i feel like people don't understand your capacities. now is not the time. >> the show starts now. >> at some point we should describe this. >> the show starts now. >> good monday afternoon to you. i'm dylan ratigan, and we are, in fact, 30 minutes away from president obama's news conference wrapping up the nato summit in chicago. the president has been delivering a sales pitch to nato allies, attempting to gain their support not only for his end of the afghan war in 2014 but his pledge to keep a presence in afghanistan ten years thereafter. 130,000 nato troops currently are stationed in afghanistan, the other big topic at the summit, and something that we have talked at length about here on the d.r. show. the kiber pass where 40% of nato supplies come from pakistan into afghanistan. that pass has been closed since a series of air strikes last fall. pakistan by no means a nato

member, but the president of pakistan sis at the summit and e did meet briefly with our president today. president obama refuses to hold formal bilateral meetings with him until there is a deal made to manage those supply routes through pakistan into afghanistan. the "new york times" says the problem is how much pakistan wants to charge us, you and me, for safe passage of these nato supplies through pakistan into afghanistan. whaelts t what's the fee, is the question. nato used to pay, this is a conventional bribe, $250 per truck back in the day. but we've printed money and all these things, and now pakistan says they want upward of $5,000 per truck in the bribe to bring our belongings into their country where they can steal it from us. so the question really becomes how much do we want to pay -- anyway, we'll get into it with our guests. most of the cash ends up in insurgent hands, the enemies,

those that we're fighting. the money for those trucks is being paid, believe it or not, to finance the taliban as a bribe for them not to shoot at us as we go through the khyber pass. you with me? yes, we're funding both sides of the war. they're back today after clashing riot police over the weekend. john yang is in chicago. we'll see what's outside before we turn our attention inside. john, what do you know that we don't? >> reporter: i tell you, dylan, the protests were pretty violent over the weekend, but today it's sort of a little gentler and calmer protests. a couple hundred people marched on the boeing headquarters here in downtown chicago, allowing them not only to protest the war, boeing being a defense contractor, but also marching for justice. they were saying boeing is one of the big companies that pays very little in federal taxes in the country. they also then went, after that

little demonstration, they sat in front of the boeing headquarters, blocked the streets, and then broke off into other groups and marched over to president obama's election headquarters, reelection headquarters just a little bit to the east in the prudential center where they had a press conference in which they complained about the police treatment they received on sunday at the tail end of their big protest when they marched to the mccormick place where the nato summit is being held. there were about 2,000 people in that march. it went mostly quietly, mostly without incident. at the end of the march, most of the people dispersed quietly at the end of the speeches, but a hard-core group of about a couple hundred remained. some tried to push their way to the mccormick place. that met with clashes with police, some baton swinging on the part of police, some switch

swinging, some can throwing, some barricade throwing on the part of the protesters. then after about a two-hour standoff, the police essentially waited the protesters out. it was a hot day. they let the protesters work it out, sort of work through what they wanted to do and then sort of cleared the area. by that time the group had dwindled to about 50 or so. in all, there were about 45 arrests. the police say four officers were injured, and the local hospitals report treating at least seven protesters. the protesters themselves say there were more than a couple dozen injuries in that protest, but now the big protest or one of the major concerns was ending the war in afghanistan, and now the nato allies have agreed that the united states will be -- that nato will be out of afghanistan by the end of 2014 with afghanistan taking the lead in security by the middle of

2013, nato taking a backseat, focusing on training. dylan? >> all right, john, thank you so much. the mega-mega panel in effect. today, senior fellow at the center for advanced studies iny president of the ura sreurasia along with our regular panel. i want to start small. the khyber pass, is it too cynical to say we are in a negotiation to figure out how much money we're going to pay pakistan in order for them to have the right to steal our stuff? >> we would much rather not to have to pay the pakistanis anything, but as long as we have troops in harm's way in afghanistan, we need a way to get those guys serviced. how are we going to do that? the alternative to paying the pakistanis is our boys are more in harm's way, which is not

