 We're pleased to have everybody here. I'm delighted to welcome you on behalf of the Primary Club of the World's Superior Council, Philadelphia. It's our pleasure to partner with the Council this evening to offer our members and guests, partners with the Council this evening to offer informative programming on timely issues, a chance to interact with renowned experts in their field, and prospects for networking and meeting other professionals and community members. That's kind of like our mission also. The World Affairs Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to informing and engaging people of all ages on matters of national and international significance. Upcoming speakers that I'm sure you don't want to miss include Donna Brazil and Michael Smokanish for a look at the upcoming election. Former ambassador to Afghanistan, Miami Proctor, which will have a conversation on Cuba and the 15th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, economist Mark Zandy of Moody's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Thomas Freeman, and former Irish President, Mary Robinson. There are other details in the packet or at the registration table. The Primary Club served as a center point of thought of its business, social, and political sector for nearly 20 years. We have our 20th year anniversary next year. We're thrilled to have you. And I hope you have a good evening. And from now I'd like to invite Richard Green, CEO and Vice Chairman of First Trust to the podium to announce tonight's speaker. Thank you, Ben, and good evening. We at First Trust are delighted to take part in this event, to be an engaged supporter of the World Affairs Council. My own association with the World Affairs Council dates back to about 1967, when I was a high school student at the Haberford School. I participated as a delegate from the southern state of Gambia in the annual model UN that the World Affairs Council hosted. That experience inspired me to become a political science and economics student at Tufts and serve to open my eyes to some of the important issues of the world. The council does a great job and serves an important purpose in our community. Now as the CEO of First Trust Bank, which was founded by my grandfather in 1934, we're pleased to continue to support the good work of the council and equally pleased that Peggy Limecueller, who's our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, is a member of the council's board of directors. And Peggy will moderate the Q&A session at the conclusion of our guest speaker's remarks. So Peggy, let me stand up. So we thank Peggy for her leadership and First Trust support and speaks to the shared sensibilities of our organizations, at the heart of which is education. Participation in the World Affairs Council, first and foremost, helps to support education programs serving middle and high school students, the goal of which is to prepare the next generation to be responsible citizens and competent competitive leaders and professionals in a global knowledge-based economy. Our founder, my grandfather, Samuel A. Green, valued education, had a great passion for people. He was a Hungarian immigrant to the U.S. in 1905, taught himself English at the Free Library and engendered the trust of his community so that he was able to start a bank in the depths of the Great Depression. Today is a 78-year-old, two-and-a-half-billion-dollar community bank honored as a third generation to represent First Trust in our core values of encouraging education and service to our community. As the fifth largest family-owned business in our region, we were able to emerge from the Great Recession with more capital and better reserves, not having to accept any TARC money or other governmental assistance, not needing to sell any key assets or take on any unwanted partners. I'm particularly pleased to have not had to take any TARC money, as that might have brought me face-to-face with our guest speaker and negotiating my compensation. And for those of you who don't know my father as my chairman, that's a tough enough negotiation as it is. But that does bring me to introduce our distinguished speaker. Ken Feinberg is managing partner of Feinberg-Rosen, law firm we founded in 1992, specializing in mediation, arbitration, other forms of alternative dispute resolution and negotiation strategy. Over the past four decades, he has been front and center in some of the most complex legal disputes, resolving thousands of differences, involving a wide range of interests and clients. Mr. Feinberg is probably best known to date for his role as the administrator of the 9-11 Victim Compensation Fund, and since overseeing that monumental task, his career as a mediator and administrator of major compensation funds, following natural disasters has greatly expanded. He has titled Landmark Compensation Cases in the past five years. These include the fund for victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, the payment for compensation of the senior executives of banks and auto companies, excluding first trust, that accepted TARC bailout money, and the disbursement of claims so far to 225,000 individuals and businesses in conjunction with the 2010 VPOL still in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Feinberg has also been retained formally, to be, I guess it's been