carryinging fuel bound for u.s. and nato troops in afghanistan. trucks carrying supplies for nato forces are routinely attacked in that region. harsh words from syria's foreign minister to countries that appear unsympathetic to his government, saying syria will take strong measures against any country that recognizes an opposition council that's been formed in turkey. and those are today's top stories. thank you so much for watching "state of the union." up next for our viewers in the u.s., "fareed zakaria: gps." this is "gps," the "global public square." welcome to viewers in the united states and around the world, i'm fareed zakaria. we have a really important show today. we're going to take an in-depth look at the u.s. economy from four crucial angles. first up, the big picture. and it's scary. from martin wolf of "the financial times." then a snapshot of the american economy from starbucks chairman and ceo howard shultz. next up, the u.s. economy's breaking point. where are we weakest?

that's what the author of "moneyball" and "the blind side, michael lewis, will give his insights on. finally, solutions, what will fix the problems that ail us? i'll talk to tom friedman of "the new york times" about his new book. also, want to see the hottest new thing on the globe? take a trip to mumbai or shanghai. i'll explain. and of course a few thoughts on steve jobs. first, here's "my take." barack obama busy apparently committed blasphemy. in an interview in florida last week, he dared to say that america had gotten soft. the denunciations came in fast and furious. >> the american people are plenty tough. what we've got is a soft president. >> it's not that we've become soft. it's that he's on our shoulders, and he's too heavy. >> if you watch the clip, here's what the president actually said. >> the way i think about it is, you know, this is a great, great

country that had gotten a little soft, and we didn't have the same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. we need to get back on track. >> isn't this self-evidently true? and isn't this what conservatives have been saying for decades? the evidence on the topic is pretty clear. the united states is slipping by most measures of global competitiveness. in category after category, actual venture capital funding, research and development, america has dropped well behind countries like japan, south korea, and sweden. the information, technology, and innovation foundation measures 39 countries on their efforts to improve competitiveness over the last decade. america comes in next to last. perhaps the most crucial measure of our ability to compete in a global economy is our educational level, especially in science, math, and engineering. a generation ago, america had the highest percent of college

graduates in the world. today we are ninth and falling. in 2004, only 6% of u.s. degrees were awarded in engineering, which is half the average for rich countries. in japan, it's 20%. in germany, it's 16%. the great scholar daniel bell once summed up the essence of the protestant ethic that spawned industrial civilization in the west -- delayed gratification. the ability to save and invest today for a better tomorrow. that's been at the heart of every society's leap from foster poverty to plenty. and america was a country marked by this ethic. let me give you three examples. in the 1950s, household debt in america was just 34% of our disposable income. today, it is 115% of disposable income. we're all maxed out on credit cards. over the same period, investment in infrastructure and r&d spending are both down by a full

percent of gdp. today the federal government spends $4 on every adult over 65 compared with $1 for every child under 18. every level of government now spends less money investing for the future and more fueling consumption for the present. conservatives used to believe in confronting hard truths, not succumbing to comforting fairy tales. some still do. in a bracing essay in the right wing "national review," co-founder of paypal and politically active libertarian describes quite well how america has, well, gone soft. he notes that the economy hasn't decades, that median wage have been stagnating. he argues that the country's redskin ovation culture has begun to decay, corroded by a widespread search for easy progress and quick fixes. in our hearts and minds, he

writes, we know that desperate optimism will not save us. that's what the feel-good mantras you hear so often these days sound like. desperate optimism. for more on this, read my column in this week's "time" magazine or at time.com, and let's get started. we begin with the macro view from one of the world's great economic observers, martin wolf, chief economics commentator for "the financial times." martin, does it appear to you that there is any danger that the united states could fall into a double-dip recession? >> well, the answer i like to give to that is you can't really get into a double dip because it never really got out of the first recession. properly understood, this is true for the u.s. and really all the other major developed countries except for canada, their output in the most recent quarter is still at or below

