just hard keeping the gates straight. thank you so much for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley in washington. find today's interviews, some analysis and web exclusives at our website, cnn.com/sotu. happy father's day to all our sotu fathers out there. "fareed zakaria gps" for our viewers here in the united states. this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fa red zakaria. we have a great show for you today with a lot of great britains. first a different kind of conservative and one of the world's most colorful politicians, boris johnson, the mayor of london. he has a surprising message on the euro and on republicans, and we'll talk about the olympics, of course. then, economics. a sharp discussion between two great scholars, the biographer of john maynard keynes,

austerity and fears of a meltdown. looking ahead to the rio environmental summit, a sharply contrarian take from someone who says the whole thing is a waste of time. finally -- >> i am for free press, fair elections and equal rights for women. i can't say that. >> what in the world? "the dictator" might be a fun movie, but dictators in real life are getting smarter, sav savvier and less authoritarian. but first, here's my take. we're now in the general election campaign in the united states. the point at which the candidates are meant to pivot from the primary voters to the general election voters, most of who now are registered independents. but this isn't really happening. the obama campaign started with its attack ads about bain capital which presented a simplistic picture of a complicated reality, although some private equity firms have engaged in some bad practices. on the whole, the industry has grown so large because it performs a useful function.

then came mitt romney's first major ad which told us that on his first day in office, he would introduce tax cuts. now, the one idea that is almost certain not to jump start this economy is a tax cut. after all, that's what we've been doing for the past three years. for those who think president obama's policies have done little to produce growth, keep in mind that the single largest piece of his policies in dollar terms has been tax cuts. it actually began before obama with the tax cut passed under the george w. bush administration in response to the financial crisis. then came the stimulus bill of which tax cuts were the largest chunk by far. one-third of the total. then the payroll tax cut. the small business tax cut. the extension of the payroll tax cut. and so on. the president's twitter feed boasted that president obama has signed 21 tax cuts to support middle-class families. and how's that worked out? "the wall street journal" explained this away saying that the problem is all these tax cuts are temporary.

if only we had across-the-board cuts. except that those were tried as well. the 2001 bush tax cuts were designed precisely along those lines. they were in dollar terms the largest tax cuts in u.s. history. and the economy got worse, not better. in fact, the years 2000 to 2007 were the period of weakest job growth in the united states since the great depression. now, look. tax cuts can stimulate growth, especially when you go from, say, 70% rates to 30% rates, as ronald reagan did. but a cut of a few percent from a reasonably moderate base or a temporary waiver of some small tax provision is highly unlikely to unleash lasting growth. what it will do is explode the deficit. for four decades, washington politicians have bought popularity by cutting taxes. always saying that spending cuts or growth will make up for the lost revenue. that never happened, and the result is $11 trillion in

federal debt held by the public. and finally, now this week, democrats have been busily defending public sector unions. public sector unions are big backers of the democratic party, but their retirement benefits are, in fact, bankrupting states and localities across the country. california's total pension liabilities are now 30 times the size of its budget deficit. ohio's now add up to 30% of the state's total gdp. this is utterly unsustainable. the growth and size of these benefits are now making it impossible for governments to spend on education, infrastructure, parks, really anything. at some point, the candidates, both candidates, need to stop pandering to their bases and start speaking intelligently to the mainstream voter about their vision for america. we're waiting. and let's get started.

by some accounts, my next guest is the most popular politician in great britain. he's a conservative at a time when torry policies have steered england to what some are calling a double-dip recession. yet, he's just been re-elected. boris johnson is a two-time mayor of london. he is the former editor of "the spectator" magazine, and he has a new book out, "johnson's life of london: the people who made the city that made the world." he joins me now. boris, pleasure to have you on. >> very good. by the way, to be the most -- even if i were the most popular politician in britain or england which i doubt, it's not a very hotly contested field. at the moment. pretty minimal. >> tell me why that is. because the -- your party, the conservative party, came into power and said we're going to do the thing that we have to in order to save britain, and in doing so, we will be rewarded by the market -- >> i know -- >> we will be rewarded by the economy. and in fact --

