidelines that are different for diagnostic sequencing in those places? And is there some way to harmonize those or at least bring together those efforts and figure out? You know, what is it that the UK knows that the Dutch don't know or vice versa that that might want to be shared And I think we heard repeatedly we should be reaching out and we did try but we will try the more After this meeting to the Global Alliance and to the Rare Disease Consortium So is there anything there that that we got like completely wrong that you'd like to modify? Okay, all right, if not Then in addition on the and some of the international projects that we heard about There was that the mention of population-specific traits which which really sounded sort of interesting from From the Korean presentation Could we consider these in a way experiments of nature or you know certain certainly human biologic variations that we could then link To genomic variation and learn more about from a specific population these kinds of studies have been done before obviously But doing them on a genomic scale is a very interesting thought We also heard I think Korea where you were the only one that mentioned a population-specific reference genome But clearly that yeah, and you the same the same sort of thing I mean many populations are going to need that we heard about from from Gad Gad from Our Israeli colleague the challenges of mixed ancestry populations and potential stratification So they're again needing reference genomes and wouldn't it be wonderful to have reference genomes across each of these countries? That could be shared in some way you're looking skeptical Tim Could you use the microphone if you wouldn't mind it's right in front of you. We keep it handy for you You just keep talking genome reference consortium hat on that's been Trying to incorporate things from other populations and you know We kind of think that if you take thousand genomes data and beyond eventually you end up with just one big graph which will represent the entire world population and Rather than having individual ones for each country It's that graph because everybody's gonna be add mixed to some extent And that will be the thing to align it I mean we don't really have tools to deal with even the the structures within the genome reference at the moment You know people don't align correctly against all the patches But a graph is going much harder to deal with but that probably is the future in terms of mapping I mean, I guess not to drill down too deeply into this, but I mean That seems like a laudable goal, but what's the interim strategy and how long will it take? I mean and that to me seems to be there and this might facilitate country specific projects as well Irvinda you wanted to comment This gets it to a very difficult. I don't want to belabor the point, but I think since we're really talking about a Anyway, you look at it. There's some immediacy, but some futuristic Madison I think my laudable goal is what we should go for because the question is it's a reference genome for whom I Mean and and I just I just don't think that you know, this has a possibility of getting into Nationalistic labels and specific labels that is much more likely to harm this kind of personalized medicine and and and so Scientifically in every way, you know this graph representation of genetic variation all humans is a much much more Effective way of looking at it Even if the national happens to be from some other ancestry meaning a Korean of Say South Asian ancestry Great. Thank you. So we have just demonstrated that my population genetics expertise is terrible My apologies, but that's why we put these things up here So in addition, we heard about an interesting idea for a pharmacogenomics card Particularly related to a really dreadful condition and I can I was I was saying to our Thai colleagues The reason I'm in this business is because of a case of Stevens Johnson syndrome that I saw as an intern that I will Never forget and and never want to see again And and this is just a really cool idea So is there some way that that we could we might be able to build on something like that They have the you know advantage and terrible tragic disadvantage of having a very high rate of this condition And so it's it's quite relevant to them But it may be that there are other similar conditions elsewhere mark This may be the first example of a clinically a pickup applicable fee was where you pick a drug Verse event phenotype and then look for all of the different pharmacogenomic triggers or drug gene pairs that can relate to that I thought it was a really fascinating way to think about it and Then we also heard about that the interesting idea in Israel of pushing family history data So that one as I understood it when somebody has an event you push that event to their brother You know son parent whatever Into their medical record without identifying who the pro band is so that that information can be used in their clinical care without Essentially, you know removing the privacy of that of that person So that is a very cool thing that's going on in Israel and and again something that would be not that difficult to do Had if we had linked couldn't do it in our country perhaps But if there were linked databases or sorry linked EMRs across across family members as a I Should have known that Intermountain would have done it so but that that is a really neat idea one week We could think about Transport or importing and the importance of negative studies We talked about a little bit in terms of you know when people do a genetic test Don't follow the findings, you know the guidelines based on the findings and it doesn't make a difference in care That's important information to feed back to those clinicians so that they they change their practice as well as to the health care system So aside from the population specific reference, you know Were there anything else on here that people thought was off or even modification? For the panel discussion, but we had a very robust panel discussion and very much appreciate The panelists as well as those of you who participated in that We did hear from from Irene that there is a recent solicitation That's open on piloting the rollout of personalized medicine I'm sure everybody at that point went to you know Google and and looked at what you know What kinds of things were being looked at and you also mentioned that that these are designed to be international in scope Including European partners obviously, but also international partners. So something we may want to take a look at Enhancing data sharing through metadata sharing was a very interesting idea and the as I understood it Basically having descriptions of what data are available and then having individual context be made based on that So so another way that we might be able to get around this concern of you can't make all the data available to everybody Recognize the needs to harmonize policy and regulation Harmonize maybe a bit of a challenge for a variety of reasons But at least to understand the reasons for differences across countries so that that when you know an issue comes up in one country You say well, you know, they tried that in Australia didn't work or or you know It really isn't relevant to us because of x y and z and those are things that we do have a policy working group And perhaps they can be thinking about that We talked of a couple of folks here have been done and and commented on on we need to agree on what we consider to be Evidence that a variant is actionable and and that may be one that's it's going to be so case specific that we really can't have Criteria, I mean we you know some years ago We came up with criteria for what's replication in a genome-wide study. Well, that was a pretty standard thing And then a couple of years ago We tried to come up with criteria for implicating a sequence variant in a disease and that was really hard But but in terms of what is actionable and what is not it may be tough to come up with those on the other hand There could be some broad guidelines that that we could agree upon and that's something I think to think about Irvinda mentioned that we need case studies And I wanted to give a shout out to Mark Williams and the working group that he's leading in the inter-society Coordinating committee the education group that that I mentioned early on Because there's a whole use cases working group and one of the things that we're trying to do is take a standard template Send it out to you know, whoever and and ask people to really define some Use cases or case studies that will get the attention of practitioners in a given specialty so that you could have it You know an eye disease Mendelian case and an oncology, you know family history case Etc. And and those are things that I think we could you know crowdsource and get get others to help with because it is a challenge to put those together and And then the the interesting idea that again Irene suggested about getting a map of of ongoing projects So you had mentioned to something going on in the Czech Republic and in German hospitals that we didn't know anything about And and is there some way to catalog those cataloging is a painful thing, please come so that we Recently funded the project Which actually is keeping in kind of an observatory of ongoing activities in Europe on personalized medicine activities? And there you can find a lot of information about different funding schemes and also some some projects It's been European But I know that there are some information from Canada in there as well And it would be quite interesting if we could do something more on the more global scale on keeping track of what are the Ongoing activities so that's something we maybe we could discuss them. Absolutely. I think one of the action items I'm hearing emerging here is that there could be a clearinghouse function for a lot of things that we've heard about Where we could have a one-stop shop to try and accumulate that information and trying to Disseminate it more broadly. Absolutely. Yeah, and and especially if you've already funded somebody to do that, you know bravo That is great And and perhaps you might even perhaps send me or Jeff the link to that that would be that'd be fantastic. So good and Then let's see so then the second part of the panel discussion There was the question and I guess it touches on this that Phil Patrick Tan asked about how to make Those of us in this room aware of and engaged in ongoing efforts So the one that was had been raised at that point was the genome in the bottle Effort which is was to come up with sort of standardized genotyping samples that then everybody could use and test their methods against And we'll get the the reference for that I know my colleague Jeff Schloss has sent it to me and so we can we can distribute that out to y'all I hope you don't mind receiving emails from us, but but at any rate, that's you know That's something that we need to be thinking about if as we leave this meeting How do we then keep that kind of communication going without driving everybody's nuts with emails and that sort of thing? Is that a website is it's you know an observatory is a great idea those kinds of things Reference samples I've mentioned We talked a little bit about you know