where it was before the crisis started in 2008. they've never made a proper recovery. now, the question is -- could they start bouncing back down further, even further below the starting point over the next year or two? yes, that's perfectly possible, in which case the slump-like condition, which is what i think of it now, could continue for many more years. >> and what gets us out of it? is it -- i mean, fundamentally? the average american keeps raising his savings rate. american savings rate is back up to -- up to about 5% now from 0 or negative 1. and is the feeling -- do you feel that probably what you're going to see is american consumers being extra cautious and, if you will, overshooting on the upside, saying, i'm not going to spend again until i get my savings rate up to 6%, 7%, 8%? >> obviously policymakers have to stop making mistakes. they have to stop doing things

that shakes people's confidence, shake people's confidence, and make them feel that things aren't going to be managed in at least a moderately competent way on both sides of the atlantic, including the united states. that's very, very important. second, i believe that we have to accept that there is going to be this very long-term process of healing as housing markets stabilize, investment in housing stops falling, this affects both sides of the atlantic. unemployment really stabilizes. and while the household's finances are cured. we have to accept that. and while that is happening, there has to be a compliment to very strong policy support, however unpopular and risky it is. that means very aggressive monetary policy. very aggressive fiscal policy. >> so let's just -- back to what you said, martin, you think the government should be doing more to create jobs, building infrastructure, providing tax

credits to corporations for investment, and you think the federal reserve should be doing more of the kinds of thing it's been doing. for example, this latest bout of further trying to lower interest rates. but you realize, this is all unpopular in the united states right now. >> i agree. this is an incredibly controversial set of issues. i have personally absolutely no doubt that's what government should be doing. i think we in the west are making the mistake that the japanese made in about '97, tightening too soon, the mistake that roosevelt famously made in 1937 in the u.s. we are tightening before the private sector has healed, before the private sector is willing to spend. and i know this is an incredibly controversial view, but it seems to me simple common sense. you've got an extremely deflationary recessionary

backdrop. i don't know whether the opponents of stimulus are wanting the economy to contract. i wouldn't suggest that. but it seems an inevitable consequence of that. i think the ideas that your president put forward for his recent jobs package made lots of sense to me. i just think it's too small. >> what do you think the lessons from britain are? because britain looked at its situation and decided that it had to create confidence in the markets. it had to engage in tightening, fiscal tightening. it cut its budget deficit. and it has had the effect of creating confidence in the bond markets. britain certainly has the highest credit rating of any european country. what has been the effect on the economy? >> i accept that we needed some such plan. but it was far too ambitious and far too inflexible, and the effect on the economy is quite clear. the economy stopped growing completely. it's utterly stagnant. but there's -- it seems to me quite unambiguous.

the lesson of the british experience is that against exactly the same sort of backdr backdrop, very cautious private sector, very weak housing market, very -- very high savings in the private sector. the government has to be willing to spend. and as the government is cutting its deficits, the economy has basically become completely stagnant. and that's exactly what i predicted. and that's where we are. and i do hope the u.s. doesn't follow this example because for the world, the u.s. matters so much more. britain makes a mistake, everybody can live with it. but if the united states goes back into a serious recession, which is something i really worry about, the effect on the whole world and the confidence in the u.s. economy and the western economies will be really very badly damaged. this is not some trivial sort of small local thing. this is of global significance if the u.s. does this. >> martin wolf, always a pleasure to have your insights. i wish you were more optimistic. maybe that will happen next time.

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so just what would a snapshot of the u.s. economy taken this week look like? my next guest has a fascinating perspective on that. he has more than 11,000 data points. that is how many cafes starbucks has in this country. my next guest is the coffee chain's ceo and chairman, howard shultz. so thank you for being on. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> when you look around and you're getting this data from everywhere, do you agree with ben bernanke who said this week that he thinks that the second quarter is going to be better than -- second half of the year is going to be better than the first half, that things are picking up? >> i'm not sure i agree with mr. bernanke.