acceptable. this is a devil we know quite well and we are prepared to pay them more. we also have -- we've killed a bunch of pakistani civilians, there have been a lot of drone strokes, a lot of mea culpas, a lot of egg in our face. does that allow them to squeeze more of a payment we provide them? you betcha. that's where it's at right now. >> tony, you agree? >> you bet. right now we've budgeted in $13 million for the privilege, auz pointed out, of funding both sides of the war. there are alternatives. we're looking at other routes, but they would be as expensive or maybe more. president obama has not served himself well by holding the president zardari off. he has this kind of small meeting with him. we have killed pakistani civilians, and dylan, you and i both know, we talked about that off the air, i am all for

holding pakistan more agressive, but you have to be diplomatically astute of what you do. we need pakistanis to maintain stability and we're not doing a good job of getting them to understand that. >> how would you handle the diplomacy in pakistan right now? >> i would get us out. seriously. >> what does that look like? when you say we're going to get out of pakistan, then you have all this managed security risk with iran and all the rest? is that a likely option? >> the troops are gone in 2014. 2013 afghan is taking the lead in terms of security. karzai is the best nominated mayor in kabul. that's new york parking. that's not what you want to look like in south asia. we are not going to have a constructive relationship with pakistan. their governance doesn't work, their military is effectively running pieces of the country that the militants are not in the local region.

we're getting out. and when we get out, this is going to be more of china's problem, india's problem, then it's america's problem. frankly, most americans are okay with that. >> that gives me a question of the whole nature of nato in the first place, and that is why is it a nato issue what the shape of afghanistan is? that is not north atlantic by any stretch of the imagination. and even if you look at the other nato involvements, you're not looking at something that looks like a mutual defense pack. >> where do we stand with the whole post world war ii rhetoric? >> the whole post world war ii order, whether it is the world bank or imf or nato, u.s.-led global stuff. well, the united states doesn't want to do as much of that lifting, our people are saying no, and meanwhile, a lot of countries that matter in the world today, the developing world, they don't share fundamental values and priorities with us, right? many of them are not

democracies, many of them are not free market economies -- >> you're referring to china? >> i'm referring to china, i'm referring to russia, i'm even referring to countries like brazil. we were in line with our allies. look at the countries today and you see a projecting power around the world, we just don't agree with them as much. >> nato incredibly important in 1949 for those four decades containing the soviet union, obviously did some work in libya. but now it's diverging. europe incredibly worried about itself, uthe eurozone and so forth. i think today is quite significant historically because nato is, on so many levels, breaking up. it's obsolete. >> tony, if you look at the conversations, and sam, if you look at the broader conversation, the talk about a need for a global debt restructuring, a new martial plan which is a post world war ii apparatus, what that looks like, we don't know, but it's

not even under conversation right now. the post-war, if you will, american foreign policy looks like, we've got 300 soldiers a week coming back from camp pendleton, 3,000 will come back to the naval base in san diego. we're moving to a different period of time. it would appear to be a moment for whoever the u.s. president is to attempt to shape a new paradigm in diplomacy, period. >> i'm curious from your perspective, both perspectives, as to which will drive that new policy and that paradigm more, the annual necessity or the availability, the opportunity for us to be policing the world or those forces domestically which benefit financially so much from our involvement around the world, whether it's the 750 bases that we have or those interests that we're protecting. which one is going to win out? >> i think foreign policy. >> tony first. go ahead. >> well, first off, we have to establish a policy going forward

regarding the strategy. what do we want to touch with what limited resources we have? before world war ii, we had something called plant orange which looked at the pacific regarding what issues we had to address. we haven't done this with relation to kabul. the second thing s what do we want to with pakistan? most importantly, they have nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons which both the taliban and the al qaeda folks that are still existing are trying to get ahold of in some form, and let me tell you something, that is something they will continue to pursue, there is no reason to think that they won't, because pointed out by anne earlier, pakistan is it a basket case, and if we don't pay attention to that, we will see bad things happen, which is why we have to focus on what's necessary and what we have to do. >> what is necessary, tony? >> necessary is to understand the fact that anybody who has a nuclear weapon has to retain