Could we somehow bring together all of the exomes and genomes that are being sequenced now in the various places and at least Report the variants that have been seen there so that people would know that yes This has been seen before no it hasn't whatever There are databases that are developed for that the ISCA database, which I think changed its name on the IC I see Gigi I David and David may want to comment on it could could you just Okay, so what David said without a microphone if I can repeat it is that the the initial consortium that was focused on cytogenetic Array variance is now Including sequence variances as well, and it is the international cytogenetic Collaboration of clinical genomics great. Thank you So so yeah, so so might there be some way to deposit data there or in the ClinVar database of our National Center for biotechnology information. I'm sure ebi has something similar to that I'm sorry decipher Sanger has the decipher database. Yeah, so there are opportunities there and and then you know We talked about you know We would all like to see an implementation pilot or even an implementation large-scale study But not let's not just pilot just pilot something but but obviously to pick pick the best and use implementation science methods to do that any Objections with what's up here? Yes So so and is saying is that we're basically That we didn't touch touch on the push-pull model and I have to admit part of that is because I don't understand it So so I might ask one of you to I think it was work Anderson who was commenting on that What exactly you mean by that particularly for those whose English is not their first language But even for me, I'm not sure of what you what you mean could you come to a microphone? I'm sorry to get you up at this late in the day, but it would be very helpful and might be better than me at this but really it was the issue of Generating the demand from the policymakers that they they needed To line that up with what we think they need another I'm not being very coherent Sorry, what time is it? That's just that's just an excuse I'm normally like this So so it's it's really making sure that as we discussed any discuss any of this that we Have those who have to make hard financial decisions there right from the beginning and with us because No matter what value we generate from precision medicine somebody is going to come up with that in a budgetary context and They will provide a very strong and realistic viewer priorities That might not be the same as our priorities as researchers Great. Thank you. Is that what you yeah And I think the other point there that I heard was it you know We had some countries that presented that said we have national models that you know where the government is saying you do this Others were we're not getting much response from that from the national government But where they're really going to the patients themselves and so there has to be a grassroots component of that about not only what the Clinicians and researchers want but what the patients want and what energy the patients can bring to this process So I would want to represent that as well Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have a way to edit on the fly But we'll try and make these changes. So Let's see focus on the best. Oh, and then and I think that you know the best comment that I heard all day was move beyond talking Which both our our Swedish colleague and and and commented on and I think we all recognize we need to do so Good anything else in here? We do have then there were a couple of Additional international projects. I wasn't able to catch them all but but we we did hear from from work on The a framework that y'all have produced on translation of omics into care and He'll hopefully be sending us the link for that and we can share that with y'all that sounded very very worthwhile And very interestingly a personal electronic health record that can accept genomic data That would be the I think the first one that I've heard of that can do that I don't know mark your your mr. Electronic medical record. Do you know of any that can accept genomic data? Of course in our mountain can but Can yours Yeah, okay anyway Really Super and then and then I I promised my last slide Was just a couple of additional points that didn't fit as as neatly in here And don't disappear because jeff is going to tell us what happens after this and dinner and that sort of thing Was to to develop a global you heard about the clean gen resource that that eric described to you Which is this this effort that we've begun to identify actionable variants that obviously Action of a variant depends on you know the context on the population on the setting of clinical care, etc So is there some way to to expand that to a little more global approach? We talked about pilot implementation projects a bit Um On the policy side we talked about either a standardized informed consent or because informed consent is so culturally specific Are there at least models that we can use or or some guides in that and we've taken this approach at NHGRI to say You know here are some components we think are really important in these and you can you know use those or tailor them to your own settings and then Some discussion of global EMR phenotyping standards There were universal sort of ringing of hands over how difficult this is to do But but I think you know we have some evidence that it can be done It's not impossible Particularly in dealing with electronic phenotypes and and electronic logic that that is translatable So so let's not give up on this and we have a working group addressing it and and as jeff pointed out We haven't talked about children really at all here. They haven't talked about newborn sequencing You'll hear a little bit about that the project that we're doing on on that tomorrow, but but those are other areas So anything here that Anything we've missed or Oh, well, thank you. Thank you very much. So i'll stop and then hand it over to jeff and Thanks terry um wonderful job summarizing what you know the the amount of ground Who would have thought we would have actually talked about all that stuff in one day And we have more to come tomorrow So the purpose of this again was not to be conclusive but to Give you a starting point particularly for the breakout groups where we don't want to re Revisit these issues as issues We want as we'll charge you again to do tomorrow Ask you to begin thinking about the solutions and actions that you will take that we could take as a group


Yes, we are back with some more of Why in the Morning as promised, and yes, with the IMF project in Kenya's GDP to grow from 9 trillion in 2018 to 15 trillion in 2023, EcoMass has proven to be a major driver of the economy, and we have a stakeholder in the studio. She goes by the name Sima Loi, the name is a twist, but she is the final year student at the University of Nairobi, Karibusana. Thank you very much. Your camera is number four. I'd like to give everybody a chance to introduce themselves. In case I miss something in your CV or credentials. Okay. Hello, my name is Agnes Sima Loi, Mathura, fourth year in the University of Nairobi. Founder of Leyan underscore collection, and also the delivery company Leyan. Leyan? Yeah. So where is the name from first? My favorite brother. Your favorite brother? Yeah. How many of them do you have? Well, I have so many. You have so many. Yes. So you're always protected as a kid growing up? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. All right. So your favorite brother got the pleasure to have his name on your company? Yes. Does he have shares as well? No. All right. You should convince him to buy some shares. Maybe in the future. All right. Yeah. So what are you studying in campus right now? I'm doing a bachelor of arts. Bachelor of arts? Yes. All right. How did you fall in love with the business? I think I just love business from my father. From your father? Your father is a businessman? Very big businessman. All right. A very senior businessman? In the community. Not in the country. All right. In your community. Yeah. All right. So your business is based online? Yes. Mostly? Mostly. You have a physical shop? Yes. You have an online shop? And then you have a delivery business? Yes. I'm interested in the delivery. How does it work? We market. I have my, we have people that are doing the same business as me. So we market, we do delivery for them. And we also do delivery for my items. Yeah. All right. So you do deliveries for other people? Yes. And your items as well? Yes. And maybe some companies, few companies. All right. So do you own the vehicles or the motorbikes? Yes. Or you outsource? Yes. For now we own three motorbikes. Yes. No vehicle yet. Motorbike is a vehicle as well. Yeah. Like car, car. All right. So you own motorbikes? Yes. All right. In your final year, by the time you're in your final year, not so many people expect you to have been in business and already have assets in your business. What keeps you grounded as a student? Because students are not known to be very entrepreneurial. Yes. If you ask me. Like what keeps me? Grounded. Yeah. Like. So like stick to the business. Like mostly, let me say it's just a passion that I had from the beginning. So I started my business very early, like in first year. So by second year I was already balancing. I was already getting at least few coins. For yourself? Yes. All right. So I noticed actually I can get more. So I think money. All right. Money is the motivation. Yes. All right. Money is a good motivation to have. Yes. All right. So doing business in campus, you still have to go to class and study arts. Are you planning to practice what you're studying at school? Not really. Not really? Yes. Then why are we still there? It's a backup. It's a backup plan? Yes, it's a backup plan. Is this the trend that you've seen in campus nowadays? I think we're going to school for a backup plan, but they have their eyes focused on something else. Not really. Maybe a small percentage. Yeah. But we have people who are in school just for the paper. Yes, yes, yes. But they have their eyes focused on something else. Yes. Do you think something like this can be encouraged or let me paint you a case scenario. You have a child in future. Would you allow them to go study something that they might never practice and do business on the side? I think it will be according to them. According to them? They want to go to school when they're good. As long as they want to do business, not like leave school and do anything else. So it's based on what they want to do? Their choice. Oh, their choice. Yes. All right. Whitefifle channel on Twitter, Whitefifle channel on Instagram and Whitefifle on Facebook is the way to reach us. Don't forget the hashtag Why In Morning and don't forget the hashtag Entrepreneurship Tuesday. Don't forget your views, your comments and your questions. I invite you. Don't ever ever forget to tell us where you're watching us from. All right. So please remind them how they can find you on social media first before we can carry on. Your camera is still number four. Okay. Mostly we do the WhatsApp. Mostly we use the WhatsApp. We have a business number which is our 18471124. Mostly we do WhatsApp and then Instagram, layer underscore