but i would say the economy is somewhat bifurcated. on one hand you've got 9% unemployment and significant pressure on consumer confidence. on the other side, starbucks is having its best year. and i think there is spending based on luxury products, affordable luxury, and there's two consumers. my concern in terms of mr. bernanke's comments is just the crisis of confidence that exists as a result of this functionality in washington that is creating a cloud over the country and as a result of that, my confidence in the second half of the year is not as strong as what he would suggest. >> when you talk about the crisis of confidence, do you think that consumers are not spending money because they are shell-shocked from all the debt they have, because their houses and mortgages may be under water, or do you really think it's beyond that, and it's about this political climate in washington? >> i don't think there is a silver bullet to define why

customers are not spending or there is a level of no confidence in the country. having said that, i think if you would track the crisis of confidence after the debt ceiling debacle, i think you'd see that there is a straight line in terms of what is happening in america. americans reading the paper, listening to the news every single day, and all you hear is things are getting worse and worse. and that has a psychological effect on consumer confidence. that's what consumer confidence is. and then you have companies across the board that are sitting with $2 trillion, $3 trillion of cash on the balance sheet and not spending as a result of the fact that they have no confidence in the direction of the country. so this is -- the connective tissue of all this is a swirl and the swirl is pessimistic. >> the way you describe it, it feels as though it's a little a pox on both your houses. but there are two distinctly

different approaches here. the president is out with a jobs plan which is basically unemployment insurance extensions, tax breaks, cuts in the payroll tax, an infrastructure bill too modest for my taste, but still, it's something. on the republican side, people saying what you need more than anything else is to cut the -- cut government spending, cut the deficit. which of them would you prefer to see? >> well, i -- i don't think it's one versus the other. i think what you described is the problem. it's not one versus the other. it is we need cooperation, and we need co-authorship. we need a combination of both. let me take a different tact if i can. in the mid 1940s, something was created. it was significant, it was innovative, it was bold, and it was courageous. it was the marshall plan. now, let's take a step back. can you imagine the situation today where the marshall plan would have any opportunity whatsoever in this existing political climate to succeed?

and the answer unequivocally is no. i would suggest that our problems domestically are as great as the problems were when the marshall plan and president truman convinced america and a republican congress this was the right thing to do. we need a domestic agenda. and we need a forcing function that addresses the significant problems and, as tom friedman said in his book, we need truth-telling once and for all. tell us the truth. we don't have a $14 trillion deficit. it's $47 trillion. and it's things like that. unemployment in america is not 9.1% when you're an african-american or hispanic. there's no access to credit for small businesses. >> but you were a big supporter of president obama. you were a supporter of obama care. >> yes. >> is this -- does this suggest a kind of deep disappointment with the president? >> i'm not here to in any way

criticize the president or any members of congress or any party. i'm a registered democrat, but i'm an american. i'm deeply concerned. i'm profoundly disappointed with the direction the country is going. and the president is my president. i want him to succeed. >> but what do you want him to do? suppose you had him -- assuming you've had these opportunities. what would you tell him to do? >> i think we need political courage and -- political courage and will right now. we need big, bold ideas. we're not going to solve these problems incrementally by putting band-aids on things. if this was a company, if this was a business, the business would be bankrupt. and you would have to do drastic things to override the system. we need transformation. and that transformation comes from leadership. we're in a crisis. we need decisiveness. i want to say something -- i know i'll be criticized for this. i don't think this is that hard. i don't. what's hard is when you get people in a room who have ideology and re-election and

polling and the elephant in the room is not the problem, it's self-interest. if this was a business and you had like-minded people who left their ego at the door to try and solve the problem, we would solve these problems. >> but you want to defund politicians, right? you have -- >> i do want to defund, yes. >> you made this appeal that you want people to withhold campaign contributions. >> correct. >> what do you hope to achieve? >> i want to suspend contributions because i don't believe that writing a check based on a $4 billion election cycle in 2008 and an estimated $5.5 billion in 2012 is what we should be doing. instead, i want to send a powerful signal to washington that i and other like-minded ceos now, 150 of us, are dissatisfied with the status quo, and we are begging you to understand that we need solutions to significant problems. and i also think businesses and

corporations -- and this is where i feel differently than some of my brethren -- we have a deep responsibility, as well. and we have to do our part. we have to invest in the economy, and we have to create a sense of optimism that we still believe in america. america's best days are ahead of us, and we believe that investing in america, despite the landscape and all the information, is still the right thing to do. >> howard shultz, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you very much. >> we'll be right back. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future.

