The Conference Board - 3 - somehow prevail and must not ourselves fall prey to the unwillingness of others to insist upon fiscal responsibility, to seek easy solutions to complex problems, and to substitute gimmicks for sound solutions - notes of warning so wisely sounded by Senator Bennett, with the further caution of the danger we face in the growing trend toward ever-increasing power in the executive branch. Still with us here at this conference was the problem of Big Labor but I was struck by the changing character of our concern with this problem. Without minimizing the magnitude of the problems with union labor there seemed to be a growing sense of awareness that progress could be made if a way could be found to get management's story before the rank and file and give the workers themselves an effective voice in the governing of their own affairs. Our concern was more with the loss of responsible leadership in the unions themselves, with business getting caught in the power struggle between competing unions and competing union leaders. Despite the problems I detected the hope that management is beginning to feel that it can reestablish better communications and rapport with the workers themselves. If we listened carefully, this conference clearly brought forth the fact that world leadership brings with it growing responsibilities and that we as a country are inextricably linked with other nations politically, and economically. Nowhere was this more evident than in the balance of payments problem and our gold reserves. Statistically the fault lies in the public sector but some of the corrective actions that have been proposed would place further restrictions on the private sector and would further interfere with the freedom of business and of the individual. Here again we witness the disturbing temptation to treat the symptoms and not the causes. The private sector is in balance but because we have chosen to use foreign aid and military assistance as instruments in our foreign policy we have created the problem, and these policies must be reexamined and these burdens more equitably shared by our more powerful allies in the free world. Neglected in our discussions here at Chandler was any mention of the problems that beset the second international currency - the British pound - and the British balance of payments problem. Here there are problems that are very real and perhaps even more difficult of solution. The failure to solve these problems could result in a very real threat to our own prosperity, and this one we left unmentioned. If there was a segment of our group that did not fully share the optimism about the year ahead, it was our banking brethren. Although they had excellent earnings in 1964, they now find themselves caught in a profit squeeze, faced with rising costs for their new material and their operations, unable to raise their prices, beset by new competition, and by the increasing skill of corporate treasurers in making their cash work for them and not for the banks.