troit for the wall street journal, so knows a thing or two about cars.

paul, great to have you on the show. you've written "engines of change," a wonderful reflection of the 20th century, america going back to the model t. in 1908. what was the inspiration for a book about cars to create a framework for a book about america. >> i've been covering cars for 25 years. this book goes back, i think when i was a child, a boy i used to read national geographic. he see articles about the lives of the ancient atruscans. i think cars are more interesting. i decided to trace modern culture through cars. >> you start with a car we learned in the history books the model where that was the dominant car. >> right. >> not the only car. you make a point there was a wooden car no one remembers. >> the every man's car was made partly of wood, wooden wheels

wouldn't run. >> it it was a car that would run it was really about getting mobility, it was sort of innovation over its 20 year run and then it changed in the 20's. >> actually, the car didn't change so much as america changed. people wanted cars not just for physical mobility, but social molt. along comes general motors and harley earl, the father of american car design and designs a sleek, beautiful the first yuppie car the lasalle. >> why was it killed? people in the roaring 20's, a different world. >> it was an urban america. people wanted to show off not just getting from point a. to point b. and wanted to look good and here we are. >> the employed he will t. went the way of the model t. i imagine the price dropped, the

sales started to plummet. they weren't recognizing the social mobility that occurred. >> basically, every ford's idea of marketing was just lower the price every year through more and more manufacturing efficiency, but people wanted style and pizzaz. >> it was a critical year in 1953 the year hugh hefner started play boy magazine. >> that's the first thing you remember. >> second thing is elvis started recording music. >> that's it. >> and the korean war ended. you get a picture of a generation growing up on 25 years of depression and war and wants to let loose and along comes the corvette, which is a disaster. it was awful. it didn't perform the roof leaked. the owners used to drill holes

in the floors for rain water to drain out. >> the windows were plastic, not glass. >> you had the big tailfins of the 1950's, originally sold as safety devices. >> 1959 clock had the biggest tail fins ever. it was a war between general motors and chrysler. >> were they for aerodynamic reasons? >> it was nonsense. the beetle was the antithesis of the clock. >> how did a car that adolf hitler scaled be embraced by the

hippies and my mother? >> part of it was advertising. an agency used to do wonderful ads. they had this ad for the mike borrow bus that showed and empty micro bus that had the headline, this was 1963, have you, do you have the right kind of wife for this. >> not politically correct. they were the inspiration for the t.v. series madmen. they brought in wilt chamberlain, tried to fit him in a v.w. bug. >> the headline on the ad was when he's trying to get into the beetle, the headline said it couldn't be done. it couldn't. it was self deprecating endearing, one of the first ads to feature and african-american. the carvair. if not for the corvair we wouldn't have the litigation

environment. >> it's longer, too much weight in the back end spins out around corners. 1965 this unknown unemployed lawyer writes this book called unsafe at any speed. >> no one cared about the book. >> no one cared then "the new york times" revealed he was speed on by general motors, there were hearings in front of congress. the president of g.m. publicly apologizes in front of congress. nadar misses the apology because he didn't have a car. this all happens, and then the book takes off and auto safety is reformed, if you will, the whole regulatory attitude of the government, that it really started the greatest, two great growth industries, technology and lawsuits. litigation explosion and after the korver. >> interesting. then we move toward the 1980's

and b.m.w.s representing the yuppie-fication? >> there was a suggested dress of black tie with nike. said it stood for beauty, money wealth. >> then we have jeeps and sort of outdoors consciousness pickup trucks that plays into that and country music the politics that plays in there. we saw it even with senator brown's election. >> scott brown. after he was elected in the special election, replaced ted kennedy in early 2010. the mid term elections that fall there was a candidate for congress in tennessee who advertised himself as a truck driving, shotgun shooting crime fighting bible reading family country boy. he was a democratic. >> he didn't win. >> he lost. he lost. now here we are with prius

mania. you had a wonderful chapter about the prius and examples. arnold schwarzenegger on one side, then folks coming up to the academy awards in their prius, and of course, hybrids are born. and it goes to what? where are we in the culture in that respect? >> yeah, i mean it's basically the pickup truck s.u.v. thing back toward the more practical you know, fuel efficient practical smaller and that sort of thing. it was sort of an environmental twist. there's a little bit of america's culture wars. in some circles, pickup truck driving circles. prius owners are referred to as the pius. >> the future. cars as we know it, they've evolved in some respect, but not extraordinarily in the years. what do you make of the next five 10, 20 years.