power over those nuclear weapons. for better or for worse, zardari's government has nuclear weapons. we have to accept that. there are things we did during the cold war which allowed us to play this like a chess game. we're not doing that now. the afghan people are in annoyance. we shouldn't be worried about what government the afghans have as long as they can't do anything to stabilize the pakistani government or do anything to control us in the world. the next big issue is energy and resources. we don't have a strategy to deal with that. >> i've talked to a lot of marines in california who would tell you a sustainable strategy is the only one for national security. what do you believe? >> nato is not irrelevant. we're sitting on the eve of this nato summit and we're seeing that the countries that are part of nato are showing more agreement on the fundamental issues they're addressing than we've seen in a very long time. they all want out of

afghanistan. they all want out of pakistan. they want to do it cheaply and they all actually share a lot of concerns about the energy issues around the world on iran, they share a lot of concerns around china and cybersecurity. what we will increasingly see is a world of the coalitions of the willing both in terms of energy, economics, trade, climate and on security issues. and nato is not a global institution. it's an institution where the countries that are members all actually share fundamental views of how security should be provided around the world. it doesn't mean they all want to pay for it, it doesn't mean they want to do a lot of lift,ing, but this is not a irrelevant institution, it just needs to be updated to reflect the chal challenges today. >> which goes to your initiative of every country for themselves, and then it goes to globalized interests around issues of security climate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. >> and nato has that alignment. >> and nato has that alignment.

the president is expected at the podium in chicago in just about 20 minutes. we'll bring that to you, obviously, live when he comes out. we're also away from foreign policy watching the financial markets. nasdaq, of course, the home of the facebook frenzy on friday, well, that big old ipo looking like quite the flop in its first full trading day. business insiders henry joins the mega panel on what facebook is really worth and the embarrassment of its breaking well below its offering price in its first full day of trading, after this. [ male announcer ] this one goes out to all the allergy muddlers.

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facebook share price dropped by 11% today.

you may have already heard this. closing under $35 after being sold to public investors at $38 on friday. it's called breaking in the financial world, then it's a humiliation for any publicly traded company to so quickly lose its first round of investors' money. joining the panel now is henry blojich, who has been tracking the humiliation. his latest title, now that everybody has soeb ebered up, l figure out what facebook is actually worth. obviously the hoopla is gone. someone argued that the facebook's ipo weakness is a weakness. your thoughts? >> the weakness is it was overpriced. a house is for sale. it's a nice-looking house. they advertise it to the entire world when anybody who might

have a market for the house has a clahance to look at it, they t all the bids on it and they price it at the top, and where does it go from there? >> so it's nice for the owners. >> it's good for facebook, they got full price for the client and they met the market on that day. unfortunately, i think a lot of people played it for a big pop. as soon as they found they weren't going to get one, they said, okay, i'm out of here. i'm not a long-time investor. >> back to apple. >> for a change people were paying attention to stocks. it was on one of those web sites, tmz, so people who don't pay attention to stocks are paying attention to it and looking at it and thinking, huh. this is kind of difficult. you don't know what's going to go up or down. i think one of the big problems in people putting money in mutual funds, putting money in their ira, they have this idea that wall street goes up and up and up.

so much of the sec and treasury talks about is, we have to increase confidence in the stock market. i like the fact that the stock so many people are paying attention to is going down. and you think, maybe playing that game is too much for me and i'll leave it to jim cramer to do it. >> price is a lot. >> price is everything. >> they said, where do you want to bid, and people said where ever, expecting it to jump no matter what. facebook is a great company, has a great future, and it just depends what you pay for it. >> facebook makes $4 peruseer and apple $28 peru user, so immediately there is a difference. >> there's a strange thing where you sell things? what is this you speak of? >> you touch on this in your piece, but is there that much more room for facebook to figure out how to make money off

everybody who has been using it? they've been around for a while. everybody who is going to be using it seem to be close. if they haven't figured out hown the future? >> very good question. i asked people, what are people seeing? you look at the numbers but they showed nice valuation, but -- they said, it's all the options, payments and games and platforms and all these other things. now people are saying, okay, let's see it. and to your point, they've had it four years. >> ls no questi there is no question that option is there, and eventually it will hit an option where people are excited about them again, but whiright now it like whoa. >> we have jamie dimon, of jp

morgan. he has to resign, i think. i do not see a way for him to keep that job. >> the conflicts there are unbelievable, as you pointed out. i don't know how the regulator has the regulated fellow on the board in his bank. it doesn't make sense. >> at the same time, and you and i have talked about this before, of all the people on wall street, one i have historically liked, think the most of, think of a great financial leader in the sense of his understanding of the culture off the reservation thinking they're nuts, i don't know what they're doing, it will be amazing to see someone like jamie dimon to step forward, say the same things simon johnson says, say the same thing tim carney says.

