 Welcome to everybody. Thank you for braving the storm, risking your life to get here. We have an exciting day planned, the undergraduate economics club debate. I want to introduce the president of the undergraduate economics club, Anastasia Wilson. I want to thank Anastasia for all the great work that she's done all year long planning the undergraduate economics club events and for helping out organizing this debate. Thank you very much, Anastasia. Anastasia is going to introduce the debaters and our judges and she's going to keep the clock and keep everything running on time, so welcome Anastasia. So this year our debaters will be discussing big business. Is it good for social welfare? Over here on the yes it is side, we have Laura Molino, she is a junior economics major. Thomas Peek, who is also a junior economics major. Angela Lee, she is a senior and also an econ major. And Daniel Schwartz, who is a senior and an econ major. Alma, no it's not, we like small businesses side. We have Daniel Brock, who is a junior econ major. Luke Sieberg, who is a sophomore, steppic and economics major. And Ryan King, who is a sophomore, polysci econ major. So each team will be going. We've decided that the small business team will be going first, so welcome them to the podium. Oh, yeah, judges, sorry. We have Peter Scott, who is a professor here at UMass. Bill Troy, who is one of the founding members of the Economics Alumni Association and a professor at UNH. And Gilbert Olima, who is a visiting scholar from University of San Paulo. And those are our judges. So, start. All right. We're going to present an argument that explains why we believe small business is better for social welfare, as opposed to big business. Before I begin, I'd like to define social welfare, small business, and then I'll give a quick outline of our major argument. Our perspective on social welfare goes beyond just basic economic indicators such as average wages, employee benefits, job creation, production and so on. We want to consider things such as overall happiness, overall well-being and health. Open information, democratic processes are not hampered by the operating firms and the firms behave in environmentally friendly ways. We define small business as firms who employ 500 or fewer employees. Firms of this size make up 50% of the private non-farm share of GDP. Currently, there exist 23 million small business firms across America. They exist in virtually every neighborhood. According to a recent Gallup poll, 66% of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in small businesses. Small businesses have generated 64% of net new jobs over the past 15 years. And because small businesses are embedded in their communities, they have a strong economic interest to serve their communities and their customer base in ways that benefit overall happiness, the environment and well-being. The last point on small business is that they make up 97% of all exporters and they produce 29% of all export value. I'll quickly outline our major points of argument. We'll be going over this economies of scale, the impact of a large firm collapse, benefits of small business clusters, small business contribution to economic development, and finally corporate welfare. I'll begin with this economies of scale. We're going to argue that this economies of scale exist and they originate due to the organizational form or organizing infrastructure that a firm takes on. Not only will these economies of scale create inefficiencies and costs to the firm, they'll limit the firm's growth and size as well as have direct negative effects on social welfare. The first this economies of scale that I'll go over are atmospheric consequences and these arise during firm growth. As firms increase in size, the layers of hierarchy within the firm also grow. The jobs among these various layers of hierarchy become much more specialized and workers among these various layers begin to feel alienated because of the job specialization. Workers have a hard time understanding their role within the company, how their job fits into the overall firm, and how their part adds to attaining the goal of the firm. Workers who feel alienated within their work tend to lack motivation and do not perform efficiently. More managers are needed to oversee these workers which adds to growing costs to the firm. The second this economy of scale that I'll go over is bureaucratic insularity. Again, as firms grow, the layers of hierarchy within the firm also grow. Senior managers will eventually become insulated by these layers of hierarchy and they'll begin to pursue their own self-interest rather than the goals of the firm or the principal owner. This could lead to principal agent problems as well as moral hazard for the firm. When senior managers begin to focus on their own goals, they tend to focus on the short term goals of the firm to maximize their own gains which could in turn compromise the health of the firm in the long term. The last this economy of scale that I'll go over is distorted communication. As communication moves within the layers of hierarchy and especially across the layers of hierarchy, it becomes distorted. When information reaches senior managers, it has become fully distorted and senior managers are not able to make decisions that will respond to the market quickly or correctly adding further to the efficiencies of the firm. The last argument that I'll go over are the effects of a firm failure. Within the past decade we've been plagued by uncertainty. There's been numerous natural disasters as well as the financial crisis, the housing bubble. So I found it would be more interesting to look at what happens when a firm fails to look at the destructive side of social welfare economics instead of the creative side of social welfare economics. I use the American auto industry as an example. If GM were to fail, we would see a net loss of roughly 900,000 jobs. If the big three within Detroit failed, we would see a net loss of roughly 3.3 million jobs. Now if we use the largest small business firm of 500 employees, we would see roughly a net job loss of 8,500 jobs. Relating this back to social welfare, the larger the corporation, the larger the stakes are for the community that relies on that corporation for jobs as well as social welfare. Going back to Detroit and the big three. In its prime, Detroit had a population of 1.8 million and its population currently sits at roughly 700,000. Over time the big three invested in new means of production to stay competitive with Asian automakers decreasing the demand for labor power within Detroit. This had an increase in unemployment rates as well as poverty rates. 33% of Detroiters live below the federal poverty line as of 2007 making Detroit the poorest of the nation's big cities. Their per capita income of 2009 was estimated at 15,000 compared to the national rate of 27,000. Finally, as you can see, big business changing means of production and relocating jobs has a negative effect on the local community as well as social welfare. And I'll hand it over to Luke. I'm going to focus on the possibilities and realities of small businesses taking advantage of economies of scale and of agglomeration through clustering as well as the role small businesses play in economic development. Clustering refers to localized groups of people, infrastructure, and finance that in some can generate a successful and competitive industry capability. The key phrase in that definition is in some as clusters create the same conditions that foster economies of scale and lead to efficiency and reduction of transaction costs, but do so without many of the negative externalities that are usually associated with large businesses. The close relationships fostered by clusters generate economic and social value creation, leading to locals being committed to firms or districts' future. When people see that they are being helped by clustered businesses, they reciprocate. This is less likely with large businesses as people do not feel the same community connection and may even be hostile towards large businesses as a result of the large businesses' negative reputations. The close relationships fostered by clusters generate economic and social value creation. Business clusters provide a range of local suppliers which can respond to their customers' needs for specialized inputs and services in a quick, efficient, and technologically proficient manner which enhances our international competitiveness. For many of these suppliers, they are in industries where knowledge is not easily codified. This leads to knowledge being generated informally through daily personal contact while workers move among firms with greater freedom than large businesses. As a result of this knowledge sharing, the entire industry benefits as opposed to one company, and resulting technological advancement is for the benefit of society as opposed to a single company's shareholders. In businesses such as the high-tech industry, knowledge sharing leads to a competitive advantage of a firm such as Microsoft, which actually left Silicon Valley in order to avoid sharing information with other companies. This leads to what I've called innovation stagnation as companies