what does the car look like? what are you going to see if you write an updated version of your book in five years? >> the next might not be a car. it might be a measuredding concept, zip cars, a car sharing service and all that. at some point someone is going to figure out how to merge social networking with zip cars and have he harmony zip cars dot com. anything can happen. >> final question, what kind of car do you have? >> a red one. >> that's not good enough. >> a b.m.w. >> thanks for being on the show. >> thank you gavin, a lot of fun. >> thank you. >> coming up, he thought he'd become an astronaut but decided to help fund spa if you missed joy behar one week only... >>hey, time flies when you're having fun. >>don't worry because she'll be back. >>where are the lefties besides on current tv? >>joy behar is getting her own show coming to current tv this fall.

>> in a world where so many of us are consumed about what's wrong, framed around issues of scarcity concern around debt and entitlement debt and climate change, my guest peter diamondis has come out with a book saying the world is think.

his book is entitled "abundance." in the middle of everyone focusing on what's wrong here you are making a statement that the world's future is a lot better than most of us think. >> the work i've been doing has shown me an incredible future going forward that's completely disconnected with people's conversations or people debating should i have a kid should i bring a kid in this world. it drives me nuts. you know, people have forgotten how incredibly great this last century has been. over the last 100 years think about the per cap at a income of every human on the planet has more than tripled. every nation has got wealthier and healthier. the cost of food has come down 13 fold, the cost of energy 100 fold communication a thousand fold. all the forces have been making

it possible to live these extraordinary life are only separated. in the next 20, 30 years, i believe in the work and studies i've done, we have the potential to meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child on this planet. >> you talk about the rising billion, the fact as we move, this planet gross we're also going to have a remarkable number of people that go on line that are connected like never before, 2 billion to 5 billion. >> yeah. >> what does that mean? >> it means that innovation, the ability to create new and better products, think about the things we have today that didn't exist a decade ago. wi-fi, google, itunes, skype two way video conferencing, the things we run our business on weren't here a decade ago. people exchanging ideas, the web is the biggest driver for

in 2010, we had 2 billion people connected on this planet. by 2020, it's going to 5 billion. 3 billion new minds are coming on line. what do they want? they've never been heard from before. what ideas will they come up with? they represent 10s of trillions of dollars flowing into the economy as they buy stuff. >> you frame that in not a negative life in terms of lack of resources and insatiable appetite for people to consume and the concern from a climate impact and capacity to absorb that water and food scarcity, you make a case what technology then will drive, that capacity to work through those challenges? >> i tell the stories, the facts that hopefully get people thinking differently about scarcity. i open with a story about in 1840 aluminum was the most rare metal on the planet. napoleon had the king of sigh

yam over for dinner and served him with aluminum utensils. it was the most precious metal in 1940. even though the earth is made up of 4.3 aluminum by weight, you can't mine aluminum out. it was worth more than platinum and gold. which is why when you go to d.c., the tip of the washington monument was aluminum. technology made it so easy to extract, we use it with a throw away mentality. we talk about energy scarcity, but the earth is bathed in 5,000 times more energy than we as a species use in a year. it isn't scarce, it's just not in a usable form yet. the cost of coal larr is dropping. the amount of solar producing is growing 30% a year. we're 20 years away from being