this bank is too big, i'm getting embarrassed. i'm start to go drink vodka and i have to explain to my wife, let's go back to the good old days when you had requirements. probably fantasy land, but he would be the guy for the job. >> that's the real point. it's not that jamie dimon or jp morgan were a bumplg nch of boneheads, i wish more people would speak like that, "we made a mistake." these risks they're taking, the positions they're putting on, so the answer is, it worked for 70 years. let's bring it back. >> gambling over here, banking over here. >> we have to go. nice to see you. hang on a sec. you know what, i was going to go

to commercial to see what's going on, but then we get the two-minute warning from the president saying he's coming in two minutes. i'm not going to go to commercial. >> jamie dimon on the fed board reminds us that the federal reserve is there to preserve the safety and soundness of banks, which is a good thing, except some people think when we have regulators, the regulators are there sort of protecting little guys instead of big guys. >> or everybody? >> and as we said about the sec, what they're often looking for s again, confidence in the market, and these guys have the revolving door on the sec and the fed board. just in the last couple years we've had a couple of these guys switch over, and for me this should be a lesson for a lot of the people like sam who want to give regulators more power to sort of control the market, because -- >> what i take from this is we need a stronger statutory structure in which the regulators work, because you can nibble at the margins with the a

avoca rule, one that's perhaps harsher in some respect, in drawing a more pronounced line as to what these should do. >> it used to be every bank for itself, and the banks actually had to retain their risk and couldn't pump it off to the taxpayer which i think we can all agree to. it's unfortunate -- why do you think somebody like jamie dimon doesn't step forward and say, listen, it's screwed up? it's not -- but we can fix it. >> i think he backed himself into a corner by coming on and sake avoca rule is terrible, you can't handcuff us like this, we're adults, let us gamble, we can handle it, and then have this huge blowup. it's tough to back away from that. >> what about the vocal rule? it allows companies to hedge for good reason because you don't want -- so there's reasons to hedge. >> but the definition of

hedge -- the definition of liberal and conservative. what does it mean? >> there's hedge to go guard against risk and there's hedging for profit. the hedging rules are so strict, they aren't going to understand them, so maybe the hedging rules aren't clean enough to define. >> let's set the banks aside for a second. thank you for the krconversatio. i want to turn our attention back to the president's news conference. give us a sense of what we should be listening for and what message he's about to deliver. >> he's going to deliver the message that all is well, we're going toward the door. there's a couple words he's not going to use. he's not going to use human rights or democracy. he's not going to say much about that because frankly we're heading out the door. >> all right. here we go. >> good afternoon, everybody. let me begin by saying thank you to my great friend rob emmanuel, the mayor of the city of chicago, and to all my neighbors

and friends, the people of the city of chicago for their extraordinary hospitality and for everything that they've done to make this summit such a success. i could not be prouder to welcome people from around the world to my hometown. this was a big undertaking. some 60 world leaders, not to mention folks who were exercising their freedom of speech and assembly, the very freedoms that our alliance are dedicated to defending. and so it was a lot to carry for the people of chicago, but this is a city of big shoulders. rahm, his team, chicagoans proved that this world class city knows how to put on a world class event. partly this was a perfect city for this summit because it reflected the bonds between so many of our countries. for generations, chicago has welcomed immigrants from around the world, including a lot of

our nato allies. i would just add that i've lost track of the number of world leaders and their delegation whoz cadelegations who came up to me during the last day and a half and remarked on what an extraordinarily beautiful city chicago is, and i could not agree more. i'm especially pleased that i had a chance to show them soldier field. i regress that i was not able to take in one of the crosstown classics, although i will note that my teams did okay. white sox fan in the back. right on. now, as i said yesterday, nato has been the bedrock of common security, freedom and prosperity for nearly 65 years. it hasn't just endured, it has thrived because our nations are stronger when we stand together. we saw that most recently in

