 Welcome, welcome everyone. Thank you very much for coming to the 12th Annual Undergraduate Economics Club and Economics Undergraduate Debate. This is sponsored by the Undergraduate Economics Club. I encourage those of you who find the debate interesting to look into a future involvement with the Undergraduate Economics Club. Today we are debating a, being the situation of the US of the US economy. I think it's an appropriate moment given the presidential campaigns that are in progress to take stock of where we are. Is the glass half full or half empty or is when I told one of my colleagues the title he said hmm how about quarter full. So I have before you the the resolution that will be debated. Let me read it out loud. Resolved the United States economy has recovered from the crash of 2007-2008 and the Great Recession and is on track for shared prosperity and growth. The affirmative team has the burden of proof. Is the affirmative team that must convince you that this is the case. So can the two and and also in particular convince are judges. So it is my pleasure to introduce to these judges all three are alums of the economics department perhaps they'll raise their hands as I say some nice words about them. So Bill Troy is one of the founders of the of the Economics Alumni Advisory Board is class of 76. He is currently a senior lecturer of business at the University of New Hampshire. Thank you for joining us working by by year of graduation as opposed to reverse alphabetical order. Ed Fleck is UMass class of 84. He is a managing director at Housatonic Advisors and thank you very much. Also someone who's involved very early in the Alumni Advisory Board is an enormous amount for the department which were very abrasive. Tom Peake is class of 13. He's a research analyst at the UMass Donahue Institute and he is currently involved in examining the credit worthiness of our of the fair commonwealth. So he's taken time off from that to judge this debate and he knows he knows half full from half empty. So thank you very much. To introduce our debaters for the for the affirmative. We have Mark Ambrose class of 18 raise your hand please. We have Michael Burnard class of 16. On the occointe class of 18. And last but not least Matthew Harman class of 18 who's been heavily involved in the undergraduate economics club this year. So welcome to the affirmative. On defense all you have to do is cast enough doubt, enough sand and the gears are smoking the eyes and you will carry the day. We have Sam Hockenberry class of 17. Derek Ray also class of 17. Sonia Shuka class of 17. And Sean Sukumar class of 18. With the burden of proof also comes the the right of going first and the right of getting the last word. So I'm going to hand over the floor to Mark Ambrose who will have six minutes for the first constructive to build to build the argument. I will show you. Thank you professor. Good afternoon. Our issue here today is the state of the U. S. economy is half empty or is half full. We the affirmative believe that the state of the U. S. economy is half full that we are on a road to recovery given recent trends in our country. Before I get to my first point I want to define recovery and what an economic recovery looks like. The Great Depression as we knew it was caused by a stock market crash following an increase in interest rates which is great investment. A large tax increase that halted entrepreneurship and the smooth holy tariff which damaged American exports. Yes the main component components of GDP consumption investments government spending and exports all took a hit in the early 30s to the years leading up to the economy's inevitable downfall. The unemployment hit an all time high 25 percent in the whole in the whole in production of good goods and services led to the economy operating below capacity. And we all know the story of FDR expanding the government more so than ever to drag the economy out of the out of the depression along with World War II which pushed demand for goods and services to an upward trend. We see a similar play by President Obama in response to the great recession of 2008 who cited FDR's example. To define a road to recovery we use historical examples in order to indicate what the road actually looks like. The US operates under a capitalistic economy. Yes there may be some market failures but there's always the determination of the American people to repair what has been damaged either by lighting the willingness of the American people to do that or as we saw during the Great Depression the command strength of the government and the American people. What we look for is a perfect combination of the two as the great John Keynes used to put it. Capitalism is the astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men somehow or other work for the best results in the best of all possible worlds. So where are we headed? For an economy to be recovering or returning to normal state there needs to be progress. GDP which measures the market value of US outputs has been on a constant climb since the recession 2008. Not only has the US maintain the highest GDP in the world as the highest rate of increase when compared to other countries. This growth is mostly accounted for household consumer spending which comprises about two thirds of GDP. What do we know about consumer spending? When people have more money they tend to spend it a lot quicker and put it back into the market and people have more money because of employment opportunities and cash flow throughout the market. Even though the market crashed in 2008 we are able to achieve a constant rate of growth to return to normal state as opposed to the European Union. In the midst of the great recession the economy was losing a devastating 800,000 jobs since then over 14 million new jobs have been created. Why do we talk about unemployment when it comes to recovery? According to a history of economic theory from Marxian economists to Thomas Piketty when unemployment is high is a lot harder to demand higher wages which leads to an undeniable relationship between the two. Unemployment hit an all-time high at 10% during the great recession which as of May 2015 nearly half to 5.5% an ideal rate as most economists ration that unemployment can't drop below 5% without inflation adjusting the economy. Household debt before the recession rose dramatically which coincides with the fallout recession that took place. To quote economist Paul Krugman, the root of our current troubles lies in the debt American