most republicans do recognize -- >> i'm sorry. it's important but we got to go because we're running up against the top of the hour. i misread the clock. i apologize to my guests. i'm candy crowley. we're following the latest on the deadly train crash in new york city. our coverage continues now. >> we want to continue with our breaking news coverage of this deadly train crash in new york city. we'll welcome our viewers in the states and around the world. here's what we know right now. at least four people have died. at least 40 others injured. this is according to two sources close to the investigation and when you look at these images, it looks like the train came shy

of getting into the water. we know that at least five passenger cars went off the tracks. this all happened right around 7:00 a.m. eastern. you're looking at live pictures from wabc. with he have a crew on the ground. nic robertson joins me live by phone now. from your vantage point and from what you have heard from investigators, what's the latest? >> reporter: we can see the rescue workers as you can see from the helicopter pictures they still have ladders up against the side of the train and it appears at the moment that they have taken all of the people out of the carriages on their side. we're not seeing any work on the rescue workers on the side at the moment. that one possibly the lead almost in the water. others behind it crumpled up lying on their side. many years ago i was involved in a plane crash like this. all of those passengers in there it would have been a

disorientating experience as the train was thrown from the tracks lying on its side. we have been able to see at least one person being taken away in an ambulance. hazmat vehicles arriving on the scene. right now the emergency workers are focusing more it appears on the track than it is on the carriages and that's an indication that we have at the moment that potentially most of the casualties have been removed. there are some carriages of the train that i can't see from my vantage point but i'm looking down right on on those five carriages lying off the tracks. the track where they are laying is just around the bend. there's no indication yet why the train derailed. my own experience with a train crash is coming that the train derailed coming around the bend too fast. impossible to say this is the

situation here. the train and carriages lying just off of the bend here. >> stand by, nic. i want to go to a graphic that we have to show viewers this particular line. we're talking about the hudson line. this is the same line where a freight train derailed earlier in the summer. 83 million people ride in 2012. a lot of people could have been on that train. keep in mind, all of this in advance of monday. monday being a very busy travel day as people head back home from thanksgiving. from what you are hearing from investigators on the scene, is there any indication -- i know it's early here. any indication on what could have caused this accident this time? >> reporter: nobody is giving a reason at this time. the indications as we look at them, again, this incident took place just off what appears to be just after a bend in the track. there is no indication from what

we can see at the moment that there was a large amount of debris or a tree for example on the track. again, this is very early stages in the investigation. there would appear to be blue markers measuring the area where the train literally went up the embankment and carriage was flown off the track. that investigation is very clearly already under way. too soon for us to have details about this. >> nic robertson, please stand by. thank you for your reporting. i want to go to cnn supervisor producer. john, we understand that you live in new york but commute to d.c. and certainly with your role here at cnn you have a great deal of knowledge about transportation and travel regulations. what can you tell us about this particular line? >> good morning. this is actually when i lived in new york, this was my train station. very familiar with it.

it's part of metro north railway which is basically the artery between new york and westchester and connecticut. this particular line called the hudson line carries about 18,000 people a day during normal work days. it goes as far north as poughkeepsie 90 minutes north of the city and down the hudson line and right at this point where we are is part of the bronx and it makes a left turn and then sort of hugs the harlem river going down to new york. this tight turn is dutch for spewing devil because this is where hudson and harlem rivers meet and it's a problem for trains. as you mentioned earlier, a freight train accident here in the past year and a half and metro north itself is having a bit of problem with this

particular station and you may remember back in december there was a collision with two trains in connecticut about 70 people are so were hurt. no fatalities. hopefully the numbers will be less because this wasn't rush hour. >> we appreciate your reporting. the latest to our viewers. four people -- at least four people have died in this train derailment. 40 others are injured. we continue to monitor this situation on cnn. we bring you the latest as we get more information. for those tuning into "fareed zakaria gps" we go to that right after this break.

across the country has brought me to the lovely city of boston. cheers. and seeing as it's such a historic city, i'm sure they'll appreciate that geico's been saving people money for over 75 years. oh... dear, i've dropped my tea into the boston harbor. huhh... i guess this party's over. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