like Microsoft continue to lag behind the innovation curve set by its main rival, Apple. As you can see, distant rivalries between large firms don't quite compare to the productive competition found in clusters made up of small firms. Turning to transaction costs, clusters allow businesses to minimize transaction costs while taking full advantage of economies of agglomeration. Clustered firms can act as a group to support mutually beneficial objectives, so the risks they take are smaller and more calculable. Consequently, clustered firms are able to make more risky investments and engage in joint ventures which have in which they have the flexibility to reorganize their relationships and responsibilities over the course of the business transaction. Relatedly, clusters are able to maintain and create a systematic internal equilibrium which is the result of a high interaction intensity among the business's employees. Employees of small businesses get to know one another, and as we all know, discussion between people who know one another and have worked together is much more productive than discussion between strangers. Clustered firms engage in what is known as collaborative commerce, a soft network in which firms openly enter into a relationship in pursuit of benefits or advantages that they believe will accrue to their business, which allows firms to eliminate one of the largest costs of doing business, which is owning the means of production in order to access their benefits. In clusters, as long as one firm owns the hardware or software needed for a production process, the other firms don't have to waste their own capital buying that means of production as well. Collaborative commerce also reduces the cost of negotiation. Employees have nothing to lose or fear from working with one another and either side has to give ground or exchange trade secrets or information, but knowledge is simply transferred. Beyond this, the social infrastructure created in clusters makes it easier to correct informational asymmetries that can limit the applicability of collaborative commerce. As trust develops in clusters, inner firm cooperation increases, resulting in strong improvements in revenue and employment. Less time is spent protecting information from competition aligned for more productive labor and less wasteful managerial monitoring. Trust limits opportunistic behavior, reducing uncertainties and perceived risks. If you know that your counterpart at the company across the street is collaborating with you, you are much less likely to withhold information from that person. Turning to small businesses and economic development, small businesses are an integral part of economic development as they give local citizens the opportunity to manage or own their own enterprises and help key profits within a community, while outside ownership in large firms usually sense a substantial portion of surplus far away from where the labor that produced it is actually located. In terms of contributing to household incomes, small firms provide income maintenance for people without many options as well as providing for income growth through asset accumulation and the development of valuable skills. Small firms also increase community members' confidence and representative local and regional institutions. People involved in the ownership of a business develop feelings of responsibility and see the benefits of participation and governance, which results in the creation of institutions that accurately reflect people's wants and needs. Small locally owned firms proportionally create more new opportunities for the poor, for women, and for people in isolated rural areas than do large businesses. And demographic change is positively affected by small firms, the development of which has been linked to decreasing birth rates towards a more sustainable replacement level, as well as a reduction in rural to urban migration, which as we all know is a very large problem for many developing countries. New research suggests that in times of recession, large employees disproportionately lose workers while small companies as a group fare better. It was found that large firms, after adjusting for their larger share of the workforce, account for a greater slice of job destruction both during and after recessions, whether it be through layoffs or through simply not hiring workers that they would have otherwise. Small businesses are able to engage in very specialized activities, which yield much higher returns. The approach of small businesses enables producers to focus on aspects of the production process that they are able to do extremely effectively, relying on others that they are linked to via markets to undertake other functions where they may be less skilled. One example of this is the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy, which is made up of small, highly specialized firms that generate above average wages, revenue, healthcare benefits, and paid time off. As mentioned in the intro, small businesses play an important role in both the self-confidence and empowerment of the individual. They recognize the dignity of the individual and spread the vision that change at the local level is in fact possible. As local firms flourish, their owners are able to enact meaningful change in their communities without having to rely on the charity of foreign investors and non-governmental organizations, loans from which usually have some severe strengths attached. And now I'd like to turn to my colleague, Mr. King, to conclude our portion of the argument. Thank you. I would now like to shift the discussion towards corporate power and its effects on social welfare. Fear of monopolistic behavior and acknowledgments to the dangers that big business poses is not a new phenomenon. During the end of the 19th century in America, these fears materialized in the antitrust legislation of the day. Advocates of antitrust legislation recognize that monopolistic behavior decreased social welfare because of the inequality of power that arise between consumers and manufacturers, which led to unfair business practices and outcomes for society. The basis of this legislation can be found in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. And while laws of these nature are still in place today, the sheer power and wealth of large businesses have found or rather created loopholes to get around them. Shifting our attention towards taxes, in 2010 the top 100 companies with $5 trillion in revenue and $500 billion in pre-tax earnings paid less than 10% in non-deferred federal taxes. If these companies had paid the 35% tax rate designated by U.S. law, an additional $140 billion would have been collected. This is approximately equal to the total budget deficit of all 50 states. And to give a few examples, last year GE paid no taxes. In 2009, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits and paid no taxes and received $156 million rebate. And over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $1.1 billion in profits but paid taxes at a rate of 1.1%. This is possible because big businesses are able to afford to keep their money in tax havens and are able to book profits in countries that have low tax rates. Big businesses also have the ability to lobby for tax laws with loopholes as GE has done and can hold assets under front-men dummy corporations and conduct multi-layered transactions that create anonymity. It is very simple to see how big business can in fact hold social welfare hostage. Adam Smith described in his day that the principal architects of power were the owners of society and that they made sure that government policy would attain to their interests no matter what the consequence on society. A modern and updated version of Smith's maxim can be seen in the political economist Thomas Ferguson's investment theory of politics. This theory describes how the election process in America has become a time for investors to get together to select the next designer of policy. This has manifested in campaign donations and advertisements and as we have seen with the last political election, the candidate who spends the most on advertisements is the most likely to win. Another recent example is healthcare reform where public opinion was strongly in favor of a public option. However, this was against big business interests and we all know how that turned out. Corporate welfare is government assistance for free or below market rates. U.S. corporate welfare is embedded in the tax code and largest corporate welfare payments go to the wealthiest corporations who also happen to be the biggest campaign donors. If big businesses do not have it their way, they have the leverage to support alternate candidates or threaten to relocate, which as we've already discussed can be devastating on communities and for social welfare. In 1997, the Marriott Corporation threatened to relocate out of Maryland. However, talks magically ceased once they received a $30 million tax subsidy. No new jobs were created and no guarantee that they would stay in the future was made. And in central and eastern Europe, transnational corporations have been lobbying the brand new capitalist democratic societies for low tax laws and low