announced, but by Penn State in its effort to facilitate settlements with the abuse victims of Jerry Sandusky, and also by the Colorado Governor, John Hickenlooper, who happened to be a classmate of mine at the Hammerford School, as the special master for the Aurora Victim's Relief Fund from the movie Theater Shootings this past summer. Mr. Feinberg in these roles has had to deal with the basic question of who gets what, which is the name of his recent book. The questions surrounding such assignments challenge our basic values of the distribution and the redistribution of wealth. In a world of scarce finite resources, such decisions reflect our core beliefs as to the value of human life, fairness, justice, and in retrospect, who we are. It is a daunting responsibility carried out in the harsh public light under the most trying circumstances. It clearly takes a special kind of individual to so successfully carry out these difficult assignments. It's my privilege to now welcome Ken Feinberg to you. Wow, I want to thank Richard for that introduction. Richard, by the way, mentions my book. Who gets what? Now, some of you may not have that book yet. Don't worry. My personal supply of that book is virtually inexhaustible. So if you have trouble, just ask Richard or Claudia and we'll get you a copy. I am in awe of Richard just based on that introduction. Richard works or works with or works with his father. Do you know how difficult it is to work for a father? In 1932, Albert Einstein was visiting California, true story. And he went to a lunch at Warner Brothers Movie, a studio in Hollywood. Jack Warner hosted it with his three brothers and they just didn't get along. And Einstein was introduced by the interpreter. Mr. Warner, this is Albert Einstein. He discovered the theory of relativity. Jack Warner looks at Einstein and says, I know all about the theory of relativity, never hire a relative. It's really an honor for me. I want to thank Richard and Claudia for inviting me here today and spend a few minutes with you. I also want to acknowledge Richard mentions Penn State, this latest challenge that we confront. Joe O'Day is in the Saudi. It's a lawyer from right here in Philadelphia at the Saul viewing firm. This whole idea of trying to come up with a creative way to move along here and try and resolve these cases of sexual abuse without spending years in the courtroom. It's really Joe who's taken the laboring over here along with my colleague, Camille Byros, who's right here also from my firm in Washington, who's been working closely with Joe, my partner, Mike Rosen, some other Joe's colleagues, hopefully over the next few months we'll be able to find a way of thinking outside of the box to come up with a solution to these various cases that have arisen with such tragedy over the past few months. So I'm in Joe's debt and Camille's debt and others working on that project. Now in 20 minutes, let me provide you a summary, a summary of this book and the public policy problems that it reflects. Every once in a while in American life, not very often, but every once in a while, there is a tragedy that so galvanizes the public that our policy makers, a judge, Congress, the White House, the governor, so galvanize the public, it's of such visible impact on the American people that our policy makers say we gotta compensate the victims or we've gotta deal with money and we've gotta think out of the box the regular way of doing things. Let's go to court, you hire your lawyer, I'll hire my lawyer, we'll fight it out before judging jury or corporate pay, banking pay. Let the private sector decide in the free market what somebody's worth. Every once in a while, policy makers say no, we're gonna do it differently. We're gonna do it expeditiously, quickly, with certainty. 11 days after 9-11, Congress passed a law and the law simply said anybody who doesn't wanna sue the airlines, the World Trade Center, the security guard companies, Boeing, maybe airplane cockpit door, anybody that would rather give up their right to sue and enter a no fault compensation program. You don't have to, if you wanna file a lawsuit, go ahead. But if you wanna go a new way, you will be compensated for the death of your loved one or for the physical injuries you suffered without having to go to court. Wave your right to sue, here's a check funded entirely by the taxpayers. Public money. Over the next two years, we designed and administered that program 97% of all the families who lost a loved one, the World Trade Center, the airplanes, the Pentagon, came into the fund. We paid out $7 billion of your money and basically paid 5,200 people, death, physical injury. The program worked exactly as Congress intended. Congress will never, ever do it again. Not like that. Not like that. Where in order to get somebody not to sue, you had to give them enough money so they would be attracted out of the courtroom to settle the case. You know what that means? The stock broke up, the bank up, received more compensation than the bus boy, the waiter, the cop, the fireman, the soldier. They made more. If you want to attract them not to sue, you got to pay more. So everybody got a different amount of money. You don't think that caused problems? The divisiveness among the very people you're trying to help. But we did it. We got the money out the