>> it's all going very slowly. and there's no doubt at all that the economy -- look at what's happening to the numbers in america. you're seeing same sorts, problems in many european countries. i think it's a lack of confidence. and i don't take the same analysis as many other members of the european political establishment or media which is that you've got to sort out the euro by creating this fiscal union. i think that's going the wrong way. i'm afraid to say that that exercise is just going to compound the mistake. and we spent two years now bailing out greece, bailing out spain, pumping money into it, trying to get the germans to be more generous, trying to get the peripheral countries, the mediterranean countries to be more austere, cut more from their budgets, put more people on the dole -- >> what would you do? would you let it all collapse? >> well, that's obviously -- would be a disorderly outcome. what would be great, i think, is if the european leaders could face up the reality.

shrug off their egos, shrug off all the political capital that europe has collectively invested in this project and say, look, we made a mistake. we put countries into a scheme, a one-size-fits-all currency union which they're not suited to. let's have a realignment, a bisection. let's do a north euro and a south euro. they've got to take control. >> so that means the best answer is break up the euro -- >> sure. >> and allow the southern countries to have -- >> to devalue, to devalue. to get the benefits that come with competitive currency again. and obviously it would be difficult -- i'm not denying that there would be great strains and there would be all sorts of consequences for banking and all the rest of it. but you'd of lanced the boil. people would know where you were. we're skiing downhill blindfolded and don't know where the bottom is. it's just going to go on. >> now, you said something that suggested you were

disparaging -- you said something that was disparaging about austerity. now the question i have for you is austerity in britain. your great friend, the chancellor, when he came into power said, look, we have to make these sacrifices because it will restore market confidence, it will give business the boost it needs. and they will invest. in fact, what's happened, as you know, the economy has suffered. many people from robert skidelsky to martin wolf said this is what will happen at a time when the economy is weak, if you cut government spending -- >> he hasn't. i hear what you're saying. but the reality is that actually the government hasn't cut spending in quite the way that people say that it has. and spending continues to be a and borrowing continues to be -- i think possibly there's been a lot of -- they suddenly restrained spending and they've tried to cut some of the crazier schemes, and they're trying to reduce the size of the public sector insofar as they can.

but, you know, they haven't made the savage cuts that some people accuse them of. i -- i do think it comes back to this issue of confidence. and i -- i do have a lot of sympathy for the chancellor and for the government. the coalition because business is sitting on these cash mountains. they've got the money. they could be investing in new plant, new employees. they could be doing it, but they're not because they don't know what's going to happen in the eurozone. they don't know what's going to happen to the banks. >> when you watch the american debate, who do you find yourself rooting for as a tory? >> mike bloomberg. i'll be honest. the mayor. we mayors stick up for each other in all circumstances. and look -- ages ago, i wrote a piece in favor of obama. i think i was about the first british politician to say, come on, obama, why not? and i have to say that he hasn't reciprocated.

i don't remember him endorsing me. he said -- >> the bloom off the rose. >> he probably had other things on his tray. i've got to be realistic about it. i'm an admirer of the president in many ways. i don't know very much about mitt romney. a lot of people say he's got great qualities. it's hard for me to judge. but i do know mike bloomberg, had met him a lot of times. and this is a guy who not only set up a massive media empire, it 22 billion quids worth -- dollars worth, sorry. he also has great experiences as a public servant and does something and innovative things. whatever you think about his crazy thing to do with banning the size of cups, whatever -- >> what do you think of that? >> whatever you think of it, it shows a very, very pragmatic, can-do approach to government. the answer is -- i often think

about the size of cups. i don't know. it's not instinctively the kind of thing i would do. but if it can reduce childhood obesity -- >> we are going to take a break. when we come back, i'm going to ask boris johnson about conservatism. how america and england compare. and i'll ask about the summer olympics, of course. right back. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement.

