a political twist for all of us as the french president nicolas sarkozy is ousted by his very own electorate voters in a week of deep austerity cuts, massive unemployment, rising debt, and none of them really liked him that much. the new president in france is a socialist, francois hollande who claimed in his victory speech, quote, austerity can no longer be considered, or be inevitable. so what then? well, austerity backlash has now brought down france, grease, italy, spain, ireland and portugal. hollande now vowing to renegotiate the eu's strict budget mandates. but germany's angela merkel, sarkozy's biggest budget ally in the deal, says that is not up for debate. she has, in fact, invited hollande to berlin as soon as he's sworn in next week. wants to talk about who's paying for what. he will also be heading to the united states this month for the g-8 meeting at camp david and the nato summit in chicago. where the french elections might

serve as a warning for america, as we face our own debt and unemployment challenges. we start with chris dickey, paris bureau chief for "newsweek" and daily beast. pat bishop here with us, new york chief at the economist. very simple matt, if not austerity, then what? >> i think a lot more crisis in europe is the first stage. because germans don't want to have anyone changing the policy. but everyone else in europe seems to be voting against austerity. so it's going to be angela merkel, versus the rest of the eurozone, and you know, i think in the end of the day it's going to be hard for the germans to win. they're going to have to pay for's up to a really dramatic crisis in the european union. >> chris, there's an unseen aspect to this negotiation that goes back to the u.s. financial crisis in 2008, which is do we take the -- do we give the hit to the big banks, do we give the hit to the big lenders, or do we absorb the risk into the government and give the hit to the people, the pension holders,

the employment market, et cetera? for four years the hit, if you will, has been given to the employment market, the housing market, these sorts of things, and the banks have been protected. do you believe that hollande is the first major western leader who will step in to the theater of leadership since 2008, who actually wants to negotiate with the banks first, as opposed to unions and pension holders? >> well, the bank situation here is a little bit different than it was in the united states. the exposure of these banks was not the same kind of exposure that you had that huge junk bond exposure, the huge bad debt, poisonous debt that had to be dealt with in the united states. but, hollande's big concern is that he doesn't want to cut back on the public sector the way it does in the -- that we have in the united states, or wanted to, and try to do in the united states. you know, 55% of the gross domestic product of france is

public sector spending. so you start to cut that back, in the name of austerity -- >> yeah. >> and you're going to put a big dent in your gdp. in your growth. that's what he doesn't want to do. >> you look at debt restructuring. which is where this is headed. >> mm-hmm. >> sovereign debt restructuring, pick whatever you want to do. the greek debt restructuring focused on restructuring the inside money. the unions, the pensions, as opposed to the outside money. the banks took cuts but not nearly the degree to which they put in a marshal plan type of environment. we see the same thing in u.s. financing where we say we're going to take the housing cuts out of fannie and freddie and the first mortgage in order to protect the second mortgage, which should be where the first cut happens. >> right. >> how much will hollande's emergence, if at all, affect the risk of write-downs at big banks for their debt? >> well, you know, i think what you've got in europe is a problem where the banks were heading towards a sort of american-style lehman brothers-type meltdown. the european central bank has an

italian in charge now. used to have a tough frenchman in charge. the italian is already adopting a u.s.-fed approach or quantitative easing. >> print the money. >> print the money. that at least means that the banking crisis isn't going to get worse in europe in the short round. the real problem is that this french election. we had on the cover of the economist that europe's most frivolous election. i mean there was no sense that they were really discussing any of the tough issues. and yet they elected the guy who was proposing to reduce retirement ages, sort of reduce the working week, spend more public money, and not -- and he won. and so, you know, the question is what does this mean for the u.s. election? what it tells you is, no one wants to vote for austerity. >> so it definitely tells you, if you look at it through the lens of effectively a -- a hole he will or vapid political debate, that does not address the underlying misaligned issues that are at work globally, and