door. People waved their right to sue. At the end of that program, only 94 people decided to opt into the courtroom and they all settled their case about five years later. No one ever went to trial. Done. After the BP oil spill in the gulf, BP goes into the White House and they come out. An hour later and they announce, we are going to set up a special compensation program, voluntary, and we will front $20 billion. Nice to be an oil company. We will front 20 billion. Without any finding of liability, we want to pay the people injured in the Gulf of Mexico. We don't want people to go to court. Go to court if you want, but we're setting up a 9-11 type fund and the White House said, BP, we agree, let Ken Feinberg do it. Independent, let him do it. Over the next 18 months with Camille's help, we distributed $6.5 billion to 220,000 people in businesses in the Gulf, who decided we'd rather enter the fund than litigate, than litigate. The problems in doing this were enormous. We received over one million claims from 50 states, 400 claims from Pennsylvania. Build it and they will come. 400 claims, Mr. Feinberg, we own a restaurant on Broad Street. We sell the best shrimp scape in Philadelphia. Now we can't get Gulf shrimp. People start coming to our restaurant. We lost 12% of our clientele. Pay us, no, I'm not gonna pay you. You're not, outrageous. So 9-11, public money, BP, private money, but both of them, alternatives to the traditional way in this country, we go about resolving disputes. Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colorado, private money available, 7 million at Virginia Tech, 5 million in Aurora, distribute the money. Who gets what? The dead should get the most, the families of the dead, those physically injured, and if you have enough money, those who, through the grace of God, did not suffer a scratch, but were in the building, in the theater, witnessed the carnage, but you gotta have enough money to do that. Now that money, those examples are a little different. Those are first cousins, those are a gift. You're not waiting your right to sue. It's passed through from private donations and private charity, but it's an alternative to those who want compensation or are eligible for compensation. The pays are, now that's the title they called me, the press. When I was appointed to, don't forget, that was an act of Congress. Congress passed a law right after time for a while there, which, you know, was wearing the mustache and got glasses, but, but that program was populist revenge. Congress decided that if we've got a bailout city group and AIG and Bank of America and Chrysler and GM, well, we're bailing them out with the taxpayer's money, we're gonna fix their pay. The top seven companies that receive the most tarp assistance, the top 25 executives in each of those seven companies, 175 people, their pay will be set by treasure. Secretary Geithner, Ken, will you do it? Will you set their pay? It's not very American to set their pay, but Congress passed a law. And so for 16 months, again with Camille's help and others at Treasury, we went about setting the pay of the top 25 people in each company. And we heard the same arguments with all of them. Mr. Feinberg, if you don't pay our CFO the right amount, he's irreplaceable, irreplaceable. First, you say to these guys, the graveyards are filled with irreplaceable people, right? Then the second thing you say to them is, no one's irreplaceable. No, no, if you don't pay the CFO of this company, 8 million, she's gonna leave. And you know where she's gonna go? She's not gonna go across the street, she's gonna go work in China. Everybody's going to China, the world. If they don't get what they want, the threat, they're going to China. Over 16 months, we worked it out, we sat with them, we worked out their pay. Congress will never do that again. That's not a matter. Congress isn't, and the government's not in the business of fixing private pay, but Congress incensed at the need for time. This is the price that these corporate officials will pay. And that's the way it was. So all of these programs, most of them tragedy, toy, following tragic damage, oil spills, terrorist attacks, derange, gunman, those programs result in a special compensation program reserved only for those people who are victims, nobody else. The Pesar, again, that was a media epithet that they called me the Pesar. I tell you, my grandmother in Lithuania would have been very confused by that. But that was the title that they imposed on me. That was something else, I mean that was, you know, interference with the private marketplace. Congress did it, so it was a sideshow. It was a sideshow. Did it have much impact? I didn't think it had particularly a lot of impact, but that's what Congress wanted, that's the law of the land, so we did it. Interesting assignment. Now, what lessons do we learn? I mean, we can talk about all of these different examples, but I want to pose to this audience, which is a rather sophisticated crowd, I must say. I want to pose a couple of issues which I discuss in the book and which trouble me greatly. One, to these programs work, are they a success? I think they are. I think that when policy makers decide, Mr. Feinberg, will you design and administer this or that program? We do it. A group of us sit down around the table, Camille, Price