families ran up during the Bush era house bubble. The response is a painful process of deleveraging. While Americans can't spend what they're used to they're spending much more much less or nothing at all which leads to depressed economy. To reiterate the higher the household debt the less money being pumped into the economy so when we take a look at into household debt decreasing over time it correlates to people having more money to spend one of the key aspects of Krugman that Krugman stated for a recovering system. For example the economy hit its lowest point in 2009 with the total nine million lightweight vehicle sales. Today that number has exceeded 16 million sales almost two fold of the lowest point of the recession and just about the same as compared to before the recession or is defined by recovery returning to a normal state. While we still have progress to make all these aspects point to the path in which we achieve economic progress within our country and being able to maintain that success through policy making and it's in the determination of the American people. Sam Hockenberry will deliver a cross examination of three minutes and I'd like to thank all of you for coming and I would like to compliment the affirmative for beginning the debate with such a sweet story. However that is what their opening was a story. A story that tries to get you to buy that this resolution is accurate and true. In math one counter example is enough to prove a hypothesis false. In economics this need not be the case but we the negative will provide a preponderance of evidence that this resolution does not truly represent the current state or future state of the economy. Before my team begins to present our argument against the resolution I'd like to address a few of the initial claims the opposition has begun in their story. First just a small correction job loss was not just 800,000 jobs it was 800,000 jobs a month totaling to 8.8 million jobs. Second I would like to hope that a housing to a second housing crisis in a row doesn't bring our global economy to its knees again because then we definitely didn't learn anything from the 0708 recession and that's why we the negative will be looking at other aspects of our economy to see what else could be harmful and not to be flipping but if our concern is debt then let's not forget like the second largest loan that anybody takes out in their life and that's to pay for a college education. Third unemployment yes the US has a U3 unemployment rate of about 5% having the rate of unemployment after the recession. U6 unemployment however remains high at 10%. Also 5% unemployment is that something to cheer about? I know here at UMass there are economists who disagree with the belief that 5% unemployment is full employment. Another discouraging fact is labor force participation rate has dropped. The Bureau of Labor Statistics on April 1st announced that 63% of the population is currently involved in the labor force. That's 3% lower than it was in 2008 to 2009 and so if 3% of the labor force left can we say that unemployment really represents an improved economy and if those 3% decided to re-enter the labor force because we said that times are good again. What happens to that 5% unemployment rate? I'd also like to add the real median household income has dropped steadily since 1997. It was at $58,000 a year a year in 2014 dollars and in 2014 is 53 and a half thousand. I don't believe in the last 15 months we've seen a $4,000 raise in people's median household income otherwise Republicans and Democrats alike wouldn't be campaigning on trying to save the disappearing middle class. Thank you for your time and I look forward to the rest of the debate. Let's hold applause until the debate is complete. So now having heard the constructive argument from the affirmative and the cross-examination from the negative we'll hear a constructive argument from the negative position to build a case about the economy. That will be delivered by Sonia and Shyam will deliver the will collectively deliver the first constructive with six minutes shared. Is the US government truly investing smart in the right industries? Is the government considering the best possible outcome for a better tomorrow when investing in these industries? Is the government truly doing everything it's power to date to sustain a better living environment for tomorrow? These are the questions that we have tried to answer. I will talk about how the United States today is doing just a small fraction of what it could be doing as a world leader in the global economy today. It should be investing in sectors such as green energy, renewable energy and technological advancements in sustainability which paves the way to healthy generations. For the future, it should also be investing in education, one of the most important sectors that our country needs in order to move ahead further with what we have the power to achieve. Now, what did these industries have in common? According to our own very own professor Robert Paulin, as seen in his book, Back to Full Employment, the US is not focusing enough on building a full employed workforce. He states that job creation is the most important and the first steps towards rebuilding our economy. He gives the example of seeing how many jobs would be created in the US through spending $1 million in industry such as fossil fuels, clean energy, such as efficiency renewables and lastly education. We see that in this graph, the job creation will be six times as much if we took the same amount of money invested in fossil fuels versus if we spend that same amount of money investing in education for a better tomorrow. The next highest beneficial industry is clean energy where we see three times as much jobs will be created compared to the fossil fuels, not to mention the benefits of investing will pay off in the long run, not mentioned in these graphs. For the next few minutes, I would like to talk about the green energy sector. According to the Environmental Law Institute, many countries in Europe get over one third and some even one half of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Europeans across the political spectrum support government policies to promote renewable energy, but government support for renewable energy is deeply controversial and the United States. Portugal is one of the few, is one of the world leaders in renewable energy. Many feel that we have much to learn from Portugal. The New York Times recently reported that 45% of