so what you really get is a sampling of what people want to hear, not what they want to do or think, and does that trivi trivial -- is that too harsh? >> no, in fact, in a way it's more trivial than that. i mean, personalities count in modern politics, and the real focus of the election was the personality of nicolas sarkozy, the incumbent president. the french just don't like this guy. they look at him and they don't see monsieur le president, they see joe pesci. a little guy with a chip on his shoulder. almost gangsterish in some ways. he just rubbed the population very wrong for a long time. that really affected things more than his policies. that's why hollande could come out with a long program, a long platform but people didn't pay a lot of attention to it. because the real issue was, is hollande someone different than nicolas sarkozy. that's all he had to be. and he was. he is.

and now he's president. >> so the genius thing was as long as you're not him, you're the president. which then leads, i think, probably everybody -- >> that's right. >> to scratch their heads, matt. >> well, you know -- >> which is do we know who the new president of france is, and -- does anybody even know? >> there's a long tradition in france if you say one thing then you get elected and thing you change. mitterrand was the first socialist elected in france and it took him a couple of years to complete about-turn. i suspect hollande is going to be much quicker because there's going to be a french parliamentary elections in a couple of months and i suspect the french will think about what the policies are at that point and they might vote rather differently to what they -- what hollande has been proposing. you've got to look at what happened in greece at the weekend where basically they elected nationalist, fascist politicians, basically a massive blow to the ruling coalition. italy, where local elections went against the eurocrat, in germany where local elections dealt a blow to merkel. no one wants to vote for this austerity package in europe and

yet europe's politicians keep talking about continuing on that that ji. i think it has to change. >> after world war ii, chris, as you know, there was a tremendous amount of debt that hung over germany in particular which had been unresolved after world war i. has there been any more talk in europe or any other corner? i've heard a ceo at dow chemical, among others, really talk about the need for meaningful marshall plan, a cohesive, western, debt restructuring that stops playing whack amole and starts actually re-establishing capital requirements, re-establishing transparency in the capital markets, and tilely re-establishing trust in a financial system. >> dylan, that would be -- that would be awfully hard to do. i mean the closest anybody's getting to that is these firewalls that the imf has been trying to build up, talking about trillions and trillions of dollars. the fact is we're talking about very big economies here.

france has the fifth largest economy in the world. so you start restructuring its debt, you start really playing around with france and you're talking about amounts of money that nobody is going to be able to raise. they have to find political compromises that allow a gradual approach to reworking the debt and bringing down the deficit and that's going to take awhile. nobody's going to bail out france. and that's why the terror of terrors is that you start to have a run on french debt the way you've had on italian debt, spanish debt, greek debt, portuguese and irish debt. that happens, all bets are off. >> back here in america, we don't care about the europeans, as you know, matt. this is all entertaining. >> nice place to go on holiday. >> get a cup of coffee, it's not my problem. obviously america has a unique privilege. it can manufacture its own currency and it comes without an interest rate cost, it comes without an inflation expense.

how well protected do you think america is right now, regardless of -- we're going through a period of uncertainty obviously in europe. it's going to become more uncertain, not less, over the next few months. what's your assessment of america's relative risk? >> i think america can get through. they can muddle along for quite awhile. it can, you know, the economy is a bit -- the bright hopes of a couple of months ago seem to be dimming already. but you know, there's scope for america to muddle along. what happens in europe won't really affect the u.s. economy much. the question is how bad are the fundamental problems building up? and how quickly the politicians are going to actually get round to resolving them. will it take a crisis in america eventually to force people to do the right thing? or will this election somehow this year turn in to be a serious discussion of the issues rather than just a frivolous french-style fantasy election? and my feeling is that obama might conclude from this that, you know, you don't want to talk about the tough economic decisions ahead, you want to just be populist. and i think romney might