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now for our "what in the world" segment. going to the movies is a great american pastime. whether it's "kung fu panda" or "harry potter" -- >> harry! >> there's always some extra cache in catching the films as soon as they're released. ♪ >> so if you're a "mission impossible" fan, you know that the latest installment of tom cruise's action series is opening soon. but if you want to be there for the first day, first show, don't go to los angeles to watch the world premiere in hollywood. try new delhi or mumbai.

you see, ghost protocol releases across india five days before it hits u.s. cinemas. and it's not an isolated case. steven spielberg's film adaptation of the comic series "tinted" -- >> it may sound crazy, but i've got a plan. >> -- opens in asia and the middle east more than a month before it hits american cinemas. now we are all used to a world in which events, ideas, and products start in the west and move east. is this the beginning of the great reversal? well, maybe. partly this is happening so companies can avoid piracy in asian countries. earlier, when movies would arrive in chinese or indian cinemas two months late, many fans there would have resorted to pirated dvds. but there's also a major economic trend here that big companies are picking up on. overall u.s. consumer spending declined by 2% in 2010. the sector that declined the most was entertainment, by 7%.

it makes sense when times are tough, you can't cut back that much on essentials like food and housing, so you spend less on things like movies and music. meanwhile, indians, for example, are moving in exactly the opposite direction. consumer spending is up in general, but on entertainment, it is up 14% in 2010. emerging economies including china and india account for half of global output but only a third of global consumption. this is changing, and it's not just the movie companies that have figured this out. when dell launched its new ultrathin laptop last week, it made china its first stop. the xps 14-z is being marketed as the world's thinnest laptop, but you won't be able to buy it in the u.s. yet. you have to wait. you see, china is now the world's biggest p.c. market, so it gets prioritized. look at the auto industry. the 2013 chevy malibu is going to launch in korea and china before it hits dealers here in the usa.

and g.m. has done that for years with a series of new buicks. so there is a big shift at work here, a picture of the two-speed world. consumers in developing markets are growing in importance in the eyes of the biggest global companies. meanwhile, here in america, consumer demand is stagnant. could things change? yes. but only if we get growth going again in the west and, particularly, in america. u.s. companies are currently holding more than $2 trillion in cash reserves. i saw a chart this week that illustrated in the starkest possible way why this needs to change. take a look. it plots corporate spending along with employment numbers. the correlation is unmistakable and tight. as corporate investment goes up, employment goes up. so the question everyone in washington should be asking is -- how do we get corporations to invest more and sooner? looking at permanent changes in tax and regulatory policy, let's agree on five measures and pass them right away. this doesn't need to be mission

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hello, everyone. pim fredricka whitfield with a look at the top stories. president barack obama's jobs bill is headed for the u.s. senate. lawmakers are expected to vote on the measure early this week. the $447 billion jobs plan includes tax cuts, ifrts spending and job training assistance. it would be funded by a new tax on millionaires. california governor jerry brown has signed a bill that will make it easier for illegal immigrants to attend college. under the california dream act, immigrants who are on a path toward legal status will be eligible for state financial aid. it's expected to provide help to about 2,500 students. paul mccartney married his american girlfriend, nancy chevelle, in london today. the only other surviving

ex-beatle, ringo starr, was among the guests there. this is mccartney's third marriage and chevelle's seconds. i'll be back with more news at the top of the hour. now back to "fareed zakaria: gps." michael lewis is a storyteller extraordinaire. unfortunately for many of the characters, the stories he tells are nonfiction. in his new book "boomerang," he's on a tour of the world's financial disasters. among his stops, iceland, ireland, and greece. now he's setting his sights closer to home, in fact at home. lewis says his home state of california and others like it face the nightmare scenario. welcome, michael lewis. >> thanks for having me back. >> so when you talk about

