 Greetings everybody. Thank you for coming. Our medical advisory team has given our guest and I permission since we're up here and you're out there to make ourselves more audible, but we're delighted to have you here. There are certain assignments in life when the person accepting them knows in advance that they are destined to be criticized and scrutinized and that regardless how conscientious or diligent they are, it will be impossible to satisfy everyone or even a healthy percentage of the people interested. It takes a very special person, a very public-minded person to take on assignments like that. We are graced tonight by the presence of someone who has done it over and over and over and someone I'm eager for you all to meet. I meant to ask him if he drinks Dos Equis beer because he certainly is a candidate for the most interesting man in the world, at least by virtue of things he's done. And so please join me in welcoming genuinely one of America's great public citizens, Dr. Kenneth Feinberg. We got a lot to cover, but I want to start with the most important thing. Did your family approve of Michael Keaton being cast as you in the movie? My family said, especially my children, that Michael Keaton's a great actor and we marvel at his performances, but dad, in plain you, he really ought to stick to Beetlejuice and Batman. Okay, so I heard that George Clooney was approached, but he was too busy on other projects. I don't know if that was the reason or it might have been something to do with compensation. I don't know. I was fortunate enough to meet you, Ken, at a very interesting and memorable time in American history. I just want to start really for the purpose of reminiscing, especially for our students who are present, about that very unusual time. The circumstances you and I have each related were that you were suggested to me. I had certain responsibilities in the aftermath of 9-11, one of which was to organize and find someone to lead the compensation fund, and we came from different polls, politically you would say, but to me what was always important about that was that what some saw as an improbable choice. You, a Ted Kennedy, a stalwart of his operations for so long, an administration that I represented of different persuasion, actually in the context of those times that rare moment of unity, which we've really not seen replicated since, it was to me an almost inevitable sort of choice, but can you remember now 20 years on what that was like? I can remember like it was yesterday, it was 20 years ago, 13 days after the 9-11 attacks, the four airplanes, World Trade Center, Pentagon, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Congress passed a law, a federal statute, bipartisan, no roll call, voice vote, unanimous. Let's set up a fund to compensate the victims of the 9-11 attacks, World Trade Center, the airplanes, the Pentagon, and the law required the appointment of a special master or administrator who would have the responsibility for administering this very unique statute, bipartisan. And my boss, my former boss, Ted Kennedy, called John Ashcroft, and John Ashcroft talked to Mitch, the head of OMB, and Kennedy said, what you better do here is you better at least interview Feinberg, he's done work like this, and that began the process. And when I went down to be interviewed by Mitch Daniels, the head of the Bush Administration, Office of Management and Budget, I had in my mind that, well, I'll do the interview, but I don't know, this is going to be a tough sell, Ken Feinberg, Kennedy guy. Mitch Daniels and I sat for 45 minutes to an hour agreeing on the statute, how to implement it, why it was probably a bad idea that some people would get all this money and everybody else, you're out of luck. And I left that meeting convinced that Mitch Daniels had my, if I got the job, he would have my back. He would make sure that the program, from the perspective of the Bush Administration, would work. And I got an inkling from Mitch, gee, you know, bipartisanship, what better, bipartisan symbol than a guy from Kennedy's, chief of staff for Kennedy, take on this assignment. And to this day, I'm in Mitch's debt forever with reverence. No, no, really, this will never be repeated quite this way. And what Mitch Daniels did, to do everything possible to make it bipartisan, apolitical on the merits for the next 33 months, I did this. And anytime I had a problem, we just worked it out like that. It worked. Well, the only debt, let me just correct one thing, that the only debt that's owed is from the victims, their families, and then the citizens of the country for the service he provided. And no one needed to have his back. He handled it beautifully. Just for those, and if you haven't, Ken's written two great books of what is life worth, which is about this experience, and then a great follow on that talks about his other experiences, because his leadership and success in the 9-11 compensation fund led to him being asked over and over again to undertake others. Just quickly detail the others as a preview, and maybe we can sell a few books here. And by the way, if you can't find these books, don't worry. My personal supply of these books is inexhaustible. Just email me. Don't worry about a book, Alvin. The 9-11 fund was followed in the movie points this out at the end with about a dozen more, just as Mitch says of programs, compensation. The BP oil spill, the Deep Water Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the Boston Marathon bombings on Patriots Day in Boston, the Pulse nightclub shootings at that Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the Sandy Hawk, those 25 first graders that were all killed in Connecticut, the Virginia Tech shootings at the campus where a deranged student went in and killed 32 people in a