[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 11 (Monday, March 21, 1994)]
[Pages 508-516]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Group of Seven Jobs Conference in Detroit

March 14, 1994

    Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, for your remarks and your 
wonderful service and for your commitment to this project. The Vice 
President will be here for the entire day and a half, working with the 
distinguished ministers from other countries as well as our own Cabinet 
members and other leaders here in America.
    I want to thank the State of Michigan and the congressional 
delegation and the city of Detroit. You know, it is true that the Mayor 
runs faster in the morning than the President and the Vice President do. 
[Laughter] He took us out to Belle Isle; I made him quit after 3 miles. 
And if that weren't enough indignity, I got back to the hotel room, and

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I read the newspaper and discovered that in the NCAA basketball 
championships, my beloved Arkansas basketball team has been paired with 
Michigan in the Midwest regionals. The only thing I can say is they are 
in much better shape than I am, Mayor. [Laughter]
    I want to say how wonderful it is for me to be back here in this 
magnificent theater, which represents the cultural richness and the 
indomitable spirit of this wonderful city. I want to thank Michael and 
Marion Ilitch for restoring this theater and for doing so much else for 
downtown historical--[applause].
    I am delighted that the ministers of the G-7 nations and 
representatives of the European Union have come here to America's 
industrial heartland for this important meeting at an historic and 
hopeful time. In some nations, people are pessimistic. And in all 
nations, some people are pessimistic, and in all nations, there are 
people with difficulties. But there is real cause for hope. Technology 
that was once the province of science fiction now fills our factories, 
our schools, and our homes. Nations that once aimed missiles at each 
other now cooperate not only here on Earth but also in space. Jobs that 
challenged the mind instead of straining the back are now within reach 
of virtually all the people who live in these nations.
    For the past half-century, our great common endeavors, from 
containing communism to defeating aggression in the Persian Gulf, to 
expanding world trade to promoting democracy in the former Soviet Union 
and helping to solve the tragic conflict in Bosnia, all have depended on 
common bonds among the countries present here today. I asked for the 
conference to summon the same collective energy and intellect and ideas 
and experience to one of the greatest problems of our era: The challenge 
of creating and maintaining a high-wage, high-growth society in mature, 
industrial countries confronted by the challenges of a global economy.
    In different ways, every advanced nation faces a stubborn, 
persistent problem of jobs and incomes. Some are having difficulty 
creating new jobs; others are having difficulty lifting their people's 
incomes. In the United States, we have created a lot of new jobs in the 
last two decades. But for almost two decades now, the wages of hourly 
workers in America have remained virtually stagnant. The average 
American worker is working a longer work week than 20 years ago for 
about the same income.
    None of us has all the answers. We are here because we have 
something to learn from each other and, hopefully, something to teach 
each other. We can all do better, and if we work together, it is certain 
that all of our people will do better.
    For the first time, this conference brings together our ministers of 
finance, labor, commerce, and economics. We know that the riddle of job 
creation cannot be solved entirely by low interest rates or better 
training policies or high tech investment alone, but we need these. Some 
of the ministers told me that if we can get the finance ministers and 
labor ministers within each country to talk to each other, we will have 
made a real step forward. There's no better place to address these 
challenges than here, in this city, this State, and this region. They 
tell us not only that we must change but that we can.
    When I was growing up in Arkansas, many of the people that I knew 
and lived with were farmers. Almost no one my age can go back more than 
one generation in my State without having a farmer in his or her family. 
But as agriculture mechanized and more and more people were thrown off 
the farms, literally hundreds of thousands of people were forced to 
leave the farm. Many of them came to places like Detroit for jobs in the 
factory. When I campaigned in Michigan 2 years ago, I realized I 
actually had a chance to be elected President when one of three 
democratic primary voters I met in Michigan was born in Arkansas. 