greece, ireland, you write that the cause of their problems was the same, essentially, too much cheap credit, too much easy money. but the consequences were different. why? >> well, this is absolutely right. the cause was the temptation of free money. the banks ceased to do credit analysis. they became numb to the risk. one that happened, people could borrow money who shouldn't be able to borrow money. the temptation gets created. the societies responded to the temptation in very different ways. and i think the answer is they're very different places. >> let's talk about the cultural consequences of this easy credit. when you look at america, what did we do with the easy money that reflects our national character? >> you know, it's -- they're -- there are two obvious sort of events that are tied to the

credit bubble. one is the way wall street went crazy. the way wall street basically systematically set about disguising what it was supposed to be revealing, disguising risk rather than revealing risk. and the way the financial sector basically abused the rest of society in a lot of ways. but the other thing that was -- that was a byproduct of the easy money was the way public employee unions abused the governments they work for. my state of california is the perfect example. public safety workers could cut deals with cities across california, they're going to bankrupt the state of california. they're deals that can never be fulfilled. if you look at the behavior, the patterns of behavior in american life, the patterns of behavior reflect this very -- really

almost sensational ability to ignore long-term considerations and long-term interests for the sake of the short term. i think that short termism is the thing that is most revealed by what we've gone through. that we have not -- we've forgotten about the long term. >> you are absolutely right. when reading your kind of california, it's the politicians willing to make these promises to state employees, but the costs of which are pushed off because the pension and health care stuff which won't show up on the books for two decades. >> the future is undervalued. in all the calculations, the future is undervalued. and i think there's this notion alive in the land that we're just being misled. that -- that the problem is politicians. >> yeah. >> i think we get the democracy we deserve. and in california it's hard to argue otherwise. we have essentially direct democracy. all big fiscal decisions are made by the people. by plebe.

and the idea that somehow in that system people aren't getting what they want -- they are getting what they want, that's the problem. they want public services and don't want to pay for them. they want to cheat the future for the present. and that's a -- that is not just -- that's not a financial problem. that's a cultural/moral problem. >> when you look at it, what you're describing in europe and the united states really is the problem for democracy to impose any short-term pain for long-term gain. >> right. >> the kind of classic principle of the gym, the fitness club. no pain, no gain. so how do you make it happen? i mean, is there a path out for democracies? >> i hate to say this, but what i think happens is the only way -- the only way pain gets -- that solutions that are slightly painful get imposed are in time of great crisis. so i think the -- a crisis is necessary in order for change to occur. >> didn't we just have one? >> well, we had one. what did we do? we took morphine. and we essentially injected --

>> more easy money. >> we did what we could to avoid the pain. and so i think that's what happens. we just get to a bigger crisis. and that's what this story is about. it is -- it's -- it is a companion volume to the big short. it's saying that we are still in the same financial cries i because we didn't actually deal with it. what we did was essentially we nationalized problems across the world. and now the question is are governments credible. the question before was, are the banks credible. now banks are backed by the governments, are the governments credible. at some point you get to the end game. i think that's kind of what we're seeing. it's going to take years to play out, i bet. >> do you think the end game will take place at the local level in america? >> in america i do. and i'll tell you why. because the way the end game plays out financially, you can see it in europe, that what happens is a country gets itself into actual fiscal trouble. and the markets get scared and

the market raise the interest rates they charge the country which exacerbates the fiscal trouble. then you get the vicious spiral, and you never get out, and that's what greece is in right now. if they had to borrow money in the open markets, they'd be paying 70%. they can't afford that. here the markets are telling us what's going to happen. the u.s. treasury gets downgraded by standard and poor's and you would think the treasury bonds would fall, that people would demand a greater rate of interest from the u.s. treasury to lend its money. instead, people panic, and they buy u.s. treasuries because they are still relatively the most riskless thing. and it -- a fight to safety goes to treasuries. that tells you that at the federal level we're going to be able to finance ourselves probably for a while no matter how badly we behave. that it's going to take a while before we enter a vicious cycle. i mean, decade. but at the local level, all it takes is a single wall street analyst to go on "60 minutes." meredith whitney did this. for a few minutes to suggest there might be defaults. there is a stampede out of municipal bonds, and the rate of interest charged to

municipalities goes through the roof. so the way the european sort of vicious cycle reprises itself in america is at the level of local finance. i think that's right. >> on that cheery note, michael lewis, thank you very much. "boomerang" and of course "moneyball" in theaters everywhere. we will be back. don't tell me we're going to get out of here with just hocus-pocus -- give me the truth. [ male announcer ] theraflu, mucinex, lysol disinfectant spray and...a toy drum.