classroom. In all of these programs, Aurora, Colorado, the Dark Knight movie shooting, in all of these programs, I don't call for these programs, I get a call from a governor, a mayor, and I must say the Indiana windstorm here 10 years ago, 50, I forget how long ago, but where I got a call from the governor of Indiana, will you please come out and help us design and administer a program? It's in existence here in Indiana, but we're worried about controversy, divisiveness, who gets what, and I came right out here, you don't say no to the governor, and we quickly set up and administered the program and we got it done. As you can tell, he has never said no when the public interest required his services, and there's simply no one else like him who has anything like his experience. Ken, I want to, there are many questions of policy and philosophy really that I want to ask you, but first, just to start at the human level, none of us will probably ever meet anyone who has been face to face with more people who have suffered, in some cases, the worst loss you can, loss of a loved one, loss of a child. So you have made it a practice, you didn't have to, to meet individually with as many of those people as was practical. What do you have to tell us about what those experiences are like, and are there any generalizations you could make about the kinds of categories of people? First of all, it's debilitating. It is the worst part of what I do. Calculating value is not that difficult. Courts do it every day in Lafayette, in Indiana, in every state in the country. Every court, somebody gets injured by an automobile or whatever it is. What would that person have earned over a work life? What about pain and suffering? Equals dollars. That's the system. That's not the part. What Mitch Daniels is zeroing in on is the real debilitating part of compensating victims of tragedy, the emotion. The emotion is debilitating. You don't sleep. You cry and weep in private. You try and be as professional as you can. Two examples. A woman comes to see me after 9-11. She's crying. She's 26 years old, sobbing. Private meeting with me. Mr. Feinberg, I lost my husband. He was a fireman at the World Trade Center. And he left me with my two children, six and four. Now, you've notified me that you're going to provide me $2.4 million tax-free 9-11 fund. I want it in 30 days. I looked at it. Mrs. Jones, this is treasury money. It's got to go through the U.S. Treasury bureaucracy. It's a government check. It might take 60 days, 90 days. You'll get your money. No, 30 days. Why do you need the money in 30 days? I asked her. Why? I'll tell you why, Mr. Feinberg. I have terminal cancer. I have 10 weeks to live. My husband was going to survive me and take care of our two little ones. Now they're going to be orphans. Now, I only have a few weeks to get my life in order. I've got to find a guardian. I've got to make sure there's an estate. I've got to set up a trust. I don't have a lot of time. You've got to help me. Well, we ran down to the Treasury. Accelerated the check. Got it true. Eight weeks later, she died. Now, one after another like that, it takes a toll. One more. A woman comes to see me. I lost my husband. He was a policeman at the World Trade Center. He died. He saved 40 people in the lobby of the World Trade Center and brought them to safety. He looked back. There were another 20 in the lobby. He ran back in and saved the 20. While he was running across the World Trade Center plaza, he was killed when someone jumped to their death from the 103rd floor and hit him like a missile, killing them both. Mr. Feinberg, if he had taken one step, either way, he'd be here today. Don't tell me there's a God, Mr. Feinberg. No God would allow this to happen to my husband. And you do 850 or 900 of these individual voluntary stories. People come to see you. That is the toughest part of all these types of programs. Unimaginable. From those experiences, you mentioned in your book two things. I thought the audience would be interested to know. Two things you never want to say in one of those settings. Do you remember what they were? Well, one was a mistake. You make mistakes in every one of these programs. Guaranteed. I once was with an 82-year-old man who lost his son at the Pentagon. And he told me he said, my son is dead and a father should never have to bury a son. And I said to this old man, I said, you know, Mr. Jones, this is terrible. I know how you feel. Bad move. He looked at me very nice. Mr. Feinberg, don't ever tell people that you know how they feel on something like that. You have no idea it sounds robotic, condescending, pretentious. Just don't do that. That's the other lesson I learned. Empathy, the less you say, the better. Just listen, express condolence. Don't try and twist it. Just empathize with a sigh and silence because people are in grief. And, you know, I'm a lawyer. Sometimes I think I'd be better off as a rabbi or a priest. No, really. Does Purdue have a school of divinity or a psychiatry? I think that's... We'll start on it. You're the first dean. There was another mistake, faux pas maybe, that you made. You were making a very important point about these programs, which is that they become a quick and certain way for people to achieve compensation, but then they... That forecloses other, you know, more conventional litigation options and so forth, but you put that in a way you said you wish you hadn't. Yeah, somebody was screaming to me about, well, what are the pros and cons in this program? And maybe I ought to get a lawyer and go to court instead. And I'm not sure this is a good idea. I said, Mrs. Jones, really, the 9-11 Fund is the only game in town, a disaster, a disaster. And you learn the hard way in all of these programs. Be careful what you say. Be careful