[Laughter]
    That is the pattern of America. For most of this century, the 
industrial Midwest symbolized economic opportunity. People thrown off 
the farm in the rural areas could come here and expect to find, without 
regard to their race or their educational level before they got here or 
their income before they got here, a job which would permit them to 
support their families, take a vacation, have health care, send their 
kids to college, live in their own home, and have a decent retirement 
when they finish. That was the great

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hope and promise of Detroit, of Chicago, of this whole regional mecca 
that led the industrial revolution of America.
    Industrial America was hit hard by economic changes, which all of 
you know as well or better than I. But I have watched the people of this 
region fight back. A few years ago, people said the American automobile 
industry was doomed. But the Big Three auto companies worked hard with 
their partners in labor to improve quality, safety, and fuel efficiency. 
Now they are regaining market share at home and abroad. They are back. 
For the past dozen years Michigan has made the journey to a new economy; 
small and mid-sized companies here have created nearly 400,000 
manufacturing and industrial service jobs. The British magazine, the 
Economist, calls Automation Alley, the 40-mile corridor between Detroit 
and Ann Arbor, and I quote, ``the fastest growing technology corridor in 
the entire United States of America.''
    And yet, let us not be too Pollyanna about this, with all the good 
news there's also the continuing challenge. Too many people have been 
left behind. And that was the challenge that I think brought this fine 
young Mayor to the mayor's job here and is bringing so many of you 
together across party and racial and income and background lines to try 
to figure out how we can unlock the human potential of all of our 
people.
    This morning, I want to begin by introducing you to eight 
extraordinary people throughout the Midwest who exemplify the changes 
that we must all make--and I want to ask them to stand up when I call 
their names--because it is important for all of us in public life never 
to forget that there are real lives behind the actions we take and the 
mistakes we make as well as the things we do right.
    Anna Satur--where are you, Anna? Stand up. They should all be down 
here. She's not here? If you are here, you stand up when I call you. 
Steve Choate. I know he's here, I saw him yesterday. Stand up, Steve. 
Don't sit down. Steve Choate is a near neighbor of mine. He started out 
as a janitor, and he's now a plant manager for Megavolt in Springfield, 
Missouri, part of an employee-owned company that practices, and I quote, 
``open-book management, sharing its financial figures with its workers 
and asking their help in planning new products.'' Debbie Colloton 
started as a machine operator, took advanced training, and became the 
quality control officer of Rockford Process Control, a metal assemblies 
maker in Rockford, Illinois. Bruce Wirtanen founded Waterworks America. 
I met him yesterday, and he gave me one of his products. He never 
stopped selling. [Laughter] In North Royalton, Ohio, they make crystals 
that save water in places like Saudi Arabia, where water is more 
expensive than oil. Kathy Price, of Chicago, learned new skills at the 
Martin Luther King Community Services Center and moved from welfare to 
work as a programmer analyst. Frank Rapley is the superintendent of the 
Kalamazoo, Michigan, public schools, where they help young people who 
are not going to college move from school to work. Harold Wright learned 
new skills in heating and air conditioning after he lost his factory job 
right here in Detroit, and now he's an instructor for the International 
Union of Operating Engineers. And Ocelia Williams--I saw her--is a lead 
person and metal slitter operator at the Cin-Made Corporation in 
Cincinnati, Ohio, a unionized company with profit sharing and self-
directed work teams.
    All these people have been forced to change to do well in the global 
economy. But they are your friends and neighbors, and there are millions 
of them like them not only here but in every one of the G-7 nations here 
represented. We are here to help them find new ways to create new jobs, 
better jobs, and better opportunities for their families. And we dare 
not let them down. Thank you very much.
    Let us begin by recognizing the fundamental reality that private 
enterprise, not Government action, is the engine of economic growth and 
job creation. Our vision of the good society depends as much on a 
thriving private sector as anything else. Let us also recognize that 
there are things that Government can and should do, give our private 
sector the tools to grow and prepare our people for the jobs of the new 
economy.
    A big thing that we'll be discussing here in the next 2 days is what 
the responsibility of the Government is and what must be done in the 
private sector and how we can rec- 

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oncile the two better than any of us has done in the past. Here in the 
United States, I think we are moving in the right direction. Our economy 
has produced 2.1 million jobs in 13 months, and 90 percent of them are 
in the private sector.