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tom friedman, pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the "new york times" spends a lot of time thinking about america's problems and solutions to those problems. he joins me now. thanks for joining me, tom. >> great to be here, fareed. >> tom, you have a new book, "that used to be us." and the phrase came from something obama said, so many people feel that way when you read about the biggest bridge, the tallest building. you know, i began my book with a similar idea that you -- all the stuff used to be american. and now we take it for granted that we're not going to build

the biggest bridge. again, we can't even repair the washington subway elevators. tell that story about the washington subway. >> well, i had come back from a conference in china at this amazing conference center with multiple escalators in every corner, huge ones. i came back to bethesda, maryland, where i live, and called michael -- my co-author, michael mandelbaum, and i was telling his wife about the center. she said, have you been to our subway stop lately because both escalator have been under repair for six months. basically -- >> which is as long as it had taken roughly to build the entire conference center in china. >> actually, yeah. almost the exact same amount of time china took to build a conference center was taking us to repair two escalators with 21 stairs each. and our book is not about china, fareed. as you know, it's really about america. and we firmly believe china can succeed and we can succeed. by the way, china can fail and we can succeed. what china doesn't really matter, it's not what we do or what we don't do.

when people hear the title of the book, they say, "that used to be, us." does it have a happy ending? we tell people it does, we're just not sure if it's fiction or nonfiction. we're not falling behind china or brazil. we've gotten into this situation because we've gotten away from our formula for success. the thing that got us here, this great public/private partnership that was built on five pillars -- education, educating people to use whatever the technology was from the supercomputer to the cotton gin in its day, infrastructure, having the world's best infrastructure. third, having the most open immigration policy to attract the most energetic and innovative immigrant. fourth, having the best rules to incentivize capital formation and investment. and last, government-funded research to push out the boundaries of science so our entrepreneurs can pick off the best flowers. >> why did it happen? why did you go from a situation in the 1950s where the state of california had the best

public education system in the world, k through the ph.d. programs of the university of berkeley, the best highways, best public park, best quality of life? i remember growing up in india, california was utopia. it was the future. >> that's right. now it is again for america and in a different kind of way. >> you look at it and california spends four times as much on prisons as it does on the education budget. >> we gave way from that greatest generation which believed in save and invest to baby-boomer generation, my generation, yours, that believed in borrow and spend and did not is what my friend doug simon calls the sustainable values. do thing in ways that sustain, but instead had situational values. do whatever the situation allows. just do it, the nike commercial, that's us, fareed. i give you $1 million mortgage even though you only have $10,000 in income and it's a subprime mortgage, and all i ask is can you fog up a knife? i just do it because the situation says i can.

we got into a values decline. secondly, we misinterpreted the end of the cold war. we thought it was a victory. it was a great victory, of course. we thought it was a victory that meant we could put our feet up. when in fact what it did was unleash two billion people just like us with the same aspirations to connect, collaborate, and compete. okay? and then thirdly, tragically after 9/11, we had to spend a decade chasing the losers from globalization called al qaeda and the taliban, rather than the winners called india, china, and brazil. and you put it all together and the net result is if you look at that great formula for success that got us here -- education, infrastructure, immigration, rules and government-funded research -- the arrow is pointing down today on all five. that's why the only way out of our problem -- we keep debating this economic crisis, we need jobs, but it's not a three-year-old crisis. it started 20 years ago. that's why i've been writing. we can have a choice, a hard decade or bad century.