>> this is "gps" welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. first thing we'll do is take a step back and look at today's america. the obama care debacle through

the lens of history with smart historians. then, do we need to set a limit? that's what one surprising nation has just considered. i'll explain. and what makes students in south korea and finland so much better than their counterparts in other parts of the world including the united states? i've got the woman who wrote the book on it literally. and there's barely a dry eye in india and pakistan after this ad campaign. we'll bring you the reality behind the fiction. first, here's my take. it's thanksgiving week in the united states. time for americans to be grateful for their blessings but one thing you can be sure that most americans will not be expressing gratitude for is the

federal government. trust in the federal government is now 19%. close to an all-time low. and there does seem to be evidence to bear out this poor opinion. let's think about a foreign policy success or purported success like the geneva report on iran but rather the big complicated projects that government has to execute over the last decade. iraq. afghanistan. a new homeland security system. katrina. obama care. in almost every case the performance of the government has been plagued with mismanagement, massive cost overruns, long delays and poor performance. in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, federal agencies were lean, well managed and surprisingly effective. paul hoffman, the administrator of the marshall plan used to point out that his project came in on time and under budget. in the early 1960s, trust in the

american government was in 75% range. some federal agencies still maintain a culture of high performance. think of nasa, the centers for disease control, the federal reserve system or the defense department's research arm darpa. they are islands within a broader sea of immediate medioc. talented young americans don't dream of becoming great bureaucrats. the new deal in world war ii might have changed that for a while but over the last 30 years, anti-government attitudes have risen substantially and the ever increasing obstacles, disclosure forms, political vetting, to knock out good candidates. the problem is bipartisan. on the right there are too many people who believe that their role in washington is simply to attack and defund the

government. this relentless onslaught robs federal agencies of mission or ambition. cutbacks have limited their ability to take on new challenges. seemingly, every agency is in cost cutting and damage control mode. on the left, political agendas and wish lists have trumped a focus on excellence. the federal government has become a dumping ground for all kinds of objectives from staffing requirements to procurement rules to organizational structures. the rise of public sector unions have made the workforce less flexible and responsive. the author of a government ill executed points out every time congress passes its new mandates, new layers of management are created to enforce them. the end product is that by calculation, the average federal employee now receives policy and budget guidance through nearly 60 layers of decision makers. i have an idea.

why not launch a bipartisan push for a streamlining of the federal government. the last major effort which was successful was chaired by herbert hoover. we should streamline the administrative structure creating easier ways for talented people to enter government and creating the right incentives so government bureaucracies can work effectively and efficiently. there are those who worry that if government works too well, we'll want more of it who simply want to starve the beast. but so much of what government is doing badly cannot be outsourced, privatized or abolished. national and homeland security after all are core provinces of the federal government. if you add in all of the private contractors doing government work, there are currently about 15 million people who execute the laws, mandates under a functions of the federal government.

surely urgent and important task is to make sure that they are all working as effectively and efficiently as they possibly can. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column and let's get started. this thanksgiving week in american history seems different. seems the parties are farther apart than ever before and discord in washington is worse than before and the government has never been more dysfunctional but is any of that really true? i find it crucial to accept back every once in a while and look at the present through the lens of the past so we invited four of our favorite historians to join us. walter isaacson once ran cnn and is now author of bestselling

biographies. and nancy gibbs first woman to lead "time" magazine and my boss. she co-wrote a great book about the american presidency. john has written about andrew jackson, franklin roosevelt and winston churchill and he was my boss when he was editor and david is professor at the graduate center of the city university of new york and the author of books on joseph kennedy, the new one, andrew carnegie among others. we'll start with you. i've been struck by the reaction to president obama's geneva agreement with iran. furious reaction from the right. i was thinking back to your book on kissinger when nixon and kissinger made the opening to china. they were selling out taiwan a d

conservative was discovered and they were cutting taiwan off and all of that within a day or two and yet the conservative opposition wasn't that bad. they managed to win them over. >> that's the name too. is iran like china? in some ways, you know, that's a little bit shallow. there is a strategic interest that kissinger would have appreciated which he does because he's talked about it recently. there are interests that iran has. only 30 years we had falling out with them. when kissinger was in power it was a cornerstone of the nixon doctrine, a good relationship with iran. you could do with iran, play them off with sunni powers just as kissinger played off china to russia and it would be a great strategic coo. it's a grand breakthrough.

