so i picked budapest, hungary, and i landed in this place, and i couldn't believe what was happening. and, you know, i was only, like i said, i was 20 years old, so it was, it was very unclear to me what was going on. it was unclear to everybody. and so when i came back, i realized that i had to understand what i had seen there, and i'd seen something that other people hadn't seen. people hadn't been there to see what it was like at that time. so i needed to, i felt i needed to explain what happened all across the region. >> dr. johanna bachmann is an assistant professor of sociology and global affairs here at george mason university. here is her first book published by stanford university press, "markets in the name of socialism: the left-wing origins of neoliberalism." thank you for talking with us on booktv. >> thank you very much. >> thomas friedman and michael mandelbaum argue that the is facing four major challenges that need to be addressed immediately if we're to continue leading the world.

they explain what those are next. this is about an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> we're going to have some real substance, but we're also going to have some great theater, so i hope that in the spirit of theater you will all turn off your cell phones, your pagers, your phones and everything else that's electronic and that can be -- i know our speakers will appreciate it, and i'd like to see that happen. so i'm jessica einhorn, i'm dean of science, and i thank you all for joining us this evening. it's my pleasure to welcome you, the students, the alumni, the friends and faculty to celebrate the book launch of our distinguished professor of american foreign policy, michael mandelbaum, here with his esteemed co-author, new york times columnist and pulitzer prize-winning author thomas friedman. it's a great pleasure to welcome tom back to the podium. those of you who are loyal

readers of tom friedman's column, and i know that includes a lot in this audience, already know of the friendship of our two authors. they seem to have the best of bonds. based on intellectual respect and activated by their mutual pleasure in finding ways to explain the world's problems through brilliant writing. that is both understandable and entertaining to the laymen and expert alike. i greatly enjoyed this most recent book which combines so much of what we have admired in each of them before. as i told professor mandelbaum, my only regret was that i did not start underlining all the best metaphors and turns of phrase from chapter one onwards. i think we should sponsor a web-based event with competition for the top ten, and i know that we'd have at least 50 entries. in my reading that used to be us is a presidential platform

waiting to be adopted and shared with the wider public. as you know from their last chapter, or perhaps you don't know but as you'll discover, our authors are not necessarily expecting either major party to seize on the real agenda before us, and perhaps we'll hear more about their hopes for how electoral change will take place in the form of a third name on the ballot at this important juncture in our history. but you've come here to spend as much time as possible with our dynamic duo, so let me begin the program with an introduction of my colleague, professor michael mandelbaum. and he, in turn, will introduce his friend and co-author. professor mandelbaum is the christian a. hearner professor, founder of this school of american foreign policy and the director of the american policy program at sais. he's one of the leading authorities on international affairs and is known for his extraordinary ability to explain with great clarity the meaning

and the consequence of conflicts, global developments and trends. the world affairs council of america named him one of the most influential people in american foreign policy. he's the author or co-author of over a dozen books just in the last ten years. he began with the ideas that conquered the world which has been translated into seven languages including arabic and chinese. and the frugal superpower, his 12th book -- the one before this one -- was published in 2010. professor mandelbaum and professor friedman, welcome. and, professor mandelbaum, the podium is yours. [applause] >> well, thank you. we are going to do a sequential duet, and i'm going to speak second, so let me introduce the

first speaker. i'll be brief because to this sais audience and, i think, to our c-span audience as well he really needs no introduction. my friend and co-author, thomas l. friedman, is the foreign affairs columnist for "the new york times." he's a three-time pulitzer prize winner. he is the author of five previous books, all extremely influential, all bestsellers including "from beirut to jerusalem" and "the world is flat." tom, it's a pleasure to welcome you to sais. the floor is yours. [applause] >> michael, thank you very much. it's -- am i on here? can you hear me? it's great to be back here at

sais. i didn't know i was a professor, but i am now, and i'm going to keep that pocketed. [laughter] so what mike and i are going to do, as he said s a sequential duet. we're going to kind of break up the book, this is how we wrote it, and give you a basic overview, and then we look forward to taking questions. now, you know, we've been on the road for a few weeks now, and whenever people hear the title of our book, "that used to be us," the first thing they ask is, but does it have a happy ending? [laughter] and we tell everybody, it absolutely does. we just don't know whether it's fiction or nonfiction. [laughter] that really depends on us. now, you might ask how did two foreign policy wonks end up writing a book about domestic american politics and policy? and the answer is, as jessica

hinted, michael and i are old friends, and we are neighbors out in bethesda, and we've basically been having a 20-year, running conversation about foreign policy. often interrupted with, honey -- i'm on the phone with michael, can you just wait a second? and we started to notice something in the last couple of years. we would start out every conversation talking about the world. but we would end every conversation talking about america. and we basically realized after a while that america, its fate, future, vigor and vitality, really is the biggest foreign policy issue in the world. and unless we really tackle that and thought that through, we really couldn't think clearly about foreign policy. michael and i are both american nationalists. we really do believe that america plays a pivotal role in holding up the global system.

we are the tent pole that holds up the world, for better and for worse, and we think for most of the time and in most places for much better. we provide enormous global governance for the world. and michael's written about that in his last book. but we are convinced that if this tent pole buckles or frays, your kids won't just grow up in a different america, they'll grow up in a different world. they'll grow up at a fundamentally different world if we cannot provide the american dream for another generation. after all, when britain went into decline, america was there to pick up the pieces and really provide that global golfer nance. and if we now go into decline, who is there to pick up the pieces? so michael and i, um, are movie buffs. michael in particular, actually. and we have a lot of movie references in the book.

and there's one in particular that really captures for us kind of the pivotal moment we're at, it's from that 1958 classic "touch of evil" starring orson welles. a murder about kidnapping, -- a movie about kidnapping, murder. wells plays a crooked cop. at one point he stumbles into a brothel and finds the proprietor, marlene dietrich, who is also a fortune teller with cards spread out in front of her. read my future for me, welles says. you haven't got any, she replies. [laughter] your future is all used up. it was really that fear about our own country that prompted us to write this book. now, let me jump right to the conclusion. we do not believe that is the case. we certainly don't believe it is

inevitable. but it was out of concern about our future right now and how we think it through and how we do what is necessary to make sure it is not all used up that brought michael and i to write this book. and so let me just share with you the first few paragraphs because it really frames the whole book. the opening chapter is called if you see something, say something. this is a book about america that begins in china. in september 2010 tom attended the world economic forum summer conference. five years earlier getting there had involved a three and a half hour car ride from beijing to a polluted, crowded chinese version of detroit. but things had changed. now to get to tee yen general you head to the beijing south railroad station and an oval roof covered with 3,246 solar panels. you buy a ticket from an electron icky crossing offering