Waterhouse, lawyers from the Justice Department, from Treasury. We sit around and design the program to compensate or to fix pay. That's what we do. Penn State will sit down with Joe, a few other people, lawyers will work it out. The programs are successful. That's why I think I get asked back to do it again. The first time I screw it up, I'm out of pasture. You'll get somebody else to do it. I mean, what I do, what we do is not rocket science, I must say. It really isn't. I think there are millions of Americans. There are people in this room that could do what I do. It really isn't rocket science. You don't need a degree. You better have a stiff spine, I'll tell you that. And you better be creative and you better show some empathy. But it's not rocket science. We design these programs, we administer them and they're successful. So what's the challenge? The challenge is that success breeds the danger of repetition. And I think these programs, as successful as they are, raise profound questions about wisdom, about setting these programs up in the first place, even 9-11. When I was doing the 9-11, you should read some of the emails I got during the 9-11 fund. Dear Mr. Feinberg, my son died in Oklahoma City. Where's my check? Dear Mr. Feinberg, I don't get it. My daughter died in the basement of the World Trade Center, in the original 1993 attack committed by the very same people. Where's my check? Dear Mr. Feinberg, my son was serving his country on the USS Cole in Yemen. He was killed by a suicide bomber. How come I'm not eligible for your fund? But it's not just terror. Dear Mr. Feinberg, explain something to me. My wife last year saved three little girls from drowning in the Mississippi River and then she drowned a heroin. Where's my check? Dear Mr. Feinberg, last year my daughter, a second-year Med student at Columbia, was walking on the sidewalk when she was killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver. Where's my check? How do you justify carving out for very special treatment a small segment of people who are the victims of life's misfortune? Everybody else, then for yourself. Dear Mr. Feinberg, I see you're doing the BP oil spill. I've been waiting 15 years to collect from Exxon on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Where's my check? Am I any less worthy with the oil spill that I suffered in Alaska than the fishermen and the crabbers and the shrippers who can't get paid in the Gulf of Mexico? Where's my money? It's unfair. It is unfair. Mr. Feinberg, you're fixing my pay at Citigroup. Now look, why are you singling me out to interfere with my pay? I mean, there were 450 companies that got top money and there were thousands of corporate executives. I wasn't even here during the 2008, 2009 debacle, the meltdown. And you're fixing my pay? How dare you? What is this? Some dictatorship? It's not right. Well, I can only tell you that the law and Congress are saying, yeah, yeah, that gets me real fast, right? Well, Congress said that I gotta do it, so, you know. There's something, you gotta be very skeptical about these programs where the American people out of generosity, empathy, and a lot of communitarian spirit come to the rescue or focus. Everybody else, business as usual, go hire your lawyer and go file a lawsuit or you fix your pay with your own people and the government has no role whatsoever. It's a real issue. The other problem that arises in all of these cases is expectation. It's not only what is a victim gonna receive in dollars. Everybody counts other people's money, you see. It's not just what I'm gonna get. What am I gonna get relative to my next-door neighbor? What do you got against me? Human nature. These programs are filled with human nature issues. In every one of them, 9-11, 9-11, Mr. Feinberg, my husband died. He was a fireman and he died a hero. Why am I getting $2 million less than the bankers' widow who worked at Enron in the World Trade Center? Well, Mrs. Jones, you gotta understand, the banker was making more sorts of, you know, economic, trying to track them out of a total, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All I know is my fireman hero is getting us, what are you gonna get from my husband? Why are you denigrating his memory? Everybody counts other people's money. BP, a different problem. Volume, a million, 100,000 claims from 50 states and 35 foreign countries. Everybody's engine impacted by the spill. Everybody. Mr. Feinberg, I lost $100,000 because I couldn't go fishing in the Gulf. They closed the fishing because of the oil. I want 100,000, okay? Finally claim, now. Prove it. We do things with a handshake down here. No, no. Prove you lost 100,000. Where are your tax returns? I don't have any. Okay, you have no tax returns. What do you have? Here are my corporate statements. Here's my checkbook. Here's my trip tickets. Here's all the corroboration. I lost $100,000. All right. I'm gonna send you a check for 100,000. All right, that's more like it. Now, when I send you the check, you're gonna also get, from Camille, you're gonna also get a 1099. I waive it. You can't waive a 1099. I've got to send you a 1099. You're gonna send me a 1099? I withdraw my claim. Wait a minute. You're gonna withdraw a claim where I'm gonna pay you $100,000 because you don't want a 1099. It's withdrawn, fine bird. I don't want