>> think about opposition to opening of china. it all melted away pretty soon. they reconciled themselves to the fact this great cause that conservatives championed was now -- we were on the other side. we were for red china. >> it was a tough time. george herbert walker bush was u.n. ambassador trying to save taiwan at the same time kissinger was in china. there have been complaints about that. he will say he didn't tell the secretary of state either. he certainly wouldn't tell the ambassador. i do think to my mind the most tired analogy is munich and you see this on the right. this is the next munich. the new munich. there was a munich. when you play that card, i think you really have to have a bit more behind it than you do here. >> germany was second richest country in the world. iran's gdp is the size of the pentagon's budget. what do you think? >> there are no historical

analogies than comparing munich or nixon and china from which we have generation of perspective to a deal that's hours, days old. this could prove to be a turning point as obviously the president would like to argue that it's long overdue reset of a relationship. it could also fall apart. this is why everyone is making the point. this is a test. even obama is using the term. this is a test. let's see what intentions are. let's not guess. let's actually take them at their word to the extent of, okay, let inspectors in. slow down enrichment process. are you serious about moving to a different footing, returning to the community of nations. we're going to know how this turns out. it will take more than an hour and a half to make a judgment. >> david, i have to ask you about something which this is coming at a time when obama has been battered and trust in government has been battered by obama care. you are writing about kennedys and joseph kennedy, that was the last time particularly jack

kennedy's time when trust in government was incredible. 73% of americans said they would trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time in 1960. it's now 19%. >> i know. watergate didn't help. i think we lost a generation because of watergate followed on vietnam. i mean, it's not simply government. if we look at the major institutions, if we look at the church, if we look at higher education, we can look at all of these institutions. the '60s rebellion quieted down but it left a mark. i don't think these institutions have entirely recovered their credibility. >> we have to take a break. when we come back, we'll ask is this always going to happen in second terms? is this the second term curse?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] get your taste of the season, at raley's, bel air, and nob hill. >> we are back with walter, david, nancy and john. nancy, let me try out a theory with you that second terms are almost by definition now going to be bad because if you think

about it, after the 22nd amendment, after they said you can't run for more than two terms, you had eisenhower who had a good second term. after that, every president has had a lousy second term. and i wonder whether the fact that the president is now by definition not just tradition but by constitution, a lame duck in his second term means that he just doesn't have the kind of shadow of power that he had, the political heft. >> it's true that there are certain disadvantages whether it's the lack of political juice or the fact that often the a-team you could recruit for your first term is tired and may be replaced by a second string team. i think the whole second term curse doesn't hold up. it's a sloppy analysis. we have of the modern presidents, you had two of them, ronald reagan and bill clinton, who were more popular in average during the second term than they were in their first.

and then we had despite impeachment. bill clinton calculated that impeachment was now working for him and his opponents overreach and he would come out ahead. and then you have harry truman who even though you would have thought he was cursed and left office at immense levels of unpopularity, he's the patron saint of all second term presidents because he's ranked as in the top ten of presidents in our history. >> the guy you are writing about now didn't have a chance to get a second term. >> george bush, sr. part of the second problem is mathematical. twice as much time for the weight of the world and all sorts of problems to come to bear. and i think it is striking that of those two presidencies you

mention, reagan and clinton and i remember fareed writing the 2007-2008 george w. bush, they were starting to get things right particularly on foreign policy because suddenly congress george h.w. bush talked about how much he disliked talking about hr 62. >> he and obama have something in common. >> very much in common. foreign policy where they feel more unilaterally enabled is where you will see the president focus more and more. >> the danger is midterm elections because every president since 1900 with the exception of clinton rebounding from impeachment has lost and lost rather heavily that midterm election so the presidents recover their popularity but after the midterm election, there's very little they can do. >> as a party political figure,

he seems to lose power once he's out of the game. >> if last year when we did this show i told you that he would have gotten a deal in syria that got rid of chemical weapons and had an opening for iran in which they were stopping enrichment at the 5% level -- >> that's all foreign policy. >> and by the way, if, this is a big if, the website gets working and people start signing up for healthcare, it's a major transformation which many of us want which is better healthcare coverage for all americans. you would have had a good second term held up at the moment by a glitch in healthcare websites and some of the bad mistakes he made on policy. >> tea party is about social issues. immigration reform -- those 80 people in the house will not pass it. >> i think the other thing that happens here is as a president runs his last election, his view gets broader and broader.

