 There's clearly starting to be, in our culture, I believe in some of the things I've read at least, that there is an empowered class that has inheritance reinforcing top education, reinforcing good parents, highly educated parents who marry each other. And then that's creating an increasing gap between those that have those benefits and those that don't. And that is a form of inequality. You could argue it is unfair in the sense that people didn't actually always earn their way into or achieve their way into the empowered class. And is it calcifying to the point that it does create instability and that government intervention of some sort is necessary to handle it? Dr. Brooke, you want to start and then? Sure. Look, we're unequal. That's a reality. That's metaphysical. There's nothing you can do to make us the same. We're going to be different. We're going to marry who we want to marry. And yes, people tend to marry. If you're very highly educated, you tend to marry somebody who's highly educated. There's something bad about that. Maybe we should have government regulate that too. And to being about marriage equality, we need marriage equality after all. So I don't see where. I know there's this big literature now. I just read an article in The Atlantic about total inequality, where they're adding up wealth and income and marriage. They actually bring up the marriage issue. And they add a psychological inequality. And they add all these things up. And then there's total inequality. How do we redistribute? I mean, it's just ridiculous. We're different. We're going to be different. We're always going to be different. And that's a good thing. We should actually be celebrating that. And look, part of the incentive, as I came to America with nothing basically. I mean, a good education, a good background, good parents. Good marriage. A great marriage. And with somebody from a very different background, like first child to ever go to college and from a Thai family. And so very different in that sense. And one of the incentives to work really hard and to make some money is to be able to give the opportunities to your kids that you choose to give to them. And then you want to say, no, the government feels like you're giving too many opportunities to your kids. So the government's going to take some of your money away from you so you can't send your kids to the best school you choose to. So somebody else who maybe hasn't worked as hard as I have to create opportunities for his kids or whatever the reason is, they're unlucky or whatever, so that they can, why? Why isn't the money I created to help my kids, my money, so that I can create my kids? I pay 50% taxes in California today, right? If you add everything up. 50% of my time, of my work, of my effort goes to help other people's kids have a better life. Why? I mean, my kids need the money right now. Well, they don't right now, but they needed it a few years ago. Dr. Aber, what would you say about this issue, about the calcification of the haves and the have-nots and what we need to do about it? Well, it is certainly true that a sort of mating has increased. There's been a lot written about divergences of social measures at different parts of the income distribution, marriage, divorce, family formation, and everything's like that. So I think I worry less about success at the top coming from a sort of mating than I worry about the failures lower down. I find it very disturbing, the many pieces of evidence we have just within the last year about increasing mortality of people lower in the income distribution. Now, you can say, well, this is their choice to take addictive drugs that kill them or to become alcoholics or criminals or other things that lead to early death, and they're making a choice, and this is the outcome. I think that that's not a particularly productive way of thinking about the situation. And I don't necessarily want to just take money from successful people and give it to people who are not doing very well, but I think we have to recognize that they aren't doing very well and think about things that we can do other than giving them a pat on the back and congratulating them on their opportunity to fail. Well, let's take that on really directly then. If you had a magic wand and could just change things, both of you, to open up mobility and opportunity from the lowest income levels in this country, what would be the one or two things you would do first? I mean, I would start with getting government out of the way of business. I would start with there because I think what is really lacking, and I agree, there's this increasing death rate among middle-aged, white, working-class males, which is really scary, and it's these people voting for Donald Trump, and I think to some extent for Bernie Sanders, because they're mad, they're angry, they're frustrated, there's something clearly wrong in the system, and I think part of it is that they don't have good jobs, part of it is that they're living through a period of economic stagnation. I would like to see this economy grow significantly, and I think this economy can grow significantly. I don't think there are any barriers to growth. I don't agree with economists to say, this is it, the era of growth has ended, there's a book out now that is basically arguing that. What we need is to massively, massively deregulate this economy, massively get governed out of the economy, and that includes, by the way, the other side of deregulation. If I were a Republican candidate, thank God I'm not. I would run on a platform that says no more subsidies to business. Start there, start with getting rid of the side of the closure. I would slash regulations