wage laws and flexible labor rules, which has left these companies with deficit of development funds while these corporations constantly threaten to move further east. The economist Michael Jensen has shown that when large businesses make money losing investments, the cost falls on all of society. Investment capital represents our limited stock and national savings and when corporations spend it poorly, our future well-being is compromised. Small businesses do not have the luxury to make dangerous risks and cannot fall back on bailouts as large businesses can. And big businesses can also escape regulation, as seen with the financial crisis as well as BP and the oil spill in the Gulf. Large businesses such as oil corporations and other development corporations have also been seen talking with administrations as seen before the invasion of the Iraq war. Large businesses also use their power to literally infiltrate government through the revolving door as seen with the military industrial complex and the financial industrial complex. Corporations can easily outspend critics and through the media lobbying they convince Congress and the public that their programs have a public benefit. The magazine The Nation has documented the media lobbying complex that exists where scores of profiteers have appeared as unbiased and objective observers to issues that they have a financial stake in and thus a conflict of interest. In-depth coverage is sparse these days on mainstream media and what is covered is instead dictated by unaccountable executives and investors. Small and independent media outlets serve their viewers to work to keep those in power accountable and to inform the public with unbiased news. And before I conclude, I would like to briefly turn to the findings of an economist named Kathy Fogel at the University of Arkansas who set out to find out the correlation between big business and social welfare. And what she found was that countries that opt for big business sector stability appear to exhibit both worst health care and slower economic growth. Measures of the quality of countries education show no correlation with big business stability and worse pollution correlates with more stable big business sectors. More stable big business sectors are actually correlated with worse inequality and she concludes that because there is no clear evidence of big business stability contributing to laudable non-economic policy goals, she might entertain other reasons politicians may value big business stability and this goes back to the corporate welfare and power I was just describing earlier. So in conclusion, it is clear that small firms are more likely to increase social welfare. Big businesses, while capable of doing good, have access to enormous power that can undermine democracy and tip policies in their favor, rendering social welfare an insignificant afterthought. Thank you. Thanks guys, hopefully you have some answers. So my group, we're arguing, let me pull up the PowerPoint first, that big business is healthy for that big business does in fact promote social welfare. We're not, I mean, we're not necessarily against all the small business and say they're all evil. However, you know, big business does promote social welfare and small businesses would not survive without big businesses. But before moving on, we also want to define big businesses as you did and that's any large business, any corporation, sub-chapter S corporations or partnerships with assets greater than $10 million. And social welfare, similar to yours, we're taking a broad view and that extends beyond economy, although economy, healthy economy is obviously very important. We talk about standard of living, the environment, the available social services, measurements like crime rate, drug use and the aspects of society like religious and spiritual. So it's quite broad. So to begin, oh, and also we wanted to add here that corporate social, since we're talking about corporations, we want to talk about corporate social responsibility, which is simply making a profit. You can read. Let me just hold on here. Do this. How do I start the show? Okay, that's better. Simply making a profit but also abiding by laws, regulations and customs of a country and a responsibility for environmental concerns, for working conditions and protecting human rights. So to begin, I want to argue a few things. Number one, that large corporations do have a lot of power. They have a lot of capital. But what that also allows them to do is carry out big research and development. Schumpeter said this and I think he's right, that research and development, which is what ends up providing this country and this economy, especially with infrastructure that then small businesses can use and the economy can flourish on, are all undertaken by large corporations that have large capital. The first and best example of this is the very first big business, which was the railroads. The railroads before becoming consolidated into a few big companies were a bunch of smaller railroad companies. They have too many interests at play, competition, the gauge and the railroad were different and it just didn't work out. The routes were too expensive and when it did become consolidated into a big business it transformed our economy because the railroad was actually built. You can get from New York to California and there were tons of linkages throughout the whole economy that benefited from this. They also revolutionized finance, capital management and business organization. Another example looking back is AT&T and the telegraph before that, something else that our economy was built on. That was made possible by having big business as well. A small business just would not be able to carry out that type of infrastructure project and that wired the entire nation and let our economy grow and translates into social welfare not only from a healthy economy, but people can talk to each other, all sorts of benefits. Then a more contemporary example, talking about technology. I'm looking at Google and Microsoft who both have extremely wealthy companies. Google is scanning all the books and we can get almost any book on the internet. I think that contributes to well-being. They have cars without drivers. They can take part in all this type of research and development because they're not so risk-averse and they have the capital available to do so. Microsoft as well is another example of that. My next point would be that smaller and medium-sized firms feed off of big businesses. This is an important point for me because there's a reason that we had to bail out the auto industry. That wasn't just because Obama has some affinity for GM. It's because that would have a ripple effect through the entire economy and the thousands of smaller businesses that supply GM would go out of business as well. Looking at other large companies, they couldn't have a small auto industry. The aerospace, Boeing. Boeing has hundreds of thousands of employees on its own, but there are also thousands of smaller businesses across the nation that Boeing is the reason they're in business, including my friend's father who makes one part for a window small business in New Jersey and his biggest customer is Boeing and Airbus. Without them, he probably would not be in business. Big businesses are actually supporting small businesses and without it, they would not exist. My last point here, and I want to talk about that a bit. That's why I have Walmart up here. Funny enough, everyone hates Walmart, but Walmart is actually doing a lot of things. With big power, that also gives them responsibility. That's why we mentioned corporate responsibility. Well, I think Walmart realizes this and they have a reputation given. Their intentions can be questionable, but I'm looking more at the impact. They're leading one of the biggest sustainability initiatives in the entire country for the environment. They're buying local produce. They just decided to buy more than 9% of their produce here, including here in the Pioneer Valley, supporting local farms. They are the biggest promoter of fluorescent light bulbs, saving the society energy and against global warming. They revised their entire trucking fleet to extend their gas mileage 4 miles to the gallon. Now, because they're so giant, their changes actually make a big difference. That's another point here. With such big, massive companies, when they actually make a change, it has a large impact. That also makes them a target for people that want to make change. It's difficult to target and try to force thousands of small or hundreds of small businesses to make a change, whether it's fuel mileage or light bulbs or buying local produce or whatever it is, or human rights, such as a company like Nike, Child Labor or something. It's a big target because they have a reputational cost and it's one business. A whole variety, a cluster of businesses is a lot more difficult to pressure to make change. The last part about sustainability and why the environment is not an enemy of big business and that they're actually not mutually exclusive sustainability in big businesses, is because they have a lot at call. They have a lot at stake. When they make a change, it