just at the moment everyone else is in the system and gets narrower and narrower. they have another election. everyone gets to deal with it in congress and has another election. he doesn't. talking to john kerry has a lot of appeal. talking to susan rice has a lot of appeal. >> did you find that ex-presidents when they reflected, were there regrets? did they look back on particularly that second term because that was their last chance to do anything? >> they all left office with regret to things they had left undone. no one felt they got the job done. that's the nature of the beast. they were very aware of time running out. clinton went nuts. he was pacing around the white house. >> especially on camp david and middle east. >> even if they are exhausted and had a powerful eight-year run, the time is running out and there are always things left to do. >> one thing george w. bush was really furious about not getting done was immigration reform. he wanted that. >> i'm going to ask a silly

question. one year from now when president obama's approval rating -- 39% now, would it have substantially improved 5% higher than now? >> absolutely. au you'll see healthcare kick in and that will be popular and an iran deal that will transform our policy in that region and the syria deal. i think he's on the upswing. >> 5% is almost margin of error. talking 10, probably not. >> absolutely. you can correct a website. it may take time. it may take more time than he ever expected but that can be corrected. >> that will transform? >> it has to. he'll run into other problems with the affordable care act other than the technical ones. >> this is your cover story. >> this will be battled for the next 12 months. i also think five points is setting the bar low.

>> nanthank you so much. much more up ahead. why one of the most capitalist and business friendly countries attempted to cap ceo salaries at 12-1. i will explain. ♪ [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know who's coming. the carts keep everyone on the right track. the power tools introduce themselves. all the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. and the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing that's stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everyone goes home happy.

you're history. selsun blue itchy dry scalp. gets to the root of dandruff and hydrates the scalp. selsun blue itchy dry scalp.

i'm candy crowley in washington with a check of the headlines. at least four people are dead and 63 injured in a train derailment in new york city. the southbound metro commuter train went after the track shortly after 7:00 this morning. the train operator told investigators he applied the brakes but the train didn't slow down. some 100 first responders are on the scene as is new york governor andrew cuomo. the obama administration says there has been "dramatic progress" in improvements to the trouble healthcare website. officials said they met the goal of fixing the site so it works for vast majority of users. the administration set a november 30th deadline for improving the website plagued by frequent crashes since its launch. shock and sadness in hollywood over the death of actor paul walker. the star of the "fast and

furious" movie franchise was killed saturday in a fiery cash crash near los angeles. police are investigating the cause of the crash but say speed was a factor. paul walker was 40 years old. those are your top stories. cnn will have extensive coverage of the new york city train derailment coming up at the top of the hour. now back to fareed zakaria gps. now for a what in the world segment. if there's one country in the world that looks like a eutopia, it must be switzerland. 65% more than the average american income. everyone has great healthcare, child care and the unemployment rate is 3%. almost no corruption. according to oecd of 34 developed countries surveyed, the swiss have the greatest

degree of trust in their government and it's a spectacular country with great traditions of skiing, cheese, chocolates and wine. what possibly could go wrong? well, quite a lot actually. the swiss are furious about income inequality. the story is a familiar one. in 1984, top earners in swiss firms made six times as much as bottom earners. today, they make 43 times what bottom earners make. at some banks and firms, ceos make 200 times the salary of the lowest paid employee. before you assume things about europe and european attitudes toward capitalism, switzerland is one of the most business friendly countries in the world. the conservative heritage foundation has an index of economic freedom, switzerland

ranks fifth in the world but swiss have become more concerned about the free market sm so some political groups came up with a plan called one is to 12 initiative. the highest paid executive should make maximum 12 times what the lowest paid employee makes. no one should make in one month what one makes in a year. the proposal was put to a national referendum last week. i think it would have been disastrous if it had passed. thankfully better sense prevailed. you see it's a worthy notion to tackle income inequality but by capping ceo salaries or senior executives to a fraction of what the market sets, you could be sure of a massive exodus of top talent and top companies. switzerland ranks first in the world for attracting workers and third for retaining them.