to send it. Problem. The absence of proof, the volume of claims, the anger of people. Finally, and then some questions. Finally, people say to me, is it helpful to be a lawyer when you do these programs? Look, a law degree, it's largely a wash. You'd be better off with most of these programs with a divinity degree. You're dealing with people. You're dealing with people who are emotional, angry, frustrated at life's curve ball. And you better realize that and you better avoid mistakes. I made a mistake once. I'll never do it again. I'll never make this mistake again. I learned a valuable lesson. During 9-11, a 71-year-old man came to see me. Mr. Feinberg, I lost my son at the Pentagon. As a result of the attacks. He escaped. He escaped the Pentagon after the attacks. But he thought his system was trapped. He went back in to look for his system. She had got out of side door. He died looking for him. Mr. Feinberg, my life is over. I survived. I buried my own son. My life is finished. I will never be the same no matter what you do. I looked at him and I said, Mr. Jones, terrible. I know how you feel. What a blunder. He looked at me. Nice man, Mr. Feinberg. You have a tough job. I don't envy what you're gonna do. Don't you ever tell anybody that you know how they feel. You have no idea how I feel. None. So my advice, don't sit. I'll never say that again. Mistake, mistake. And here's the last story. Claudia's giving me the hook in a minute. Here's the last story. To tell you how you gotta be a shrink. In these programs, after all the public policy and the arguments on the merits, you gotta be a psychiatrist. A lady comes to see me at the 9-11 fun. I talk about it in the book. Good in the book, I talk about a lot of these stories. Lady comes to see me, saw me, 24 years old, saw me. I thought she was gonna collapse. I lost my husband. He was a fireman at the World Trade Center. He was Mr. Ma. Every day that he wasn't at the firehouse, he was home, teaching our six-year-old how to play baseball, teaching our four-year-old how to read, reading a bedtime story to the two-year-old. What a cook! He cooked all our meals. He was the gardener around the house. Mr. Fimer, he was Mr. Ma, I am. My life is over. I'm on this earth only for my three children. Otherwise, I would jump on the window. I will not never be the same without him. My life will not have a moment's joy. She leaves. The next day, I get a telephone call from a lawyer in Queens. Mr. Fimer, did you meet yesterday with the woman, Mr. Ma and the three kids, six, four, and two? Yeah? Now look, you got a tough job. I don't envy you for a minute. But I got to tell you, she doesn't know that Mr. Ma has two other kids by his girlfriend in Queens, five and three. Now I'm telling you this because I represent his girlfriend, and when you cut your 9-11 check, there's not three surviving children, there's five surviving children. But I'm sure you'll do the right thing, Claire, for the next two years. That's for a lot of years. Dear Teller, dear Teller, Mrs. Jones, I got to tell you this, two other, I didn't tell her. I'm up at 3 a.m. on this. You're pace, you're pace. It's not about designing the system. What do you do with human nature? What do you do with people like this who are emotionally distraught? I didn't tell her. Not my business. I don't know the facts. I don't know what's going on. I'm not a family counselor. I don't know all of the circumstances. She has a memory of her husband. Who am I to pile on? We cut one check for her and the three kids, and we cut a separate check she didn't know about to the girlfriend as guardian of the two kids. Now it's 12 years later, but I'm sure she knows by now, but that's what makes these programs so tough, human nature. After all of the design and human nature and how you deal with grief, visions of self-worth, very, very difficult. Your lawyer background isn't all that helpful. It really isn't. So that sort of is a summary. I think these programs raise profound public policy issues. And in the future, if I'm invited back, Joel Day and Camille and others will explain how we resolved all the Penn State cases with a minimum of fuss and bother, I hope. And I wanna thank the World Affairs Council and Claudia and Richard for the great work that the council does as an institution here in this city, around the globe, but in this city. And one of its members, an opportunity to engage in some of these public policy issues that I saw at the heart of our country. And I'm very, very grateful for the opportunity to visit with you today. So thanks very much. Oh, thank you guys for the question. Okay, everyone. So as Richard said, I'm Peggy Marnkiller from First Just Bank. I'm not just saying this because my boss is in the room. I do really love my job, but I don't think I've ever loved my job more than after listening to Ken Feinberg's talk. We're very fortunate to have Ken Feinberg be able to take some questions. So what I'm gonna ask you to do is there's a microphone here at the front of the room. If you have a question, you can just step up and ask your question. We have about 15 minutes or so for questions. So please resolve to get some questions from you guys. Have some folks stepping forward. All right, I'll be asked the first question. Is there any, is there ever any follow up done? Five, two years later, five