libya where a nato afforded capabilities that no one else in the world could match. as president, one of my top foreign policy priorities has been to strengthen our alliances, including nato, and that's exactly what we've done. two years ago in lisbon, we took action in several areas that are critical to the future of our alliance, and we pledged that in chicago we would do more. over the last two days, we have delivered. first we reached agreement on a series of steps to strengthen the alliances' defense capabilities over the next decade. in keeping with the strategic concept, we agreed to in lis bo -- lisbon, in order to fulfill our article 5 in security. we agreed to pilot aircraft drones, to strengthen surveillance and reconnaisance. we agreed to continue air patrols over our baltic allies. we also agreed on a mix of

conventional nuclear missile and missile defense forces that we need, and importantly, we agreed on how to pay for them. and that includes pooling our resources in these difficult economic times. we're moving forward with missile defense and agreed that nato is declaring an interim capability for the system. america's contribution to this effort will be a phased, adaptive approach that we're pursuing on european missile defense, and i want to commend our allies who are stepping up and playing a leadership role in missile defense as well. our defense radar in turkey will be placed under nato control. spain, romania and poland have agreed to host assets. and we look forward to contributions from other allies. since this system is neither aimed at nor undermines strategic deterrent, i continue

to believe that missile defense can be an area in cooperation with russia. second, we're not unified behind a plan to responsibly wind down the war in afghanistan, a plan that trains afghan security forces, transitions to the afghans and builds a partnership that can endure after our combat mission in afghanistan ends. since last year, we've been transitioning parts of afghanistan to the afghan national security forces, and that has enabled our troops to start coming home. indeed, we are in the process of drawing down 30,000 u.s. troops by the end of this summer. here in chicago we reached agreement on the next milestone in that transition. at the meeting this morning, we greed that afghan forces will take the lead for combat forces next year, in mid-2013. at that time, isaf forces will have shifted from combat to a support role in all parts of the country. and this will mark a major step

toward the goal we agreed to in lisbon, completing the transition to afghan lead for security by the end of 2014 so that afghans can take responsibility for their own country and so our troops can come home. this will not mark the end of afghanistan's challenges, obviously, or our partnership with that important country. but we are making substantial progress against our core objective of defeating al qaeda and denying its safe haven while helping the afghans to stand on their own. we leave afghanistan with a clear road map. we are committed to bringing this war in afghanistan to a responsible end. we also agreed with what nato's relationship with afghanistan will look like after 2014. nato will continue to provide, train and assist afghanistan

after this war is over. we need to help sustain afghanistan's progress in the years ahead. today the afghanistan community also expressed its support to efforts to bring peace and stability to south asia, including afghanistan's neighbors. finally, nato agreed to deepen its qualification with partners that are critical, including afghanistan and libya. today's meeting was unprecedented. our 21 allies joined by 13 nations from around the world: europe, the middle east, north africa and asia. each of these has contributed in political ways. each wants to see us do more together. to see the breadth of leaders in that room shows how nato has

become a hub to nation security. again, i want to thank my fellow leaders. i think the bottom line is we are leaving chicago with a nato alliance that is stronger, more capable and more ready for the future. as a result, each of our nations, the united states included, is more secure and we're in a stronger position to advance the security and prosperity and pree dfreedom th seek around the world. with that i'm going to take a couple questions and i'm going to start with julie pace of a.p. there she is. >> thank you, mr. president. you've said the u.s. can't deal with afghanistan without also talking about pakistan. and yet there's been little public discussion at this summit about pakistan's role in ending the war. in your talks with president zardari today, did you make any progress in reopening the supply lines, and if the larger tensions with pakistan can't be resolved, does that put the nato coalitions and gains at risk?