collection. All right. Yes. To the business now, the shop, the online shop and the physical shop. What type of goods do you deal? Kitchen and the house decor. Kitchen and house decor? Yes. How did you narrow down to this particular niche? It depends on the market. For now, very many Chinese people are coming to the market and they are doing shoes, handbags. So they lower down their prices. They don't get as a pre-new. I don't really get very many sales from the bags and the handbags. But the kitchenware, they use the import from the sea for air. So for us, we do sea. So I have to wait for the sea goods. The kitchenwares because they are heavy. So that makes my work easier and more profitable. It makes your work easier and more profitable. Yes. Transporting by sea first. So you have to do your research. Yes. If I get the ones that are transported by air to be more expensive than the ones that are transported by sea. Yes. And also the Chinese. The Chinese people are really doing the market for the handbags and everything. Because they are very... The staff are cheap. Yes, the staff are cheap. So people opt for them. Yes. All right. Kitchenware. Why did you just decide to be in kitchenware and not seats and not televisions and not the rest of things that I see around? Maybe because I love kitchen. You are cooking. Yes. Not really cooking, but I love when the kitchen looks good. So I'll always try to change everything in the kitchen. So I have that passion in kitchen. Right. So sometimes it's not really about the market research and what is going to go first. Sometimes just do sick to what you love. Yes. I do what I love and also passion and what I love. And also according to the market. So the market is... Market and what I love also. The market and what you love. Yes. All right. So how is the process like? So if I get online, say if I want to buy your stuff online, what is the first step? First step, of course, you view what I have. I have displayed what I have. On your site? Instagram mostly and WhatsApp. So you inbox me. I have seen this. You want it. I give you my pay bill. Most of them, some people don't trust you. So they prefer cash on delivery. So you tell me what time you want.  So if you want it delivered to where you are... You pay extra. You pay extra, of course. Then it will be delivered and then you pay. You pay through the pay bill or you pay the delivery man. All right. Yeah, as simple as that. As simple as that. Yeah. Get to Instagram. Look at whatever you like according to your stock. Yeah. Make your order through the DM or the number. Or the number. And if you want it delivered... Oh, you pay through the pay bill number. Yes.  Yes, yes. Are you within Nairobi County or... Oh, expanded across the country? Expanded across the country. But across the country, we do parcels only. All right. For around Nairobi. We do around Nairobi and outside Nairobi. All right. So outside Nairobi, you deal with parcels mostly? Yes. We send it as a parcel when you get your... Some companies have the notification that your parcel has been sent. And then you pay. All right. Yes. So I want to take you back to when you first joined Instagram. Yeah. When was this? I joined Instagram long ago. But in business around 2018. All right. So the first time you joined Instagram, what were you using Instagram for? Why? Why was I... I'm just... The first time you joined Instagram, what were you using Instagram for? Photos, maybe. Interacting with other people. Following what people are doing outside there. Of course, following my role model. Keeping up with the conditions? Yes. Not changing conditions. All right. At what point did you figure out, I could actually do business on Instagram? When I saw other people are doing. Yeah. So you learn from other people? In Kenya or across? Across, of course. All right. Like even the suppliers in China, you can see them from those pages. So you can see. Also, you can also market there. All right. So it's a big marketplace? Yeah. It's a very big marketplace. Okay. So most of the time I see sponsored ads on Instagram and Facebook. And I tried to talk to my friends and told them, I want to sponsor some posts and see how they're going to do. But some people, I get mixed reactions from them. They tell me it's sponsored posts don't really work. People just call past them. People don't really double tap them. They don't work as much as they seem to. What is your take on them? I tried some time back, but I didn't see if it worked. Very many people will view, but you'll not get an order. Yes. Kenya buy things that they want. They don't buy because they have seen them. Yes. They're not an impulse. Yes. People buy because they want them. So even if you market the market, okay, many people will view, but you won't get sales from that. So it's something you've tried just to improve it. Yes. It doesn't work. It doesn't work as much. Maybe it doesn't work for you. Maybe it works for the baby. Maybe it works for someone else, but not for me. Not for you? Yeah. What is the future of your business? I can say I just want it to grow as big as it can. Business persons dream. Yes. That kind of growth. Yes. All right, please remind them of your social media so you can get some orders and they can stalk you as well. Okay. Our Instagram handle is leyan-collection and our WhatsApp number is 18471124. All right. Thank you very much for coming through. Thank you very much. We appreciate you so much. What advice would you give to the people who keep saying there are no jobs on social media? They keep typing. Yeah. They keep typing. I would like to advise them that just identify what you like and do it with passion. Identify what you like and do it with passion. Yeah. We'll end it at that. Identify what you like and do it with passion. That is a message from the CEO and founder herself on Why In The Morning on Entrepreneurship Tuesday. Hilda is coming up next with another amazing interview. This one is about the music business. You don't want to miss it. Don't want to write it down.


My name is Miracle Indegu. I come from Ghana. I'll be an E for C fellow in 2021 in Advancing Sustainable Development Group, which is good health and well-being. I want to apply my engineering skills for social good because there are a lot of problems in today's world that require engineering solutions. And as a biomedical engineer, I want to use my engineering skills to help solve health care related problems of people living in the rural communities. As an E for C fellow, I will be working with VIA Global Health to do a constant market analysis of medical devices in Africa. And as part of that, I'll be developing an assessment tool that will help buyers make the right choices when they are purchasing medical equipment here in Africa. I am most excited about this fellowship because it's a group where a lot of people are interested in making a change in their world. And as part of this team, I hope to also do great things in the world.


This is Rob Johnson, President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. I'm here with Jeffrey Sacks. How would I say? I always smile and every time we talk, I'm paying homage to the Romel family. George and Afi Romel, we both grew up in Detroit and our parents were good friends with the respective Romels and perhaps that inspired my curiosity even as an undergraduate at MIT to learn more about Jeffrey Sacks and it's been like a North Star beacon for me and thinking about what's important through my entire career. So Jeff, thanks for being here. I'll describe just briefly, you've done a tremendous amount of work here at Columbia University, the highest ranking professor you ran the Earth Institute for many years. Currently the President of US Sustainable Development Solutions Network. And I would say just as a signature, I see you always have, there's a gift that I perceive and that I admire and I try to turn people onto about your career. You always seem to choose important questions. People can do all kinds of dances with technique but how do you say they might be fiddling without Rome burns and you seem to zoom in over and over on things that matter not just to your country or not just to prestige but to humankind and I greatly admire that. I just want to refer, you've written many, many books. We've talked about the age of globalization in one of our previous episodes together but sustainable development. The two I underscored today because the questions related to the Ukraine that I've seen you writing about in projects Indicate and other places recently to move the world, JF Quest for Peace in 2013 and a new foreign policy beyond American exceptionalism. What I see there, first book, 2013, second book, 2018 is a prescience you're seeing ahead of the challenges that we're going to have to address. So I'm very excited today that you're with me and we can talk about what you see, what scares you and what's the way out. Well, thanks so much. Great, it's great to be with you and thank you for focusing on those two books. The book about JFK, which I wrote in 2013 was to commemorate an incredible speech and initiative of President Kennedy in 1963 which was just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now here we are Rob, 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis with another kind of showdown between the United States and Russia. And so I'm going back to that speech to the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the lessons that I drew in that book just about every day in my thinking about what events are telling us right now. The 2019 book, A New Foreign Policy Beyond American Exceptionalism is also directly core to my thinking right now. I do think the United States doesn't get or accept it's a realistic constructive place in the world right now. And that this is at least a part of our problem in a world that is increasingly destabilized. I think that both books focus on one fundamental idea which is that peace is better than war and peace comes through a constructive engagement with the other side. President Kennedy said in his remarkable speech given at American University commencement on June 10, 1963 that peace is into some magic solution. It's not an event. Peace is a process, a way of solving problems. It is a constructive engagement with the other side. It is what I've learned in 21 years of advising the UN leadership. It is diplomacy at its finest. It's not guessing what the other side will do. It's not playing a game theory where you take as given the other parties move which can have disastrous consequences but rather you engage. And I think that this has been my central theme partly from my own life experience of working in cultures all over the world, very different communities, different religions, or races, ethnicities, nationalities, geographies. It taught me something about the common fate of humanity I think. And it also taught me about the wonders of dialogue, communication, and diplomacy. Well, here we are with war, with incredible tensions with China, with the inability to solve major global problems like the increasing derangement of the Earth's climate system. And I believe that in all of these what we're seeing is a failure of statecraft, a failure of concepts of cooperation. A really an application of crude ideas that are like the game