the electricity in the grid of Portugal comes from renewable sources at two companies with only 12% in the United States and that total is about 10% in hydropower as opposed to the United States where we currently range in only about 2%. Now I want to focus on investing in education. Whereas America's oldest workers were among the best educated in the world, reflecting the rapid advance of educational attainment in the United States, today's younger workers have been suppressed by increasingly well-educated workers from industrialized countries. Indeed, our young workers now run 15th in college completion rates in the Organization for Economic Corporation and Development Countries. There are significant economic consequences when the US neglects to invest in education for future generations and focuses only on investing in short-term beneficial goals such as investing in fossil fuels or focusing on military spending so as to remain favorable to the people for future elections. Today's economy is lagging and our nominal unemployment is high. We need to realize that if graduation rates don't improve dramatically in the fields that are needed, such as science, engineering, technology and math, the US economy will be short 3 million college educated workers by 2018. If we want the American economy to fully rebuild and the US to remain a world leader, we must work together to fix this broken problem. Good afternoon. The economy may be growing, but most of us are not sharing in the prosperity. The American economy is marred by a serious wealth sharing problem, as most of the wealth is held by the top 20%. Economic growth for the middle class has all but stagnated and social mobility has been harder to achieve than ever before. Likewise, social and ethnic minority groups lag behind in economic development, which begs the question, is America really heading in the right direction? As you can see in this chart, American economic growth has been characterized by a vast skewness in the distribution of wealth among US citizens as the top 20% today controls over 2 third of the country's wealth. The top 1% alone owns over 40% of the nation's wealth. The reality of the distribution of wealth in the United States is far more grim than most of us as Americans perceive it to be. About 15% of the American population subsides below the poverty line, thus holding virtually no wealth. The group to have suffered the most on the economic strata as of this decade has been the middle class, including both strata, the lower middle class and upper middle class. The 2000s have been labeled by many social scientists as the lost decade for the middle class, as it has been characterized by stagnant economic growth for the social class. From the 1980s, there has been a declining trend in the amount of wealth owned by the middle class, with a figure being in 2013, slightly above 20%. To achieve economic stability in the United States for members of the American middle class has become increasingly difficult, as the rising trends in income inequality and the lack of funds available to them. For investment in business and educational and divorce has halted the social group's ability to rise. The top 20% also recovered much of the values of the economic assets from the global recession of 2008. And all the middle income families to have gained traction towards the recovery, lower income families have suffered invariably and have had much hard to try in trying to recover the assets and regain economic stability. Thank you. Mike will now deliver a cross examination to raise doubts about the negatives constructive case. A few comments. The negative side had a graph that correctly points out that China's investments in green technology outstrip our own. And anyone who has been to China or follows the news knows that they certainly need green technology on a massive scale. Pollution levels in Beijing, for example, regularly exceed the World Health Organization's maximum level by an order of magnitude. That's on a good day. Nobody denies that America could be doing a lot more. But our own problems are far more manageable. And as an added note over the past 15 years, US energy consumption has remained relatively stable as GDP continues to climb as as you can see on the graph behind me. This demonstrates that our economy has the capacity to grow in a sustainable fashion. A few words about inequality. It is true that there is a large disparity in income in the US today. But we have to recognize that there has always been inequality. Instead of focusing exclusively on the robber barons of society, we need to instead take a look at the great massive people. How have they fared over the past century say? Well, pretty well, as it turns out. And that is despite two World Wars, a great depression and 17 recessions. Children born today will live far better lives than those born in 1916. The great majority of Americans have seen real incomes double since 1950. And the correct way to determine prosperity is not by looking at how well people do relative to those at the top. But rather, it is more accurate to look at how well they have done in absolute terms. Shifting to the topic of education, real brief, the established narrative that education system is in crisis is flimsy at best. For one, if our own state of Massachusetts was its own country, its school system would be among the best in the world. But clearly the states at the bottom are dragging down the system as a whole. The negative side correctly points out that we could be contributing more to education. But if we take a look at some of the proposed solutions that reformers often put out, we can see that they mostly result in a system where teachers end up teaching to a test. That's guaranteed to destroy any meaningful education. And moreover, teachers themselves come under assault when they can't meet these arbitrary standards, especially in inner city schools. The attacks often reached the level of sheer farce with economists like Eric Kanishek of Stanford, advocating firing a huge number of teachers using euphemisms like teacher deslection. We now move on to the second constructive phase. Matt will deliver the second constructive argument for the affirmative position. Throughout our nation's history, there have been flawed facets of our economy, whether it be through minor legislative adjustments or revolutions, Americans have always had the incredible capacity to amend these issues and redefine the nation. While some aspects of the economy