what you do. You're dealing with very fragile people who have suffered horrible loss. You can never get angry. And when they kick back in your face, considering what they're up against and how their life's been ripped apart, you have to be careful. So the question that you've confronted now over and over again, how much? For what? And how much? There's a great line in one of the two books. You said, one needs the wisdom of Solomon, the technical skill of H&R block, and the insight of a mystic with a crystal bowl. By the way, you should know that Ken being Ken, he spent hours with students today in two different courses. One was actuarial science. We have to find such a program in the country, by the way. That was apparent with the student questions. So I'm sure they ask you to take apart for them some of the calculus that you have to use in determining how much. And it may have been different in some of these different assignments you've had. Can you tell in likeness about that? There's two different ways you calculate value. First is the way that all of our courts in Lafayette calculate value. What would the victim have earned over a work life but for the tragedy? What would he have earned? Or she, what would they have earned in net revenue, net income over a work life? Add to that pain and suffering, emotional distress visited on the survivors equals a dollar, a dollar sign. That's one way you calculate the value of a life. Now the trouble with that approach, you see, when you calculate lives based on certain assumptions as to the victim, everyone's going to get a different amount of money. You see, the stockbroker, the banker, the lawyer, the accountant, the university president, they're going to get more, they're going to get more than the waiter, the busboy, the cop, the fireman, the soldier. They make more, they get more. That's the American system. Now in a lot of these other programs, Boston Marathon, Sandy Hook, Pulse Nightclub, Virginia Tech, Aurora Colorado, those aren't programs that mimic the legal system. Those programs are a gift. Donors from the American, the American people send in money to compensate the families or the survivors, the victims. That money is a gift and you can calculate value altogether differently. All lives are equal. I have $60 million to distribute after the Boston Marathon bombings, four people died, they'll all get $2.5 million and the rest will go to the injured. Doesn't matter whether you're an eight-year-old or a banker. In that system, it's much easier to design a program where all lives are equal. Go on just a little further about the difficulty at 9-11. The statute, which had to be written in astonishingly short order just to explain, the airlines, of course, were grounded. They weren't going back in the sky without insurance and no commercial insurer could take that chance. No one knew when this might happen again. There might be another plot ready to spring any time. Congress decided, so the economy wouldn't stop cold, we have to indemnify the airlines. But then many members said, well, you're not doing that until you take care of the victims. A fair point. Therefore, a statute came together in very short order, which had some defects. Ken and I, you and I had discussions about the bus boy and the Wall Street banker and there cannot be a foreorder of magnitude difference between what happens. But how do you figure out? How do you figure that out, you say? And what Mitch Daniels was telling me, and I agree, why just these people? 9-11. I mean, bad things happen to good people every day in this country. There's no 9-11 fund. And when we sat together in the privacy of OMB, he made it clear, you know, I hope you know what you're getting yourself into, because this could be a nightmare. And we had to figure out a way where we could try with the discretion that I had delegated in the statute to make sure, as Senator Kennedy warned me, Ken, make sure that 90% of the taxpayer's money doesn't go to 10% of the people. The banker and the stockbroker and the World Trade Center, that'll be a disaster. And, you know, that was what Mitch was warning me. We got to figure out a way to at least temper the potential divisiveness of the program. And we managed to do it by lowering, I exercised my discretion, they took me to court, of course, but I exercised my discretion to lower the value of the economic loss of stockbrokers and bankers. I raised exercising my discretion somewhat, what a waiter or a busboy would receive, so that at the end of the day, when you look at the statistics, the average award for a death claim in the 9-11 fund was $2 million tax-free. But the median award, half got more, half got less, was $1.6 million. So we did a pretty good job. OMB went along. I ran it past Mitch's people, but we really figured out a way to sort of temper the polarity of what might have been by dealing with problems like that. Thinking back, the single, I suppose, most important thing that we achieved in the rapid passage of that legislation was to say, we can't come up with a formula that's we're all going to feel good about a year from now. We have to give this special master, whoever it is, broad discretion. And then, fortunately, we found the best special master who approached this with a judgment of Solomon and the skill of H&R blood. I asked Senator Daschle at the time, how much money did Congress appropriate for this program? How much money am I authorized to spend? He said, are you kidding? Just what Mitch said. We haven't got any idea what these lives are worth or what it's going to take to incentivize people to come into the program voluntarily and not sue. So we are authorizing the program. We're appropriating whatever you need. Just take it out of petty cash from the U.S. Treasury. Well, after we revived