saves them a lot of money. When Walmart, they're known as penny pinchers. Well, that's because when they save a penny, that penny turns into millions of dollars. That could come in the form of new light bulbs. Ford Motor has opened a plant recently in Dearborn, Michigan. It's cutting-edge technology and there's basically no waste. The waste that they use, they try to make it to energy like a real sustainable principle, which saves them money. I agree. It's benefiting them, but it's also benefiting the environment. Sustainability and the environment, big business is a friend of environmentalists and should be looked at as an opportunity for them. Before going on any longer, I would like to invite up Angela here, who's going to talk about why big businesses are more productive with their profits. Big businesses, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Big businesses are more productive with their profits for three reasons. The first being they like to invest their profits in long-term community development projects. They do this long-term and they are involved in the long run because they know that involvement creates a more positive image for the companies and also they know that giving cash contributions just don't look as good. Yes, that's true. But if you think about it, when they go into this long-term community involvement, they're making a bigger impact. Take, for example, Microsoft. They created this program called Elevate America, which they sponsor. They gave $5 million in cash to this program and then also $10 million in software. This program is used to train women and youth workers from 18 to 25 years old in using their software. They don't necessarily become end users. They don't necessarily end up working for Microsoft. But this program, Elevate America, plays them in jobs. They actually provide these people with jobs after they train them. And so a huge company like Microsoft can do this with their profits because they know that in the long run, it will benefit society as a whole having an educated, skilled population filling these jobs. Large firms are also able to give more to charity and they have more ability to even if it's just cash contributions because unlike small businesses, large firms aren't afraid of running out of cash to fund their operations. They always have access to credit. They have cheaper access to credit than small firms do even in tough economic times because they are less risky to default. And small firms don't have the luxury of using their profits because they always have to make sure they have enough profits to flow back into their operations to make sure their company is growing and maintaining itself whereas large firms can do so through their financial structures, their capital structures that they have an easy access to. And large firms are actually not necessarily profitable but with their profits because they have greater profits they can fund more charities. And an example of this would be Microsoft again. In response to the Japan earthquake, they gave $250 million in cash and also $1.75 million worth of software to rebuild the Japanese communications network. A small firm or a cluster of small firms would not be able to help a whole country build their communication network again. Finally, big businesses create a culture of giving and they raise a standard for their competitors. Take Microsoft for example, if they give to this relief effort their competitors will see it and will acknowledge it and realize that they have to either match or exceed these cash contributions or whatever efforts Microsoft might be putting in the long run in order to maintain their customer loyalty and their goodwill. Large firms are also able to...are better able to target a variety of causes and they bring diversity in contributions because small firms are more likely to just focus in their local community. They know that their impacts have better return if they're focused in the local communities where customers will see it. Whereas large firms, because they are broad, because they are international they can actually contribute to causes or issues that need the most. Where need is most rather than just to contribute to local areas and create themselves a better image. This woman right here is Kelly Edwards and she was part of the Elevate America program. She was quoted in a news article and she said that Elevate America gave her a competitive advantage. She was happy to find that employers knew that she was willing and able to learn new skills and that gave her this competitive advantage and gave her the job that she was looking for. So just one person here, but imagine the 12 nonprofit corporations that Microsoft actually gave money to you to fund this program. So big businesses are able to use their profits more productively and in that way they help create social welfare. Now I'm going to have Tom come up to talk about globalization and its effects on social welfare. Hi everybody. So my project is on how big businesses can and often do promote social welfare around the world. So far we've focused largely from a domestic lens. But first I'd like to say that globalization is obviously not just the cause of big multinationals but they are a major player in it. So it seems like they bear some recognition for some of the good that they often actually end up doing. So one of the main ways that big firms can be good for social welfare is that they can invest in developing nations. Traditionally in economics we think about it when you've got a situation with a flatlining economy and low unemployment that high levels of government expenditure can come in to boost employment and get the economy back on its feet. But when you have a government with very little access to credit and no real money to their names, it might be beneficial for another person to come in and employ people in your area to help. One example of this would be Coca-Cola has currently a program to employ 5 million women by 2020 running as distributors not unlike say like Avon here in the United States like running their own businesses distributing their products. And they've assisted with various technical capital to make that happen. It should probably be noted that in a lot of these societies women have a very, very hard time finding a job. And I'll actually return to that point shortly. But the other thing is that even if your business is not directly assisted by Coca-Cola there's a term that we use called the spillover effect to suggest that sometimes when a firm comes into an area that has extensive knowledge on how to successfully run a business other firms either competing with it or interacting with it in a cooperative way stands to actually gain a lot from that interaction. So when you have a restaurant for instance like this woman up here runs that Coca-Cola helps to renovate then other restaurants in the area can look at that and say that those are good practices on running a restaurant. So a lot of good can come from that. Beyond the personal level globalization can help global economic integration rather can lead to greater global stability. There's a theory called neo-functionalism which suggests that global supply chains can provide a disincentive for international conflict. And a really good example of that would be the current situation in China and Taiwan where when I was a kid it was regularly spoken about at my house about the possibility of China and Taiwan going to war with one another. These days that's much less likely and one of the reasons for that is that both of them are very, very highly integrated into the global supply chain particularly for computer manufacturing. A conflict between the two would be disastrous for both economies as well as for ours. So big business in both those countries puts a lot of pressure on those leaders to behave themselves and to not start a conflict which would of course be disastrous for everybody. Finally, I'd like to turn my attention to globalization and how it affects human rights. The traditional neoliberal theory of how it could affect human rights is that higher incomes and education which could be created through the investment of large businesses' profits in an impoverished economy could lead to less exploitable populations. And a lot of people around here would really disagree with that but I'd like to bring up an article, a study that I read by Indra Desoisa and Krishna Vadlamanadi who found a positive correlation between a country's level of globalization and the quality of human rights in that country based on figures from the State Department and Amnesty International from 1987 to 2005 up to a 1% level of significance. And what surprised me the most about this is that these figures actually held after taking the world's most developed countries, all of the OECD countries, out of the equation that it still held. This is not of course to state that a lack of globalization could cause human rights abuses but they give a number of reasons why this correlation could be found and I'll share a couple of them which I think are interesting. One of them is that multinationals can be free of domestic prejudices like with Coca-Cola employing women where a domestic firm may choose not