may be in disrepair during some given period, the United States is a dynamic and adaptive nation capable of improving, leading and redefining the modern world. Whether it be the Titans in Silicon Valley or companies along the technology corridor on Route 128, American tech companies continue to innovate. The US not only produces innovations in the tech center but in all areas of society. The US is home to the vast majority of top research institutions and universities, like UMass, as the US is the place to go for research. As a proportion of GDP, the US has continually spent more and more on research and development over the past few decades. In recent years, federal investment in defense has declined in favor of non-defense research. While government investment may not be in all of the right places currently, there's a growing emphasis on creating future productivity. Federal R&D funding is being directed towards issues of combating global climate change and promoting clean energy development. There's also an emphasis on improving not only the healthcare system, but advancing life sciences as a whole. Research initiatives like BRAIN, B-R-A-I-N, a federally funded effort to advance mental health research is just one example of the promotion of health and energy and food security. It is clear that the government is active in promoting well-being through research and correcting market failures, but while the public sector does its part, the private sector is where the bulk of innovation comes from. Patenting rates continue to increase year after year. Investments in developing technologies lowers costs in all sectors and thus boost productivity and competition within industries. Further driving innovation and growth. The manufacturing sector is a key player in R&D. From 2013 to 2014, the manufacturing sector comprised about 75% of R&D growth, while non-manufacturing accounted for roughly 25%. Two rapidly growing manufacturing sectors are semiconductors and electronics components and motor vehicles and parts. In addition, manufacturing employs 60% of US R&D employees and accounts for more than two thirds of the total research and development, as well as the majority of patents issued. The research industry is booming and not only is there a growing demand for jobs and technological sciences, the benefits of developed technologies spill over into other industries and create a more efficient and productive national economy. This in turn creates more wealth in the long run for everyone. Additionally, as productivity increases, real prices of manufactured goods decrease and become more affordable for all members of the economy. The US will continue to innovate. Thus, long-term shared prosperity is assured and the standard of living will continue to rise. With the advancement of the modern world comes ubiquitous opportunities to develop new technologies. The US tech industry is full of startups that both create new technologies and put pressure on established firms to continue to innovate. Investments in areas like the development of clean energy support the environment and provide high-paying jobs to those qualified. Robotics and manufacturing is efficient and eliminates monotonous labor that instead allows workers to focus on areas in which they have cognitive comparative advantage. So as not to create excess structural unemployment, initiatives like the Bipartisan Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act helps to retrain workers and skills that employers are looking for and matches those workers with employers. Additionally, everyone shares in the rapid growth of technology as it is revolutionizing the way we learn. Those with Internet access have the necessary tools to take control of their education. According to the Department of Education, the President's budget request for 2017 includes an increase of $1.3 billion over the 2016 appropriation. While continuing to invest heavily in education is the best way to ensure equal outcomes, technological innovation assists in creating a more level playing field for everyone. I'd like now to shift briefly away from the innovation to focus on U.S. trade and the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. The U.S. has been recovering from the financial collapse significantly faster than other foreign economies, but because the world economy is relatively weaker, there's been some sort of a decrease in domestic demand for our goods. If anything, this is a testament to the fundamental strength of the U.S. economy. Even when the world markets struggle, the U.S. is prosperous. The U.S. has recently expanded its trade horizons to include 11 Pacific Rim nations through the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, which will bring benefits of added trade. Benefits include benefits are shared throughout the U.S. economy as trade can expose both exporters and importers to new ideas and novel tools, materials or techniques that make us more productive. Imports can reduce firms' costs by making goods available at lower prices, and such growth can lead American businesses to expand production and employment. Naturally, the country gains from inexpensive imported inputs and commodities. When U.S. firms sell abroad, they can sell to a larger market, which helps emerging businesses reach economies of scale. There's great potential for shared prosperity if there is an emphasis placed on accessible education. Regardless of the external factors, the U.S. is extremely strong fundamentally and is adaptive and resilient and can weather any storm. Thank you very much. In response to the second affirmative construction, Sean will give a negative cross-examination. My peer put forward some great arguments regarding the positive prospects of the American economy, yet there are points which I would like to readdress. Starting with the increase in productivity, which she mentioned. Although productivity in the workplace has increased by over 80 percent in the last four years, largely in part to technological advancements and better training programs for hourly wage workers, there has been no significant change in wages for the majority of the labor force, despite rising inflation rates. If minimum wage was tied to rising productivity in 2013 dollars, it should have been $18.42, yet is mere $7.25, the federal minimum wage. A stagnation in the hourly minimum wage rise has left workers working longer hours in the face of rising inflation in an effort to survive. This has led to almost no accumulation of