    In the 1980's, a lot of the net new job growth in America was in the 
government sector, mostly at the State and local level. These new jobs 
are coming in the private sector. But too many middle class people are 
working harder for less, and too many people in America are still 
unemployed. Too many lack the training to prosper in the competitive 
environment, and there are too many areas where there is simply no new 
private investment, especially in large sections of inner cities and 
isolated rural areas.
    The growing gap in incomes between the skilled and unskilled 
threatens not only the strength of our economies in these countries but 
also the very fabric of our democratic societies. A year ago, for 
example, unemployment in America was 12.6 percent for people with no 
high school diploma, 7.2 percent for high school graduates, 5.7 percent 
for people with advanced training, and 3.5 percent for college 
graduates. And unemployment, as I said before, is also highest in places 
where people are isolated from investment opportunities, principally in 
our large inner cities and our poorest rural areas.
    All of us, in our own way, must face these fundamental challenges: 
to find new ways to equip people to succeed, harnessing the dynamism of 
the marketplace, and somehow finding a way to bring those forces into 
the areas where people have been left behind. I have to say that here in 
the United States, I sometimes think we do a better job in giving people 
incentives to invest in some of our trading partners that are developing 
economies than we do in some of our inner cities and isolated rural 
areas that are also developing economies where we have opportunities to 
grow.
    We all know that a global economy is taking shape where information 
and investment move across national lines at stunning speed, competing 
for jobs and incomes. For economies at the cutting edge, there is no 
place to hide. Rapidly developing nations strive to improve their living 
standards by showing that they can do what we do just as well at lower 
costs. As the old era gives way to the new, our nations face a clear and 
crucial choice at the very outset. Are we going to hunker down and build 
walls of protection and suffer a slow and steady decline in our living 
standards, or are we going to embrace eagerly the challenges of this new 
economy, create high-wage jobs, and prepare people to fill them?
    Every advanced economy is now facing that choice in many different 
ways, a choice between hope and fear, between stagnation and change, 
between closing up and opening up. If we ever needed evidence that we 
should choose change and that we can, I received that evidence yesterday 
when I visited Focus: HOPE here in Detroit, where I saw people from the 
inner city being trained for world-class jobs, getting world-class jobs, 
and able to compete.
    America has chosen the path of change. We have seen, among other 
things, these other countries in the G-7. All of our guests here today--
my fellow Americans, you need to know that they used to meet once a 
year, and every time they met for 10 years, the G-7 nations passed a 
resolution that was, frankly, embarrassing to the United States. They 
did it in very polite language, but they essentially said the global 
economy cannot grow if America continues to expand its budget deficit, 
every year spending more and more money than the taxpayers are paying 
in. They said, ``Please, America, do something about your deficit.'' And 
so we did.
    By cutting the deficit by $500 billion, we now have a deficit that 
is a smaller percentage of our annual income than all but one of our 
other G-7 nations here represented today. And I'm proud of that. And if 
the Congress adopts the new budget, as they seem on the way to doing, we 
will have 3 years of reduction in our deficit for the first time since 
Harry Truman was President. So we are moving in the right direction.
    You need to know that our nations here have adopted a strategy that 
recognizes that each of the great blocs here have a role to play, that 
the United States should continue to bring its deficit down, that Japan 
should increase domestic demand, that Europe should continue to work for 
lower interest

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rates, so that these three things together can spark a new round of 
worldwide growth which will create more economic activity and more jobs 
in the European countries, here in North America with the United States 
and Canada, and in Japan.
    We're also working hard together to tear down trade barriers with 
NAFTA, GATT, a meeting with the Asian-Pacific countries. Last year, we 
did a generation's work of worth in supporting global growth and jobs 
and incomes through increased trade.
    During the debate on NAFTA, we heard the concerns of working 
people--legitimate concerns--who were vulnerable to changes in the 
economy and don't believe that any of these changes will benefit them. 