theoretic ideas that assume the worst of the other side, for example. And assume you know what's in Putin's mind. Assume you know what is in President Xi's mind. And when we behave that way, we get very bad outcomes. So this, I thank you for focusing on those works. And for me, they do reflect my underlying feeling that there's a different way for us to approach global problems. A different from what we're doing right now. And it would be much safer, more prudent, and more constructive to follow a different approach. I find it fascinating just putting like what I'll call pattern recognition. You're talking about what John Kennedy did. I remember the old, what I'll call the Bismarck playbook. I took a bunch of courses in arms control and disarmament and they said that one of the big dangers is when you're failing at home, there's discord. The Bismarck playbook is a metaphor. Find of an external enemy so everybody can agree and focus on that. But sitting behind the Bismarck playbook in the first appendix to that playbook is the need to cooperate on climate change. So we're not in a place where, forget mutual assured destruction for a moment. We gotta cooperate. Well, it's in. There's another way we can exterminate earth if we don't collaborate. And then the last thing I'll throw into this mix is a wonderful book by the scholar Orville Schell and his colleague John DeLurie called Wealth and Power. And what Orville was a good friend of mine said, he said, Rob, we've got a situation where the Chinese went through centuries of humiliation, opium war, Japanese invasion, et cetera. America thinks it runs the world and wants everybody to fall in line behind it. To use the Big Moon Brzezinski's metaphor, we have tectonic plates crashing between two philosophical systems at the head table of the G-7, or excuse me, of the G-20 that used to be the G-7. We are in a situation where you can't even play game theory with different philosophical systems because you're projecting things onto your counterpart that may never have been in their imagination or in their training. So you've got this instability, what I'll call the Bismarck playbook. You've got the end game of climate and then you have this tension that centers on you as China, but we could bring, why didn't Russia, after the de-escalation land of the Soviet Union, and I know you've worked a lot there, so I don't know the answer to this at all, but why didn't Russia get the equivalent of an aid program to integrate them into the EU, regain prosperity, dignity through that? And I'll ask you a question. Is the political economy of the military industrial complex a little bit of the evil that hides inside this dilemma of danger? So there's a lot of intertwined issues there, and let me start with the very specific issue of climate change and the energy transformation that we know we need. We need to move to a zero carbon energy system. Excuse me. And that requires actually a lot of long-term thinking and a lot of international cooperation. So every day in the context of the Ukraine war, I'm asked by somebody, and it happened again this morning, what's the implication of the war for climate change? In other words, you see Russia cutting off or threatening to cut off natural gas to Europe or Europe putting on sanctions, on oil and gas imports from Russia. Will this accelerate the energy transition? And the answer is basically no, because it may change the calculus in the very short term. It's actually opening up more coal mines again or pumping more gas and oil to make up for what has been lost from Russian supplies. Maybe by raising the price of oil and gas on world markets, it's making some new solar projects more economical and financeable. But all of that misses the main point, which is that the real changes we need are long-term strategic changes in the energy system, and that requires a stable, peaceful, cooperative environment, even renewable energy to be efficient and effective needs to cross borders. It needs to be regional, even globally connected in some ways, maybe in the new hydrogen economy. We can't do this if we're in conflict. We won't do this if we're in conflict. So this is the first point, that almost everything of real value for development and what we now call and should call sustainable development, meaning economic development that is also socially just and environmentally sustainable requires a long perspective. If you have a short perspective because of huge uncertainties, because of war, because of conflict, then you can't accomplish anything real of the transformations that we need. You can improvise, you can maybe keep your footing in the short term, perhaps, but the truth of the matter is real development of any kind requires years, even decades of hard continuous work, educating children, building infrastructure, cooperating across river sheds, building power transmission grids that are, again, transnational. And that is a long-term cooperative effort that depends on peace. And we're not getting there right now, partly because our mindsets really are wrong. And unfortunately, what I have invaded against in the U.S. context is the idea, which is very popular. It's in every speech of U.S. leaders that the world is safe when the United States leads the world. So primacy or what the political scientists call hegemony is really built into the American thinking. I think Henry Luce did an unfortunate thing to America when he, in 1941, christened this as the American century. It was a great turn of phrase, by the way, so inspiring and so ennobling, but it actually basically went to the heads of the permanent state that they took it literally. This is our century. When the past, it was Britain's century in the industrial age of the 19th century, or it was the Mongol century, or it was the Roman centuries. Now it's our century. Oh, what a dangerous way to think about things because you get way overstretched. You act provocatively without even attempting to understand the other side. And that, unfortunately, is so much of what happened in Europe after the 1990 remarkable transformation. And as you know, I was there. I was physically present in the Kremlin in December 1991. You couldn't even believe. I mean, I could not believe, and especially, you'd appreciate it. A kid from Detroit sitting in the Kremlin in this huge office, and who walks in the far door, Boris Yeltsin, and he walks across the room, and he sat down right in front of me because I was leading the delegation. And he said, gentlemen, because it was all men, he said, gentlemen, in the next room is the leaders of the Soviet military. And I have just agreed with them to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I heard literally those words. Wow. Yeah, wow is exactly right. It was weird. Huge total. No, so I thought, and I had been working in the Soviet Union before that. I was told, I don't know if it's true, that I was the first person to brief the Gosplan leadership in its entirety on the top floor of Gosplan, just outside of Red Square in 1990 to the Politburo leader who headed Gosplan on the transformation to a market economy. And they were taking notes of 50 Soviet leaders on the other side, all with notebooks open, taking copious notes about market economics. But the fact of the matter is Gorbachev and Yeltsin wanted a common home. Gorbachev, who I regard as the greatest statesman of our age and who's reviled in Russia for having lost the Soviet Union and for inflation and everything else, he's the greatest statesman of our age because he understood that what we needed was peace rather than a cold or hot wars. And he was ready to even let the system fall rather than shoot people to quote, save the old system. But his idea, which I know was a common home from Rotterdam to Vladivostok that we have a common European home. I believed it. I went to work for his team in 1991 promoting what we called the Grand Bargain, working with Graham Allison, who was then head of the Kennedy School at Harvard and Stanley Fisher and others. And we recommended a significant financial assistance program to the Soviet Union for to support its economic and political reforms. What was the White House response? Complete, nothing, not anything. Anything, we're not doing this. Okay, that was a disaster for, I mean, the failure of Western support, definitely undermined Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged after the attempted push against Gorbachev, which was in the summer of August 1991. And then I was contacted by Yeltsin's economic leader, Yegor Gajdar, and I came to Moscow. And Yeltsin said to me and said to others, I want a normal country.  I said, absolutely wonderful. This is exactly what we want.  And Russia was running out of foreign exchange reserves. This was a fulminant financial crisis. So I knew a lot about financial crises and their history and their resolution and worked with Poland a couple of years before. And I asked, I suggested to Gajdar, well, look, tell the US and the other six deputy finance ministers, you need to stand still on the debt payments because you're running out of reserves and Russia's about to become an independent country and we can't have a financial collapse. And he came out of the meeting just absolutely ashenstays. He said, they wouldn't even consider it. They said, you have to pay to the penny. We will not allow anything right now. We're not authorized to allow anything. We will not allow anything. You continue to pay. Russia ran out of reserves at the beginning of 1992 as Yeltsin came to power, in other words, a fulminant financial crisis. I couldn't believe it. I spent two unbelievably frustrating years trying to get the US and the IMF to do something and they wouldn't do anything. And Larry Eagleburger, who was acting secretary of state, explained to me at one point, said, Mr. Sacks, it's not even about what you're advising. Even if I agreed with it, it's not going to happen. And he said, this is an election year. It's not going to happen. And the truth is, this didn't determine all the future, but God did it show an attitude of obtuseness in the United States. And I didn't appreciate then that Cheney and Wolfowitz were working on their great neocon illusions that now we're the sole superpower and now we get to do what we want. And they really were working on the next wars because they were going to take away every Soviet ally or Russian ally in the Middle East, knockout Libya, Syria, Iraq. This was a plan already from the early 1990s, according to Wesley Smith. And I didn't know it at the time. I just couldn't believe here we are at this historic moment, a chance to cooperate. And no, we're not going to cooperate. We're going to be the sole superpower. And I just found that obtuseness year after year from the US. And by the end of the 1990s, I basically had had it because I had seen the US now from all sides. I had seen it from the Latin American perspective. I had seen it from the Central European perspective. I'd seen it from the Russian perspective. I'd seen it from the Indonesian perspective in 1997. We just were not a cooperative country that aimed to work with other countries to solve problems. We were the unipolar great power of the world. We were arrogant and we were not paying attention to what other countries said. And this