those rankings would have plummeted. right or wrong, top earners would have moved somewhere else or companies would have played illegal games. this was only the latest re referendum. in march a marge majority of swiss voted to end giant exit packages for ceos. another vote is in the works. the swiss are debating a proposal to give every citizen a minimum cash stipend of $2,800 a month for doing nothing at all. basically free money that arrives in your checking account every 30 days. all of these proposals in capitalist and business friendly switzerland no less reveal a larger global anxiety about inequality. no country is immune. not even switzerland which is more equal as a society than many european countries and of course much more equal than the united states. in fact, one reason why these votes are taking place is because swiss law enshrines

people power through referendum. there's an important lesson for all of us to learn from the swiss example. we as a society need to deal with concerns about income equality. if we don't come up with a series of sensible solutions, it is only a matter of time before populism take over with phony solutions that will only make things worse and at that point any sensible measure will seem too little too late. up next, are kids in finland and south korea that much smarter than kids in america? if so, why? i have a great guest that went to those countries and compared the school systems. right back. hd "

america is exceptional in many ways. sadly secondary education is not one of them. the most recent rankings for the program for international student assessment has been american 15 year olds ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math among other developed nations. countries like finland and south korea rank near the top.

in 2011 gps special, we went to those two countries to see what they were doing differently. amanda went one step further and followed american kids as they spent a year abroad in high school in those two countries and in poland. the book is called the smartest kids in the world and how they got that way. amanda ripley joins me. what did you find about those three countries that struck you? you have three models you say they represent. what are they? >> so south korea is the pressure cooker model. the extreme case of what you see all over asia where kids are working night and day literally under a lot of family pressure to get very high test scores. now, south korea does get those high test scores but at grave costs. finland is in many ways the opposite extreme of south korea. not in all ways but in some. finland is what i call the

utopia model. kids are doing less homework than our kids but achieving at the top of the world on tests of critical thinking in math, reading and science with very little variation from school to school or from socioeconomic status from one to the other. >> why did you choose poland? >> poland is the surprise. poland is a country with a high level of poverty and has radically improved its education outcomes over the past ten years. poland is not yet at the level of finland or korea but a place that shows that there is hope. change happens even in places with problems. in a way looking at poland is almost like going back in time and looking at finland and korea 50 years ago. >> talk a little bit more about the finland model. that's the one that's the most intriguing. what makes finland work? why are those test scores so high?

>> it's remarkable to everyone including everyone in finland. they can't quite believe it year after year. one thing that they have done that's very clear and is very unusual around the world is in the late 1960s they shut down their teacher training colleges which were like ours of highly variable selectivity and quality and they reopened them in the top eight most elite universities in the land as part of a broader reform of higher education. when they did that, it setoff a series of cascading consequences that i don't even know that they realized. one thing that happened is the obvious. you eventually have teachers who themselves have advantage of a very strong education which makes it easier to teach higher order thinking skills. >> correct me if i'm wrong, they draw teachers from the top ten or 20% of the graduating class. we draw teachers from bottom third. the. >> yes. thank you.

we educate twice as many teachers as we need. in these colleges, there's low bar for entry. you don't have to have good grades yourself in order to get in. that's true around the world actually. that's very common. finland is unusual for doing that. i think what's really surprising about it and what i noticed when i spent time with kids in finland is that kids pick up on this. so there's a signaling effect like economists would say where you know how hard it is to get into teacher training college and that alone isn't enough but it sends this message to everyone, parents, taxpayers, politicians and students that this is serious. you are serious about education and that teaching is really hard. not just in rhetoric but in reality. so it adds this credibility to the whole enterprise that helps kids buy into the promise of education. >> you also point out something about all of these countries and this is true of all three of