income for a major proportion of the population who can no longer afford to invest in stocks and other pools of investment. Thus, opportunities to move up the social and economic ladder are scarcer than ever for people all and all, preventing any form of social mobility from taking place. Regarding the U.S. expansion into trade across the Pacific, although U.S. firms will greatly benefit from this end of war, it does not address the question of whether the American labor market is truly saturated, with technologically advancements bettering our lives every day. For the economy, it creates a problem, a large unemployed workforce, especially among the populace of newer communities into America, such as the Cambodian people and the Puccini's people, people whom many of whom do not have the resources to gain an education or find employment opportunities, and as a result, have a harder time to assimilate into mainstream American society. The question I would like to propose to the affirmative side is, does economic growth simply mean a rise in the GDP, a numerical value, or actually promote inclusiveness and help improve the quality of life for all and not just the top 20 percent? Another point I would like to address is whether the U.S. will continue to innovate in terms of research and development. It is harder for people to invest in the future as education has become a privilege rather than a right. Mounting student debts every year force people to reconsider enrolling into college, thus further preventing the chances of gaining traction towards a better career or entrepreneurship option due to lack of skill and knowledge, hence hampering the chances of elevating their economic condition even more. Residential segregation due to many minority families living in poor school districts with low quality, under resourced schools, inhibits college preparedness in high school age children. As you can see coming into the 2000s, the curve was more S shaped, but now it's going higher and in 2015, the year for the highest average student debt per person ever recorded in American history is truly a sad reality. Intergenerational social mobility has been severely hampered by this trend towards growing student debts, making it harder for the middle class to survive in the long run with the children's futures in jeopardy. If we are incapacitating our future innovators by not allowing them to gain the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in technical fields, how can we possibly think that the United States will continue being a leader in the global economic and scientific field without its future capable leaders? Unless these issues are addressed, the future of the United States looks weak and there's a possibility that we will be succeeded by a new economic powerhouse. Thank you. The negative side will now have an opportunity to make some new additional arguments. This is the second constructive. Derrick and Sam will speak, sharing six minutes. Well the US economy may be growing, it is growing in the wrong ways. High return investments such as education in green energy are being sidelined in favor of unprecedented military spending. The middle class is rapidly diminishing and the wealth gap is more of a canyon. A good economy would take care of the health environment, well-being and happiness of the entire nation. Over the next few minutes I'm going to share with you just a few of your reasons our economy falls short of doing just this. I would like to frame my argument by first stating a simple fact. The US has the highest per capita expenditure on health care but does not possess the correlating life expectancy one would expect from such figures. It may come as no surprise to anybody here in this room that obesity is an astronomical issue in the United States. I doubt that a single person will gas when I tell you that according to US news and routers the United States is the single most obese country in the world. What may come as a shock however is just how much obesity is taxing our economy. With the advent of food deserts many low-income families find themselves without access to healthy food options. For those of you who don't know a food desert is an area in which people are miles from the closest supermarket and do not have access to affordable healthy food. The alternative then is for these families to find cheaper and usually unhealthy alternatives. In this way for the first time in human history obesity has become a disease of the poor not a luxury of the rich. Failures in public policy to eradicate the food deserts have resulted in a situation in which the national obesity rate has skyrocketed to 37% with terrifying consequences to our economy. While obese people make up just over a third of our population obesity related diseases and health problems account for 61% of all health care costs in the United States. Just how much does obesity cost the United States? A staggering 190 billion a year in medical costs. Furthermore employee absenteeism related to obesity is estimated to cost US businesses 4.3 billion a year. While obese people also tend to have lower productivity on the job creating further losses. The high cost associated with caring for obesity through Medicare contribute to higher payroll taxes on social security and the obesity rate is expected to climb to 50% by 2030. Furthermore the drought in California raises serious questions about our abilities in nation to do anything about sustainable food sources. Limited water supply implies increased costs for aggregation which in turn leads to increased costs for healthy food sources such as produce. As more people become unable to afford nutritional food sources the obesity rate will continue to rise further compounding the issues associated with obesity. Finally as if health care costs in the United States were not already absurd. The baby boomer generation is finally starting to retire in droves. Herald Indian a new age of unprecedented health care expenditure. Where social security benefits comprise 4.3% of our economy in 2006 by 2030 it will occupy 6.1%. Additionally it is estimated that in order to cover health care costs beyond Medicare coverage the average retiree needs 250k saved. The issue is they won't. To mean shared wealth and prosperity does not mean that the average American will be unable to cover their own health care into retirement. If the US economy is to truly recover the US cannot continue to spend insane amounts on health care while doing little to improve public