manifested itself in a number of financial debacles of these countries that had big effects on the world. It also manifested in what brings us to the war in Ukraine today. Though this is a very unpopular view, it's right. And that is NATO enlargement. What John Mirsheimer has said is right. Kissinger said it. And so many other wise people, George Kennan said it, in 1997, don't do this NATO enlargement. It'll lead to a new Cold War. Now we have a hot war. The Secretary of Defense under Clinton was deciding whether to resign or not when he learned that Clinton indeed would go ahead with NATO enlargement because Bill Perry, who was the Secretary of Defense said, look, we're starting to improve relations with Russia. Do we really need to risk that right now by preemptory moves of NATO enlargement, especially since unequivocally, both the Germans and the Americans had promised Gorbachev and then Yeltsin no enlargement in return for German reunification. Then we lied about it. Well, it's not in writing. We brought out all our lawyers, but good historians know that those commitments were made. And we just wanna deny that. And given the predominance of US government in our media, you can tell any story you want. This is absolutely true. But the long and the short of it, Rob, is that NATO enlargement started. We weren't giving any financial help. We were plotting wars against Saddam Hussein, Moramar Gaddafi, Assad, all the allies of the former Soviet Union or of the Soviet Union and then of Russia. Russia's military naval base in Syria. So Assad would be our target and so forth. No cooperation other than superficial. And in the 1990s, the NATO enlargement started. And then during George W. Bush, well, actually Clinton did something that, in retrospect, we didn't even see the significance of, but it was hugely significant and misguided. And that was the war against Serbia in 1999 to force Serbia to give up Kosovo. So there was a rebellion of the Kosovar Albanians or Albanian Kosovars, I should say, in Serbia. And the US took sides and said, let them break away. And when Serbia said no, they're part of Serbia, which is the normal way that diplomacy works, the US bombed Belgrade for several weeks. And we set up the precedent that if you want to break away stage or you want to weaken the other side, just go bomb them. And then when Russia says, well, when we do this, we're called the crime of humanity, but when NATO does it, that passes as defending freedom fighters. So isn't there no standard or a double standard? But just to carry on to the current day, in the early 2000s, after the Belgrade bombing, and then after 9-11, of course, Bush pushed the enlargement of NATO to, I think, seven countries under his watch an extraordinary increase of the number of countries. The Baltic states, to begin with Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, if I remember correctly, all during Bush's watch. And then to the shock of the Europeans in NATO in 2008, he said, Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO. And just take a look at a map. And I encourage everybody to take a look at the map of the Black Sea. What was NATO's idea? What was the US strategic idea? The US strategic idea was basically to own the Black Sea for NATO, because you'd have Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and where's Georgia all the way over on the eastern side of the Black Sea suddenly is gonna be a NATO country, whereas NATO was originally to defend against an invasion by a now defunct non-existent country in Western Europe. So suddenly it is an expansionary force moving straight across the Black Sea. It reminds me a lot of the Crimean War of the 19th century who controls the Black Sea. And well, one thing has led to another and we have the war in Ukraine.  Oh, you're just pervading Putin's propaganda. Well, this is really nonsense. We need a serious discussion, some context, some history. And we should not have pushed NATO right up against Russia's edge and right around the encirclement of the Black Sea, but we did so. And now we're also paying consequences for this, but especially Ukraine is paying consequences for this. I remember some of my teachers at MIT in that arms control disarmament. I once, this was years after I was a student, but I ran into Bill Kaufman. And I said, this doesn't feel like game theory to me. It feels like the chain store paradox, which is you never should engage in each of these things, but you act like you gotta do it to show you're tough to the next three episodes. But with the consequences being so dangerous, with regards to nuclear war, and now with regard to climate, this is madness. And this is not leadership. Why are our leaders so afraid of our population at this juncture that they have to put on this ritual of toughness as opposed to doing what needs to be done? Did you play the game of risk as the board game risk? Okay, so the board game risk really is a marvelous model of how Washington thinking is. You have the map of the world and the aim of the game is to have your piece on every space of the world. And as you move forward, if you're successful and your armies are advancing into new territory, every new territory you have has borders with the enemy. And suddenly every new border becomes the conflict zone. Every new border becomes vital for your national security. And so you have to have every space on the board or suddenly you're at risk. Now, American strategists get this or behave this way, I think it's mind boggling because we shouldn't be playing a game of risk where you're trying to conquer the world, but this is the American strategist approach. And a good example of it is the Solomon Islands, tiny islands, 3,200 kilometers off the coast of Australia that had the audacity to sign a security pact with China. And suddenly the United States and Australia are in a tizzy.  And you hear the voices in the US Congress, completely unacceptable that there's a security pact because you give China one inch, they'll take the world. But when the United States says, well, NATO should enlarge to Georgia and Ukraine and Russia says, no, that's a security concern. We laugh, we say, why is it a security concern? We're peace loving, we're wonderful. And that's their choice, that's not our choice. We didn't say, well, that's the Solomon Islands choice. We dispatched the deputy of the National Security Council to Asia on an urgent mission to express the US displeasure at the Solomon Islands decision to enter this pact with China. So much Rob comes from the unwillingness to really have rules that apply to yourself as well as to others or to think empathetically, what is the other side thinking? And it comes back by the way to the Cuban Missile Crisis. And I think we should talk about that because it's absolutely relevant. When Cuba put, when Khrushchev put the nuclear or the atomic weapons in Cuba, all of Kennedy's advisors, except one, except Adlai Stevenson, said from the start, you must attack and take them out. We need a military operation. Many things can be said about that, but I think the bottom line is it would have started World War three because the CIA had every fact wrong. It thought that the missiles were not yet operational. It completely underestimated roughly by a factor of seven how many Soviet troops were actually in Cuba, how many would be killed in a military operation and so forth. Kennedy did a remarkable thing. He kept asking one question, what is in Khrushchev's mind? What is he thinking? In other words, Kennedy behaved empathetically. It didn't mean he sympathized with Khrushchev. He was thinking, what is Khrushchev thinking? What is his point of view? Does he want war? What is he trying to prove? Kennedy had to learn actually the details that there were US missiles in Turkey. What are they? Why are they there? Who put them there? And so on. But by the second week of the crisis, Kennedy realized Khrushchev didn't want war, but he did wanna put America's face in it because the US had Turkish missiles in Turkey pointed right on the border of the Soviet Union. The US had invaded Cuba in the Bay of Pigs operation and so forth. Kennedy realized, you know what? We gotta get out of this by a compromise.  And that's how the crisis was resolved. It wasn't, we demand victory because Khrushchev has done the most dastardly deed. So we must defeat that man, which is the rhetoric that we have today. Must defeat Putin with his 1,600 active nuclear warheads. We must defeat Putin. This is mind boggling that even on an anniversary like this 60 years anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we're not taking care to learn the real lessons of how you diffuse a crisis and you start with empathy. You say, if we care about the Solomon Islands, maybe Russia cares about Ukraine and Georgia in the same way. Maybe we shouldn't be quite so provocative. Maybe we shouldn't be talking about humiliating defeat and so forth. Or maybe we shouldn't be saying this is the worst crime in modern history when the United States has engaged in so many wars of choice. And maybe we should find a way for both sides to stand down. Well, I see, I remember reading Daniel Ellsberg's book, The Doomsday Machine. Absolutely. About that there were many nuclear weapons inside of submarines off the coast of Cuba. And we started dropping depth charges on them. And but for, I can't remember the gentleman's name, who overruled firing the missiles. They were terrified. They were under water and the depth charges were going off, trying to essentially kill them all and drown them all. Absolutely right. And this guy wouldn't allow the missiles to be shot. But it's that close. It's that close to extermination. So reading lists for everybody listening, Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine and Martin Sherwin, Gambling with Armageddon, which is the finest book ever written about the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Martin Sherwin tells this story that you're so importantly referring to Rob. And I think it has many lessons. But what happened is even after Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed on the way out, a disabled Soviet submarine in the Caribbean that was out of radio contact, so it had no news, was disabled, it was overheating. It needed to surface just to breathe. Sailors were fainting and it started to surface and a jackass in the U.S. Air Force, instead of dropping depth charges, dropped live hand grenades on the submarine as a joke.  So the commander of the vessel ordered a nuclear-tipped submarine to be put into the, nuclear-tipped torpedo to be put into the torpedo bay and called for its launch. And it happened by coincidence that a Soviet party official, a Communist party official was on that vessel named Antipov, and he had the ability to override the order of the skipper of the submarine. And he said, no, we're gonna surface, we're not gonna fire this. And under U.S. military doctrine described by Ellsberg and by Sherwin, if the U.S. was attacked by a nuclear weapon, even a nuclear-tipped submarine, our military doctrine said we would unleash the full-scale response of a complete attack on the Soviet Union, China, and all of the other countries of the Soviet system. And the estimate was 700 million dead.   