them which is there is almost no sports in the best schools in the world. >> right. kids play sports but not in school. it is separate from school. pickup games or community rec centers. not a part of the core mission of school. this is controversial. i get in a lot of trouble when i talk about this. americans love their sports and american kids love their sports. when i surveyed hundreds of exchange students, they all agreed that sports were more important to their american peers than their peers back home. many of them really like that. they liked that there was school spirit and this bonding. the problem is that sports can sometimes if you don't constantly keep it contained, eat away at the mission of school which is supposed to be education. so when we are routinely spending two to three times per football player what we spend per math student, when we routinely have teachers leaving to coach away games and have to

bring in substitutes and we spend tens of thousands on buses for marching band, that should be weighed against the benefit. >> it seems to me what you say is systems are quite different in three countries. structures are different. one thing that's true is there's a psychology that says school is hard. you have to spend a lot of time at it. you have to work hard. you have to succeed and that's missing in america. >> it's almost exactly the same attitude many of us take toward sports toward academics. it's literally. this is important. a big contest at the end. not everyone is going to win. to get better you have to practice and work harder. and get more help. you're not just bad at math. that's really powerful combination when you take that intensity on education and when you make it rigorous through highly supportive teachers and back it up. kids know if this is bogus or not. >> did it leave you depressed about america? >> no, actually.

oddly i felt more optimistic when i came back than when i left. i feel like we have 45 states that have now adopted common core state standards. big fights still happening and still to come about that. those are more rigorous in math and reading which is much more aligned particularly in math with what these countries are doing. that's an obvious first step. not enough but exciting that it's even happening. in 45 states. that's a huge deal for america. and i think more and more people are starting to talk about the quality of our education colleges to get into education college in finland is like getting into m.i.t. in the united states. imagine what could follow if that were true here. you could make a case to pay teachers more and to give them more freedom in the classroom and to finally give that profession the respect it deserves. >> good luck getting sports out though. >> that will never happen. >> pleasure to have you on. up next, is immigration reform dead and what happens in the

2016 presidential election if it is? my interview with the former mayor of los angeles. charitable giving. really.ches y i get bonuses even working part-time. where i work, over 400 people are promoted every day. healthcare starting under $40 a month. i got education benefits. i work at walmart. i'm a pharmacist. sales associate. i manage produce. i work in logistics. there's more to walmart than you think. vo: opportunity. that's the real walmart. hoo-hoo...hoo-hoo. hoo-hoo hoo. sir... i'll get it together i promise... heeheehee. jimmy: ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? ronny: i'd say happier than the pillsbury doughboy on his way to a baking convention.

get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

last week the world's longest commercial flight touched down for the last time. the flight was discontinued bringing me to my question of the week. what is now the longest distance you can travel on a nonstop commercial flight? if you're a geography wiz, you should be able to work this out. a, dubai to los angeles. b, sidney to dallas. c, hong kong to new york. d, johannesburg to atlanta. this week we have "islam without extremes." the muslim world needs to embrace not only democracy but also liberalism. it's really the best book about a modern interpretation of islam you can find out there. it has an excellent epilog on the arab spring and now for the

last look. i want to show you a video everyone in india and pakistan is watching rad ining right now. it's about an old man in india and an old man in pakistan. they may live in different countries today but before 1947, under british rule, they grew up in the same town playing games together. how could they reconnect all of these years later? well, try google, which of course made the ad to promote its product. a few quick searches of their childhood and a reunion is arranged.

the ad has been seen by millions of people and generated an outpouring of support in india and pakistan. according to a pew survey, four out of ten say pakistan is their biggest national threat. 6 out of 10 say the same about india. 70% of indians and 62% of pakistanis say improving relations between the two countries should be a priority. i hope more indians and pakistanis can watch google's ad and remember they have far more in common than they have differences. go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to the full video. and the correct answer is b,

sidney to dallas, which covers 8,578 miles. johannesburg to atlanta was a close second at 8,439 miles. and that trip would take you a longer amount of time at roughly 17 hours. thanks to some helpful tale winds, sidney to dallas is a mere 15.5 hours. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. good morning from washington. i'm joe johns. welcome to our viewers in the u.s. and around the world. we begin this hour with breaking news. at least four people are dead after a commuter train goes off the tracks in new york city. we're also following the outpouring of grief in hollywood and beyond after a fiery car crash claims the life of "fast and furious" actor paul walker. "reliable sources" will return next sunday as new host cnn's