and create a corporate income tax rate, ideally it would be zero, but if zero is not political feasible, with no loopholes, so there'd be no reason to lobby, right? You can't get any favors, just something very simple, very straightforward, and I think this economy, I, you know, maybe we're biased because we live in California, particularly in Silicon Valley, you see the dynamism, you see the entrepreneurship, you see what Americans are capable of doing when they're freed up, and it's no accident that technology is one of the least regulated businesses of all, it's where you get the innovation. I'd like to see that expanded to all businesses and get this economy really growing. Now, to really address the issue of people who are struggling, I think it has to be more than that because I think there's a psychological element here which is driven by a philosophical element which goes back to my educational point, but at least let's get the simple stuff which I think is economics, let's get that done. So that's your solution. Dr. Arbaugh, what would be your one or two things with your magic wand to open up opportunity? Well, first of all, I, well, I think reform of government involvement in the economy has many arguments for it in certain areas. I don't think that's gonna have an appreciable effect on the economic growth rate. I just don't think there's any evidence at all for that, which is not to say that we should have bad government regulations. It's just saying that one has to be, have realistic understanding of what can be accomplished. I think we've talked about education reform and I think that's extremely important. The US has a great university system. People come to the US from other countries to study at our universities, to study at the post-graduate level. That's not happening at the K to 12 level and we've gotta think about what we're doing so badly at lower levels of education. We obviously can be good at education because we do it at levels in higher education and we have to think about ways in which we can make it better. It is going to, it's probably gonna cost money. Whether the additional reforms are accompanied by a lot of additional spending I think is crucial for the success of these approaches. I don't know that it's politically feasible. I mean a lot of the reforms that, whenever one thinks about a reform that's expensive, it immediately confronts the limited resources that our government has given our current commitments for other programs. But I think something along those lines is probably the thing I would put at the very top of the agenda and I would think emphasize it much more than anything else I can think of. You know, Dr. Berg, you made a point about the fact that the American wealth in total is not, is that we think of as the group pies is actually not the governments or the people as a whole. It's an individual's piece of it that adds up. But what would you say to Elizabeth Warren's perspective that nobody in this country gets rich on their own. They are working off the back of infrastructure and other investments in the society and in the community by everybody and that we should think about paying it forward rather than thinking about trying to grab our little piece. Well, I mean I think she is making a very important philosophical point for her side and this is why President Obama has jumped on it. You didn't build that was not an accidental speech. This is what they are driving towards. I disagree very strongly with that point of view. Of course people help you, right? Bill Gates didn't make $70 billion by himself. There were lots of employees who all got paid. More millionaires were created in Microsoft than any other company. Suppliers, you know, variety of them. Everybody got paid, everybody got paid. In a trade, win-win, Microsoft got better and the other party got better. Infrastructure, yeah we got infrastructure. Who paid for that infrastructure? The guys who made a lot of money. I mean most of the tax revenue comes from the very top particularly with regards to infrastructure, right? So they paid for that. They're the ones who paid for it. Yeah, if you had a great teacher, how many of you had a great teacher in school who really impacted your life? Say thank you and if you're really wealthy, write her a check. I mean that's a personal thing that you should do. How many of you had lousy teachers? You know, what are we gonna do? Take money back? So the point is that yes, we all benefit from other people. That's wonderful. You know, I believe, and this is a more philosophical point, all of us owe a huge debt to Avastartal, John Locke, Newton, Einstein, we all stand on giants. It's a few giants that made the civilization possible. So what are we supposed to feel guilty because they were so successful? No, the question is given the world that you live in, how do you make your life the best that it can be? How do you take advantage of the opportunities that you have? And how do you maximize your flourishing as a human being? How do you live the happiest, most successful, and maybe most prosperous, if prosperity is important to you, life that you can live, that's what it's about. And are the people important for that? Absolutely they're important for that. And good and say thank you when somebody does something nice to you and make sure that you engage not in Donald Trump type deals, which I suspect are win-lose deals, but in win-win transactions where both parties are winning, you're better off and the people around you're better off, which I think is how wealth is created at the end of the day through win-win transactions. I mean, wealth that's honestly made is made through win-win transactions.