to or bringing jobs into an area that's predominantly based around discriminated minorities, discriminated against minorities, I'm sorry. Another one is that in many states where corruption is very heavy and right, an increased amount of wealth in non-state actors can weaken corruption and weaken the absolute state power which makes human rights abuses much more difficult. Finally, contract rich economies and for a country to be good for business it must be legally very contract rich. Protect vulnerable populations from exploitation. One more thing and this is just a personal speculation, going back to what some of my colleagues have said, firms, large American multinationals are extremely image conscious. They're aware of how easy it is in the age of the internet to bring attention of any bad behavior they have into the public eye and so with the whole world becoming an increasingly globalized economy I believe that they might be in many ways reluctant to do business with various economies where they believe that they could and find themselves in trouble for human rights abuses and if a country is wanting to draw business into their economy that provides an incentive for them to respect international standards for human rights. Thank you, that's our presentation. So now we're going to do a five minute break where each team will formulate a rebuttal and then each person will have two to three minutes to speak and present a counter argument to each side. So five minutes and we'll regroup. So if we want to turn our attention back to the teams, the small business team is going to come back with their rebuttal and then we'll follow it with three members from the other team to refute their main arguments. So one of the points that I want to refute and touch upon is something that Daniel mentioned. He talked about how Walmart is making improvements with their environmental responsibility and I want to talk about Walmart's responsibilities to its workers. One of the things that I looked at was a study done by UC Berkeley and they basically studied the use of safety net programs by Walmart wage workers in California and the cost of the taxpayers is roughly 86 million annually for Walmart wage workers use of these safety net programs such as MediCal food stamps and subsidized housing. Their average wages are $10 per hour compared to the average of other retailers in California of $14 per hour. Walmart offers lower prices through their efficient distribution centers and they're leveraging over suppliers basically. Other retailers may not have these luxuries so in order to stay competitive with Walmart's prices they may have to break up unions, take away employee benefits and lower wages. If other retailers in California followed suit with this it would cost taxpayers an estimated $400 million annually for the increased supply of the use of safety net programs. On average there's been 50 openings of Walmart stores in every state across the nation and the retail wages drop an average of 10% as new stores introduced into the state. I think that sums up my point that I wanted to make. I would like to touch upon a few points made in terms of long-term community development that was discussed by Angela I believe. Some businesses by their very nature are long-term community development. They stay within a community obviously because they are physically grounded in that local community and as such they can't lift off and go to a different location quite as easily as large multinational corporations can do. As we've seen not only in foreign countries but also in parts of the United States that have experienced economic stagnation as a result of the financial crisis. Many large businesses have closed up. Many branches in some large businesses, for example the Circuit City let's say has left many very large strange shaped red buildings around the country. And another point that was made had to do with charities and causes and the fact that large businesses can contribute a lot of money to these charities and causes and have these companies actually paid their taxes. There may have been less of a need for these charities and causes as the government whose purview it actually is to provide for the poor and the sick and the less fortunate would have been able to actually afford to give money to these causes as opposed to having to engage in pretty ridiculous budget deficit battles. And a point that Daniel made I think regarding large companies supporting local farms by buying up all the organic produce. That also eliminates a lot of smaller buyers that would like to be able to buy produce such as our CSAs or smaller grocery stores that are unable to compete with the rates offered by these large corporations. And I think Daniel also made a point about risk aversion, small firms being risk averse towards investments and that was something that I had earlier contradicted talking about clusters and usually, not usually, in some cases the risks taken by large businesses can obviously be too big as we saw in 2008. One last point was that AT&T created an infrastructure and a network that enabled the United States to become more centralized. However, AT&T was a monopoly that had to be broken out because it was engaging in some pretty shady practices. And I believe that's it. Thank you. I'd just like to make a few small points. One, you guys said that large businesses have larger research and development budgets but that necessarily isn't always a good thing. I'm excited with actually Microsoft. The Microsoft Office Division was often competing against other research and development clusters within the company and taking most of the investment money, shutting out other forms of research and development within the country. You mentioned the railroad industry in the beginning age of America as a great thing for big business. However, railroads were actually the basis of the antitrust legislation I mentioned in my presentation, pretty much contradicting the benefits you brought up. When it comes to the environment, big businesses lobby against environmental changes that will cost the money as seen as how the United States is no longer part of the Kyoto Protocol. And the risks that big businesses also are allowed to take often can be very dangerous on social welfare as seen as large businesses can invest in the housing bubble and we see how that has popped and affected social welfare. And you guys said yourself that Walmart only makes changes for profit and when they make a change, it has an impact. However, they lobby against change that they don't want to do because it goes against making profit. And they can also use their power to change certain laws. Like Walmart is the largest supermarket for organic produce. However, they have lobby to change the laws of what organic even means. And you guys hailed Boeing as a great employee in America. However, Boeing is part of the military industrial complex that I described in my presentation are actually involved of propelling our nation of war and building industry of weapons. You guys talked about positive standards they can set and also the positive spulver effects but you failed to mention the negative standards and negative spulver effects that large businesses house when they go abroad. I feel that you used a naive interpretation, Tom, of what neoliberalism has around the world. As you can see in the Middle East, South America and in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Egypt and Tunisia, which are lauded as successes just months before the revolution that people there are starving and they don't have work and that's due to neoliberalism policy. So all in all, while many of your benefits are true, I don't feel that they go far enough to show that in actuality big businesses are actually using their power to work against social welfare. Well, I'm tempted to use these three minutes and just talk about Walmart, but I was afraid that would happen because that's just what occurs all the time when we're talking about monopolies and it's getting boring at this point. I mean, the point I brought them up is because it's not all bad and that they can promote social welfare just like Boeing does, although they might be proud of a military industrial complex. And you know, I didn't, I wasn't able, you know, our team wasn't able to mention all the disadvantages and bad things about big business because, and I mean, they're there, of course, but we also promote social welfare. And the point of the railroad, and I just want to drive this a little further, was that, you know, you're arguing the organizational problems that come along with hierarchy and the organization of big business, but that was also crucial to how our economy grew, you know, with mass production and mass distribution. You know, we wouldn't be here without big business, is what I'm arguing. And bureaucracy actually does play an important role as well and there's a reason that, you know, big businesses have grown and they're subject to regulation. And that's, you're right, there is a role that the government needs to play, like AT&T, but AT&T still did wire the nation, okay, if they became a monopoly. And so what if the railroads created antitrust regulation? That's