Today I read about a U.S. general saying, well, we may need to break the Soviet blockade of the port of Odessa to let Ukrainian grain supplies. I'm sick of these generals telling us about things that are so unbelievably risky without a proper public debate and understanding because we could end up in nuclear war. And this is mind-boggling that we are having generals opion on these kinds of military operations, which would be tantamount to direct U.S. war with Russia in this kind of way. And you're talking about the extermination of life on Earth. I mean, these are not rumors. I've seen in Nature and Science magazine studies of what happens to the upper atmosphere if there's a nuclear exchange. And I encourage many people now, I've been doing a little bit of work with a group called the Quincy Institute, Andrew Basavich. Excellent. Hard tongue in this group and exploring some of the ramifications for how our military decisions are being made. And it's really quite haunting to try to understand this dynamic as having anything to do with representing the well-being of America or mankind. I learned in thinking about American history and politics, which I've been doing pretty much nonstop for 50 years now. It turns out the president's main job in the world is to keep a foot on the brake of the U.S. military machine. Because it's like those old cars that are poorly tuned that though they're a neutral, they're always revving forward and they're always jumping. You take your foot off the brake, the car jumps forward. And good presidents, great presidents have been the ones to have the foot on the brake, like Kennedy had the foot on the brake in October 1962. Johnson did not have the foot on the brake and we escalated in Vietnam. We know that Bush, I don't even know if he was in the driver's seat, much less having a foot on the brake, but we went to so many wars. Obama was no good at this either. So this is a real question. It's a systemical process, yeah. It is like the game of risk. You're always looking, oh, we're in Romania and Bulgaria, we're at risk unless we're also in Ukraine. So we better expand. Well, then there could be losses in the Eastern Black Sea and the Caucasus, so we better expand to Georgia, et cetera, et cetera. Or the Solomon Islands or what we're doing in East Asia. And just so much chitchat about war with Taiwan and US war with China and Biden piping off and so forth. All of it is provocative. All of it requires actually our good luck that a president says, no, we're not going farther. Korean War, again, had MacArthur had his way, he would have invaded China. We would have used nuclear weapons at the time. Truman, his right decision, no, stop. He had to fire his top general. This is really the job of the American president because the underlying revving machine doesn't have a natural stopping point. I remember I had the late Charles Johnson was a good friend of mine and I was doing a lot of work in Japan at the time. But he was working on the books like blowback. He wrote that trilogy about the dangers that foreshadowed the attack of 9-11. So if you're aggressive, you are going to have these consequences putting the American people at risk. But let me shift, Jeff, as we're coming down a home stretch to the relation of all of this to budget and the well-being of America. What concerns me is at the level of medical care, the OECD data shows that America per capita spends more than twice the average in the OECD to have some healthcare system that is ranked 38th in the world by the WHO. The second dimension is we have a baby boom creating a demographic bulge where elder care is going to be a priority. We are going through technological transformation that requires transforming the education system towards knowledge-intensive things, what was his name, Sir Ken Robinson, the most famous Ted Talk of all time, how schools kill creativity. We got to change that, that involves investment. Now, we've got this military urge and climate transformation. I guess I worked on the Senate Budget Committee under Pete Domenici and I'm thinking, how are we going to get all this stuff done if we keep playing these aggressive military games? And how are we going to harness the political economy? I always laughed, Domenici said to me one time, well, you're an economist, you know that thing called Say's Law? I said, yeah, he said, how supply creates its own demand? I said, yes, yes, Senator. He says, well, you watch every year when we put up the budget, about the time that the military budgets come up, you're going to see all kinds of news about how dangerous the world is. They're using fear to create their own demand. And Adam Curtis, the BBC documentary, he created a series, a three-part series that you can go watch for free on thoughtmayby.com and it's called The Power of Nightmares. And so, Jeff, I'm loading you all up, but you can't sit there and be, how would I say, self-righteous budget hawk, tolerate a military industrial complex that's been in 22 times what any other country is, neglecting older people, neglecting young people and letting our healthcare system cost twice what it should. And with all the discord of not reconciling those things, the Bismarck Playbook comes back into center stage. Well, one of the expressions of Joe Biden that I really like, though I haven't heard it from him recently for an obvious reason, he said, don't talk to me about your values, show me your budget and I'll tell you your values. And what he means by that is where you put your money, that's what counts in the system. And the United States has really messed up the budget. It spends far too little on many areas like education, like well-being of children. It spends far too much on other areas like the so-called modernization of our nuclear fleet, arsenal when we should be negotiating long-term nuclear disarmament. And in general, our budget is a mess. As you say also, the way we organize key parts of the economy like healthcare is to give private monopolies to a crucial sector ending up overpaying roughly by a factor two for our healthcare. We spend almost 20% of GDP on healthcare compared to roughly 10% of GDP in our pure countries. So I've written a number of books, The Price of Civilization being one of my favorites about what a budget would look like for a civilized country. And interestingly, and one of the better parts of a speech that Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken just gave about US approaches to China, he said, the real approaches we need to invest in ourselves, we need to strengthen our capacities in science education, our well-being at home because that's what makes us the competitive model vis-a-vis the rest of the world, including vis-a-vis China. And that's true, but we're not doing it. And we have lost the budget debate and the budget narrative in the last two years. Biden came in with the idea of a package to build back better. It did not appear. What happens in the United States is essentially key sectors are in the hands of powerful lobbies and military industrial complexes, one of them big oil is another or fossil fuel industry is another. The healthcare private healthcare sector is a third. Those are favored by the budget. They are favored by regulation and areas that don't have such powerful lobbies. Don't see the light of day. And in general, the United States under taxes, even though we're told all the time that we're being crushed by taxes, the total government revenues in the United States for federal, state and local are about 30% of GDP of national income. But in Northern Europe, which ranks much better in healthcare and longevity in many quality of life indicators, about 45% of GDP. So the fact of the matter is the budget's a mess and what founded for Biden in the end, why didn't his package go through? Because nobody wanted to pay for it with taxation. And it all unraveled when Senator Sinema said, I don't wanna have a rise of the corporate tax rate and Manchin said, I don't like that billionaire tax. And we ended up with nothing. Biden ended up empty-handed, ineffective politics, by the way. So I think a president ought to be able to keep a couple of senators in the fold and he failed to do so. And that's part of his job also, is to know how to twist arms or cajole or give whatever side payments for new products in West Virginia. You get something done, you make a deal, but he could not make a deal. He failed on that. So we have nothing. So we have a budget mess. And by the way, a budget mess also with a mountain of debt, now 100% of GDP of public debt, that's actually consequential. With interest rates going up, the burden of that debt is also gonna be quite significant. We need to raise some taxes and we need to restructure what we spend, but we're a blocked political system. So we are not showing a way forward on this and I'm not holding my breath. Nothing's gonna happen. Probably the Democrats are gonna lose one or both houses of Congress in the fall. If that happens, I would guess there would be no significant budgetary reform or action until 2025. Well, Jeff, I mentioned at the outset that you and I grew up in Detroit and I remember one of my father's friends said to me, Detroit is the place that America divorced because they wanted to believe in the American dream and when we had our stresses in the 60s and 70 things like Tom Sugru's book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis in Detroit, he said they'd had the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act and all the Democrats in the South were afraid to vote to support the transformation of a black majority, black government, meaning Coleman Young as mayor. So we got divorced from, we were no longer America. We were a bad example and you and I have done work together in Detroit and been at numerous meetings and I often think of the kind of pressures that I remember in 1990, there was this headline in CNN. Detroit is the shadow that looms over the future of America. In other words, it's an indicator, it's an early warning like the canary in the coal mine of toxic political economy. And so when I thought about talking with you today, I often go back to my musical origins. There was a guy that actually played my senior prom named Bob Seager. Oh my God. And he's got it.  Bob Seager wrote a song that made me think of you. It's called Travelin' Man and at the end of the song, as he's reflected on all of this, he says, sometimes at night I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul.  I follow your work. I have since I was, I guess, a senior in high school. And I think it's amazing how you, after what might call the woundedness of Detroit, all the things you've described today and all your international involvement, remain so constructive and I'm very grateful for that. Well, Rob, I'm grateful that we do it together and thank you for those lovely words, but we've been on a journey together and your leadership of INET and constructive new approaches to these issues is essential. So I really thank you and how great to be together with you today. Yeah, thank you and we'll, how would I say? Pause now and wait for the next turn of events in the next chapter, but I look forward to working with you in the days ahead. And once again, I'm very grateful for the example you set for our young scholars and for our country. Thank you so much.