choices in chinese and english, and you board a world class high-speed train that makes the trip 72 miles in 29 minutes. the conference itself took place at the beijing convention and exhibition center, a massive, beautifully-appointed structure the like of which exists in few american cities. as if convention center wasn't impressive enough, the conference's co-sponsors gave some facts and figures about it. they noted it contained a total floor area of 2.5 million square feet and that, quote, construction of the convention center started on september 15, 2009, and was completed in may 2010. as i read those lines, i walked around saying september, october, november, december -- [laughter] that's eight and a half months. returning home to maryland from that trip, i was describing the conference and at one point anne

interrupted, excuse me, tom, have you been to our subway stop lately? now, we live in bethesda and often use the subway to get to work. i had just been there and knew exactly what anne was talking about. the two escalators there had been under repair for nearly six months. [laughter] while the one being fix z was closed, the other had to be converted into a two-way staircase. this was creating a huge mess. everyone had to squeeze single file down one locked-down escalator and up the other. it sometimes took ten minutes just to get out of the station, a sign on the closed escalator said the repairs were part of a massive modernization project. [laughter] what was taking this modernization project so long? we investigated. a spokeswoman for washington metro said that, quote, the repairs were schedule today take about six months and are on

schedule. mechanics need 10-12 weeks to fix each escalator. a simple comparison made a startling point. it took china's construction group 32 weeks to build a world class convention center from the ground up including giant escalators in every corner -- [laughter] and it was taking the washington metro crew 24 weeks to repair two tiny escalators of 21 steps each. we searched a little further and found that on november 14th "the washington post" ran a letter to the editor from mark thompson of kensington, maryland, a metro writer. he wrote as someone who has ridden metro for more than 30 years, i can think of an easier way to assess the health of the escalators. for decades they ran silently and efficiently, but over the past several years when the escalators are running, aging parts have generated horrific noises that sound to me like a tiran sauce rex trap inside a tar pit, screen. ing its dying screams. [laughter] the quote we found most

disturbing, though, was from a maryland community news story about the long lines at rush hour. it quoted benjamin ross, a regular metro rider, as saying my impression standing online there is that people have sort of gotten used to it. people have sort of gotten used to it. indeed, that sense of resignation, that sense that, well, this is just how things are in america today, that sense that america's best days are behind it and china's best days are ahead of it has become the subject of water cooler, dinner party, grocery line and lass room conversations all across america today. so do we buy the idea increasingly popular in some circles that britain owned the 19th century and america dominated the 20th century, and china will inevitably reign supreme in the 21st century, and all we have to do is fly from shanghai to washington and take the subway to know that? no, we do not. and we have written this book to explain why no american, young

or old, should resign himself or herself to that view east. the two of us are not pessimists when it comes to america and its future. we are optimists. but we are frustrated. we are two frustrated optimists. the title of this opening chapter is, "if you see something, say something." that is the mantra that the department of homeland security plays over and over on loud speakers in airports and railroad stations around the country. well, we have seen and heard something, and millions of americans have too. what we have seen is not a suspicious package left under a stairwell. what we've seen is hide anything plain sight. we've seen something that possesses a greater threat to our national security and well being than anything al-qaeda does. we've seen a country with enormous potential falling into the worst sort of decline. ..

>> the second it challenge comes from the revolution of information technology with which we are all familiar as part of our jarret -- daily lives. which has among other things, stripped away whole categories of jobs hundreds

of thousands what millions used to do to make a good living. those jobs are now gone mansion not coming back. that is a huge challenge. a third challenge stems from a chronic annual deficit and the national debt that piles higher every year as a result of the continuation of the annual deficits. those of us in washington are familiar with the federal budget deficit which is the most serious but not the only one. it is important to note all over the disease there is state and municipal governments that has made to mentioned -- commitments that they cannot pay. deficit debt is simply not a federal problem. the fourth, and final

challenge is the one that stays at -- stems from our pattern of energy consumption the enormous reliance on fossil fuels and the impact of the burning of fossil fuels from the environment in on the climate. meeting these challenges or failing to the extent to which we can meet these challenges will determine the rate of economic growth united states enjoys in the future. and where the rate of american economic growth is concerned lots of things are more important than money and they all cost money. but in particular the rate of economic growth will determine whether the

current generation of americans could pass on to the succeeding generation in which it is possible to do even better than the current generation has done and is commonly known as the american dream. the american dream today is very much in play but also very much at risk. it has been the core of the kind of society fifth united states has been for almost two centuries. but the implication for the success or the failure the country has to meet the challenges goes beyond the american standard of living. as tom noted, the whole world is at stake. in the sense of both of us believe the united states plays a uniquely valuable role in the world extensiveq foreign policy is the tenth

pole that holds up international system whose political and economic dimensions are today morton nine that has ever been the case in history. it united states cannot sustain economic growth, we will not have the resources or the political will to sustain the global file role. if that happens, everybody lives in a world where dangerous and less prosperous. how are we doing too meet these challenges? not very well. we are not measuring up to the task. for this there are a number of reasons. we devote a chapter to explain why we have done so badly on what is our national agenda. one reason is we misread the

end of the cold war. we thought that was a great historical triumphant for the united states. it was but it was also something else. it ushered in a world in which the united states would and it does face unprecedented challenges. those unfortunately we have all but ignored. some of these are subtle or incremental one of the purposes is to call people's attention for most of them in one way or another if some kind of sacrifice is required and we as a number of reasons that we all lie in the book have gotten out of the habit to take an

enormous toll on future generations for the public-private partnership it continues to have five basic parts. the first part his education. historic the united states has educated the work force and population up to the level of technology so americans take advantage of whatever the existing

technology was to become the most productive work force in the world. second, the united states has always invested in infrastructure from the building of the erie canal to the beginning of the 19th century, this country has always built usually through the public-private partnership the best canals, roads, highways, sup erhighways and airports of the world in these forms the framework for big earth commercial activity. third, especially since world war ii the united states has invested heavily in research and development to push out the frontiers of knowledge to develop innovation to bring the market new products thereby sustain american economic growth. the fourth part of the

formula is immigration. for most of our history we have had an immigration policy that attracts welcomes and retains what we call a high iq risk takers. people able to discover new things in start new businesses that have contributed be enormously to america's success. fifth and finally, we have striven to have an appropriate regulatory environment. we have regulation scripted to prevent dangerous access such as those experience of the financial system in 2008 also regulatory system but not as soak invite -- confining to discourage the risk-taking and innovation upon which economic growth can. we have got away from that formula.