health. Thank you. There is one more area of the economy that I want you to consider. The fact that the economy that we have designed and developed is inherently unstable. We all know the business cycle its booms and busts and frankly it's just a fact of life for us. And for some reason each time a downturn occurs this is the face we make. We never stop to consider that the good times won't always roll on. Thankfully or unfortunately the US government has a semi-practiced hand at dealing with these downturns. In modern times we have turned to the Keynesian solution of pumping money into the economy. Monetary policy typically loosens up and the interest rates drop. But the interest rates currently rest at 0.5 percent. With zero percent being the floor there isn't a lot of room to move interest rates down. Some countries such as Germany and Japan have experimented with using negative interest rates. But this is uncharted waters. We don't know whether negative interest rates will increase spending and lending or whether people will exercise a liquidity preference and stuff the money into the proverbial mattress. With monetary policy hamstrung our fiscal policy is our next great hope. Tax cuts and fiscal spending increases are two major ways for fiscal policy to promote growth. But politically is it viable to add more public debt? We haven't seen debt like this before. Japan has a two to one debt to GDP ratio and can still borrow despite what economic theory would say. Do US citizens want their lawmakers expanding the debt burden when it's already at 104 percent of GDP? Next we also know here at UMass that the Reinhardt Rogoff 90 percent threshold was wrong due to arithmetic mistakes that they made. But is there a 150 percent threshold? Is Japan a good model for the US? These tools that we've always fallen back on are not available to us. So if the economy is not prepared for the next downturn is there time to correct for this before it happens? Well it depends on how pessimistic you are and how pessimistic you think the average person is following the Keynesian beauty contest. Historically since World War II we've gone an average time frame between troughs of about eight uh about six years and no period of prosperity has lasted longer than a decade. If trends continue and you believe in patterns we probably have about two more years. Also the yield spread is hovering right around GDP and if we see that spread continue to rise relative to GDP we should be concerned about the future of the economy. And so among the other issues that we have brought up is it enough to think that maybe those are enough to bring the economy down and that we have things to be concerned about? Because I don't want us to make this face again the next time it all goes down. Mike from the affirmative side will do his best to cast some doubt on the uh on the negative construction. Do you have the site? You have three minutes. A few words on healthcare. It's no secret that our healthcare system is in need of reform but the good thing is that we've already started reforms and as you can see from the chart health insurance enrollments are up since the passing of recent legislation. There's still a lot of work to be done but we are on the right track and perhaps the pessimism will turn out to be unwarranted. Moving to the subject of government debt which was discussed much has been made of the explosion of government debt in recent decades. In our estimation this is a total non-issue. The U.S. government cannot go bankrupt anymore than the banker and monopoly can run out of money because we issue debt denominated in a currency that we control. There also appears to be some confusion over the nature of debt itself. Might be unpleasant to think about but everyone in this room is going to die someday. So for us debt is indeed a burden because we won't be around forever to repay it. Even most corporations will eventually disappear which is why their debt carries some inherent risk. This nation state on the other hand has survived as a sovereign entity for over 200 years. That is why we have never actually repaid the national debt. It is no surprise that the debt has expanded in real terms because the economy itself has also expanded and that will continue to happen. Even the measly two percent growth that appears we've been trending toward compounded over time that will turn out to be quite a rich sum. So unless we are struck by some mega disaster like an asteroid collision or an alien invasion the risk of a debt crisis is basically zero. A few more words on income. We have argued that in absolute terms Americans have achieved a great prosperity for a country of our size and that is even more true when we compare the U.S. to other developed countries. According to the OECD Better Life Index the U.S. ranks number one in both per capita disposable income and housing quality as compared to other OECD countries. Per capita household wealth is nearly double the average. To be sure we are not as high up on other measures but the overall picture is not as pessimistic as you would believe. Okay we come into our final round as the negative team has an opportunity to rebut some of the affirmative arguments and to make a summation statement to convince you that the affirmative position has failed to carry the burden of proof. For the negative team Sonia and Derek will present. They have six minutes to share. Just a few words on the OECD math percentages. We like to point to the fact that for each participation nation the OECD calculated the ratio of the average salaries for teachers with 15 years experience to be the average earnings of full-time workers with a college degree. The U.S. ranked 22nd out of 27 countries on this measure. In the U.S. teachers earn less than 60 percent of the average pay for full-time college educated workers while in other countries teachers earn between 80 and 100 percent of the college educated average. What this means in general is that we are neglecting to put investments on our number one priority which is education for the future. What this means is that our our students will not have the best and most prepared education systems that will support them with the teachers that are compensated for what their true value is. Now our propositions for improving the education systems are that we should recruit our future teachers from the top in each of the college class to evaluate the stats the status of the profession so that we track and retain the best and brightest. We