>> keep in mind my discussions with president zardari were brief as we walked into the summit, and i emphasized to him what we emphasized publicly as well as privately. we think pakistan has to be part of the solution in afghanistan, that it is in our national interests to see a pakistan that is democratic, that is prosperous and that is stable, that we share a common enemy in the extremists that are found not only in afghanistan but within pakistan. we need to work through some of the tensions that have inevitably arisen after ten years of our military presence in that region. president zardari shared with me his belief that these issues can get worked through. we didn't anticipate that the supply line issue was going to be resolved by this summit. we knew that before we arrived

in chicago. but we're actually making diligent progress on it. i think ultimately everybody in the alliance, all of asef, and most importantly, the people of afghanistan and pakistan understand that neither country is going to have the kind of security, stability and prosperity that they can resolve some of these outstanding issues and join in common purpose with the international community in making sure that these regions are not harboring extremists. i don't want to paper over real challenges there. there is no doubt there have been tensions between isaf and pakistan, the united states and pakistan over the last several months. i think they are being worked through, both military and diplomatic channels, but

ultimately it is our interest to see a successful and stable pakistan, and it is in pakistan's interest to work with us and the world community to make sure they themselves are not consumed by extremism that is in their midst. and so we're going to keep on going at this, and i think every nato member, every isaf member, is committed to that. hans nichols. where is hans? >> thank you, mr. president. yesterday your friend and ally, cory booker, said an ad you released was unthinkable. is it your view that romney is permanently responsible for those job losses at a steel mill, and steve ratner has criticized this, and -- three parts, mr. president -- could you give us your sense of just

what private equity's role is on stemming job losses as they seek an investment from their investors? thank you. >> first of all, i think cory booker is an outstanding mayor. he's doing a great job in newark and helping to turn that city around. and i think it's important to recognize that this issue is not a, quote, distraction, this is part of the debate that we're going to be having in this election campaign about how too we create an economy that everybody, top to bottom, folks on wall street and folks on main street have a chance at success. if they're working hard and they're acting responsibly, that they're able to live out the american dream. now, i think my view of private equity is that it is set up to

maximize profits. that's a healthy part of the free market. that's part of the role of a lot of business people that's not unique to private equity. as i think my representatives have said repeatedly, and i will say today, i think there are folks who do good work in that area, and there are times where they identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs for new industries. but understand that their priority is to maximize profits. and that's not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers. and the reason this is relevant to the campaign is because my opponent, governor romney, his main calling card for why he thinks he should be president is his business experience. you know, he's not going out there touting his experience in

massachusetts, he's saying, i'm a business guy and i know how to fix it, and this is his business. and when you're president as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, your job is not simply to maximize profits. your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. your job is to think about those workers who get laid off and how are we paying for their retraining? your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so they can attract new businesses. your job as president is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody is paying their fair share that allows us then to invest in science and technology and infrastructure, all of which are going to help us grow. and so if your main argument for how to grow the economy is, i

knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you're missing what this job is about. it doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity, but that's not what my job is as president. my job is to take into account everybody, not just some. my job is to make sure that the country is growing not just now but ten years from now and 20 years from now. and so to repeat, this is not a distraction. this is what this campaign is going to be about, is what is a strategy for us to move this country forward in a way where everybody can succeed, and that means i've got to think about those workers in that video just as much as i'm thinking about

folks who have been much more successful. [ inaudible ] >> what i would say is that mr. romney is responsible for the proposals he's putting forward for how he says he's going to fix the economy, and if the main basis for him suggesting he can do a better job is his track record as the head of a private equity firm, then both the upsides and the downsides are worth examining. hold on a second. alistair bull. >> thank you, mr. president. i would like to take you back to not this summit but the one you hosted at camp david a couple of days ago. whether you can ensure investors

that are contingency plans in place to cope if greece leaves urt o the euro to leave a lehman-like shock to greece and the economy. >> everyone is keenly interested in getting that issue resolved. i'm not going to speculate what happens if the greek choose to exit because they've got an election and this is going to be an important debate inside of greece. everybody who is involved in the ga summit indicated their desire to see greece stay in the eurozone in a way that's consistent with the commitments that have already been made. and i think it's important for greece, which is a democracy, to work through what their options are at a time of great difficulty.