necessary because, you know, there are problems, you know, that arise from all types of organizations. So it's one point I wanted to make. The other point I wanted to address was the clusters. I'm not entirely sure and understand what clusters are, but I think I get a clue. And first of all, I've never really come across too many. That could be my own fault and none of us really have. But I will say that it seems like there could be way too many interests playing for one. And that's a lot of times what happened, you know, when we looked at building networks that are crucial for the economy, like the telegraph or the railroad. Also, you know, you gave technology as an example. Well, I didn't hear any other examples. And I'm curious to know some more because technology doesn't demand a large amount of capital for the most part until it gets really big. Technology, there's tons of start-up firms, and that's great, but there's not too many start-up and business clusters in the auto industry or big manufacturing industries like Boeing and GE. It's tough to have clusters making airplane engines. And also, regarding the problem with people at the bottom of the structure in the organizations, well, big businesses are also often subject to unions. Walmart is an example, and that's definitely a problem, but Walmart has been making some changes too, and they're raising their wages and they can offer certain benefits and have increased that recently. And big businesses are subject to unions like UPS when a lot of smaller businesses are not. So it's difficult to make changes and enforce them as well. So those are some points I wanted to address, and I'll turn now to Angela, not Angela, I'm sorry, to Laura, no, to Thomas who's going to follow up. Great. So as far as talk about response to small companies being more productive, also, in part what I would say here about my view of neoliberalism or at least my debate position on neoliberalism, I'd like to point out that multinational corporations are in many ways responsible for improving productivity in developing countries where domestic policies may prevent maximum productivity and higher wages. In Free Trade Under Fire, Douglas Irwin wrote that in 1998, the general population in Vietnam had a disposable income of about 205 U.S. dollars per year, whereas people working in foreign-owned businesses earned about 420 U.S. dollars per year. In addition, the poverty rates for those working in multinationals were only a quarter of the level of the general population. Wages are strongly related to productivity and productivity is very poor in underdeveloped countries, largely as a result of domestic policies. Multinationals have the infrastructure necessary to establish a viable business in an underdeveloped country, and multinationals are one vehicle for providing productivity. The increase in productivity by promoting technology and capital transfer to these poor countries which may not have been able to bring in these technology necessary for this increased productivity on their own. Sorry, I've got a little tongue tied there at the end. Also, I think it's worth saying that it's probably unfair to blame every example of an unfortunate consequence in a developing nation on the involvement of the multinationals in that country, and also that I think it's maybe a little bit unfair to label or to disparage every corporation involved in the production of goods for armed forces as a member of the military industrial complex as used to write off the good things that it has done. So that's all I have to say. I would like to make responses to two of the claims that the other team made. The first is a response to large firms seeking tax havens. The U.S. corporate tax rate is currently the second highest in the world behind Japan. It is due to these very high tax rates that large firms hire lobbyists in order to work to receive the tax breaks for their respective firms. The solution to this is to reform our corporate tax policies. We need to decrease the corporate tax rate in order to bring it closer in line with the rest of the world and make changes to the ability of firms to get to these tax breaks. That is local and federal governments need to stop bending to the will of big business when they say that they will leave if they don't receive the tax breaks because it is quite likely that the firm would not, in fact, leave the country if they had to pay higher taxes. For example, when governments talk about imposing environmental regulations, many companies threaten to leave the country and move to a country that has less stringent environmental regulation. However, there have been studies that have found that when those environmental regulations are imposed, the firms do not, in fact, leave. So the solution to that is really for the governments to start calling the bluff of these large firms when they say that they're going to leave. And then the second point that I want to respond to is social welfare being held hostage by corporate welfare. As we stated earlier, the social responsibility of a business is to increase its own profits. And an incorporated firm cannot do anything if that action will limit the profitability for its shareholders. However, investing in social endeavors can be beneficial to a firm's bottom line. That is, firms pursue programs of social welfare in order to bolster their revenue by using corporate social responsibility as a marketing ploy, which may seem shallow, but it reaches the same end. One of the benefits of large firms pursuing social welfare is the scale in which they can implement their plans. In 2004, an activist at a coalition meeting of 54 environmental and social advocacy groups remarked that, quote, a small movement by Walmart would have huge ripple effects, end quote. The same holds true for any large corporation. If a large firm makes even a small change to help stop overfishing or sweatshop labor or any other perceived ill of big companies, it can make large changes across the market. It is not necessarily a bad thing that firms use these topics as a marketing ploy because it means that socially responsible things get done by these large companies. For example, going back to Walmart, Walmart is buying social and solar and wind power in Mexico. The percentage of their energy consumption that comes from these renewable energy sources is very small, but according to Walmart's 2010 Global Sustainability Report, their emissions per $1 million of sales are falling. And this is real change, and it's being done by these large firms that have the resources available to pay the higher upfront costs of making these eco-friendly business decisions. So as long as society wants the social welfare to be upheld and as long as shoppers show their approval of large firms pursuing these socially responsible policies by going to the stores and purchasing their merchandise in greater numbers, social welfare is actually being promoted and powered by corporate welfare. Thank you. So I guess now we'll do some questions from the judges if you have questions for particular debaters that you would like them to address. We're going to go up here so that our voices can be heard. Yeah. Hello. So for the small business team, I wanted to ask the following. Small businesses are very focused on the customer and their product. At least in my experience, the last thing they want to do is invest in support services from employees. So in the idea of social welfare, my question is if we have a lot of small firms trying to maximize profits, what's going to protect the workers from exploitation by the managers who are also the owners, who may not even in fact have a human resource department, who may in fact not have standard labor practices, who may in fact not have a lawyer who's warning them about Fair Labor Standards Act, regulations and those kinds of things. Thank you. I guess I can try to respond to that. So the question was focusing on customers and product as opposed to focusing on support services and that sort of thing. And like workers' rights being sort of trampled. All right. So at least in terms of workers' rights, I'm just not going to really talk about the fact that what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the workers' rights. So we're going to focus on the workers' rights. I'm just not going to really talk about the fact that large businesses don't exactly look at workers' rights that much either. I guess there are definitely standard labor practices that are to a certain extent that can be sort of trampled over, but as the philosophers, Senate and Cobb have spoken on, they wrote a paper on the divided self, which talks about managers working against the interests of humans and in doing so creating a system in which there's a divided self, there's a work self in which you're looked down upon and then there's a home self in which you are like an actual human being and you treat yourself as a human being. And small firms, as a result of their tight-knit communities and the fact that there's a smaller number of employees in these firms are able to develop much more in-depth interpersonal relationships. And as a result of this, there is usually a lot less incentive and a lot less desire by