Transcript
MR. STROBE TALBOTT: I'm Strobe Talbott. I want to welcome all of you to the first public event of the fall season here at Brookings. It's going to be a very busy fall and I can't imagine a more appropriate subject in which to begin than the consequences for the economy and American politics of the corporate governance scandal.
This discussion is indeed public, not just for the benefit of those of you who have been good enough to come out here morning. But it will also be available in a WebCast on the Brookings web site which is "www.brookings.edu" and in due course there will be a full video available, also through the web site, as well as a transcript of the proceedings.
I'm joined here this morning by five colleagues and I'll briefly introduce them in the order in which they're going to be addressing the issue. Then after about a half an hour or so of opening presentations by them we'll have some dialogue among them and then go to a discussion involving all of you.
Carol Graham who is a Senior Fellow in the Economics Department here at Brookings has just become the Vice President and Director of our Governance Studies Program. She will be speaking about the cost to the American economy of the corporate governance scandal, an issue that she has addressed along with several of her colleagues in a policy brief that is in your press kit and has gotten some attention over the last couple of weeks.
Bill Gale is a Senior Fellow in Economic Study, he is also the Deputy Director of our Economic Studies Program. He will be talking with somewhat more specificity about the effect of the scandal on the federal budget and also on the nation's ability to meet the retirement crunch.
Mary Graham is a Visiting Fellow here at Brookings and she will look at this episode as a case study in the ongoing debate over public transparency which is the principal theme of her new book, Democracy by Disclosure several copies of which are outside and it's also on sale in the Brookings book store.
Charlie Schultze will offer a historical perspective on this most recent series of events. He of course, in addition to being an extremely distinguished scholar here at Brookings has had some role in the history of economic policy himself.
And Tom Mann who is a specialist on American politics will talk about the political implications of the scandal, particularly as we head into the fall election.
With that, Carol, if you'd please get us started.
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