we have not reinvested it and in order to prosper in this century we have to get back to bring it up today. all four challenges are important but the most important challenge for the united states is the one created by the merger of globalization and the information technology revolution and tom will tell you about that. >> now to go back and think about what happened with the forces from 2004, that was really what we meant by the merger of globalization. so when we sat down to work

on this book for this chapter in particular, the new challenge of the merger of globalization and i t, i would back to the first edition of "the world is flat." i cracked open the book to look in the index and i discovered that facebook was not to in it. when i was out there "the world is flat." facebook did not exist exist, twitter, 4g, linkdin was a prison, applications were for college and for most people skype was a typo [laughter] all of that happen-- happened in the last six years. none of those existed. less than a decade. what has really happened in the world we would agree the

most important thing that has happened in the world over the last 10 years but it happened under the mask of the 2008 subprime crisis and 9/11. the world went from connected to hyper connected. that is actually what happened and that has fundamentally revolutionize the workplace, the educational environment, and what students need to learn. the last time i had of book talk there was a cameraman behind that camera. there is not now. that job was outsourced. not to mexico or china but to the past. that is the merger of globalization and itt is all about and it is changing everything. you can see this from little stories in the newspaper. i love collecting the seeks

i was in october -- chindia in october 2010. there was an eye to their that reported the telecommunications firm to started to providing 3g mobile network service that the amount days top of mount everest. it noted the service would allow thousands of climbers and trackers drawn to the region every year access to high-speed internet and video calls from the summit of mount everest using their mobile phone. [laughter] can you imagine the number of calls being made from the top of mount everest that say you'll never guess i'm calling from? [laughter] the paper connecting of the world shows up in other ways than year times reported that cornell college, a wonderful small liberal arts

college -- cornell college this year 110 applications. of that 1600 students one at of 10 came from china and 50% of those have perfect 800 on the math as 80. so when i wrote to "the world is flat" i said you're not just competing you are literally competing for a place at the grinnell from public-school 21 in china, tolstoy a moscow, you are now competing head-to-head with them in the hyper connected world. what does that mean for the workplace? what michael and i decided talking about education what

does that mean for the workplace? so we broke up the section of the book has to be like movies set up in the year was the first chapter george clooney is a person whose job is to groundfire people face-to-face he loses his job when the as assistant figures out a more efficient way to do that with the internet. that is the movie of our time. that is what happens to the workplace when it is hyper connected. now to put this in their jargon they speak about this gills by polarization and in english, that means if you

have the kind of skills, problem-solving and creative thinking to take advantage of the hyper connecting, you will be fine. but if you don't, there is nothing for you. the labor market is divided into three broad segments for the first or people who have the skills that are doctors, lawyers, musicians, artists, accountants, profes sors, a journalist hopefully, people who do things that cannot be described by the algorithm and therefore cannot be outsourced, automated, digit ized or robotic size because basically what happens, when the world goes from connected to piper connected , if you imagines a world was the big class at johns hopkins though whole

curve has risen. because every employer like those who run c-span , now have access to cheaper and cheaper, more and more powerful automation, resources, produ ctivity tools, robots, not just cheap labor sold curve rises. so we have to rise with at and we have to find something extra. those are the nine routines skills. that will not be roboticized or digitize. those 13 jobs are being crushed the cameraman it turns out was a routine job it could be roboticized and it has. when the world gets this

hyper connected whatever can be will be done. those jobs have collapsed but those who have skills that are not local that has to be done face-to-face. the butcher the baker the candlestick maker. those skills that depends on the health of your local economy. those of the three categories. will we have discovered the big change to go from a connected world to a hyper connected world what we are demanding now those creators as servers and what we discovered is that every employer is looking for the same employee.

looking for nine retain critical thinking and problem solving skills. in order to get the interview. not just accountants and lawyers but creative creators. creative lawyer, creative scientist, accretive professor because of the were not a creative professor, jessica can use all of this technology to bring in the best professor in the world in put them up against you. don't think that will not happen the next five years. you have to be creative now reaching the same as on the other end. it is not efficient to be a sir but a creative sir. we discovered this in that chapter called help-wanted. what a looking for?

we went to a lowered firm and we went to dupont and the world's biggest green collar firm, and the u.s. army, we ask all four of them the same question. what you looking for? they're looking for people who can do critical thinking, problem-solving, in order to get the interview. what all four are actually looking for, they explain their people who can not only do the job, the complex task, but in fined, reinvent, reengineer the job as they are doing. when the world gets hyper connected, the big boss of the above cannot possibly know what is going on there for they knew -- need every

employee to be an innovator. for instance we interview the head of the washington law firm he said reed just hired the chief innovation officer. what? a law firm? hired a chief innovation officer? what is that about? i interviewed jeff during the 2008 subprime crisis. he is a family friend program at the time i said what has happened to your law firm? he said business is awful. we have to lay people off. said that is interesting. who is laid off first? last in/first out? and not any more. now those who are laid off two at the height of the credit bubble they have that kind of work and they did that in a routine way in handed it back. none of them are gone.

those who said we could do this old work in a new way, we could do your work in a new way. michael and i are old city daddy. we had the pleasure and a great opportunity when we graduated from school to find a job. you will have to invent a job. that is the big difference. and may not be your first job but to keep it he will have to invent a job. there are jobs in silicon valley doing quarterly reviews because if you go to the life product cycle you cannot wait until the end of the year to discover at groupon you have a bad team leader. you would be crushed. so everybody needs people who can invent, reinvent come every engineer their job. one of the most interesting examples is the head of the green collar firm.

his name is general martin dempsey. recently he is about to become the chairman of said joint chiefs of staff but when i interviewed him at the time he was the head of the u.s. army education and collor. but general dempsey commanded the first armored division that took them from sadam hussain in 2003 and told us the story. five years he was commander of centcom. the whole middle east operation. then he went on to visit a base in afghanistan commanded by captains near the hindu kush. he spent hour with the captain and realized that the captain out there in his little base had access to more intelligence at the national and tactical level and more firepower than he did when he took baghdad

from sadam hussain in 2003. therefore he realized how we educate the captain and how we choose the captain has to be very different from the four. one of the first things he did was introduced the idea of giving new recruits in boot camp the iphone. first to get the iphone within three weeks the drill sergeant will tell you download the application and you teach the lesson and i will sit in a front-row. they have completely revolutionized the army education corporation around the idea how do we get everyone to produce their extra two natalee do their job but to be able to invent and reengineer the job as they do it? of this is a huge education challenge for us now. it means this is the next chapter called hallmarks