either we can roll up our sleeves and get back to the formula for success which is going to take hard work and cutting because we made promises we can't keep. it's going to take taxing because we need more revenue because it's going to take investing in that formula for success. either we do that over the next decade in which case i think we'll be fine. or i think we're going to limp think we're going to limp into the 21st century. >> how do you make the politics of that work? western and american politics in the last 30 or 40 years has been about politicians promising voters more stuff, more benefits, more health care, better pensions, if you look at the way in which local politicians get elected, promise state employees fatter pensions and health care which bust the budget but not that year, in the out years when they're out of office. this whole mechanism by which politics works in this country is about promising people stuff. everything you're talking about is taking stuff away. >> that's right. >> reducing benefits, raising

taxes. all getting the situation back under control. >> can we do that in a democratic system? i don't know. i think -- i hope we test it though. i think that if we don't, the market or mother nature will do it for us basically. when we do it, make the reforms ourselves, that's like going to a dentist, you have novocaine, take out the rotten tooth. when the market does it that's like having a cave man. the tooth will come out, the market will adjust but there will be blood all over the floor and a few other teeth will come out. we have to decide because if we don't do its market will do it for us. what we argue in the book is basically, look, i think it's unfortunate the president is going down this track of attacking millionaires and what not. millionaires should pay taxes like everybody else. i don't think that's the way. i think the only way to do it is with a program, okay, for basic cutting, taxing and investing that has the following

components. first people have to believe it's at the scale of the problem. don't tell me we're going to get out of here with hocus-pocus and numbers. give me the truth. people believe one, set the scale of the problem. two, believe it's politically indroj nous, best republican and democratic ideas. three, believe it's fair. everybody will pay, millionaires, everyone will pay something, we all got in this together. just because you make $250,000 or $244,000 or $251,000 we're all -- or $50,000 or $20,000, everybody should pay something. everyone contributed to world war ii, everyone has to dig out of this hole. lastly in my view, needs to be aspirational. where's the aspirational. it's about making us great. keeping us great. and to me, the aspirational message for the president is, it's obvious, we think what cape canaveral was to america in the 1960s, america should be to the world today. what was cape canaveral? a place we lauved our moon

shots. we're not going to the next plateau launching our moon shots. becoming platform where everyone wants to launch their moon shot. that's our vision for america. we identify ourselves as plate where everyone comes to start something, create something, collaborate with something, heal something. that's how you get people to come here to start things. if people start things, enough things here, then the butcher, the baker and candle stick maker will have work too. but if we don't do that if we sit around saying, i'm going to take it out of your hyde, or you have more than me, his hyde, not aspirational, not at the scale of the problem won't work and we will limp into the 21st century. >> tom friedman, always a pleasure. >> thanks. >> we will be back. montgomery and abigail higgins had... ...a tree that bore the most rare and magical fruit. which provided for their every financial need. and then, in one blinding blink of an eye,

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the big news this week, of course steve jobs' death. i will offer my two cents about it in a moment. but first, a question about him for our gps challenge question. what was steve jobs' first job? after dropping out of college. a, video game designer, p, pizza maker, c, type setter, d, apple picker. we'll tell you the correct answer. make sure you go to cnn.com/gps

for ten more questions and check out our website the global public square. find smart interviews and essays by our favorite experts and follow us on twitter and facebook. this week's book is a magazine. make sure you pick up "time" magazine this week which has the superb cover essay by walter isaacson. written prize winning biographies of kissinger and einstein, he has finished a biographer of jobs with jobs' cooperation. this week in "time" you get a special reflective essay from isaacson. for the last look. many of you have probably seen this extraordinary speech that steve jobs gave at stanford university's 2005 commencement. >> you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. you have to trust in something. your gut, destiny, life, car marks whatever. because believing that dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads

you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference. >> it's the best commencement speech i've read or watched. always struck me as simple and so profound. and the reason is, i think, that we live in a culture that so ven rates success. people write books about it, everyone tries to learn about it. the essence of steve jobs' address was that he learned from failure. the talk is about three failures, dropping out of college, getting fired, and being diagnosed with cancer and how he was able to give his life meaning, purpose and richness as a consequence. >> sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. don't lose faith. i'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that i loved what i did. you've got to find what you love. >> everyone tries to copy and learn from success. it takes a special person to learn from failure.