But we had to face the simple truth: Export-related jobs in the United 
States pay on average 22 percent more than jobs having nothing to do 
with the global economy. And trade is not a zero-sum game. If the world 
economy declines, we all lose, and when it grows, we all win.
    One lesson is clear: There is no rich country on Earth that can 
expand its own job base and its incomes unless there is global economic 
growth. In the absence of that growth, poorer countries doing the same 
thing we do for wages our people can't live on will chip away at our 
position. When there is a lot of growth you can be developing new 
technologies, new activities, and new markets. That is our only option.
    We also, therefore, must create those new markets. That means we 
have to be investing in job-creating technologies, from dual-use 
military and civilian technologies as we reduce defense spending, to an 
information superhighway connecting every classroom and library in the 
country.
    Many of these technologies will be in the environmental area. We now 
know for sure it is possible to protect the environment and promote the 
economy. Together with the Big Three auto companies and United 
Autoworkers, we're promoting clean cars that will cause less pollution 
and create more markets. From Theodore Roosevelt to Walter Ruther to our 
own distinguished Vice President, our wisest leaders have always cared 
about both our workers and our environment. And we aim to prove that 
that's a big ticket to new jobs in the 21st century.
    Now, what are the obstacles to change? Here in the heartland and 
throughout the industrial world too many people have worked hard only to 
see their incomes stagnate or decline. We have to restore confidence in 
people that if they do acquire the skills they need and help their 
countries move forward, they'll be rewarded and not punished. These 
ingrained political, almost psychological barriers to change have to be 
addressed in every country.
    I'll be candid with you. One of the things that I hope will come out 
of this G-7 meeting is that by talking together openly and honestly 
about the problems of growth and sharing our common experiences each of 
us who are leaders in our countries will be able to do more within our 
own countries because we'll be able to say, ``See, the Germans and the 
French and the Canadians and the Italians and the Japanese, well, we all 
have the same problems.''
    We have talked about that a lot around our breakfast table this 
morning. And everybody made the same observation, that if we can just 
honestly debate these problems, we can help people overcome their fears 
of change and still recognize that there are some legitimate concerns 
associated with these changes going on.
    This conference, I think, must address three critical problems that 
discourage people from supporting change. Unless people believe they are 
prepared for the jobs of the future, that productivity benefits them, 
and they can have both strong work lives and strong families in a 
dynamic economy, they will turn against change. We have to reassure our 
constituents in all these countries on all those points. Our first 
challenge is obvious, preparing our people for a world of work that 
offers high wages but demands high skills.
    When I address audiences of young people, I tell them they will 
probably change jobs seven or eight times in a lifetime. That's why 
we're moving forward with a lifelong learning agenda in Congress and why 
Congress is preparing to pass bills establishing world-class educational 
standards, promoting grassroots reform, helping to facilitate the 
movement of people who go from high

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school into the workplace and who don't go on to college.
    Learning must never stop. We've got an unemployment system today 
tied to an economy that hasn't existed for over 10 years, an 
unemployment that assumes that if you just give people enough to live 
on, they will be called back to their old job. Well, the truth is most 
people aren't called back to their old job today. When they lose a job 
today it's not because of some cyclical regular downturn in the economy, 
it's often because there has been another structural change in the world 
economy, and what used to be done by a person in America is now being 
done by a machine in America or by a person somewhere else. So that 
person has to find something new to do. That means it is wrong to charge 
employers an unemployment tax, to put it in a trust fund to pay people 
when they are unemployed, to hang around until the unemployment runs out 
when they still won't have a job. That is not right.
    So, last week we presented a plan to turn our unemployment system 
into a reemployment system, to consolidate all these training programs, 
create one-stop career centers, and start people training and preparing 
for new jobs from the day they lose their old jobs.
    This is a big problem in many industrial countries. The length of 
time people are unemployed is growing longer and longer, and very often 
because they don't get training they are forced to take a new job at a 
lower wage than the old job they lost. We can change this, and in so 
doing, we can make our people feel more secure about embracing the 
changes of the global economy. And besides, it's good business. We need 
all our people right now. We shouldn't be paying for people to be idle 
when we could be paying for them to work. It's not good business.