i think we all understand, though, what's at stake. what happens in greece has an impact here in the united states. businesses are more hesitant to invest if they see a lot of uncertainty looming across the atlantic because they're not sure whether that's going to mean a further global slowdown, and we're already seeing very slow growth rates, and, in fact, contraction in a lot of countries in europe. so we had an extensive discussion about how do we strengthen the european project generally in a way that does not harm world economic growth but instead moves it forward? and i've been clear, i think, in not just this week but over the last two years what i think ought to be done. we have to put firewalls in place to ensure that countries outside of greece that are doing the right thing aren't harmed just because markets are

skittish and nervous. we have to make sure banks are recapitalized in europe so th n that investors have confidence, and we have to make sure there is a growth strategy to go alongside the physical need for discipline. as well as a monetary policy that is promoting the capacity of countries like a spain or an italy that have put in place some very tough targets and some very tough policies, to also offer their constituents a prospect for the economy improving, job growth increasing, incomes expanding even if it may take a little bit of time. and the good news was you saw a consensus across the board from newly elected president to

merkel and other elected people in europe. they're going to meet again. we've offered to be there for consultation and to provide any technical assistance and work through some of these ideas in terms of how we can stabilize the markets there. ultimately, what i think is most important is that europe recognizes this euro project involves more than just a currency, it means that there's got to be some more effective coordination on the fiscal and the monetary side and on the growth agenda. and i think that there was strong intent there to move in that direction. of course, they've got 17 countries that have to agree to every step they take, so, you know, i think about my one congress, then i start thinking

about 17 congresses and i start getting a little bit of a headache. it's going to be challenging for them. the last point i'll make is i do sense greater urgency now than perhaps existed two years ago or two and a half years ago. and keep in mind, just for folks here in the states, when we look backwards at our response in 2008 and 2009, there was some criticism because we had to make a bunch of tough political decisions. in fact, there is still criticism about some of the decisions that we made. but one of the things we were able to do was act forcefully to solve a lot of these problems early. which is why credit markets that were locked up started loosening up again. that's why businesses started investing again. that's why we've seen job growth

of over 4 million jobs over the last two years. that's why corporations are making money, and that's why we've seen strong economic growth for a long time. and so acting forcefully rather than in small bite-size pieces and increments, i think, ends up being a better approach even though, obviously, we're still going through challenges ourselves. some of these issues are ones that built up over decades, all right? steven colson. where is steven? >> thank you, mr. president. as the summit tried to continue the work of keeping afghanistan away from the role of terrorist haven, yemen got 400 soldiers.

do you think yemen is slipping more into anarchy, and what can we do to slow that process? >> we are very concerned about al qaeda activity and extremist activity in yemen. a positive development has been a relatively peaceful political transition in yemen, and we participated diplomatically along with yemen's neighbors in helping to lead to a political transition, but the work is not yet done. we have established a strong counterterrorism partnership with the yemeni government, but there is no doubt that in a country that is still poor, that is still unstable, it is attracting a lot of folks that previously might have been in afata before we started putting pressure on them there.

we're going to continue to work with the yemeni government to try to identify aqap leadership and operations and try to thwart them. that's important for u.s. safety. it's also important for the stability of yemen and for the region. but i think one of the things that we've learned from the afghanistan experience is for us to stay focused on the counter-terrorism issue, to work with the government, to not overextend ourselves, to operate smartly in dealing with these issues. and it's not unique to yemen, by the way. we've got similar problems in somalia, what's happening in mama mali. that's partly why the relationships we've established is important, because there will

be times when these partners have more effective intelligence operations, more diplomatic contacts, et cetera, in some of these parts of the world where, you know, the state is a little wobbly, and you may see terrorists attempting to infiltrate or set up bases. i'm going to call on jake tapper, because i've been told you were talking to some of the troops in afghanistan, and since so much of the topic has been on afghanistan, obviously none of this would be working but for the extraordinary sacrifices they're making. >> thank you, mr. president. i put out an invitation for some of the troops and families that i know and i'll just give you two or three of them. mr. president, if this handoff and withdrawal prove premature, what plan is in place for dealing with an afghanistan that

is falling apart or perhaps once again is under taliban rule? and i'll just do one more. do you feel that the reporting you receive from the pentagon fully represents what the on-ground commanders assess? is there any disconnect between what the leaders and the public feel they want to hear versus what's occurring on the ground? these are from troops i've met in eurostan provence. >> let me take the second question first. i think one of the things that i emphasize whenever i'm talking to john allen or the joint chiefs or any of the officers who are in afghanistan is i can't afford a whitewash. i can't afford not getting the very best information in order to make good decisions.