Mitch, we managed to move forward that way. $7.1 billion ultimately spent, but 97% of the people who were eligible voluntarily came into the program. Yeah, this was very, very important. You had to develop that thought a little more. You applied it in certain other cases. You know, we have a tort system like no one in the world has a tort system, no shortage of trial lawyers who would be happy to take these cases and pursue them, but you made a case that 97% and I think a similar percent in other of the funds wound up accepting what was your argument to them? Speed. You'll get your money quickly. Efficiency. You don't need a lawyer. You can have one. I'm a lawyer. I don't mind. Bring in a lawyer if you want. Efficiency, speed, certainty. You know here's the formula. You're not rolling the dice with the jewelry and litigation. So you have a certain amount of money. You're going to get it quickly and move on as best you can, but I mean get it behind you and try and recalibrate your life really. And also, as Mitch pointed out a few minutes ago, I will listen to anything you want to tell me. In private, no one's listening except me. And that's another advantage you can come and vent or tell me whatever you want to tell me. That menu of key issues, key points, is how we are able in all of these programs to maximize voluntary participation. Why do we use money? I don't see this happening. I may miss it from time to time. Elsewhere in the world where there are tragedies and disasters and so forth. You do talk about this a little in the books. The mind can conceive other ways to demonstrate the collective empathy of a community or to attempt to console those who've lost, but why money? It's always been in capitalist societies, not quite the same trial system, but common law countries. Great Britain, for example, we inherited their approach. Our trials are different, but money in a capitalist system like ours has always been the great leveler. The idea that through the transfer of money from the wrong doer to the innocent victim, you get some degree of equity as a measurement of loss. Now, I must say there are problems with that. You read about South Africa after apartheid with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in lieu of money. Come on in and tell your story, and you'll be immunized. You won't be prosecuted. That's one way, border and trade in third world countries is a popular device for trying to level the playing field. But going back to pre-revolutionary times, the common law in England, it's always been dollars. Now, that hasn't been a great problem in the United States. What has been a great problem in the United States is a point implicit in Mitch's earlier questions. How do you use money in a methodology that will promote that type of equity, that will promote the goal of all lives being equal? That is a much more difficult challenge in a country like ours where we're with all and ability to hire your own lawyer and who's the judge and are we in Indiana or Massachusetts or California or Texas? I mean, there are a lot of variables that call into question why money. But I don't see it likely in this society that money will be replaced by some other mechanism of acknowledgement of loss. You made one important point. If there is a rationale for what we have often done or what we do through the tort system, there's a wrongdoer. So on the one hand, there's a victim who is being, whose damage is being offset in this way, and there's a wrongdoer who is, to whom justice is being done. But in many of the cases that you've administered, the wrongdoer couldn't be found or wasn't paying anything. That's right. 9-11, the wrongdoers were all dead on those planes. And in many, many cases, the wrongdoer and the Boston Marathon bombings, at least one of the two, was shot dead by the Boston police. I mean, there's no real deterrent served by providing compensation. It's criminal. The deterrence is death or jail or whatever. But making the victim whole or in symbolic terms whole is an important function of our legal system. I try in these programs to compensate the victim in a manner similar to the court system, but with benefits, speed, efficiency, generosity, certainty that aren't guaranteed when you go to court. When you go to court, I don't care what court, you're rolling the dice. You don't know what a jury will do for sure. You don't know how the judge will react. You don't know how good the lawyers will be. There's a big question mark when you play the litigation lottery, which you're trying to avoid if you come see the special master or Feinberg in one of these programs with a much more certain result. Now, there are problems with it, my approach, but those are some of the advantages. So, when you're administering compensation from, let's say, an airplane manufacturer, which you're working on right now, to people who lost loved ones in crashes, or an oil company who, although I want to ask you later, causality was not that clear, but let's just posit for a moment. They had blame. That's one thing. But where there is no wrongdoer being punished, money's just coming in this, so let's go back to 9-11. Why that event and not Fort Hood or any number of other cases in which the taxpayers were not asked to make good the injury that someone had suffered? I hear that all the time. Mr. Feinberg, I lost my son in Oklahoma City, a domestic terrorist, the Albert Murray building. Where's my check? I don't get it, Mr. Feinberg. My daughter died in the basement of the World Trade Center in the original 1993 attacks committed by the very same type of people. Why aren't I eligible? And it's not just terrorism. Mr. Feinberg, you've got to explain something to me. Last year my wife saved three little girls from drowning in the Mississippi River, and then she