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we're back with boris johnson, a man who has worn many hats. mayor of london, planner of the olympics and former editor of britain's flagship conservative magazine "the spectator." do you think that conservativism in america, the republican party, is very different from conservatives in britain? >> totally. i mean, totally. you know, i -- i'm a low tax, small state guy. which is why, you know, when

mike says reduce cup sizes, i -- you know, find it difficult to compute. but i want to see how it works out. but on things like -- on all the social moral stuff, most british conservatives are far too timid to get involved in that sort of stuff. particularly me. i wouldn't go get in -- no, siree. that's a matter for private conscience. >> but when you say you're too timid, do you secretly wish, or you think that's not really where conservatism should be? >> i don't think it's central to politics, as i practice it. i think it's a kind of -- these issues become hugely important totems of your beliefs. but it doesn't seem to me that they should be determinative of how you run a country. i mean, what's -- these things

are -- gay marriage, gun control -- >> the three gs, gays, guns, and god. >> yeah. >> on all of them, from what i've read of your -- you see to me -- you're closer to a democrat than a republican. >> sounds like it, yeah. i mean, i think -- i didn't know the gays -- i was surprised to discover it was banned. that's ridiculous. there you go. i'm sorry, it just seems to me that marriage is an ancient sacrament, pre-christian system that anti-dates pre-religions. what's it got to do with anybody is my view? >> mitt romney says one of the reasons he should be made president is because he did a bang-up job running the olympics. do you think running a good olympics is a qualification for higher office? >> i'm not going to be lured into that elementary trap that you've boorishly dug for me.

i think, freed, we're obviously excited about the olympics. we're looking forward to welcoming people this summer and hope lots of people will come from america and have a great time. i was just speaking to your producer who was saying that she wasn't going to come because she was worried about the crowds. i want you to be it's going to be fantastic, folks. london is going to be the place to be in the summer of 2012. and yes, occasionally going to one of the menus on the tube, there will be a press of people. but we're going to make sure that people have a great time. whether that -- where that leads me in my so-called political career, i don't know. i'm concentrating on this for the time being. >> so tell me, running the olympics or planning for it in your capacity, it must be very different from what your day-to-day life was like. what have you learned most about dealing with this enormous, enormous event? >> it's just that there's so many bits of the mattress that keep popping up. and you've got to press it down, and it pops up again. so one day you've got the

transport, right, and then something pops up with the security. and -- it's just there's -- you know, talking about a few months ago. we're getting to the state now where things are starting to be ready. the venues are built, they're looking fantastic. we've got the stadium complete, the very well velodroem, the aquatic center. this is not like some other olympics that i could mention. and we've built this weird curly-wurly pretzel thing, that will welcome the world developed by aneesh kapur, an indian artist. it's -- london is going to look fantastic in games time. and we're half a billion pounds under budget. so so far, you know, touch wood, we're all right. it's not as bad as -- it's not as bad as many other olympic cities have been at this stage. >> do you wish you had the kind of powers that the people who ran the chinese, the beijing

olympics had? >> well, i wish i could blow half our defense budget on the fireworks, yes, basically what they did. you know, i have great respect for what the chinese did. the chinese had a fantastic olympic games, but it was shock and awe, wasn't it? it was shock and awe. they threw everything at it. we're going to be more subtle and ingenious, and i think more enjoyable. >> boris johnson, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you very much. up next, what in the world -- why the era of brutal, all-powerful dictators may be a thing of the past. i'll explain. [ female announcer ] gain fireworks scent booster,

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now for our "what in the world" segment. we tend to think of dictators as all-powerful leaders who act with naked cruelty and impunity. think of al assad in syria or for a celluloid reminder, look at this scene from sacha baron cohen's new film -- [ gunshots ] >> the film "the dictator" and our imagination of dictators is somewhat outdated. the modern dictator is more evolved and more attuned to how people think. a new book highlights that trend. it's called "the dictator's learning curve" by william dobson. dictators have gotten smart,