need teachers who are with targeted and high-quality support and professional development that continually evaluates the progress highlighting their strengths and helping them improve their crafts. We know that students with the highest performing teachers gain five to six more months of learning in a year than students with the lowest performing teachers and students who have the most effective teachers are most likely to attend college attend higher ranked colleges and earn higher salaries. If the U.S. really is doing well the government dependence wouldn't be at epidemic levels. If the U.S. economy really was doing well we wouldn't have more than a million public school children that are homeless. If the U.S. economy was really doing well the percentage of Americans that have a job would not be lower than it was when the last recession supposedly ended. Thank you. The United States economy truly is a glass half empty. Too much focus is placed on the present while long-term investments in our future are completely sidelined. Economic prosperity is not shared evenly while the rich become increasingly richer and the middle class fades into oblivion. Our nation's health is disastrous despite the innovations one might expect with such high medical costs. Additionally history has shown that periods of economic prosperity often see financial collapses lurking just around the corner. To put it frankly any sense of relief that those of you in this room have had about our economic relief has been a mere illusion. In order for the economy to be truly sound we have to start planning for our future. Doing so would require us to step back from the fossil fuel industry and invest in renewable green energy yet we lag far behind many of our dear being counterparts. Planning ahead would require that we take a serious look at the state of our educational system and question why when American workers were once among the most educated in the world today's students are being upstaged by children in other nations. Instead of looking at how many jobs would be created by investing in these fields the US looks to the immediate strategic and financial gains of investing in the military and fossil fuels. With this kind of short sight in this the US economy will never truly prosper. Speaking of prosperity shared prosperity and growth implies that as in the nation prosperous we all benefit. Sadly there is very little evidence to suggest that this is the way our economy actually has been functioning. In a time when one percent of the population owns 40 percent of the nation's wealth it becomes difficult to argue that wealth is fairly distributed. When 15 percent of the nation is living below the poverty line it's very apparent that the US has not shared its economic gains evenly. Furthermore when it becomes safe to assume that a randomly selected Hispanic or African American family will statistically make less than their randomly selected Caucasian counterparts it is clear that our economic build is deeply flawed. Moreover while having the highest per capita expenditure on health care is draining our pockets we are left empty handed without any of the amenities we thought we forked over our cash for. Little is done to ensure that our populace specifically those with financial holdings on the later end of the scale has access to affordable nutritious food. As a result of this major oversight the US can boast the highest obesity rate in the world. The taxes on the economy caused by obesity are numerous with employers losing 4.3 billion a year to obesity related absenteeism and medical cost exceeding 190 billion. The aging populace only further compounds the issue as the retirement of the baby boomer generation introduces a whole new set of health care costs. Finally the economy is never more than a stone's throw away from another economic downturn. Historically the US economy has never experienced a period of growth for more than a decade. With this in mind our years of economic upturn are dwindling and one should hope that this time we will be better prepared to face whatever obstacles may be thrown at us. This this does not seem to be the case however. The government's traditional tools of recovery lowering the interest rates along with tax cuts and fiscal spending are currently not available to them with interest rates hovering close to zero and public debt accounting for 104 percent of our total GDP. If our nation is truly prospered solutions to an economic downturn must be established now not when cash is being burned for warmth. In closing the US economy is far from recovered and displays all the characteristics of a severely damaged cog struggling to move the hands of our nation. Thank you. To close Ania Kondi will provide a rebuttal of some of the negative positions and will make a summative statement in which she will attempt to convince you that the affirmative is carried the burden of proof. By no means is our country doing perfectly but that is not what we're debating today. We are debating if we have recovered from the crash and if we are on track towards shared prosperity and growth and the answer is yes we are. The majority of the issues you've heard today from the opposition are ones with roots dating back well before 2008. The most have steadily been intensifying over time. When the crash happened it tanked our economy and made so many of these even worse but it also brought to light many that had previously been ignored. No we are not able to take on every problem at once as wonderfully idealistic as that sounds it would be absurd to believe that we could. As a country we definitely still have a long way to go but we've been and continue to work on revitalizing our economy and slowly changing many of the issues ingrained in our society and we've made a lot of progress. Consider how badly the 2008 crash hurt our economy and yet we're already back on our feet. We've recovered the recession is over and our GDP is increasing again growing faster than even the European Union and our GDP is higher than any other country. Our economy is flourishing unemployment is going down and new jobs just keep being created. People are able to support themselves again we're spending money on research and have as much innovation as ever before and our universities remain at the top of the world and continue to draw people internationally because of how well known they are. In terms of systematic issues yes we have a number of them but so does every country one of the big ones you as