Broadway's my beat from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomeest mile in the world. Broadway's my beat with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. The time comes to Broadway when summer is an early evening. The winds of twilight begin their drifting, and in their wake, the leading edge of night. The laughter begins to bubble in the heat-heavy corridors, and when laughter is to a boil, doors are opened on to the nighttime, and it spills and flows with the currents of this new darkness. And from somewhere a breeze, in the rocket and flare of light, green, blue, scarlet, splashing the faces and shoulders of women heading into the nighttime. The midway is opening now, so hurry, hurry, hurry. Ticket to being sold to Carnival. And in an office at headquarters, the listless ending to a day splattered with minor violences. The stapling together of chondruplicate reports unsame. The dawn of a fan whirring against the remaining wisps of a day's heat, and a detective talking into a phone, then shifting it to his other hand, to his other ear, because it's moist to describe. Sure, sure, George. We'll take care of it. Yeah. That was Georgie, Georgie Beck. Same thing. Yeah, Georgie says to be informed again. Georgie's in danger, he says. Georgie's upset. Pickpocket with a neurosis, Danny. It could ruin him and his business. He calls once more or ruin me and mine. Maybe he's not kidding, my girl. It's a matter of the heat got you, Danny. What are you saying? Maybe he's not kidding? First time Georgie called, we spent a man on him. Weeks we spent a man on him. All it was following Georgie was Georgie's own boozy breath. We fleabagged the bar and danced me around again, Georgie. Maybe whoever was following him spotted our man laid out for a while. Now with our man off, Georgie, maybe he started again. I got a theory, too. You can't hear it? Sure. You won't laugh. Why should I? Because it's the end of a day and you're tired and I'm tired and I'm going to lay a cliche on you. Nothing's following Georgie, the pickpocket. Nothing but his conscience. Nothing. Lieutenant Clover speaking. Maybe now you'll believe, Lieutenant. Maybe now when I'm hurt. Maybe now when I'm sliced up. Go on, my good man. Tell me slow, Georgie. Tell me what's happened. I told you. Georgie, hello? Georgie? What about it, my good man? Missed it. So check records of the detective assigned to follow Georgie Beck. Georgie Beck, a month ago resident of a hotel on 45th Street off the Broadway. Checked out July 5th and moved downtown. Georgie Beck, next resident of Roaminghouse for Transients. Checked out in a week, moved further downtown. Georgie Beck, address Flup House, Bowery. Then assigned detective pulled off of assignment. So go to last known address. Ask a man who sits out front in a straw hat and no shirt.  Georgie Beck left a week ago, friend. He went that way. Haven't seen him since. So leave there. Ride the squad car a couple blocks east. Find a bar you're looking for. The beer mug painted on the window is of last year's paint. And last year's beer. Only the price has been repainted. In accordance with the cost of living index is published by Bowery barkeepers. Go in. The man you're looking for has three neckties on. Again. Hi, Benny. Hi again. I don't want you sitting at my table, Danny. Oh, don't bother me today, Danny. You want a beer? I got one. Selling neckties again, Benny? Waiting for a buyer now named Gerison. He likes hand-painted ones with his name. Like these. So I'm showing him in three colors. Gerison in blue or Gerison in pink and Gerison in... How about Georgie Beck? Where is he? He'll leave when my buyer comes. Gerison don't like Lord Danny. He breaks out. He says it's mental. I'll see what I can do. Just tell me about Georgie Beck. You believe me if I say I ain't seen Georgie for a month? You've been away or he? I saw Kovacs, Danny, from here. For the last six weeks. I've been here. Georgie ain't. But the last time I saw him, he wouldn't know. Oh? Yeah. Just in a white tux jacket, black pants with silk stripes and a maroon bow-type cravette. Georgie? Georgie Beck. Just up like a Roman candle. Dropped in to tell us where and all he was going to Fort of July party. You know where? Grab underneath the table when I tell you. To the virulent mansion. Little Georgie to a party on Park Avenue. Where all the rocks are. That's back now. Say, help me. That's what Georgie said where he was going. Look what you got for a butler, mister. Me. Dress like this. I'm from the police. Danny Clover. Dress like this by a Frenchman who thought it's suitable to an August night on Park Avenue. Mrs. Vera Lane. Is she here? Mother? My mother? There is what took you whatever, well, from whatever you were doing and brought you here? Just tell me. In our garden, there is a pool. In the pool there is goldfish. By the side of the pool there is a woman with a crystal glass of black velvet in one hand and a box of fish food in the other. That is my mother. You know black velvet? Take me to her, please. Black velvet is champagne and stout. Sometimes when the fishies are good, mother lets them have a sip. Maybe they've been good tonight and you can watch them get loaded. Come on, I'll take you to my mother. Take a good look, Mr. Clover.  And through here, the garden, pool, and my mother. Wish up to the snack. Mother, dear, Vera. The surrender is being naughty, buddy. He won't eat. It's the way with goldfish turned drunkard. Vera, pay attention. There's a policeman at my side. He wants you. If you've come young men about the prowler, never mind. We haven't seen him for over a month. I came about a man named Georgie Beck. I reported the affair. I even went down to your jail to try to identify the prowler. Were you one of the officers who was so kind to me then? No. No. I can see you weren't. You were the kind one. But then what can you possibly want of me now? You gave a party about a month ago, in 4th of July. A man named Georgie Beck was there. Was he Bobby? Was there a man named Georgie Beck? I wouldn't know, mother. It was your party. All I did was keep it gay. No. No, there was no Georgie Beck. I know no one but that name. Well, I don't know. I don't entertain. I was told he was here. He told his friends about how he was coming here. But who in the world is Georgie Beck? A pickpocket. A man who's been afraid for his life. A man who's been knifed and is lost somewhere in the city. A man we're looking for so we can help him. So we can arrest his assailant. A pickpocket, you see? Yes. Well, then that would explain why he was here. If he was here, obviously a crusher come to a party where the fabulous lame diamond was being worn. Did I wore it here about my throat? Oh, to think that his fingers might have touched my... Bobby, that's so stifle to me. And this policeman, will you take him away from me, please?  Stop that giggling. You heard my mother, Mr. Clover. You'd better go. She doesn't want you to fly around here. Walk back through the lavishness of it all and out into the street. And it's night now. It's night on... Soda elegance and marble. And a special vista which includes a gently turning moon in a special color than cloudless sky. Leave it and back to Broadway where moon and stars and sky are obscured by other miracles of light. Man made and metered us to kilowatt hours. Down Broadway to headquarters then walk briefly the shadowed pavement and inside. Hi, Gino. The reason I got this phone in my hand I was just calling communications in case you were still in the squad car. Put the phone down and tell me. Georgie Beck found. He's got Georgie. What are you talking about? As much as I could understand Dr. Lowell when he called he said Georgie Beck. Markovan's still here? Yeah. Get him. Tell him to meet me downstairs. Lights on. Somebody's in there. Try it again. Let's go in, Markovan. Yeah. There they are. Yeah, both of them, flat on their face. Take the dock, Markovan. Right.  Rise and shine, doc. Come on, come on. Both drunk again.  Dead. You are listening to Broadway's My Beat written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin and starring Larry Thor as detective Danny Clover. It's so slow on Broadway now. It's summer and the time clock people go home in sunshine and twilight is an hour's time to make ready the fast drink, the fast shower, the quick phone call, his rockets of color and the sudden swift rush of riot. So grab a partner and hang on. Night dies quickly. Night was halfway done before I was. The room downtown in the quiet room at the end of a tenement corridor, death was. Wake up. Get on your feet, doc. Wake up. Come on, man. Come on. And how are you this evening, detective Markovan? And Lieutenant Clover? Can a hand please, Lieutenant? He's dead, doc. I tried, Danny. I really did. Hey, Danny. Yeah? Hand me that bottle, please. We want to know what happened here, doc. I need the bottle. Here. Thanks, Danny. Doesn't mean anything, Danny. Now and then I throw a half-full bottle of booze through the window. It's supposed to mean I'm not going to drink anymore. Come on, Lo. Just tell us what happened, will you? I was looped when he came in. I couldn't help him. I tried. You remember when that happened before, Danny? When he got in the papers? Maybe you need a faucet in your face, doc. Come on, we got work to do. He's all right. Georgie Beck knocked on my door. He was bleeding. He said he walked two blocks like that. I don't see how he did it. I tried to help him. I guess once I was taught what to do, but I saw the blood and I just ran around the room trying to think what to do. I got to lie down, Danny. Sure. I should go ahead. Yeah. You wait here until the wagon and technical comes. First thing in the morning, I want you to do something. Why? It worries me why Georgie Beck was at that party. The Verilane job? What makes you so sure he was there? Mother and daughter don't remember. Georgie had a formal outfit on the 4th of July. Get a guest list and check it down. Find out if and why Georgie was there. Okay. You going home? I've got a call to make first. Look, come on in, Geno. I've been waiting for you. Since your phone call, I've been helped to skelter-gathering material, Danny. And I don't want to seem rude. About what? Well, could not this material-gathering have waited until morning? Mrs. Tartaglia cannot see her way clear to take material-gathering as an excuse for the empty pillow on the left side of the Tartaglia bed. I'll write your note home, Geno. Now tell me what you've got for me. Nearly what you ask. The record on Georgie Beck. Tell me one. Roger. In December 1940, Georgie was apprehended in Times Square encumbered with 16 wallets, 15 of which were traced to squalling citizens, sentenced three to five. In April 1946, Georgie was apprehended with six wallets. Only six, Danny, since it was just 12 o'clock noon. No, no, just tell me about this year, Geno. Roger. This year, no arrests. He was a frequent passer-through at our show-ups, his last appearance being at the early show-up on 23 June. What else? The last entry into this file I was just in the process of typing up, Danny. After being a good boy for over a month, Georgie Beck was stabbed to death by a salient or a salient's unknown. Go home, Geno, it'll wait until tomorrow. Home?  