drowned a heroine. Where's my check? See, that's what Mitch meant when he said, I don't know about this. I really don't know about this, equal protection. I mean, bad things happen. Why just these people, you see? Now, why those people? I'll tell you why, because after 9-11, the American people, not after the Oklahoma City, not after the lady who drowned, but after 9-11, a foreign terrorist attack, the American people and airline lobbyists, don't forget, they all came running to Congress. And the very first point that Mitch made 45 minutes ago, absolutely right. At that point in time, everybody came together, one nation, whatever the motivation, one nation, one country, one people, trying to help these victims. And I must say, the number one lesson I hope people learn from the movie, Worth, is that there was a time not so long ago when 9-11, it was decided by our nation. It's bad enough. It's a unique enough historical tragedy. We want this done. I don't think you could get a 9-11 fund today from one nation. And that's the lesson. I want students at Purdue to understand there was a time not so long ago when, symbolically, Mitch Daniels and Ken Feinberg came together at OMB. But really, we were just acting as agents for the rest of the country that wanted this done. And that's the great lesson. It can be done when we're one community. I'm pretty sure in those conversations, I didn't commit the full part of saying better you than me, but I might have been thinking it. Your books are very honest. No surprise to those who know you. You say some of the funds, projects you've worked on should not be replicated, but then others maybe are good models. So maybe we could spend a minute or two. You could distinguish those. For instance, you did describe the structure and the setup of the Gulf Coast Compensation Fund. This was the BP oil spill as a significant achievement. Talk about that one and why it might be a good model, whereas maybe 9-11 or others are not. Well, 9-11 should never be replicated. It was public taxpayer money for a very few people. And Mitch and I knew at the time the law's the law. Let's go forward. But you haven't seen a 9-11 fund since the terrorist attack where the public is putting up the money. Very, very whiskey. BP was a different problem. We received 1,250,000 claims from all over the Gulf, from Galveston, Texas, all the way to Mobile Bay, Alabama, and we got claims from 50 states. I didn't know the oil came to Indiana. I'll bet you there are at least a dozen claims from restaurants in Indianapolis. Really? Mr. Feinberg, we have a great seafood restaurant here in Indianapolis. We can't get crab from the Gulf or Gulf shrimp. We've lost 12% of our clientele. Pay me. So the problem in BP, A, tremendous volume. 7,300 claims in 9-11, 120,000, Boston Marathon, dead and injured, 250 claims. BP, 1,250,000 claims. And how many of those claims can you show a causal connection to oil that never really landed on shore except maybe Pensacola or right around a sort of a 20-mile radius? The oil was out. The Coast Guard was cleaning it up. And yet we got claims from Gulf courses, from all over the United States, people saying, hey, let's take a shot. Feinberg's sort of a generous sympathetic carrot, didn't he? And that was all BP money, don't forget. That's not public. We authorized in 16 months $6.5 billion and we paid 550,000 eligible claims. The rest were ineligible. You didn't know there were so many fishermen and you told me, you know, one fisherman came up to me, showed me that he had worked his whole life and his family had worked as commercial fishermen. He said, you know, Feinberg, I'm going to tell you something. Since this oil spill, I've never seen so many fishermen walking around with poles, fishing poles. These guys, I never saw them all of a sudden. Hundreds of fishermen walking around with fishing poles probably all applied. You'd been on the point of another highly publicized situation before 9-11, I guess, Agent Orange, which we all know something about. And your look back at that, in your look back at that, you point out that Judge Weinstein stretched the law. It was not an obvious way to compensate people who it appeared had been harmed during their military service. So say a little about how he stretched it, but what I'm really curious about is however good the result went, how is stretching the law not a risk and how do we know that the next stretch won't go too far? That's an interesting philosophic issue too, say. Stretching the law does not mean violating the law. It does not mean you're acting outside of the law. You're trying the Congress in 9-11 with the 9-11 Victim Compensation Fund, Judge Weinstein in Agent Orange in his courtroom trying to fashion a settlement that will provide some degree of compensation to Vietnam veterans when the other branches of government back in the 1980s weren't particularly sympathetic then, you see. And Judge Weinstein said, for example, well, look, I realized that 250,000 Vietnam veterans aren't all injured. And those that are injured may have been injured into very different circumstances, but I'm going to certify a class anyway. I'm going to let all of the Vietnam veterans go forward in one litigation because they have common interests. There are those who are in the class have certain diseases which seem to be linked to Agent Orange, I'm not sure, but I'm going to let it go forward. Well, the chemical industry immediately settled the case, you see. They had insurance, they didn't want to go forward, rolled the dice in Brooklyn, New York, they didn't want to run that risk. They settled. Weinstein maybe he shouldn't have found and certified a class, but he felt some sensitivity, compassion, obligation. And within the confines of the federal law, I can sort of justify it. And it