managers of smaller firms to do the sort of things that will hurt their workers and hurt their employees because they know them personally. They've spent years working with them. Maybe they both went up through the company together. Maybe they both even started the company together. Well, my question for the pro-small business team Luke has insisted on the benefits of clusters. One might reply that what you are proposing in the end is that several small firms may get together and work like a big firm. But if that's the case, that would not be an argument against big firms because one might claim that you have more coordination problems the more actors, agents you have. So, if one of the benefits is for clusters of several small firms, why not go to a big firm after all? I believe the answer to your question can be found in what Daniel brought up about dis-economies of scale and what also Luke was just talking about in hierarchies of big businesses and coordination and how managers then may have incentives to work towards bonuses and not actually what's in favor of the business or the workers. So, starting off the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy, which is a highly successful area. It's actually where Ferraris are made. They can make complex products on very small businesses. And the benefit that they have then of coordinating with people who want to work towards a similar end goal while keeping their small, in-depth interpersonal relationships. So, they get the benefit of economies of scale while also avoiding the negative aspects of dis-economies of scale. Let me say first that I've enjoyed this debate. You have raised many issues. In fact, so many that it's hard to know where to begin and how to address this. But let me start by saying that I was very pleased to hear both teams emphasize that in thinking about this we should look at a much broader notion of welfare than just income or traditional economic measures. And both teams have raised some of these issues. For the against side, if I understood it correctly, you saw some of the main drawbacks of big business being that it might be bad for democracy in some sense. You saw big business having undue influence on media, elections, health legislation, taxes, a whole range of issues. And I guess I would like to ask not so much the against team but the pro team whether you see any dangers of this kind and if so, if there are ways that you would address them. Staying on this broad issue of welfare, I understood you to say that some of the big benefits you saw was that big business could go in and actually promote sort of sound values in developing countries. For instance, they could fight corruption or stuff like that. And I guess I would like to ask you if you feel there's a lot of evidence on this because I guess my feeling is that we have a number of cases where big businesses have actually been involved in corruption. And I was just wondering how you might look at that. And then for both teams, still staying a little bit with these welfare measures, I asked you for data maybe on corruption but I think both teams could strengthen their case if they had a little bit of more concrete evidence. For instance, if you talk about how workers are doing in large and small companies, there must be evidence on what are average worker incomes in different companies, what are average benefits in different types of companies. And maybe I missed it but I didn't hear a lot of direct evidence on that. There may also go into your more soft values. There may be some evidence on worker satisfaction in different types of enterprise. I'm wondering if you have any evidence of that kind. So this was all about you sort of broader issues. Okay, so I'm going to try and do that in the order where I remember that my memory is terrible so if I forget anything, please stop me. As far as seeing evidence of troubles with democracy due to big corporations, I think we absolutely see that but I also think that when it comes down to it, a lot of that has to do with the failure of us as a society and as voters and as government officials to more strictly regulate, to demand stricter regulation on these firms about what lobbyists can do. Not just corporate lobbyists but special interest group lobbyists and foreign government lobbyists and all of that. I think that most of the pairs of democracy from lobbying are not something that's exclusive to big business and I think that anything that were to address the problems that come from big business would address a much wider issue. As far as evidence of improvement of social welfare for corruption, I'll admit I did not spend a lot of time looking at corruption indices although I'm aware that such things do exist but I know that a number of globalized firms in local elections in South America and in South Asia and in Africa if you want to get backed by, I mean I just read a lot of BBC and whatever and what I see in there is a lot of people pledging to fight corruption because this is a major issue for the international community and what was the third point? Evidence of worker satisfaction. I think that in that department there's a lot of other variables that come into it. I'm sure that it would be better to work at a small video rental store for instance than Blockbuster. At the same time I worked as a non-union electrician for next to nothing under the table and I also worked in a factory and saw union elections at a huge multinational factory making $30 an hour because there's more subject to OSHA regulations and oversight and things that are common for big businesses so I think that there is a lot of evidence of that. Just one point on the worker satisfaction. It's changing a bit and it's a problem and I hope it reverts back to how it was. There are statistics about how many CEOs actually come from within a company but I mean I know and it is changing I admit but I know that for a long time corporations were sort of the gem that you try to get into when you graduate and that was the way to lead a successful career and they have the corporations were the medium for mobility in a way because you could rise up the corporate ladder and you could start as a worker and end up as a manager and they had benefits in terms of giving them workers stock options and things. I mean I know GE for my grandfather is an example of a little data. He started off a lower level engineer and by the time he retired he had 70 or 80% of his pay and I think I might have a few of the stocks and so corporations is an opportunity for people to have mobility and receive benefits that smaller businesses might not offer. When we started researching this debate the type of concrete evidence that you asked for was exactly the type of evidence that we had the most trouble finding because the type of concrete evidence that your question I think implies is goes along the lines of wages and salaries and benefits of that nature and while on average large businesses may offer higher wages or salaries to their workers social welfare does not equal money and cannot be measured alone by GDP so you need to look at things such as like happiness index to incorporate social welfare and another point is that large businesses can also eradicate low wage jobs by outsourcing them to other countries and let's say if you're looking exclusively at America big businesses only employ large salary workers while the low wage workers are working in factories in other countries. And just sort of to illustrate the point Ryan just made Alternate does a lot of investigations into large businesses and corporate malfeasance and one they did was actually sorry to keep on ragging on Walmart but Walmart's line of eco-friendly and human rights friendly jewelry which is kind of ironically called Love Earth they don't really love the earth. It's the main mine for this jewelry is located in the Paz, Bolivia and they use a process called cyanide heap leaching which is which releases one of the most toxic chemicals in the world into like local groundwater and also the employees at the company have complained of insufficient pay, strip searches, lack of masks to protect from air pollution and supervisors who are always willing to show employees the door if they complain about any of these things and also traditional holidays aren't observed by transnational corporations in other countries and worker bonuses are usually not observed especially in Bolivia and several other Latin American countries they have a year bonus called, like a year-end bonus called Aguinaldo which is equal to roughly one month's worth of pay and when workers at the Walmart plant, at the Walmart mine in La Paz complained about this they were immediately let go. Let me ask a question now for the other team. It stroke me one of the arguments that was used by Angela, I think regarding Microsoft having made a huge donation to Japan and then the conclusion was small business could not do that of course they could not because they are small. So the question is once we analyze whether this is a benefit or not we should take into account the donation as a proportion of something as a proportion of total sales, total net worth because by definition a small firm would not be