able to meet 100% of our energy needs from solar. the earth we talk about water worth, but earth is covered in water, 95% of salt water but there's amazing technology on line right now to make that into very pure, drinkable water. >> you want folks to think big thoughts and do big things, a billion people. >> yeah. i talk to c.e.o.'s in companies and people who have made huge money and say you're living in a time where your legacy cannot be just a believe or product. you're legacy can be wiping one of the grand challenges off this planet, solve food water energy sox the diseases. that's where we are today. we have the ability to attack those things. it's the passion-focused mind enabled by capital and technology. people have to risk big to solve big problems. >> we talk about the rising billion and capacity for people to connect in ways they never could have imagined at any other

time in human history. these same techno philanthropists, meaning there are people making great wealth and doing what? not just putting money into investing in a library with their name on it but doing different things. >> i think there are individuals. i mean the quintessential example is about him gates going after malaria and people going after redesigns education redesigning dean cayman and the work he's doing in water. people have said ok, i've been extraordinarily successful in reinventing advertising or reinventing the buying experience on line. i'm going to use that capital now to solve one of the biggest problems on the planet. part is trying to change people's mindset. the work i do is how do you get these people to put their money at incentive to incentivize the

world and solve the biggest problems. >> spaces proceduration, what was the inspiration? >> i grew up born in the 1960's, grew up passionate about space flights, drank all the tang out there, wanting to inspired by apollo and star trek both and figured out my chance of becoming a government astronaut were one in a thousand. i had a better chance of become be an nba all-star. i'm only 5'5", than an astronaut. i thought how can i do this privately. i knew how difficult it was i started 15 companies in the space world mining os asteroids. i read that lindbergh in 1927 crossed the atlantic to win a $25,000 prize. you put up a prize you don't pay anyone who tries only the person who pumps it off and when

they do, awesome. the day before is something a break through to a crazy idea. how in our today do we incentivize crazy ideas. in the government, you try something wacky, there's a congressional investigation, in a private company, you worry about your stock price being hit. you've been to our x prize engineering and thank you for your participation. one of the groups you were in was brainstorming an earthquake prediction x prize. i'm going to a meeting that might fund that. how cool would that be figuring out how to look at the data and predict an earthquake 15 minutes or 30 minutes earlier? it would be transformative. >> as a former san francisco mayor, i can particularly embrace that framework. you've had other successful x prizes, oil clean up, we we we we

we understandy schmidt putting up money. >> i was on stage with paul jacobs, the chairman of qualcomm announcing this january, asking teams around the world to build a hand held mobile device that a consumer could use to diagnose themselves better than a board certified doctor or team of doctors. we named it the qualcomm try quarter x prize after the medical try quarter that spock and jones would use on star trek. if you're trekking through kenya, or a mom this is a device you talk to, it's got a.i., you cough on it, it would analyze your sputum.

you could do a finger blood trick. this thing has to diagnose you better than a board certified doctor, which sometimes isn't too hard. there was a study done that said 45% of the time you go to the doctor, you get the wrong course of treatment or diagnosis. another fact which scares me, i went to medical school ages ago and knew how much i forgot the year after i left. i never practiced. by 2020 in the u.s., we're going to be short 90,000 doctors. we can't train enough. technology is going to come in and make health care abundant. this is a common cold, stay home and drink fluids. don't go to the e.r. that's already overworked. the doctors we have can be used for effectively. >> what is the limitation on x prizes? is it just the quality of imagination? going through a visionary questions and imagining other x

prizes other megax prizes in the future? >> we've been thinking about that, what could they they be used in reinventing governments, something you and i have talked about. so listen, i want to be very clear. incentive competitions x prizes are a tool in a tool box. i intend to find out how far and wide they can be used. one of the ones i'm really excited about dean kayman we mentioned earlier is a childhood obesity x prize. >> he is known for the segue but not the 1,000 patents, one of the most brilliant minds out there. >> the implantable dialysis and infusion pumps. he saved millions of lives in all his bio medical technologies. he's the edison of our team, an extraordinary man. >> childhood obesity x prize to

have teams countries around the world look at how can we change this epidemic childhood obesity, which is killing us financially and really ruining our kids' lives. the next price in alzheimer's which could bankrupt this nation. we are looking at x prizes in very low cost housing construction, but we've talked about megax prizes in areas that are one of the ones i love is go from a skin cell to a transplantable heart lung, kidneys, if you have kidney or liver failure, grow your own. that's the future that we have ahead of us. >> what's the limitation? just the philanthropy to back up the prize? >> we have probably more ideas than we have capital. it's easier to get money.