times two equals american dream. hallmark times one will not do any more. we have to education challenges. we have to bring up to our average so much quicker because those who are below average and in this world where you have to be a creative creator or creative sir, if you don't have a high school degree that allows you to get through a two or four year college college, there is nothing there for you. we are speaking here at john hopkins but in baltimore, that is very interesting. 50 years ago what was the biggest employer? bethlehem steel. you could get a job without a high-school degree. join the union, have a house, yard, a dog, two kids, retire and go through the holes -- without a high-school degree or

certainly with one. who was the biggest employer today? john hopkins -- johns hopkins they don't let you cut the grass there without a degree. [laughter] you cannot mow the lawn without a bachelors of arts. we have to challenges we need to bring the bottom to the average and we need to bring the average so much fire with particular emphasis on a tony wagner calls the three c's of education creativity, a communication and collaboration and so you have people who can not only do their job but invent and reinvent on the spot. as the head of dupont said to was, i need every employee to be present, to be present all the time. because in the hyper-connected world, this is the last chapter, the

average is officially over. what happens when the world gets this hyper-connected and your next boss has access to the robot, or chief genius or automation or digitization, the averages over. woody allen victim that 82 90% of life is just showing up is no longer applicable. if you just show up for your job, you will not have that job for thrive. there is this saying in texas all you never have done is all you'll ever will do. that is no longer applicable. if all you ever do so you have never done it then in this hyper-connected world you will get below average. we are now all the things and lake woebegone were all the men are strong, all the

women are beautiful, all the children are above-average. average is officially over. what this means for education is two things. we have to bring our bottom to the average and the average so much higher. requiring more education and better education and. we conclude this chapter and the whole section by trying to think through, what is the right mode for educators, parents, as they think about describing and inspiring their kids to thrive? we would leave you with three attitude points that we would suggest. things like the new immigrant, think like a new immigrant. thinks like an artist and

and things like a waitress at perkins pancake house in minneapolis. what do i mean? how does the new immigrant think? i come to this country there is no legacies spot waiting for me at johns hopkins. the new immigrant understands mayor and hyper-connected world that is a new world. we're all new immigrants and they said i'd better figure out what is going on provide better sue the opportunities are and pursue them with more energy and we're all new immigrants today to approach the workplace like a new immigrant. second, think like the artist's in. of the professor of labor economics at harvard says it. the artisan is a person in

the middle ages before mass production. it made everything one-off and every pair of shoes individually saddle, utensil, and it took such pride something so extra that they insisted on carving fair initials. do your job every day. one way to carve your initials at the end of the day. that is what insulates you from being at digitized or roboticized. lastly, not everyone can invent software like steve jobs. but everyone is above average with something. everyone can find their extra somewhere. maybe the employee at the nursing home. . .

and after 15 minutes, the waitress came, put the plates down and simply say to ken, i gave you extra first. she got a 50% tip from ice. because that way tryst, god god bless her, she didn't control much, that she controlled the fruit lehto.

and that was her extra. everybody has got to find their extra. and i know what you're thinking. you're thinking very easy for you to say, mr. "new york times" colonist. [laughter] i was born at night, but not last night. i know what you're thinking. no, you can understand. you see, i inherited gene rest on top of that the mayor times. what a thrill. i got to meet him once. i suspect though i'm mr. respa needs to come to the office in the 1960s and 70s and save himself, i wonder what my seven competitors. walter lippman, near mccrory, stood outside. i do the same thing. i come to the office every day and say i wonder what my 70 million editors are going to write today. because if i can't rate better than the best indian columnist

or blogger when i'm writing about india or the backs iraqi columnist or blogger, you can go to real clear politics and get right on your screen right next to my column. so we are all caught up in it. we all need to find their extra. his average really is over. >> we have perhaps some excuse for not addressing the fact inflate the first two challenges the challenge of globalization and the i.t. revolution. the combinations in some ways subtle tip placed underneath the radar of great political events. it's not always easy to know how best to adapt to these

challenges. but when the third and fourth challenges are concerned, the challenge is that death is the end that an energy and climate, we have no such excuse. these are not hidden. they are not subtle. they are well known and yet really for the last two decades and especially for the last decade, not only have we not been addressing these two challenges affect tivoli, some of that is, in some cases many of us influential people have been denying that they even exist. we have a quote from vice president cheney, former vice president cheney in speaking with the secretary of the treasury, pony up, who is subject into another tax cut that the administration was proposing because he thought the country couldn't afford it. and cheney said to him, you don't understand. reagan proved that deficits don't matter.

and as for energy and our climate, recent survey showed that almost half of all americans believe that global warming at the impact of human that dignity, especially the burning of fossil fuels on the world's climate is just an ugly rumor or a hoax that doesn't exist. well, what if that were true? would that it were true that deficits don't matter and global meat doesn't exist. but unfortunately it's not true. they do not and it does exist and we are going to have to come to terms with them in ways that we haven't even got to do. our deficits are concerned, whatever else may be said for, you can store about the tea party, at least it has focused the attention of the national government on our problem with deficits and cumulative national

debt. and yet, even though the political class, congress and the president are seized with this issue, are focused on it, talk about it all the time, none of them has presented the kind of approach that is necessary to cope with this challenge. what is necessary is a three-part brooch. first, we have to cut spending. and that means reducing federal programs. important programs, valuable programs. programs on which people, good people coming decent people, hard-working people are alive. we are going to have to make adjustments in our two major so-called entitlement programs. social security and medicare. because as they are structured now, we simply cannot afford them. and anybody who says that we can go on as we are with these two programs have not been serious

about this challenge. but i can't, we also need more revenues. we're going to have to collect more in taxes. that doesn't necessarily mean raising marginal rates on income taxed as a relief least not raising them all that high. we can probably get a lot of revenue by closing loopholes and we can certainly get some by the kind of tax that tom and i strongly advocate and not used to bs. and that is an energy tax. but one way or another, we are going to need more revenue. anybody who says they don't, that we can go along with the tax structure just as it is is not being serious. but those two measures by themselves will not assure our future. we also have to make investments in our historic formula.

we may need to spend more money on education at the primary and secondary level and research you have to spend more money on infrastructure by the estimate of the american society of civil engineers, and the infrastructure deficit in the united states today, the amount of money it would cost just to bring us up to par is $2.2 trillion. and we certainly also have to spend more money on research and development to generate the innovations that will lead to the new products and services of the 21st century. so we need all of three of these things and nobody is proposing now. as for climate change, well, we know for sure that the geophysical phenomenon at its heart, known as global warming, israel. we know that certain heat trapping gases formed the earth atmosphere. they reflect heat back to the

surface and made the temperature of our planet. we have known that for at least a century. and we know that without this phenomenon we wouldn't be here. because without it, the earth would be too cold for human habitation. we also know that the earth blanket of these gases is thickening because the human generated activity mostly burning fossil fuels. we know that they are temperature is rising because we can measure of both. we can measure the greenhouse blanket and we can measure the earth's temperature. and we have no plausible explanation for the rise in the earth's temperature, except for human generated activity. except for prison plea, although not exclusively, the burning of fossil fuel. we know this is happening. this is not a hoax. this is an established fact.