able to make that donation to Japan but several of them of course could. So how do you react to this? When I was doing my research I did come across that argument and one of the things that we have to realize is yes you have to look at donations as a proportion of something else but you also have to realize that even in absolute terms what the outcome is or the results of the donation the impact that it makes is what we're really concerned about and as a cluster of small firms for example yes they can contribute to or as much as a large company would in absolute value or more in terms of percentages to sales or whatever the denominator would be the impact might not be as great as one large lump sum contribution that a large company can make because for example some small firms might decide to donate a proportion of their profits but they would donate it to another organization like Make-A-Wish Foundation another larger corporation that would then create the impact that these smaller firms cannot do just by themselves whereas a large company such as Microsoft can make this one large sum cash contribution and then have those impacts be basically larger. And just to follow up real quick I think it's also a matter of organization and how much organization would take to gather all the small businesses to come through and be willing to each donate those small parts and I think about situations such as the oil spill by BP and of course that was a big business and it was awful that that happened but I'm trying to think if it was a lot of smaller businesses each operating smaller rigs I doubt it would be a lot more difficult to raise $20 billion for an escrow fund and tell BP hey you're responsible $20 million and now it stole this out to all the victims so I think it's just a lot easier to organize when it's just one big company rather than a lot smaller spread throughout. I guess I have another perhaps fairly broad question or comment. I was fairly convinced by the argument I think it was the pros who made it that it may be a mistake to say either big business or small business there undoubtedly is a kind of complementarity about some activities that can only be undertaken on a fairly large scale and where it would be somewhat silly to suggest that this should be carried out by a lot of small independent businesses there are lots of activities that are probably better carried out by small businesses but then having said that there may be a dimension missing that has come up a little bit a couple of times during the debate and that is that we don't have just small businesses and large businesses we also have government intervention of various kinds and the question is whether to some extent that is at least as important and I would like to maybe get a few comments from both sides on this one could see it both relating to promoting clusters or regulating big companies or one could see it even as promoting growth I think both sides talked about innovation and how their particular companies promoted fast growth but if you look at it and maybe if one looks at say US success stories then many if not most of them owe a lot to state intervention at various stages I mean an obvious example is Boeing that came up several times but even agriculture has that I guess the only real sort of strong export sector that comes to my mind that may not owe a lot is Hollywood so I was wondering if the two sides have any thoughts on how the state government fits into their vision of small and large companies I hope this can answer your question in a capitalist economy at the end of the day small and big businesses are going to try and maximize profits and what we are trying to say is that big businesses while just like small businesses are trying to maximize profits their enormous wealth and power allows them to escape regulation and affect laws very strongly so we would be in favor of government intervention and regulation also just trying to make sure that state intervention can limit the power of big businesses and I'd also like to add government research and development has come up with things like the internet and television and have aided greatly to our economy so I think the state sector plays a very positive role in this debate I think it's a common misconception that big businesses don't like regulation but in fact big businesses do like regulation they like regulation because you need regulation to act as barriers to entry for other companies or regulations that help create a standard like the gap accounting standards or anything that makes it easier for foreign investors to understand the businesses and to invest in our economy so yes we do agree that the government intervention is necessary to create these regulations and in fact big businesses are leading the way pushing for these regulations or for these policies to help create standards that even small businesses would have to follow and it makes it easier for us just to be efficient in the economy another argument for big business is more the increasing lack of government intervention in society we keep talking about we're going to be cutting the budget and next year the Republicans are hoping to cut 6 trillion out of the federal budget so obviously we have to keep rolling back these social programs for our country and to some extent people are hoping that these large businesses will step in and fill the void left by the lack of government social programs as they continue to cut the budget I guess I just wanted to add a more general comment because it's difficult to argue that this corporate takeover thesis and I mean I think about a lot of the examples you're saying Exxon not paying taxes and things but I mean that has to do a lot of things like oil subsidies and all sorts of subsidies that the government offers to Boeing and Lockheed and I mean that's a question yes that you have to ask the government and I don't know I mean yes there's lobbying but I also think a lot of responsibility goes on the government so you can't necessarily blame the big businesses for getting these subsidies because it also has a purpose to serve the society here and also big businesses I'm not sure this is really an argument they don't always make so many profits either they just have large amounts of capital a lot do but not all airlines for instance we need them they don't make a lot of money at all they usually go through bankruptcy but the economy needs them and society needs them so they're necessary so I just wanted to point out that government intervention there is important alright so that's going to be our last question and I guess I'll ask the judges to take some time to think about which side you think may have argued stronger tastes and like to thank our debaters for researching all semester and presenting these arguments you guys did a great job and I think we should all give them a big round of applause the judges will now move on to the chat table he'll drum or something yes only if you shimmy on the way up I shimmy unintentionally actually well as always I'm always very impressed with the amount of energy and effort both teams have done I think I've judged these competitions in whole or part five or six times now and they're always one of the main reasons I love coming back up to you, Mass here's how we apply we felt that the small business team had a good balanced argument and provide a good level of detail we also appreciated that the multinational pro team did address effectively economies of scale and that the small cluster approach didn't seem appropriate for certain businesses like telecom and railroads we kind of went through some of that that all said we all agree that the small business team was more effective in this debate so congratulations to the small business team well thank you very much to our judges for your questions and your hard work there and I want to especially congratulate the small business team that won and congratulate all of the debaters for their excellent presentations so we have some awards to hand out a certificate for all our debaters Daniel Brock Angela Lee Laura Maligno Thomas Peake Daniel Schwartz and last but not least Luke Sieberg and we also have for all the debaters and our judges if we can find them to fit, you guys this fabulous t-shirt who was designed by Anastasia designed this great t-shirt everybody should look at it it's kind of a little kind of monopoly board there and says big business promoting social welfare, question mark so we have the right sizes for you all and I think where do we have the t-shirts? in the back so congratulations to everybody first of all I want to thank a few people I want to thank Nicole Dunham who's done a great job in helping to organize the event Kevin Crocker our undergraduate program director who did a terrific job helping with the debate and I also want to thank Jackie Brown Hazard who could not be here today because there was a death in her family but she did a lot of work putting this whole thing together so let's all thank Jackie as well the debate now we have our majors economics majors awards event end of semester celebration and barbecues so please stay for the food and the awards and enjoy yourselves congratulations to everybody