    Yesterday, as I said, when I went to Focus: Hope, I saw young people 
who were learning advanced jobs in engineering, robotics, other fields 
of the future, proving once again that all people can learn. I met a man 
the other day from northern New York, who had worked in the defense 
industry for 29 years and is now an executive in a hospital, because he 
was given the chance to learn a new skill and given the chance to be 
hired by an employer not blinded by age bias. We have too much age bias 
in this country on both--[applause]. We have people that won't hire kids 
because they don't have any experience. How are they ever going to get 
any experience if they don't get a job, right? Then we have people who 
won't hire older people because they've got too much experience. Let me 
tell you, the older I get, the more I believe this, so I think I can say 
this with great passion, the fastest growing group of Americans today 
are people over 80. People who follow sensible habits are going to be 
very vigorous well into their 70's, able to work, able to contribute, 
able to do things. If people are going to lose their jobs throughout a 
lifetime, if we are going to have to change jobs eight times in a 
lifetime, a lot of people will have to change jobs into their 50's, even 
into their 60's. They cannot be denied the opportunity to contribute. If 
you want people to embrace change, we all have to change our attitudes 
about who is employable and especially on each end of the age spectrum. 
This is a very, very important thing. The issue should be, are people 
prepared for the jobs that are opening up? And if they are, they should 
be given a chance to do them.
    The second challenge we face is one we talked about a lot at 
breakfast this morning. And the representative from the European Union 
from Greece made a very passionate comment about this. We have got to 
make our people believe that productivity can be a source of gain, not 
pain. And here is the trick. Productivity on the farm when I was a boy 
meant people lost jobs on the farm, right? But productivity in Detroit 
meant that more jobs were created in the automobile industry than were 
lost on the farm. Throughout the whole 20th century, ever since the 
Industrial Revolution, every time we had productivity in one area that 
meant that fewer people could do more work in that area, technological 
changes were always creating more jobs in another area.
    Now, that is still true today, but the problem is there has been an 
explosion of productivity in manufacturing. It's not stopping. And now 
it's in the service industry, so that banks, for example, or insurance 
companies or you name it can do more work with fewer people because of 
information productivity. And at

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the same time, all these other countries are able to do things that they 
were not formerly able to do. So in our countries, there is this great 
insecurity that productivity, for the first time, may be a job threat, 
not a job creator.
    We have to fight that. Because last year we saw our companies here 
in America begin to rebound--13 months, 2.1 million jobs. And I promise 
you they would not have been there had it not been for increasing 
productivity in the private sector. We cannot turn away from the notion 
that modernization is the key to employment. The trick is for us in 
Government and people in the private sector to keep finding new areas in 
which productivity can succeed. Therefore, even though we're cutting 
back on Government spending this year, for example, we're spending a lot 
more money to try to give funds to defense contractors to figure out how 
they can use the technologies we all paid for to win the cold war, to 
win the post-cold-war era, in new technologies for new jobs for the 
future.
    That is the trick. We've got to prove to our people that change can 
work for them and that increasing productivity is still the key to jobs 
and growth. If we forget that, if we allow our fears to blind us to the 
fact that we must always be on the side of productivity, we're going to 
be in real trouble. That's what created the middle class. The ability to 
do more per worker created the American middle class. It created the 
economic miracles in Europe and Japan after World War II. It will still 
create opportunity. It just is going to be different and more 
challenging and more complicated and more rapidly moving than before. 
But if we allow ourselves for a minute to try to resist the growth of 
productivity, we are in deep trouble.
    From 1947 to 1973, productivity grew by over 3 percent a year in 
America, and wages grew at the same rate. Since then, the growth of 
productivity has slowed down and so have wages. Productivity is now 
coming back in many sectors of our economy, and as it does, jobs and 
wages will improve. Because we need to work smarter and not harder, this 
issue is more important than ever before.