Huh? Yes, you are. Good night, Danny. Then against the flow of an august night, walk the quiet streets of the city. The time is for the looters of night. Somewhere a stockpile of illusion may have been left unguarded. Somewhere there must be a dream not yet dreamed. A whispering uttered to no one else. A corner of an alley unoccupied. The trash can, unsearched. Walk. And be conscious of the night pattern you fulfill, drifter, straggler, searcher, derelict. And in the room, night ebbs, and in its wake, sleep. On the wall of the room dances the image of a pickpocket in finery, sauntering through marble mansions. The new day is headquarters and routine. Hypothesis on the death of Georgie Beck, considered discarded. Then at one o'clock, the day is distilled into a phone call from Detective Muggevin. Get here, it says. A man you ought to talk to. Park Avenue, neighbor of Vera Lane. Three doors uptown. I'll wait for you. And you order the squad car, and you get there. Guy Crale, Danny, one of the guests at the Lane Party a month ago. Lieutenant Clover, Mr. Crale. The thing you two must understand about me in the mornings, I'm irritable. In the morning, repetition bores me. A free translation of Mr. Crale's remark, Danny, is that he's already told me what I want him to tell you. I go ahead, Mr. Crale. Perhaps you don't understand. I have whore being repetitious, tautological. You just go right ahead and be that, Mr. Crale. Now speak your piece to Lieutenant. That's all how you are in the morning. Well, for this mercy, thanks. Well, I attended Vera's shindig. I admired the Lane Diamond about her wrinkled neck, drank the bubbly, put punk to sparkler, and was relieved of certain of my effects. What? What the gent is saying, Danny, Mr. Crale is saying he was heisted of his wallet at this Park Avenue affair. Georgie Beck? Is your companion kept mouthing that name to me? It enchants me. Georgie Beck? What is a Georgie Beck? Do tell me, Lieutenant. A man. A man who was murdered. The pickpocket who we think was at that party with you. Why wasn't the theft reported, Mr. Crale? Well, I had the wish to. The desire to, but I'm a man of brittle spleen and no backbone. Also a man who must carry quite a bit of money with him. Why didn't you report the theft? Because I was persuaded by Vera to be civilized and make a game of it. Game. Amid giggling and jolying women candles we searched each other. The ladies, the ladies, of course. And the men. Well, anyhow, we found my wallet on Johnny who fled from our division to some lair or other. Yes, tell me, Lieutenant, about Johnny, Mr. Crale. You don't know Johnny? Johnny Monday? No, tell me. Which was surprising. Johnny Monday, juvenile delinquent at 14, criminal at 20. Oh, I do relish this account. Just tell me. Well, it would be Vera's offspring. Somehow Barbara found this Johnny and her wanderings, imposed him on our circle, and one night announced to us her engagement to him. Miss Slane was in love with him? Oh, Barbie's emotions are wilderness to me. Anyhow, if she had loved one, it must have died the night he thefted my wallet and fled. Well, I bet you're completely destroyed, my man. Well, real sorry about that. Let's go, Margaretman. Officer Webb. Well, here you are, ma'am. What can we do for you? Records on the early show-up run for June 23rd. Can you get them for me, please? Right away. All yours, Lieutenant. Fine collection of pickpockets, prowlers, and sorted muggers. Thanks. Sorry, I should have made it clearer. This isn't what I want. All you got to do is state your case, Lieutenant. Anything you want, we're here to cooperate. I want to run down on the people who attended the show-up. Spectators, the people who came to identify the suspects. That's right here on the back of the file. This woman was at the show-up? Take away your finger, Madam Senator. Can't make out... Vera Lane, that one? What's there on the regular, Lieutenant? She was here. Lieutenant Clover, that's your member. Who? I was here last night when you were feeding the fish. Yes. Mackamin? It'll be a few hours yet before I feed the fish. Let's go in, Mrs. Lane. I want to talk to you.  That's a nice compliment.  Hello, Barbara. Why now? I'll tell you when, Barbara. I did the polite thing, Mr. Clover. I greeted you. What do you want? Just come back here. Tell me when to stop, Barbara. Yes, Mother? Don't start anything. Just listen to the man. You're here for what, Mr. Clover? To tell you about Georgie Beck. That's the man I read about in this morning's paper. That's the man I asked you about last night. What happened to him? Mother, Mother, you read... What happened to him? He's dead. You're here for what, Mr. Clover? To gather everything together. To tell you why he died. I know why he died. Don't be silly, Bobby. He died because a drunken doctor, a doctor with no license, couldn't do anything for him. That's right. Goes a little further than that. Where's the papers, Ma? Georgie Beck was a little man who thought someone was following. For a while, we put a man on it. Nothing happened. We dropped Georgie.  Just listen to the man. Learn a little. I don't understand this. I don't understand why this man is here. And you don't understand me. Yes, that's right. We dropped Georgie, but then Georgie called. He said he'd been hurt. Then he or someone else hung up the phone. Maybe Georgie figured the police had drunk an ex-medical student. And when you found him, he was dead. Right. Exciting. I don't want to hear the rest of it. I don't want to hear anything. You will, though. Won't you, Mr. Clover? You want her to. Over and over. Over and over. Hi, Ma. What am I going to do with you, Mr. Clover?  Georgie was at your fourth of July party, wasn't he?  Mrs.  I know, I know. I don't know whether you ever saw a prowler in office, Mrs. Lane. That's not important. What's important is that you were at the June 23rd show at the same time Georgie was. Then all of a sudden Georgie had formal clothes, went to your party, started living at a good hotel. Ma hired him. Didn't you, Ma? Mom? Mom, didn't you hire him? Yes. Yes, I did. I'm your mother and I know what's best for you. She's my mother and what's best for me is to hire a pickpocket. You know why she did that, Mr. Clover?  To make him run away from it? Yes.   You're my daughter and you wanted to marry a boy like that without record. A criminal with a record. Who's going to marry me now, mother?  After the party. After what happened... Don't tell him! Don't talk to him! After what happened, Johnny came back. Johnny Mundy, Mr. Clover. My love. The boy I'm never going to marry. He came back. He called me the next morning and I met him. You never knew that, mother? No, I didn't. I don't know anything about you.  I met Johnny, Mr. Clover. He told me he recognized that man at the party. At Georgie Beck. He knew what he was. He found him and followed him. He was going to kill Georgie, but I begged him not to. He told me where Georgie was and I went there. But I saw a policeman. I waited a long time until there were no more policemen. And then I did what I had to. Why, Bobby? To get back at me? When I was leaving? When I was leaving Georgie's room, Mr. Clover, he crawled over to the phone. He called someone. You, I guess. I watched him for a while. I took the phone out of his hand and hung up. What happened to your fiance? Where's Johnny now? I don't know. I gave him money and he went away. Of course he did. Why isn't he here now to help you? Like I am. I'll help you, Bobby. I know what to do. I'm your mother and I know what's best for you. Sure. You'll be a great help. You wouldn't let me marry the boy I love. Well? Who's the son? Ain't a murderer. The Night Fury races against the time of dawn on Broadway. It needs those hours to prove itself. Mob and grinning faces. Hockers. And the high heels clack. And the high heels clack. And the high heels clack. And the high heels clack. And the voice that whispers. But hurry. Time is a race. And night lasts only so long. It's Broadway. The Godiest. The most violent. The lonesomeest mile in the world. Broadway. My Beat. Ways My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover as Charles Calvert as Tortaglia and Jack Krushen as Muggevin. The program is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage. In tonight's story, Irene Tedrow was heard as Vera Lane and Michael Ann Barrett as Barbara Lane. Featured in the cast were Herb Butterfield, Ben Wright and Leo Cleary.