dobson writes, to keep pace with changes in technology. ♪ old-school oppressors like mao, polpot or amin could thing secrets, that's not true today. if a dictator tried to orchestrate a mass killing and keep it secret, it would fail. it would end up on youtube. the crimes of joseph kony are an internet phenomenon, and he remains on the run. war criminals can't count on impunity. sudan's president bashir has been indicted by the criminal court. today's cleverest dictator have evolved. they allow a certain amount of dissent as an escape valve. consider china. there's a new study out by three political scientists at harvard. they've devised a way to analyze millions of social media posts in china. what's special is they claim to do this before the chinese

government gets to censor them, so it provides a unique insight into not just what the chinese people think but also what the government teams necessary to sensor. ♪ what did they find? contrary to what you'd think, it turns out criticisms of the government are not more likely to get censored. even vitriolic criticism is allowed. the focus is on stopping mass mobilization. last year beijing blocked internet searches for tunisia's jasmine revolution to prevent discussions about the arab spring. similarly last week, searches for the number 4-6 were censored, the numbers representing june 4th, the anniversary of the massacre at tiananmen square. the harvard study shows that beijing's leaders are making measured concessions. it is said that some 500 protests take place every day across china. but anything that could lead to something larger or more

organized is instantly clamped down on. ♪ another example, putin's russia has usually allowed the print media a great deal of freedom on the theory that what a few tens of thousands people read in moscow and st. petersburg doesn't matter. but the regime has taken over television news completely. so mass opinion is carefully controlled out of the kremlin. we're witnessing a trend in china, russia, venezuela, and many other countries, even myanmar. gone are the days when dictators could completely ignore the demands of their people. as citizens become more exposed to events around the world, more connected to each other on the internet and social media, dictators will have to make greater concessions. it's a situation that is far better than how things were 10, 20, or 50 years ago. regimes like those in syria and north korea can still act with all-out brutality. but they are outliers. they represent a fading order.

the new model is to allow a controlled space for free commerce, for open education. even for dissent. perhaps people in these countries can use that space to slowly expand the realm of freedom and liberty. we'll be right back. up next, is europe going to collapse and bring the u.s. economy down with it? a discussion with neil ferguson and robert skidelsky. do you see it ?

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we're driving safely. and sue saved money on brakes. now that's personal pricing. everyone is worried about europe imploding and the impact it could have not just there but all over the world in the united states. i have two great economists and historians for insight, robert skidelsky is the authority on keynes. on the other side, we have harvard's neil ferguson who usually takes a contrarian view. gentlemen, welcome. neil, first just give us a lay of the land. everyone's saying clearly not all euros are created equal. i'm going to put my money in german banks. that's the one country that can't default. >> i was talking to a very senior spanish official last weekend who said the problem is if one country leaves, this stops being a monetary union, and it becomes just a currency

board. and it's much easier to leave a currency board -- he was thinking here of the parallel with argentina, and the nightmare scenarios that these mediterranean countries are each going to go the way of argentina when it gave up its peg to the dollar, which was a currency board, a fixed link. and also converted currency deposit in the banking system to a new and much less valuable currency. that's the nightmare scenario that southern europeans are thinking about. i call this the latin europe problem. southern europe, latin europe is beginning to look more like latin america. if more is not done in particular by the german government to stem this crisis of confidence in latin europe, then it's game over for the euro. >> do you think there's a way for greece to leave without it spreading the contagion? >> yes. i think so. i don't think -- i don't think spain, italy, portugal, ireland are nearly in as bad a condition as greece. i think they're more competitive, i think they're public, public -- their budgets

are in sounder condition. and i think they can weather that storm. particularly when there's a big enough firewall put up. so i don't think they have to leave. and so i'm not as pessimistic as neil is that the whole thing will break up. but what i do agree with him is that it's got to be strengthened in all kinds of ways if it's to survive. >> the central issue here has been the issue of austerity versus stimulus. should there be more austerity -- you guys met -- we were all in london in july 2010. and the question i asked both of you was -- are britain's efforts that are to cut its budget deficit to what was regarded then as a kind of version of austerity, is it going to produce a double dip? which many people worried about. so let's watch the clip. is britain going to go into a double dip? >> i think there's a very strong chance that it will, yes. >> what do you think? >> i think it may dip, but i think it may also bounce back.