mentioned was healthcare. No our current system is not the best in the world I will be the first to admit that growing up with three pretty sick grandparents I've seen it firsthand but even this our country is working to change in recent years for example we've implemented the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare and that's a huge step in the right direction since then the number of people covered by insurance has gone way up in addition to giving more affordable options to people. Many no longer have to choose between being insured and being able to pay for their house. It saved countless people from flandering in debt after a health issue comes up while they're not covered. The number of stories I've heard about the ACA how it's helped the lives of so many people is incredible and in addition our country has so many of the top doctors and hospitals in the world partially due to our universities in addition to the money we constantly spend on new medical research and technology and that is something we continue to be known for. The environment is another huge issue that was brought up we might not be spending as much money in this area as other countries like China but we do have a long way to go and we do have a long way to go but in recent years President Obama has made a huge push towards helping the environment. Ed Chen the national communications director for the national resources defense council said Barack Obama is destined to go down as the greatest climate change fighting president in history. By the time he leaves office he will have instituted game-changing programs to slash carbon pollution from our vehicles and trucks and from our power plants together accounting for two thirds of all US greenhouse gases the primary driver of dangerous climate change. Under President Obama's administration we have done a lot to protect the environment and we will continue to work to do so. The opposition also brought up inequality there's no denying that this exists there's an inordinate amount of wealth at the top but as a whole we're working to make sure that people are prospering together with our economy and income gaps are not the only measure of this are people doing well household debt has been going down unemployment has been going down and as said before far more people have access to health care according to the OECD the organization for economic cooperation and development we're still one of the top rated countries on the better life index which works to take into account housing income jobs education and the environment and health among a number of other indicators the inequality is there but this is a huge systematic problem that was started well before the 2008 crash does that need to change yes but we can work towards a more equal society as a goal and in the meantime the people of our society are still thriving we've started on this journey towards and are pushing through the tough road along this path but one of the big questions is are the people of this country willing to help work towards that change and if you've listened to the recent election you'll know that a lot of these issues that were mentioned are at the forefront of the debate the people are interested and the people are getting involved one particular white haired loud candidate who visited our school recently uses a lot of these particular issues as the majority of his platform and the incredible amount of support he's gotten without the machinery behind him is amazing he's raised more money from small donations from regular people than any other candidate has before in history and crowds go crazy with enthusiasm for him in particular the youth involvement in the political system has gone way up largely because of him and we the youth are the future of this country and even many of the people who support Trump state that their reason is being because they want change from the typical politician whether or not either of these two win the point remains people are ready to stand up and push for change we're already on the right path and now with the support of the people we will continue to work towards the tough path until we can fully reach that shared prosperity and growth thank you so please join me in appreciating the depth and the breath of the argument that we've had from both sides I think it was an extraordinary presentation I'm going to step aside and consult with the judges for just a moment and then they'll then they will confer I'll come back to the podium and have a couple of a couple of remarks while the judges confer and then we'll announce the results so please join me in thanking both we're going to ask Bill to step up to the mics that we actually we'll get oh a generational shift is a before we hear the verdicts because who knows what you'll think back let us thank our judges for the judges Mr. Tom Peake everyone uh this was a lot of fun I've been two or participated in these since I guess 2011 and this is maybe my favorite one yet both teams I was very very impressed so thanks a lot for all that I would say and and and my also I would just say that my understanding is that a lot of this came together in you know relatively compressed amount of time so given the amount of time I worked on mine and and the fact that I was ultimately probably a lot less coherent than either of yours I'd give yourselves a round of applause for that um when it comes to the debate I thought I think everyone agreed that the affirmative side was more organized they were more coherent and they had a much more data driven and strong approach that being said this is a debate and under the rule set in the agreement they carry the burden of proof the negative side established a number of a number of arguments some of which we found more convincing than others but on two points one being the labor force participation and the chance of what would happen if the people are currently not participating in the labor force were to re-enter it and the other being the possibility that some of this growth will evaporate soon in another financial disaster we didn't feel that the affirmative team took enough time to actually address those concerns so we were left with the doubt having been established and thus are ruling for the negative team ladies and gentlemen there you have it so um I'd like to thank all of the participants the judges the affirmative team and the negative team uh it was a I think a powerful discussion and I hope that you will join us now for a dinner and awards