now having said that, when you go further, there are lots of uncertainties. we don't know how far and how fast the temperature will rise. we don't know what the effects will be. scientists talk about floods, droughts, storms, but the science we have is not able to predict with any precision whether such events will take place where, when and how the magnitude. and therefore, we don't know with any certainty just how much damage, just how much social and economic damage of global warming will do. so there's lots of uncertainty surrounding the effects of global warming. although not really involved with its existence. but that uncertainty is not a reason for complacency. it's not a reason to do nothing.

it is true that because of these uncertainties, the effects of global warming could be more benign than most scientists believe they will be. but equally, that uncertainty means that the effects could be much more severe. it is conceivable, perhaps not the likeliest outcome, but certainly conceivable within the boundaries of possibility, that global warming if it goes unchecked, could do catastrophic and irreparable damage to the planet, which is the only habitable one we know about. if somebody put it in a free quote and i used to bs, we are running an uncontrolled experiment on the only home we have. doing someto start vague about this problem. and the essence of any response that is serious to this problem

is raising the price of fossil fuels. we will get off fossil fuels immediately, overnight or completely in the lifetime of anyone in this room. it's a difficult, complicated long-term problem, but elementary prudence took tape that we start now and the way we start is by raising the price of fuel and no one is advocating that. there's one more reason besides those i mentioned before there were doing so poorly and coping with her for major challenges and thereby putting our future in jeopardy. our political system is broken. it's simply not working. it is dysfunctional. and the basic reason for that as we outline a chapter devoted to american politics and not used to bs is the extreme polarization dividing our two major political parties.

republicans and democrats are in political terms further apart than they've been in 100 years, possibly further apart than it then since the 1850s. and we know what that led to. now there are complicated and deeply rooted reasons. didn't happen overnight. the process took four decades to play out. it wasn't the work of one at or one party or one individual mobile pc to fix. but it is an enormous problem for us because it means that the two parties cannot cooperate to bring forth the measures that we need to cope with these large and growing challenges. it means the political system is paralyzed while these challenges grow worse and not problem is aggravated by two other things. the growing importance of money and the increasing power of special interests in american

politics and the new media, which has many great advantage is, brings many blessings to american democracy, but also has the effect in general of increasing polarization. so we not only have these four great challenges, we have a serious political problem i'm trying to cope with them. go from here, there is both bad news and good news. the bad news is that the paralysis of our political system is not the only reason that we are having such difficulty meeting their major challenges. the good news is that there are, we believe, and say i'm "that used to be us" can do to put ourselves on the right track and to conclude, tom will tell you about the. >> as michael stipeon trans -- said, we are stuck with ugly or

stuck for another another reason. we had a values decline and that's century. the topic of the book is devaluation. where we note to hearing that took place on capitol hill five years apart. the first was the five great baseball homerun hits who sat biceps to biceps at the witness table at that congressional hearing on steroids. to explain how at least some of them use steroids to hit grand slam home runs. five years later, not far away on that same capitol hill in another hearing room, besides the wall street bankers start

briefcase to briefcase and explained how they use steroids called credit default swaps in order to hit grand slam home runs. we have been cheating ourselves. what happened in baseball is exactly what happened on wall street. rather than building musclethe old-fashioned way, we injected ourselves with steroids. now, we note the greatest generation. the generation born in hardened in the depression, forged in steel by world war ii and ultimately, ultimately brought us to the dream of cold war. this was a generation that believed in two things. one, save and invest. we're actually now eating through all of their savings and

investment. and the other thing they believed in were what our teacher and friend doug simon called sustainable values. values that sustain. our generation, both michael and i are baby boomers. we just curt andersen said we thought mardi gras and christmas were so much fun with victim every day of the week. we believed in borrowed spent. we believe in situational values. do whatever the situation allows. the situation allows me to get an $800,000 mortgage and home at $10,000 in income and i ask is can you talk up a knife for i.t., i do it. if the situation allows it. just do it. as i said, our book is built around movies. and of course the great movie of our time about this issue is jerry maguire.

show me the money. jerry maguire, it's all about the struggle in one firm between the guy who wants to do things sustainably and all his partners who want to ask situationally. and we had a values decline and that's also very much part of this. so that really brings us to the concluding section of the book. i just want to make two quick points before we close. one is, what do we do about it? what michael knight argued in a chapter called shock therapy, which is a phrase we chose very consciously. it was what we thought we needed to deliver to the post-soviet union to get their economy going. we are not the ones who need shock therapy. because right now, for us to be able to solve our big problems and basically rebuild, revive

and reenergized a formula for success, we need two things. first, we need to be altered at collectively. that is what we have lost in this political paralysis and values decline because all the problems we face today that michael laid out all only have collective solutions. you cannot solve these problems without collective action of the scale of world war ii or the cold war. and that is why we believe are fundamental choice right now as we are either going to have a hard decade or a bad century. either we act collectively in the next decade and kick out of this hole or were going to have a bad century. those are really the choices. and the politics we need that was not only one that involves collective action. it is a politics that has a hybrid agenda. because we now need to do things at once. we need to come as michael said,

we need to cut spending. we've made promises to your generation that we cannot possibly keep. second, we need to raise revenue because we cannot just read social security and medicare. we are capitalists. a capitalist system needs safety net if it is going to thrive and survive because capitalism is brutal. it has wild swings. what enables capitalism to thrive and continue his people know their safety net under there. the old saying that if you want to live like a republican, vote like a democrat has some truth to it. we need to cut spending. we need to raise revenue. and we need to invest again in all five pillars of our formula. education, structure, immigration. we need all things at once. it happens that the hybrid

agenda doesn't quite correspond yet at least to the agenda to our satisfaction of either party. neither party is quite at that hybrid. and that brings up the shock therapy. what we believe as michael and i don't have a candidate. we don't have a party. we have an agenda appeared with that agenda is taken up a president to bomb and the vigorous raise it needs to be taken out. if it's taken up by rick perry or romney or somebody else, then prayer for them. we are forever whoever comes up with that agenda. if nobody comes up with the agenda, what would argue is that someone will start an independent candidacy or third-party that will put that agenda before the public. without that kind of shock therapy that proves there is a medical center in this country that would support that agenda

is 30% to 40% without that, we're never going to get out of this paralysis. and this is pie in the sky. we saw teddy was occupied in 1912. we saw wallace stood in 1968. and we thought ross perot to that in 1992. let's remember, ross perot made the deficit reducer. ask bob rubin. ross perot had 40% of the vote at one point. he won 20%. and he was nuts. [laughter] i mean, he thought little black helicopters were chasing. that is agenda -- is agenda linked up with where the center of the country was and it had a huge effect. and that's why there were two things that would tell you about a third party if one were to

emerge. one is that candidate he or she would not win. and the other as we believe that he or she had this agenda, they would have a bigger impact in the country's future than the person who does. because the only way to break out of this paralysis is by changing the incentives. these people are politicians today are not, most of them at least. they are clearly operating on a different set of incentives that we are. so we are having an economic crisis and they are having an election. and the two barely overlap. so it's like they are in a parallel universe operating two different incentives as michael said he is set by special interests, money politics, the media, et cetera. the only way to change that is to change the incentives. life's about incentives.