and we should -- the world should watch closely if this experiment comes off. if it works, then britain will be the role model, the poster child. >> do you think that in retrospect cutting spending at a time when the economy was weak was -- was the wrong idea? >> well, there wasn't any choice. that's the first thing to establish. keynesian policies are enormous if you don't have a gdp to cap ratio. but britain did when the conservative liberal government came in. indeed, if you include private debt, second only to japan and the world. so there wasn't an option. and any government would have had to do the same thing even if labor had somehow managed to cling on to power. >> i don't agree with that. i think neil is a wonderful spokesman for the conservative liberal coalition. he said exactly what they're saying. and i don't think any of it is correct. and i think that there was never a chance that britain was going to go the way of greece.

it was sovereign -- it was sovereign, fully sovereign. most of its debt was denominated in its own currency. it had a central bank that could print money. and -- and so this is very, very different from the situation of those countries in -- in the eurozone. britain did have an option. when you have -- when you have a debt, a high debt, and when -- when the economy has just collapsed, then of course the debt/gdp ratio rises automatically. now, how do you get it down? that's the question. i would say and a keynesian would say you don't get it down by shrinking the economy further. that is a move that will actually cause it to rise. you have to find some way of getting the gdp up and then the debt-gdp ratio will sink. and i think that's very, very, very clear in my mind. and i think events have borne it out. what we've had is a great

experiment in the application of a particular economic philosophy which neil agrees with. he says this is a temporary blip and in a year or so, we'll be back to buoyant growth. >> i don't think it will be buoyant growth. one has to realize under a debt mountain such as the size of britain -- >> it's not a mountain. >> it is a mountain. debt to gdp is up there with japan at 600% if you include public and private debt. that's important because that's unprecedented in history. and anybody who thinks you can magically go back to 4% or 5% growth under such a burden is deluded. almost as deluded as the people who think that britain had a keynesian option in 2010. >> let me move to the subject that americans care most about which is america. you -- one of the things you did argue was that the united states could also face these kind of spiraling interest rates and worries about borrowing. that certainly hasn't been borne out. american borrowing costs have been plummeting over the last few years. why do you think that is? >> the massive flights to safety. if the rest of the world and

particularly europe, which is as large if not larger as an economy than the u.s., is self-destructing, investors seek the safe haven of the u.s. treasury. >> does that mean that the u.s. -- >> doesn't guarantee you much return, but at least you get your capital back. >> but does that mean that the u.s. has more leeway -- >> it does, yeah. >> for example, to do infrastructure projects -- >> it always has had more leeway. i always said that the crisis that was happening, this goes back two years now in greece would spread to the rest of the mediterranean and might ultimately cross the atlantic. >> i don't think so. i think in one respect, the united kingdom has more leeway than america just because it isn't a reserve currency. it can -- it can allow its currency to fall. >> to depreciate. >> to depreciate without anyone taking any countermeasures. in the united states, the chinese don't allow that to happen essentially. so in that sense, britain has more leeway. and it can -- it can have less austerity. >> you would want more government spending across the western world, correct?

to reduce growth? >> i would like countries in the eurozone, in the european union and in britain and in the united states if necessary to suspend their fiscal austerity programs. i would say put them into cold storage for years, go on borrowing, get the economy growing again. and then you come to the structural problems, face the structural problems that you need to. if you do it now, you simply will get a shrinking economy. that's my prediction. i predicted it two years ago. and it's come to pass. now it may be wrong, maybe next year we're going to have a resumption of growth everywhere. i think the risks are on the other side. >> final word? >> i don't think that option exists for many countries right now. certainly didn't exist for most of the european countries. it may conceivably exist for germany. but remember, think of the argument that ken rogoff and colin rinehart have made repeatedly since they published "this time is different." once you get up to a debt-gdp ratio of 90% or thereabouts, the