held up, you see. 9-11. Who wouldn't? Public tax payer money for just 7,300 people. I mean, really? What about everybody else? Stretching the law. You sometimes you have to tailor the law to meet the challenge that is rather unique. One more, and again it was very different than those we've talked about so far. After the financial crash of 08, the government with another tough problem says what they always say, fine, fine bird. And they bring you in to adjudicate what very well paid, high-ranking leaders of some of these financial firms should be paid to stick around and try to hold their firms together. Was that a good idea? Why not just kick them out the door and say they were part of the problem and move on from there? But that was not the assignment you got. This is why it's a good thing Mitch wasn't around in Washington during this time. I mean, really? It's an excedrin headache. Congress bails out these Wall Street firms in order to save the economy. They decide, tarp, tarp money must be loaned to AIG, Citibank, General Motors, Bank of America. We've got to lend money to these people. They've got to pay it back, but we're going to loan billions. Well, the populist strain in American history, the very Congress that authorizes the loans sought by the Bush administration, among others, the very Congress that authorizes the loans then turns around and says, well, now that the United States taxpayer, now that the American taxpayer, the creditors, we think that they would want their loans protected. So we'll set up this populist revenge, revenge. The companies that got the money, their salaries will be, their total compensation will be determined by Feinberg. I got a call from the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Neil Wollin. Good guy. Ken, I've talked it over with President Obama and we think, you know, you're going to be the pazar to determine compensation for private company corporate officials. That's the law. I said, this is a sideshow. You can't be, what do I know about what a guy at Bank of America ought to get paid? What do I know? Ask Mitch. You have this assignment. So I went and saw Tim Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury. He goes, oh, my God, I don't know what, you know, I mean, they passed the law. So it says we got to appoint a special master and I wish you well. Then I went up and saw Richard Shelby, the Republican ranking member, Senate banking. Senator Shelby, what do you want me to do? Oh, look, whatever you do, we're not going to object. Just don't expand it beyond these 10 companies. Only 10 companies do you set their salary. Don't ask me. Just don't come back here again. As long as you do what we know you'll do, that's fine. And there you are. Well, we did it. It'll never be repeated. The government shouldn't be determining private corporate salaries. That's not what government does. We're not a bill collector. And I was glad to do it. It was an interesting assignment. Unlike 9-11 and these other horrors, I mean, this was sort of a side shift, sort of a, you chuckled a little bit when you were doing this, but you'd go and see the key officials at Bank of America. What are you guys, you know, I have to do this until you repay every dime you borrowed from the taxpayer. Bank of America borrowed money to repay the federal government to get out from under my program. So we did it. We did it very well. We looked at the pay structures. We made recommendations. We set the pay. And when the program was over, that was it. It'll never be replicated. Just like 9-11 will never be replicated. And I think it was done. And a good example of populist revenge, I call it. But the book is as different as it was. Once again, I'm reading your account. You're excruciatingly difficult balance. On the one hand, if you cut them too far, they walk out the door and the firm fails, then the government never gets repaid. If you pay them too much, that's unfair. That's right. You know, Mr. Feinberg, if you don't pay these folks at AIG what they're worth, they're going to leave the company. And you know where they're going to go? China. Everybody's leaving to go to work in China. That was the thing. They're going to go to China. I go, look, they're not going to go to China. And we'll try and balance this. But it was, it was emotional. It was very emotional. All right. The easy questions are over. We have, as we always do, some students who have stepped forward and have brought, I'm sure, a more pressing and insightful questions than, than you just dealt with. So let's start, please, with Tabitha Akoto, a sophomore in political science. Tabitha, you should be somewhere close. Yes, hi. Hi. My question is, after you completed the 9-11 Victim Compensation Fund, how did you find the emotional capacity to continue doing your work for other daunting U.S. massacres? Now, after I did the 9-11 fund, what was the rest of it? How did you find the emotional capacity to continue doing your work for other daunting massacres? No, I get that, I get asked that question all the time. How do you maintain your sanity? Not, it's not easy. And, and there is, it sounds sort of cliche, but it's true. First of all, if, if President Bush and Mitch Daniels and Ted Kennedy ask you to do something, you do it. And if a governor asks you or President Obama after the oil spill asks you, I mean, you can't say you're too busy or you're really, I have other things or I can't do it. You have a patriotic obligation, but you're right. When you're dealing during the day with the horrors of civilization, at night, you have to contrast that and immerse yourself in the height of civilization, music, opera, chamber music, class symphony concerts, movies, good books, a loving family. When you come home, dad, we glad you're home. I mean, all of that is sort of