but the cheese, move the mouse. although the cheese. the mouse doesn't move. we need to move the cheese to show these two parties that there is a huge chunk of cheese right and the center of the country. so instead of always direct and their eyes to their extreme flanks, watch the republican debate. it's about one person trying to get to the right of another person and then somebody is brave enough to show the courage of literary medal of honor winner to save may be change exists. i mean, just sort of maybe if you hold it up -- i didn't say that, but some people say climate change. that now goes for courage and the republican party. you know, some people believe in gravity. some people think the apple came out of his head.

[laughter] that is how crazy is cotton. unless you change the incentives and get people back to the center, nothing is going to change. and that is where you make this argument in this chapter. so let me end by saying you are now entitled to ask. he said when he began that the two of you were optimists, but frustrated documents. we now get the frustration from whence comes your optimism. and that comes from one of our closing chapters, which is simply called, and they just didn't get the word. because this country today is full of people still, i think god, who just didn't get the word. they didn't get the word that were down in owl. they didn't get the word that we're in a decline and they

start staff and fixed us and collaborate with people. the country is actually exploding with energy from the bottom up. this chapter is stories of these people. if you want to be an optimist, stand on your head because the country look so much better from the bottom up and from the top down. and i really learned this in my previous book on energy where it went around the country talking about energy, giving talks to groups. it was amazing the number of people who came up to me and said i had this energy invention. i've got these paddles a wheel that depose up a balloon, issues methane, turns a turbine. i heard the craziest stuff. but it told me the country is a rise with people who haven't thought the word. i went up to ppf university of new haven. the university says we just started a medical school.

in the middle of the recession you didn't get the word? there's all kinds of people out there. just travel around the country. people give me their business cards. i go back to my hotel room and empty my pockets of business cards for energy and knowledge partnership innovators. rock stars cameron keyes. i get business cards. but they are very exciting in their own ways. and what they tell you is that the country is alive. it really is. and the hyper connected world is great because it has downsides, but the upside is i can start anything. i can start a multinational overnight for less money than ever before. it's not only her posse could do that. you can do it, too. if it not happening, it's because you're not doing it.

there's no other excuse now. so what we say in the book is if we were to drive picture of america today can would be a picture of the space shuttle taking off. while this incredible thrust coming below is all those people out there who just didn't get the words. in our case, the booster rocket, washington d.c. is cracked and leaking energy and fighting over the flight plan. so right now we can't achieve escape velocity. we need to get into the next orbit. the next way we delivered the american dream. but it's all here. that is why this forward-looking book has a backward looking title. it is all here. we have a formula for success. we have a formula for success. there's nothing we need to learn from china, although we wish china well. there's nothing we need to learn from brazil.

we wish were so well. they can thrive and we can thrive. our simple point and the conclusion of this book is everything we need is right here in our past. the history books we need to read our our own and the country we need to rediscover his americana. that used to be asked. and it can be again. thank you very much. [applause] clapped not -- that's not. >> thank you. well, we do have time for a few questions. let me also say that books are

available for purchase. >> dgc books are available, michael? >> a gratifying number of you have 30 availed yourselves of this type of service. they will be available after the conclusion of this session and they are already signed. so, we have a microphone. we have a gentleman who wishes to ask a question over here. part to reach, but we will count on it being worth the trouble. >> thank you. a match not american. turkish. i hope studying from escalators in dupont circle is close enough because it's really a problem for us as well. [laughter] the second game -- i'm going to ask about the incentives. i saw the third-party issued on the book.

can you open the issue of how you can change the incentives? i mean, what kind of things that you are thinking about this. >> well, it's a good question. as spelled out in the chapter on shock therapy and i used to be asked. politicians operate according to incentives. but they are trying to earn is not money or at least not overtly. they are trying to earn loads. they will do with a need to do in order to get votes. now, the reason that they behave as they do, the reasons the two parties are so polarized is that the political system has evolved in such a way that the core members of each party, the so-called base who control the nominations are much further apart than the country at south. so the parties don't really represent the country all that well. and the people in the meadow, because of the way the system

works, don't really get the kind of voice that they deserve or that they should have by virtue of their numbers. now how do you change that? well, if there is a credible independent candidate who runs on the kind of platform that we have outlined in the book and if that candidate does as well as theodore roosevelt did running as an independent in 1912 with george wallace did in 1968 or ross perot did in 1992, that will demonstrate to those parties that there is a large bloc of voters up for grabs. in each of these two parties will have a powerful incentive to move to the center to co-opt some of the issues that the centrist candidate in order to get that candidate's voters in the next election and the incentive will be powerful because they said she candidate

runs on the platform that we suggest, those voters will be available at either to republicans or two democrats and each party will have an incentive to try to capture those voters left the others do it and the party become the minority. so if you have a substantial bloc in the middle, you draw both parties to the middle. that is happening the past that we believe it can happen again. that's how we believe the incentives were. >> yasser, right here. >> matthew asada foreign service officer from my public-sector union. sweeping through the index of the book i look for labor. i let for union and i looked for new social contract for anything to that regard. i couldn't find a single mention of any of those. and so, my question to you in this internationally competitive for a, what does that new social contract look like?

kingly today of what things like sunday differential? can we afford things like overtime pay for our labor? what does that look like? >> that's a very good question. and obviously when you're coming you know, doing a book like this you don't get to touch every cent date, but my answer to you at the dais. i'm going to read something from the book is relevant. i think we can afford all of those things in theory, provided you with a worker or as a collective are delivering unique value creation. because if you are not, we can't afford it. now we -- your boss can't afford it. so let me just read you a section from the book. it's an interview, and insight

from john jay who is head of irradiate tetralogy companies incentives. he also teaches mba courses. he wrote this on his blog. i thought it was compelling enough to repeat it. i'm in the business of killing jobs. i kill jobs in three ways. i kill jobs on myself. i kill jobs for killing competitors and i kill jobs by focusing on internal productivity. other companies have been a cos procedures and software eliminate jobs. they eliminate jobs by automation, outsourcing and efficiencies through the marketing is clear, less workers are consistent. i reckon last decade have eliminated over 100,000 jobs in the worldwide economy from a software and services that companies so. so there i said it. i'm a serial child killer. any job that can be eliminated through to knowledge or cheap labor is by definition not coming back.