i should add, by the way, the danger is not that anybody is purposely trying to downplay challenges in afghanistan, a lot of times it's just the military culture is we can get it done. and so their thinking is, how are we going to solve this problem, not, boy, why is this such a disaster? that's part of the reason why we admire our military so much and we love our troops, because they've got that can-do spirit. but i think we have set up a structure that really tries to guard against that. even in my white house, for example, i've got former officers who have been in afghanistan who i will send out there as part of the national security team of the white house, not simply the pentagon, to interact and to listen and to go in and talk to the captains and the majors and the corporals and the privates, to try to get a sense of what's going on.

and i think the reports we get are relatively accurate in the sense that there is real improvement in the areas where we've had a significant presence, you can see the taliban not having a foothold. that there is genuine improvement in the performance of afghan national security forces, but the taliban is still a robust enemy. and the gains are still fragile, which lead me then to the second point that you've made in terms of premature withdrawal. i don't think there's ever going to be an optimal point where we can say, this is great, this is where we wanted it, and now we can wrap up all our equipment and go home. there's a process, and it's sometimes a messy process, just

as it was in iraq. but think about it. we've been there now 10 years. we are now committing to a transition process that takes place next year, but the full transition to afghan responsibility is almost two years away. and the afghan security forces themselves will not ever be prepared if they don't start taking that responsibility. and frankly, the large footprint that we have in afghanistan over time can be counterproductive. we've been there ten years, and i think, you know, no matter how much good we're doing and how outstanding our troops and civilians and diplomats are doing on the ground, ten years in a country that's very

different, that's a strain. not only on our folks but also on that country, which at a point will be questioning its own sovereignty. i think the timetable we've established is a sound one, it's a responsible one. are there risks involved in it? absolutely. can i anticipate that over the next two years, there are going to be some bad moments along with some good ones? absolutely. but i think it is the appropriate strategy whereby we can achieve a stable afghanistan that won't be perfect, we can pull back our troops in a responsible way, and we can start rebuilding america and making some of the massive investments we can make in afghanistan here back home,

putting people back to work, retraining workers, rebuilding our schools, investing in science and technology, developing our business climate. but there are going to be challeng challenges. the one thing i'm never doubt ful about is just the amazing capacity of our troops and their mora morale. when i was in boz knsnia just a couple weeks ago, the fact you still have so much determination and stick-to-it-iveness is extraordinary. it's a testament and we're very proud of them. since i'm in chicago, even though my press secretary told me not to do this, i'm going to call on a chicagoan to ask a chicago question. jay? >> mr. president. >> good to see you again. >> good to see you, too, mr. president, and good to see you

in chicago. chicagoans look at you standing there with chicago, chicago, chicago on the wall behind you. there is an undeniable sense of pride. in your view, how did reality match-up to fantasy in welcoming the world leaders to chicago? and did the demonstrators in any way on the streets undermine your efforts, mayor emmanuel's efforts, to project the image of chicago you would have liked to have seen? >> i have to tell you, i think chicago performed magnificently. those of us who were in the summit had a great experience. if you talk to leaders from around the world, they loved the city. michelle took some of the spouses down to the south side to see the comer center where wonderful stuff is being done with early education, they saw the art institute. i was just talking to david cameron, and i think he's sneaking off to do a little

sight-seeing before he heads home. i encouraged everybody to shop. want to boost my hometown economy. we gave each leader a bean, a small model, for them to remember as well as a football from soldier field. many of them did not know what to do with them. people had a wonderful time. and i think the chicagoans that they interacted with couldn't have been more gracious or more hospitable, so i could not have been prouder. now, i think with respect to the protesters, as i said, this is part of what nato defends is free speech and freedom of assembly. and, you know, frankly, to my chicago press, outside of chicago, folks really weren't all that stressed about the possibility of having some protesters here