    Today, the United States Senate is debating a bill to help business 
conduct research and development to create manufacturing centers where 
businesses can work together as smaller manufacturers have been doing in 
northern Italy, for example, for quite a long time now, to help put new 
technologies in the hands of companies that can use them, even though on 
their own, they wouldn't have the money to develop them. These are the 
kinds of things that all nations must do to keep their own people on the 
side of productivity and to keep our own economies going.
    There will always be restructurings; there will always be some job 
loss. The best Government policies, the best business practices cannot 
stop these changes. But what we can do is to help our people shape the 
change. Government has to equip people with lifelong learning, 
reemployment, health care security. Businesses have to keep pushing for 
productivity improvements. Leaders in the private sector have to strive 
for new ways to help their own workers benefit from productivity 
increases throughout well-conceived strategic planning and new 
innovations and creating high-performance workplaces and letting workers 
participate in more decision-making.
    We talked this morning at breakfast about how Japan still has 
basically a lifetime employment policy. In order to do that, you have to 
be willing to carry your workers through the tough times and always have 
the companies find new things to do, because that way, you don't have to 
go to a new company. However we do it, there is a big responsibility 
here that can only be borne by the private sector not by Government. 
From companies that make cars to those that write software, some of the 
greatest gains have been achieved by those who treated their workers as 
their most important asset, who gave their workers the most respect and 
the largest role in figuring out how to do what has to be done to 
compete and win in the global economy. These are the high performance 
workplaces that train and retrain their employees, empower them to take 
personal responsibility for the quality of the products and services, 
and treat the workers and the unions as friends, not adversaries.
    Today, I am going to visit a company called Detroit Diesel that's 
working with the UAW to make high-quality engines for domestic

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and foreign markets. The chief executive, Robert Penske, is known to 
most of you for sending championship teams to the Indianapolis 500 Race. 
And he's also, however, building a championship team here at Detroit 
Diesel, a team succeeding in the face of change.
    The third challenge we have is to offer people security in their own 
lives while maintaining the dynamism of market economies. This is a big 
deal, and it's a difficult one. How can we give workers the security 
they need? What kind of unemployment system must we have, what kind of 
health care must we have, what kind of training system must we have, 
what kind of policies must we have for family leave and for child care 
or for caring for parents that enable people to succeed as workers and 
as family members?
    We have seen in the United States, more than in any other country 
present here, the awful price we pay if the family disintegrates as an 
institution. It is a more fundamental institution than the workplace. It 
is the most fundamental institution.
    But we know that most of our people are now in the work force. Most 
mothers with children over one year of age are now in the work force. 
How can we make it possible for people to do what they have to do as 
workers and do what they have to do as family members? How does the 
Government intervene in that in a way that makes work forces more 
productive instead of putting so many burdens on the work unit that they 
can't compete in the global economy. This is a tough, difficult, even 
painful thing for most of us to discuss, but we have to be honest about 
it. And I look forward to the next day and a half to seeing some very 
stimulating discussions about this.
    In every country we have a find the right formula. We can't just 
fall into dogmatism or ideology and pretend that one or the other 
doesn't matter. But we know that when secure workers with secure 
families, knowing they are succeeding as parents, show up for work, they 
are free to be the most productive workers in the world. We also know 
that there is a limit for the cost any operation can bear and still be 
productive. So we are going to have to talk through and work through 
these difficult issues.
    I know the United States has benefited from the resilience of its 
firms and its workers and the flexibility of its labor markets. I also 
know we have been hurt by the gnawing insecurity of millions of our 
people when they lose their health care or they can't change jobs 
because they've got somebody in their family that's been sick with a 
preexisting condition.
    I know that the family leave law, in my own mind, that we signed 
here last year, which simply brought us into line with every other 
country that's here at the G-7, and 170 others around the world, is 
going to make the American workplace stronger because people won't have 
to lose their jobs when they take care of sick children or parents in 
need. These are things that we have to face.