the worker can come back. it will most come back they been underemployed. most returned to previous levels but as a whole for productivity gains of the last 20 years to change the landscape of what is a sustainable job. so what then is a sustainable job? the best way he can articulate what is a sustainable job is to tell you as a job killer it's a job i can't kill. i can't kill creative people. there's no productivity solution for outsourcing i can sell to eliminate a creative person. i can't kill unique value creators. a unique value creator is well, unique. maybe someone with a relationship with a client or someone who is a great salesman or someone who spends so much time mastering a market that they are subject matter experts. so my answer to you would be, and i can give you a better answer you want, yes, people

believe everything. all these benefits. but i will tell you that in a hyperkinetic world, they were only be sustainable. whatever they get through the interaction and collective bargaining, they will only be sustainable if those values are unique value creators otherwise the company won't be there. >> next question. the lady right here. it will go to the back. >> high, they are. i'm a second-year student at strategic studies concentrator and i work for the department of defense. i'm a big fan of the book. i agree with all of their prescriptions. they are very well laid out. in order to accomplish them and reduce them, that you can take dod budget seems to be a good place to start. unfortunately this time we do say so at of security threats abroad and also have a great stake in securing our national interest abroad. so if you could recommend one or

two areas of reform for our national security strategy. and we please find a book after? thank you. [laughter] >> thank you. that's a good question. as it happens, a wrote a book, published a book about that very subject last year called the frugal superpower and i'm glad to say that this book agrees with that book. i'm just summarize the relevant point, which we to mention here, defense spending like everything else is going to have to be cut. we think that a robust, expensive american global role is important and that costs money. and furthermore, it is the case this you cannot solve our fiscal problems just by cutting the

defense budget. our basic problems, our biggest problems are entitlements. nonetheless, the defense surely can't be an lp type and our view is that while we do need a large defense establishment and inexpensive defense establishment, there are things that we can and should have probably will cut them first and foremost are the kinds of post-cold war interventions in which we have engaged, it became in somalia and bus and am currently in iraq and afghanistan. we are not going to see those again because we can't afford them. >> okay, the gentleman in the back there. >> name is chad that i'm also class 2009 and i was at work

with the department of defense. going to your point about the spending. you mentioned that as mentioning your book, one of the things who look down at department of defense is going green. and what are your takes it based on the power of our purchase since we are a large consumer of energy that if we challenge the market to defuse results in two or three years? are there arguments about spam and infrastructure, we just say, do both if we drop our age of consumption are revolutionized the market. >> well, you know, there's an old group of -- green hawks in the pentagon. there's nothing more valuable than rather than going going down is so underrated of to help fund people commercializing technology, we need a race to the top of energy. whoever comes up with a new generation, i make in effect,

50 miles to the gallon, we will buy them all. you will have the market. whoever comes up at this level efficiency of solar panels, will buy them all and put them on every base in the country. so we should be using buying power with wind power. we talk about it, but we don't actually do it. if you actually set a really high standard of them put it out there and see which trout jumps for that fly, that is the way to do it. rather than trying to pick this one or that one in any state. i have a chapter called reading al qaeda. because as you know for someone in the military, the best way to prevent roadside bombs is not to be on the road. and almost all -- a huge number of roadside bombs were in convoys trucking fuel, you know, from one place to another by favorite quotes from the book is

by a guy who is an energy consultant to side with iraq, it will be the biggest transfer of air conditioners ever ever known to mankind. and so the army has a great place to start. the secretary will sell a lot of work on this. they flew an f-18 hornet is named last year and broke the sound barrier. and so, there's a lot of potential there. we haven't pushed it as aggressively as we should. you know, it needs a price signal. and we are trying to do it the easy way by government push. but without six, durable consumer pool if it isn't sustainable. fixed durable consumer pool only comes from a price signal. when gasoline was down $5 a gallon, you couldn't buy a soda hybrid previous coleman toyota

in bethesda. they stopped taking names. and when gasoline is $2 a gallon, you cannot sell a toyota hybrid previous at toyota. so price matters. without a price signal, every investment is a risky investment. it depends on some programs, some loop the loop and you just don't care where you need to go. >> we have time for a couple more questions. right here. this young lady here. >> can you make so much. i am in crisis reporting. and i actually do that a story of issues on climate change. i really do agree that we need to move away -- but the problem with that as i wanted to

elaborate more when you raise the price of fuel and not raise everything else in the world. wouldn't people just get used to it like in your first chapter would have been goes to bear. it's not their expectation, but the elevator is broken. >> that's a good question. a sickly i'll take that one quickly. imagine that i invented the world's first cellphone and they came to jessica here, the team, and i said jessica, i have a phone you can carry in your pocket. she said tom, a phone i can carry in my pocket? so i can call donors and alums.

i got 24/7 365? so i have a phone you can carry in your pocket. would you say quakes should sail take them. wait a minute. this thing called a cell phone? they cost a thousand dollars each. she would say no problem, tom. a phone i can carry an ipod would change my life. it would give me a whole new set of functions i've never had before. hamm won, her one come in q1, you know what happens. six months i'm back here at johns hopkins. my cell phone now with half the amount it costs only $500. why? i went down the chimney price. the price were made and called the cell phone will scale in china and india. remember, oil, gas, uranium, those are commodities. what happens when you create more demand for a commodity?

the press gazette. cellphone, solar cells, the circuit elegies. the price goes down. you know that from your iphone. i love john todd ends. come back here later. i said jessica, how did that cell phone work out for you? >> it changed my life. i've been raising money out the ones do. got another deal for you. see the slight tear in your auditory and? am going to power the size of solar energy on the roof of this building. but it's going to cost you $100 more a month. whether jessica say? she was a tom, tom, tom, remember the cell phone you gave me? changed my life. give me a whole set of functions that never had before. you've spoken in this auditorium twice and you know we are to have one.