cliche, but it's true. And you, if you're going to cry about some of these individuals, you always cry and weep in private. Never in front of them. You have to maintain an objective discipline to this. It's tough, but there's plenty of weeping, but it's in the back room, and you get through it, and you, and you, and you're reinforced. But when, because when you get a call from OMB, it's not, what are you doing? It's can, we've been following what you're doing, keep it up. The administration's behind you. We have your back. If anybody complains, let us know, and it worked out fine that way. It's hard. Michael Katis is with us from Industrial Engineering. Michael? Hello, and thank you for sharing your experiences and your public service as well. My question is, how, if at all, do public perceptions impact victim compensation funds? And if not, how are they kept at bay from being involved in the private resolutions? Public perception of any one of these programs is critical to success, critical. If you don't have the country behind you, if you don't know that these programs, as Mitch pointed out at the beginning, are largely apolitical, bipartisan. And if you can't say to the media or anybody, look, you know, the families are really complaining, but yeah, what would you expect? The public isn't complaining. The public is reinforcing. Public perception is at the top of the agenda in terms of managing expectation, you see, among victims. And without that, you're lost. And I've been lucky because these programs that we talk about in all of them, every single one of them, you have to have public support behind the effort. And you usually do because it is an amazing thing to me to witness the charitable impulse of the American people. It is astounding to me after 40 years of doing this, the idea that the American people are so charitable and so sympathetic. It goes all the way back. I'm convinced to pure in New England, the city on a hill. We will help the community. That's part of God's plan. I think that is a strain in America that's never gone away. It's nowhere else on earth. I'll tell you that. Yes, that's statistically true. Americans give vastly more money voluntarily to causes of all kinds than people elsewhere. But it wasn't all luck. I'm reminded of the gentleman who organized a public group to challenge and oppose you on 9-11. You brought that person around eventually. But that was an example in which public support didn't come easily. You might want to say a word about how you did that. Charles Wolf played by Stanley Tucci in the movie. Now there's a certain amount of dramatic license. I mean Mitch just threw me a softball, a puffball. I mean there is a certain amount of dramatic license taken in that movie. But it's true. He's absolutely right. It's true that there was criticism by the families at the beginning of the 9-11 fund. Fix the fund. You're not being generous enough. We heard the criticism. It wasn't so much that we weren't being generous. We wanted to open up and see more people and talk to them privately. And we set up these meetings and pretty soon everybody started signing up for the program. And then Wolf turns around and runs funds. Okay, you can come in now. The fund is fixed. Well, the fund is fixed not so much because what you did. But what we did in response to your early criticism and so perception, public perception and private family perception, critical, political, not economic, not financial, political, human nature, that's critical. The credibility program from our school of management. Good evening, President Daniels, Mr. Feinberg. My question is placing a financial value on human life is an unenviable, impossible task. Many of us in our careers will face unenviable and perhaps impossible tasks. What advice do you have for students about our approach to successfully navigating such impossible tasks? Well, if you're asking me, put aside for a minute valuing lives, we all face unenviable tasks. How do we cope with unenviable? And I think you mean professional tasks. First of all, you could have directed that question at this individual here. My own sense of it is, if you think you're right about an approach to a problem, forget valuing lives or whatever it might be. If you think in your heart of hearts, you've evaluated the problem and you believe you have the right answer, then it seems to me you should go with it. In my lifetime, I've had occasions where I'm not sure and I'm going to seek the help of others and get their advice like this guy. But once you collect that information and you step back and say, what is the alternative to this decision that I'm going to make? Personal, professional. I think if you have the fortitude to recognize your position, I think you should advance that cause. And once you think you're right, stick by your guns and more often than not, your instincts are probably going to be sound. That's what's carried me. The other thing I always tell students at Purdue or anywhere else, don't plan too far ahead. You may think you know what you want to do five years from now, 10 years from now. If you had ever told me when I started out in my legal career that I was going to end up dealing with these issues, I would have, in a million years, I would have never thought that would be possible. And life has a way of throwing everybody curveballs. I try and tell students when you graduate, make sure you enjoy getting up Monday morning. It's critical, your profession. You'll change a hundred times maybe, but don't think decisions that you make upon graduation are going to be the same decisions that will carry you forward five, 10, 15, 20 years in the future. Life doesn't work that way, as I've learned to the sorrow of thousands of people in their lives. Melissa Caiche from Costa Rica. And I should add, actuarial science students, so look out. Were you there today? Uh-oh. Those questions were fabulous from that class. I couldn't believe it. That's why I told Mitch when I came, I'll get more out of this day than the students would. I love that class today. Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, but you're still going to ask me a tough question. Not really. But I'm just curious, being part of so many diverse experiences with overseeing different compensation funds, so how does all these experiences have shaped the way you see society or the government, even influence your daily life? How do my experience shape how I view society? Philosophy. Well, I've learned a few things about how these programs shape my view of society. I think that the political tumult and the polarization today and the cultural red state, blue state, noise doesn't defeat the underlying value that I place. On the American people. I mean, as I said earlier, the charitable impulse of the American people, the willingness of the American people to come together during times of tragedy. It reinforces my optimism. Now, it's not easy today. It's not easy. But I'm still a believer. You know, I grew up at a time when the White House was occupied by President John F. Kennedy. And I'll never forget growing up. I've never forgotten what John F. Kennedy said. Serving the public interest is a noble undertaking. Government does not have to be a dirty word. And my favorite, when he said, every single individual can make a difference. And that's guided me. And so I retain my inherent optimism about America, even though I worry about lightning striking again tomorrow. You never know what's going to happen. But I retain my faith in the people. And we have one more questioner for you in this gauntlet. You're running. And is Katrina Hu with us? That's Katrina. I don't like the, my person says to me, I will prepare the question. I just have a simple question. I'm the sophomore and I plan to go to law school after I graduate. So, I mean, like, we live in a capitalized century right now. And everything we did is actually work for money. So, but, and we just receive education and graduate and work hard, but we will eventually die. Then why did we fight for our lives? The worst point to push us to work hard. I'm sorry. Did you hear the question? I can't repeat it again. I'm not sure what the question. I think it, I'm pretty sure that goes to this matter of why we, why we use money is that really the most important thing we could do is that really the right way to value someone's life. I'm not sure that money is the overriding only way. I can only say this. As long as there's been a United States of America, money has always been the, the consideration for trying to rectify wrongs, private wrongs, accidents, frauds, commercial mistakes. It's always been money. It's a question that, that President Daniels asked a few minutes ago. And I'm not sure it's the best way, but I wonder what is the alternative in a society where it's become ingrained in the heritage of the country, in the fabric of the country. I don't think that temporary tinkering with it. I don't think you're going to get very far. It's such a part of the history of the country that you may theorize about a different way. But in practice, I think when there are wrong victims, everybody looks to money as the great leveler. And I just think as a practical matter, it's always going to be that way. I'm not saying it's the right way. I'm saying it's the most practical, historical way, so I don't see it changing. Katrina's question really sets up the one I want to ask as we end our hour. Ken, I read a few years ago, a visitor from abroad, I think you're looking at our whole system of torts and litigation and the way we have approached these questions as a society, said you folks are trying, you Americans are trying to outlaw the concept of bad luck. Your book, the second book, Who Gets What, ends with the line, life guarantees misfortune. Do we need to recover our recognition of this reality that when something goes wrong, someone somewhere has to pay? Well, I would probably end this program by saying I'm not sure that all of life's misfortune requires a lawsuit. I guess what I would say is that life's misfortune leads to litigation and the rule of law in the absence of some better alternative. Now that alternative may be no lawsuits, no recompense. Life is filled with accidents that can't, you can't point the finger of blame. Okay, maybe we should improve our system so that compensation is limited to more refined claims where there really is a wrong door. All right, I can see that. I think that's a good idea and we ought to keep working at that. I'm just a little, don't swallow up that solution though by saying money out in a different form of recompense in because I don't think you'll see that. But there's no nation like the United States when it comes to litigation. Just as Mitch says, there's no nation as charitable as ours and there's no nation on earth that loves lawyers more than the United States. And I'm glad I am one. Thank you. Well, we are too. So ladies and gentlemen, and I think especially I wanted students here who are watching through stream to reflect on this. I'm so cheered each time that one of our students tells me they aspire to public service of some kind. They are usually thinking about holding some sort of an office elected or appointed and that's great and I always want to encourage that ambition. But I hope after this last hour it's more clear to each of us that there are ways to be enormously impactful and effective public servants from private life and you're never going to meet a better example of such public service than you just did. Thank you, Ken Vineberg, for coming to Purdue. Thank you all.