room for maneuver is pretty much gone and the debt itself starts to be the drag on growth. and that unfortunately is the position of the united states and, indeed, most countries in the developed world. >> neil ferguson, robert skidelski, a wonderful rematch. we'll have to do a third one this time in paris to do it as the french open. up next, why this week's u.n. summit in rio will be a wasted opportunity. i'll have an interesting guest who will explain why. there's perhaps a 0 -- 0.6% of all deaths in the developing world caused by global warming. 13% of deaths caused by air and water pollution. let's get our priorities right. i needed a coach. our doctor was great, but with so many tough decisions i felt lost. unitedhealthcare offered us a specially trained rn who helped us weigh and understand all our options. for me cancer was as scary as a fastball is to some of these kids. but my coach had hit that pitch before. turning data into useful answers. we're 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers.

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this week, hundreds of world leaders and tens of thousands of environmentalists will convene in rio de janeiro for the u.n.'s conference on sustainable development. my guest says that summit will be a wasted opportunity. the u.n. is focused on the wrong target. for every person who might die from global warming, he says, 210 will die from health problems caused by a lack of clean water and pollution. bjorn lomborg is author of "the skeptical environmentalist" and other books, and he joins me now to explain all this. you have a foreign affairs article coming out in which you point out what the past history of these kinds of predictions and, you know, environmental concerns have been. explain that point briefly. >> fundamentally, it's the 40th anniversary of the limits to growth. the idea that we were going to run out of everything. even if we weren't, we were going to be screwed anyway

because we'd basically be polluting ourselves to death. >> this is the report that came out from stockholm, and it was the club of rome report, correct? >> yeah, it came out from rome. and it was the limits to growth report. >> right. >> that ran computer models, back when -- remember, computers seemed like they were telling the truth no matter what you put into them. and i think with the -- with the oil embargo in '73, just one year later and oil prices shooting up, there was a real sense that, yes, we are running out of everything. you know, we were running out of oil. and we need to conserve everything. and we are really on a very, very wrong path. in many ways, you can see it's set the environmental agenda certainly for a couple of decades. >> and then so what are the facts? >> well, the problem is they were wrong. they were first of all wrong that we were going to run out of food. perhaps more importantly for the environmental concern, they were wrong about the idea that we were going to run out of all resources. actually, if you look at the

cost of resources, which is the economists' way of looking at how many resources do we have left, the cost of resources generally have come down about sevenfold since 1850. and yes, it's ticked up in the last ten years. but still from about twice as much, but if you look at the whole curb, it's very clear, it's a clear downward trend. why? because innovation is much, much more important than using up the resources. the club of rome thought was there's only this much resources when we've used up that, we are really up a creek. but of course what they forgot was we find many more resources and we get much better at exploiting poor resources further away but even cheaper with technology. and that's really what we've done with virtually all resources. >> what about the other half of that report which was about pollution? >> yes. they also assumed -- and again, it makes sense. in a cultural setting, obviously industry is you put out -- you have belching smokestacks.

they thought as we get richer and richer and there are more and more people, you'll have more and more belching smokestacks. but of course, what they forgot was, technology actually handles a lot of that. now, we've actually seen air pollution come down in rich countries for most of the last century. it's not just the technology after the club of rome report. but of course, after '72, we put extra effort into making regulations that meant that we've gotten even lower levels of air pollution. >> and so you support those government regulations? >> absolutely. we want to have regulation where it makes sense. where it -- where there's lots of people dying, for instance, from air pollution. that is a real concern. but you should also recognize what is it that drives the ability to care about the environment? it is that you're rich enough that you don't have to worry about your kids dying tomorrow. and that's my real concern about the way we look into the future when we go down to rio in just a few days, what are we talking about there?