[laughter] and we don't care where the photons and electrons come from. so unless the mayor of d.c. comes along and says from now on you're going to be the fully burdened cost, you are pay the cost of the co2 in the atmosphere, cost of truce protecting oil from the persian gulf. they are not going to cost you $200. what happens then? just a kiss on her cell phone which now cost $25 unclip stewart here. and says, tom, your solar lights? i will take time. and then work? than i heading down the cost volume curve. sure, there is a transition, but as you go through this transition, your higher unit cost of energy will be higher, but you'll be using less energy so your actual bill. the system works is that when other technologies will be

lower. but ultimately you're headed for a world where solar sails will be as cheap as 10 issues. but when you do with a new type elegy, this is the one you have to understand, weakness of green power and power in general. it is not like a cell phone. it's not like a computer. when you are your typewriter to a computer company would've paid anything. when you went from apex finder the sofa and eat anything because you're getting hold of functions. when you go from green energy, from dirty energy to clean energy, you don't get a new function. you get the same heating, same coin, same ability and the same light. and therefore to get people to switch, you have to have a price tag. >> last question that they are. >> hi, ryan jacobs from the u.s.a. institute.

i am an intern in d.c. and i find myself being used by my ability to relent social media and new social media more than the thoughts and ideas i have. and perhaps that is because i am young and unwise, but i also feel that perhaps you haven't oversaturation point associate media in your hyper connected world you're speaking of, we rely as a communication tool, and we don't care about the ideas transported in the people who come up with ideas. i wonder if you could comment on that. both of your one of you. thank you. >> well, i have gotten in trouble, so don't tell anyone i said this. i've never been on twitter. i've never been on facebook and i've never smoked a cigarette. i'm planning on dying insane out great because i do believe it is about the content. and i find that it is really hard, at least for me, to focus on traditional reporting, thinking and editing when i

would be to retain or whatever every second. or posting something every second. so i famously talk the talk of globalization, but i do not walk the walk. [laughter] >> content doesn't matter to you if you want to have a present position for the rest of your life. if you want to get a better job, content matters. thank you all for coming. [applause]

>> when president and congress were debating after the 2010 elections whether the bush tax cuts would the extended because of the recession and whether it be a bad idea to raise anyone's taxes in this down economy, one of the things the republicans said his tax cuts are always wonderful in a down economy, but spending cuts don't hurt at all, which is self-evidently crazy. i mean, there is really no difference from a macroeconomic point of view as our friends in the u.k. are finding out whether the monastery responds for the current circumstance. one of the things they wanted to get rid of with the 1603 tax

credit. and they said it was a spending program. this is a kind of argument that ought to be held in a seminary over senates cure provision of scripture. in my opinion. but you be the judge. the republicans say we have to get rid of 1603. it's a spending program. it's not a tax cut. and it is, but it isn't. when the congress did things like loan guarantees for new energy companies, like the infamous lender loan guarantee, it was actually adopted during the bush administration, signed by president bush and supported at the time by almost all the republicans on the energy committee. and it's hard sometimes to pick winners and losers. that is not with 1603 does. 1603 recognizes that a lot of people building a solar and wind installations or startup

companies. so if you give them a 30% tax credit that you would ordinarily give some thing for building this new factory, it would be worthless to them because they have no income to claim the credit. with 63 does is get the cash equivalent if they are startups. if you just don't like solar and wind energy and you want to keep all the police annoyance or tax credits for traditional energy, you can make that argument. but a very significant number of scenario solar and wind projects have used 1603. so my argument is that to be extended because we've got thousands of more facilities in solar and wind power, which are becoming more economical every time. the price drops about her 2% for

solar and wind every time you double capacity. solar in particular has had significant technological advances. it's ironically one of the reasons the lender with down because the technology -- other technologies got cheaper faster than anybody figured. so i like the 1603 and eight yankees should be continued because i think we should be supporting startups as well as existing companies. a very different% has come not from us small businesses, but small businesses over five years old or younger. so this is the kind of thing i think -- you know, my argument is we should say word one to go this country? we want to build prosperity and modern jobs and be competitive in pack up and say, how do we get there? was the government supposed to do? with the private sector supposed to do?

if you say government, no government, you say 60 to three is a heck of a good dealer went to keep doing it. >> since you mention in the 2010, i want to give you an opportunity to repeat something you said earlier, which is the one part in your book where you feel you give the president a bum rap was around the debt ceiling to be. that has been in the coverage alive. >> i was really upset. i didn't know whether it was the white house or the congress they resisted raising the debt ceiling to 2010 after we lost the election. >> when we still have the majority. >> but we still have the majority. the congress is meeting in november and december 2010. i knew who waited till january the republicans to drive a hard bargain. and so, i said in a very kind of muted way that for reasons that were still unclear to me, this didn't happen. and gene sperling actually sent me an e-mail, who worked for me

and was a scrupulously honest person said we tried. you know, we didn't make a big deal out of it because there's -- the main subject was worth the bush era tax cuts going to be extended? the dishes you. i'm trying to force myself to say once a day, either i don't know where i was wrong. because i think it would be therapeutic if everyone in washington did that. and so, i want to be as good as them. so here's something i was wrong about. since raising the debt ceiling, simply ratify the decision congress has already made to spend money. and since the budget is the only thing that the senate votes on that is not subject to a filibuster, i thought that the debt ceiling that was not

subject to a filibuster. and i was wrong. so gene sperling sent me a message. he said senator mcconnell said he was going to filibuster and must be a great rate than two of the pledges that they had run on. so it turns out he couldn't raise the debt ceiling and i was wrong. and that's one way we get less ideological politics as people find errors they make and fess up. >> moving a bit out of washington, one of the things that you do frequently in the book is to cite examples that kind of where you think this sort of appropriate partnership and shared responsibility between government and the dirt is working at the state level. maybe you can talk about your theory of that has to share examples, particularly from your time as governor of arkansas wilbert van and also what s. continue to work and not work

subsequently in arkansas. >> well, first, i think we americans are used to people at the state and local level. trying to save businesses, trying to expand businesses and locate businesses. and it is largely bipartisan activity, undertaken perhaps with varying levels of exuberance by elected officials. one reason i was able to stay governor for a dozen years and never got bored with the job in love to do so will economic development aspect of it. and the interesting thing is that in most every state in the country, although it's got more partisan assets 2010, but i think that will settle down. it is largely a bipartisan act to beauty. and so, i try to cite some areas in the book, for example, to

give you just one practical example, there is a long section in the book about what i would like to see dan to clear the mortgage debt more quickly. and i guess i should not have been say, these kinds of financial crashes take historically five to 10 years to get over. and if you're the mortgage component, it tends to ahead 10 years. we should be trying to beat the clock. we can do it in my opinion, even if we adopt. i'm part of the president's plan. there's a lot of wise ideas in there. it will give us 1.5, 2 million jobs, according to the economic analyses. but if you want to start having 240,000 jobs a month, what i think we average 227,000 a month for eight years, if you want, you have to flush this debt and get bank lending going again. and so, kenneth rogoff at