    So as we seek to find these proper balances, to help people deal 
with these three challenges, let us recognize two simple truths: First, 
the market with all of its unruly energy and all of its dislocation, is 
still an unstoppable, unstoppable and absolutely indispensable force for 
progress. We have to have markets where people are making choices. 
Second, our societies can promote human values from the strength of our 
families to the skills of our workers. We can do that, and in so doing, 
empower people to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by a 
vibrant market economy.
    Now, I believe if you believe these things, then you say, ``Well, 
why are we all here? Why must we act together? Why must we act together 
in our own countries? Why should these nations that share so much try to 
act together among themselves?'' I want the ministers to explore these 
questions honestly and openly. But it is perfectly clear, again I will 
say, that it is easier for us to do what we need to do at home if we 
know people in other countries are working with us and that we're all 
going to win over the long run.
    So let us ask the hard questions. First, what really is the jobs 
problem? Why is unemployment too high even when growth occurs? Can we 
really talk about one national unemployment rate anymore? Does the 
national unemployment rate mean anything to any of you here in Michigan? 
No, you want to know what the unemployment rate is in

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Michigan or what it is in Detroit or what it is in Wayne County, right? 
Is there a national unemployment rate that is meaningful? Are there 
trends in all these countries that make the overall rate of unemployment 
in each less important than the rates among different sectors of the 
society, especially among people who, because of their long-term 
unemployment, their lack of skills, or their isolation from investment 
opportunities, have absolutely lost touch with the labor markets?
    Second, what's the best strategy for worldwide cooperation on 
monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate growth and create jobs? How do 
we balance our fears of inflation with the need for economic growth?
    Third, how can we build a social safety net that helps our people 
advance and helps our economies grow? Can we provide lifelong learning, 
help people to balance the demands of work and family, give people 
health security, and still keep our economies dynamic? And if so, what 
is the best way to do that?
    Fourth, history has shown productivity brings better jobs and higher 
wages. But how do we, when change is so rapid, make the case to our 
people that this will be true in this time as it has always been true in 
the past? And with the rapid technological change of the information 
age, how can Government policies and business practices show workers 
that change and productivity can be harnessed for their advantage?
    None of us can find the answers to all of these questions just 
within the borders of our individual countries. At this conference, as 
we share our insights, our views, and our practical experiences, every 
one of our nations will benefit. If we find new and effective ways to 
generate jobs and increase incomes, the working people of all nations 
will be the winners. It is my hope that this conference will continue 
the work that we began last year where these great industrial nations 
work together to get things done.
    For years, the G-7 nations consulted with each other about the great 
issues of macroeconomics and global finance. Today, we are beginning a 
serious conversation about the economic well-being of ordinary people in 
each of these countries. This is an historic, important, and long-
overdue moment.
    We all must succeed. If any of us fails to convince our people to 
embrace change, then that nation might well retreat from the global 
economy. That could set off a downward spiral of protectionism and lower 
growth and turning backward which could affect us all.
    If the faces of the new economy, these fine people I introduced here 
today can have the courage to change, then so can we, each of us as 
nations. We can proceed in the spirit that President Roosevelt called 
bold, persistent experimentation. If we can move forward from this 
conference filled with the faith that we can make change work for the 
ordinary citizens in these countries, for all of our people, then we 
will succeed. And we will go from this conference to the meeting of all 
of the leaders of the G-7 countries in Naples with a real agenda where 
we can all be committed to going forward here.
    Let me say that, in closing, we've faced a lot of difficult and 
decisive choices like this before. We haven't always made the right 
decision. At the end of World War I our nations turned inward, and it 
led us to depression and another world war. After World War II, our 
nations turned outward. They faced the future courageously. Old enemies 
embraced each other in a common cause of human development. Alliances 
were built; institutions were created that kept the peace, promoted 
prosperity, advanced democracy, and won the cold war.
    Now we have to choose once again. And this conference is a part of 
that choosing. Will we have the courage to embrace change and build our 
people up? I think I know the answer. Together we have to find it.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:45 a.m. in Fox Theater. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mayor Dennis Archer of Detroit.