years later, 10 years later to determine if people are satisfied, weren't satisfied being in the system? Follow up. Absolutely not. It's in nobody's interest. People want to move on. You want people to move on after tragedy. Revisiting this stuff. Revisiting, reunions, subsequent discussion, bad idea. Just a bad idea. I hope people, they receive the money, let them move on as best they can. 9-11, in the last 12 years, 10 years, 11 years, I've heard from one claim. Every year I get candy or flowers. One, and that's the way it should be. No follow up, no how you're doing. Absolutely not. Mr. Feinberg, thank you for your presentation. You've asked some very provocative questions regarding public policy in this area. I'm a Philadelphia lawyer, and I believe in mediation and arbitration, which I think have contributed mildly to our profession in the past 40 years. I do want to ask you a question regarding the issues you raised to the wisdom of public policy as it relates to an event like 9-11 and setting up a fund. And that is different than the public funded efforts because the taxpayers in this room are paying for it. And you have made some comments which are pretty critical, I think, of the process, even though you are the person in the administrative program. So my question is this. Have you done a cost-benefit analysis on behalf of the taxpayers of this country? Do you believe today, as you stand there, that it was the right thing to do as a country to eliminate the many, many lawsuits which would have tied up the court system in this country for years and years and years and would have delayed justice to the people who deserve justice? So that's the first part of the question for you personally. The second part of the question is, could you tell this audience, I'm a lawyer, but I don't know if everyone in the audience is. I hope not. What do you believe is the contribution that has been made on the whole by mediation and arbitration to the judicial process and to the jurisprudence of this country? I think it's been a great benefit. You may differ. I would like to hear your views. Thank you. Wow, the world's a wisdom. First, the 9-11 Fund was a spectacular success. I think it was the right thing to do. Just don't do it again. The 9-11 Fund, right after those attacks, look, the 9-11 Fund was a unique response to an unprecedented American tragedy rivaled only by the American Civil War Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President Kennedy. And Congress in its wisdom stepped up and said, we know this is a tragedy. It's much worse than Oklahoma City. It's much worse than Katrina or a tornado or an earthquake. This is a farm attack, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we don't want people suing. Dragging the airlines down. The airlines got dragged down anyway, but. So I think the 9-11 Fund was sound public policy. It should just not be a precedent. As for mediation and arbitration, I think mediation and arbitration are fabulous as supplements to the legal system. Wonderful. Just people who believe in mediation and arbitration like I do ought to understand that mediation, arbitration, alternative dispute resolution, these alternatives are never ever going to replace the legal system in this country. The trial system, the lawyers, the judges, the juries. The legal system in our country is so ingrained in the fabric of the country that anybody who thinks that mediation and arbitration, which I worship, that's my business, that's my profession. It has a role to play. Just don't oversell it. It's not a threat to the litigators and the legal system in this country. It's very valuable as an addendum, but not as a replacement. Not a public policy question, a personal policy question. My sense is your group gets together as a group, tries to create some formula for reimbursement, but there are many cases that obviously fall through the cracks that are shades of gray. Do you make that decision personally? It's on you, you have maybe a trifectant in the office, you have an advisor, how does it work? See that is CEO raising a very, very interesting question. Yes, ultimately in these programs, that type of almost unbridled discretion, unfettered lies with me. Now on the plus side, decisions are made, they are made very efficiently and effectively and quickly, money is distributed, done, done. Just what policy makers wanted, fast money out the door or corporate official, you've got no choice, the law says I decide what you're gonna make. Negative, you're conferring an awful lot of discretion on one person. It's not very good political science, there are no appeals, there's no second guessing. If you don't like how I exercise my discretion, tough, go to China, it is very, very problematic that you confer so much authority on one person. The day I screw up is the day that, you know, Pluto's too close to earth to me. So do you consider yourself to be a man with a soft heart? I'm sorry. No. I have a feeling I'm done. I do, but beware that that soft heart, better not undercut and dilute your objective professionalism in trying to decide case after case after case without just, well, I'm gonna give you more because I feel badly, and it's very, very difficult to balance that. So you mentioned that the legal system is very much built into the fabric of our country, and I