well, we're talking about going to a green economy, and we're talking about global warming. but in reality, the real issues of most of this world is still air and water pollution. why are we not talking about the important issues in the third world? why are we talking about -- if you will, somewhat more esoteric issues that clearly concerns first-world people? there is perhaps a 0.06% deaths in the developing world caused by global warming. there's 13% of all deaths caused by air and water pollution. let's get our priorities right. i'm blown away by virtually everything we talk about, if you read the u.n., their little leaflet that distribute for the rio summit, they show how we should all get electric cars and we should go organic and stuff like that. no. most people in developing world cannot afford an electric car. but what we should do is focus on innovation to make those cars

so cheap. then the next half century, everyone will want them. >> and how can we focus on air and water pollution in the third world? how do we deal with bringing that number down from 13%? >> well, there are two main solutions. one is that we have a lot of l technologies that we know how to get clean drinking water. we also know how to get much of the air pollution. most of the air pollution deaths are actually caused by indoor air pollution. people cooking with bad fuels like dung or cardboard. let's make sure they actually get access to fossil fuels. a lot of people may be uncomfortable but that's the reality that we live with and that's why 2 million people don't have to die in the developing world each year because of unsafe cooking and heating fuels. but the long-term solution for that, of course, is to make sure that people actually get richer in the third world. it is a poverty problem. i'm a little concerned about the fact that we talk a lot about the kyoto protocol but there's

another city with a protocol that we don't talk very much about, the doha round, the idea of free trade. that's one most economists would estimate would give much, much better opportunities in the long run for most countries in the world to actually get rid of their old problems, both environmental but also all the poverty related problems, and then start focusing on environmental problems. >> always a pleasure to have you on. come see us again. up next -- the last look -- why a text message from spain's prime minister has all of uganda a twitter. i'll explain.

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the go-the g-20 summit

begins next week. it represents two-thirds of the world's population, those 20 countries. how much of global gdp? is it a, 66%. b, 75%. c, 84%. or d, 95%. stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/fareed for more of the gps challenge and lots of insight and analysis. you can also follow us on facebook and twitter. remember if you miss a show, go to itunes. you can get the audio podcast for free or buy the video version. go there by typing itunes.com/fareed into your browser. you can also find our gps specials on itunes. the latest one on immigration which aired last week will go up on monday. buy it, you won't be disappointed. it is really special. this week's book of the week is -- "the dictator's learning curve" by william dobson. it is a great timely read. dobson clocked up more than

90,000 miles of travel to research the book. he's interviewed activists and government officials to understand modern dictators. it is a smart book and a fun read. now for the last look. we know that texting while driving is dangerous. spain's prime minister learned this week that texting while negotiating a bank bailout is also a bad idea. he reportedly typed out this message to his finance minister -- we're the number four power in europe. spain is not uganda. i don't know how it leaked out, but ugandans have taken their dissatisfaction to twitter using the #ugandaisnotspain. one ugandan tweeted, dear span, i'd rather live on ugandan bananas than beg 4loan. how's the austerity soup? uganda's economy will grow at over 4% this year. spain's will contract by almost

2%. uganda's public debt is 25% of gdp. spain's is 68%. in the last five years alone, the average ugandan's income has increased 15%. the average spaniard saw his contract by 6%. one spaniard may have gone overboard, tweeting if only we were uganda. well, uganda's economy is 100th the size of spain's. the correct answer to our gps challenge question was, c -- g-20 members represent 64% of the world's population. but 84% of global gdp. that number is down from 89% when the g-20 was formed in 1999 as other countries' shares have increased. still, that means the other 170-odd countries in the world add up to only 16% of global gdp. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week.

hello, everyone. i'm fredricka whitfield. rodney king is dead. police say he was found at the bottom of his california pool early this morning. as you recall from this video, king's beating by los angeles police back in 1991 was caught on videotape and then one year later sparked riots after the acquittal of the four officers involved. police say they haven't seen any signs of foul play. i'll be talking to a police captain involved in the investigation. plus, we'll look back at rodney king's life at 2: 30 eastern time. any minute now we are expecting results from greece's critical parliamentary elections. the vote is seen as a referendum on the country's debt deal with europe and greece's future in the eurozone. early exit polls show the race is extremely close. the outcome could have a significant impact on world financial markets. we'll have a live report from athens in the next hour.