i still it shocks me how difficult it still is. if i had a billion dollars and wanted to change the world i would say what are the 10 planet i want to solve here's $100 million each. i don't care who does it, because the beautiful thing is when you put up a prize it's paid only when it's done. >> if you've earned a billion dollars, you've taken risks and run big ideas and then it seems timid to give away your moan that doesn't orient about all the models of entrepreneur ship. >> billionaires, if you hear this out here. >> only pay for performance. i don't have a billion dollars but i'd be front and center on this. what is it about that limiting belief or is it just people used to the way things have been done? >> i think it is people used to the way they have done it and wanting to insert more control. remember when you put up a prize purse, you can't control who wins it.

you could control the end goal, but it's not you giving it to this particular innovator or university. it's up for grabs. i really don't fully know, me this is one of the most efficient highly leveraged, you only pay when it's done, get 10 to 50 times of the amount of the purse spent by all the teams trying to win your money. you don't owe me back a single solution. if you're a venture capitalist and back an approach, you back that and put up a prize. you might have backed 20 or 100 approaches, bun wins but you have a team up in industry, so lots of benefits. >> why not government then? is this a solution to picking winners and losers? why isn't government doing what you said, let's put $1 billion up to solve a problem as opposed to spending billions managing problems?

>> the government is beginning to do this, but they're doing it still on a small scale. there isn't large scale, you know, this administration, tom cleal in ostp is really thinking about grand challenge work, but it is about putting up very large sums. congress, a all due respect to congress, therefore can't direct which district it goes into. >> yeah. >> and it's money that is, you know, it's okay, if it's a half a million dollars or million dollars, but put up a $10 million prize then you're losing control. >> there's a website that has some of these smaller. in the closing moments here, you're bullish about america's ability to compete in this globalize the environment with i.t. and globalization america's best days of ahead.

>> go and ask anyone around the world what are the hottest i.t. products and services. they're all with the exception of skype, all of them are u.s. born. we still have the mindset. america still despite itself sometimes still has the mindset of risk taking. it requires extraordinary risk to capitol everything you created, because that's what it takes to have a real break through. so america still has that. others are beginning to catch up, but i think we still have a solid lead if the regulatory world doesn't get in the way. >> at a risk of extending our time from that which was set aside, peter, thank you. >> we'll close the show with thoughts on today's guests, and while peop very, very excited about that and very proud of that. >>beltway politics from inside the loop. >>we tackle the big issues here

in our nation's capital, around the country and around the globe. >>dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens current's morning news block. >>we'll do our best to carry the flag from 6 to 9 every morning. >>liberal and proud of it.

>> just a few years ago, who would have thought a 40-year-old entrepreneur could send a rocket to space or a non-scientific company would drive scientific breakthroughs. despite downturns, recession and incomes innovators continue to have solutions to problems in transportation in space medicine and education.

the key is partnerships, public and public-private partnerships. elon musk has more than a billion dollars in government contracts. how can you forget the fascinating story about the chevy corvair which launched consumer activism. there will be 3 billion more people with global voices solutions and ideas. that makes him hopeful and so aim. thanks for watching the show. please continue the conversation on our website facebook, twitter and google plus. he's certifiably insane! and just signs a deal for $100 million and people listen to

that crap! i just can't believe it. 1-866-55-press. your latest on glenn beck. let's talk about it. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." live on your radio and current tv. i have the most common type of atrial fibrillation, or afib. it's not caused by a heart valve problem. i was taking warfarin, but my doctor put me on pradaxa instead to reduce my risk of stroke. in a clinical trial, pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) reduced stroke risk 35% better than warfarin.

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