agree, much more so than other countries, so, or many other countries. So my question is, are you aware of how a very large tragic event might be treating somewhere else, finance, Japan? I'm just curious how they would do that. Sure. They grapple with the problem in other countries. Here's the difference. No other country on earth has a litigation system like ours. No other country on earth poses such uncertainty, such costs, such projected delays so that the alternatives that develop in BP or 9-11 are looked upon by policy makers as a way to avoid some of those risks. Now, if you don't have those risks in other countries, there's less of an incentive, you see, to promulgate alternatives like this. Also, no other country is as generous after the London bombings, remember the subway, the bus bombings a couple of years ago, the terror attacks, 52 dead. I went over to Parliament and invited me. I went over to Parliament and I met with the English. I said, how did you set it up? Well, we did it this way, this way. Fabulous. We're thinking of doing the same thing here, and what did you pay people? Oh, we paid on an average for a death claim, two million tax free. Next day I line back home. That was it. The minute they hurt, how much? Two million per case, on average. Thank you very much for visiting our country, and they never did. They never toured system, yes. Sort of curiosity question and a kind of comment. The few people that, with 9-11, that didn't settle and waited those five years, did they regret it? Oh, I don't think they regretted it. Summed up more, summed up less. I don't know for sure, it was all confidential. But the idea of waiting five more years to settle your case with depositions and litigation and a constant reminder of that horror, my own personal view is it was a mistake. I tried to talk those folks out of it. And 94 said, no, we wanna litigate and find out what really happened on 9-11. We haven't, go to the special commission on investigating the whole tragedy. You're not gonna find that out in the courtroom. Eventually they settled and you'd have to ask them. But I think objectively, they would have been better off entering the fund. As an observation, when you talk about getting the people together in the room from your group and opposing groups and all the interesting parties, and you're able to actually come out of the room with a decision. It seems to be very refreshing in this age we live in and no one can agree on anything and everybody is stuck in neutral. So maybe you're in the wrong profession. Well, I do think we were talking about this today. Joe and Camille, we were talking about this today. I do think people, victims, emotionally distraught, value, certainty. Just tell me, nothing else in this world is spinning around, nothing else makes any sense. Am I gonna get any money? And how much am I gonna get? And when am I gonna get it? And Mr. Fiberg, the money is no substitute. I'll give you all the money back and then some if you'll bring my wife back. But if you're not gonna do that, and this is his program, well, tell me, what's the answer? This is the answer. I'm grateful. They may not always agree, but they respect a certain deal, a process that has a quick end to it. I have a question, but I just wanted to quickly say that thank you as one of the business role who had an mediation with you about 15 years ago, follow up, we were very happy with the outcome and how you handled it. Did you have one here then or only after? I actually had very little, I've had mostly black hair with that, I think I got very far in the reasons anyway. What a question, when you say never again, if we have like, hopefully we won't have a 9-11 again, but if we have an incident like that or a horrific event, what are other options? And the reason why I'm trying that out, they were large insurance companies or we're insuring these companies, they're reinsurance companies, I know there are other options to hear. I think the most obvious option, I'm a big believer and I'm a minority, is the legal class action where you can take everybody who was injured or killed or harmed under the rubric of a court, a federal court right here in Philadelphia can do it, file your claim on behalf of everybody and work it out with the help of the judge. You don't need an alternative system, you don't need a special master and one guy with all this authority, the courts can handle it if they have the vehicle to do it, without doing one by one by one by one. And that to me is the most obvious alternative. Other than that, if policy makers say we wanna do another 9-11 fund or I don't think they will, but if they wanna do it, so be it. I wanna close, thank you, I wanna close with one great story. This is the end. I'm down in the Gulf of Mexico, this New England Yankee, all right, trying to convince fishermen in Plaquemines Parish to take the BP money. And there's about 300 of them in a town hall, a community town hall meeting and they are yelling and shouting. So the president of the parish stands up and he says, quiet down. Mr. Feinberg's come all the way from Washington, DC and you ought to know he is a model public servant. A model. Some fisherman in the back row grabs the mic and says, well, we all can agree on that. He certainly is a model. You know what a model is? A small replica of the real thing.