conclude you don't want to be an incumbent like sarkozy. which of those two views will win? it's going to be an interesting question. but i think america will have to phrase up to this eventually. >> and the challenge, i'll wrap this up, your ego wants to invest in a complex policy conversation, but the political environment rewards idiotic statements on both sides. >> yeah, that's the trouble. i mean we're in this mess in democracy where anyone says one thing that actually addresses the issues gets beaten. i mean -- >> what? you're serious? we don't have serious people come in here! we would never use serious people for something like the entire government of the west, and the entire financial system. what kind of fool are you? matt, it's a pleasure, thank you very much. chris, thank you so much for your perspective. chris dickey, check him out in "newsweek" and the daily beast. and of course matt, running the new york bureau for the economist. both adding in value to what we all know. and i appreciate their help. thanks, guys. >> lest we are to think we are too much better off than our friends in europe, although we

can print our money, this very afternoon washington is playing childish games with student debt. congressman joe corny joins us live with a new set of rules. plus this is just fun. inside the hunt for whitey bulger the mobster on the move. you know the story. why did it take 16 years to catch this guy? folklore hero, fugitive, boston mob boss. and -- i know what you were doing this weekend, and it's not -- it was pretty easy to figure it out. "the avengers" smashed box office records. so many folks at the movies. all coming up. time for the your business entrepreneurs of the week. ken whiting and his nephew jeff own whitings foods which has run food concessions on the santa cruz board walk since 1953. they employ hundreds of high school and college-age employees

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falls, have a vote on whether or not we went to end the all right the senate is back from its latest recess taking up a bill to keep the federal student loan rate from doubling on july 1st. of course this version of the bill will pay for the rate extension by killing big oil subsidies, and a nonstarter with republicans. on the flip side, there is a house version, a also politically postured nonstarter with democrats, yes, these people want to solve our problems. the white house, of course, also with the democrats, rejecting the republican version of the extended benefits for our students, because the republican version would come at the expense of preventative health funding. neither of these plans does a darn thing to solve the diploma system we've trapped our students in or seize the newly emergent methods that are allowing a collapse in the cost of learning around the world. and yet we continue to pay more and more, and it's crazy. anyway it does make for some good political pro wrestling

because it lets you have the oil subsidies versus preventative health. what kind of person are you? joining us congressman joe courtney from connecticut who calls the entire debate a big charade lest you think i'm the only person offering these sorts of rather severe opinions. congressman, this is no joke. a society without a functioning and an expanding culture of learning is doomed. we are trending in a -- in a bad direction, it would seem. >> definitely. we're 54 days away from the interest rate doubling. this past weekend a lot of schools were heading home for the end of the spring term and financial aid offices, families, all of the folks that really are about, you know, the next class entering in the fall, are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to budget for next year's term. and as you point out, we're at a point where student debt now exceeds all other types of

consumer debt. this is probably some of the most important investment a society can make and yet we're 54 days out on actually neither house or senate was in session last week, and there's no clear picture yet about how this is all going to shake out. >> so you've been at this certainly longer than i, and a lot of folks are closer and deeper into these conversations than most folks in america. give me the benefit of the doubt, much like the debt ceiling, whatever it is, it will be resolved in 50 some-odd days after the political theater, after it will be good for cable ratings, we'll talk about it, oh, those bastards and villains and the heroes. it will feel good. and then when it's all said and done, we will still have the base problem. >> right. >> how do we -- how do those of us who actually want to improve the conversation about learning basically seize on the pro wrestling conversation to turn it into a bigger conversation? what can we do? >> sir, well the good news is,

dylan, the last time i was on this show about two months ago, you know, we were in the middle of a complete vacuum. i mean, utter vacuum at that point. the president had raised this issue in the state of the union address for three solid months. there really had been no response in terms of any serious effort to get a bill together to avoid going off a cliff on july 1st. and i give you credit. you held a series of shows talking about the student loan debt crisis. and you know, the good news is, at least there was some impact from this external pressure, the president's trips to college campuses around the country, i think was a terrific way to put the spotlight on this issue. and the power of this issue, really, i think at least we finally saw it really come to fruition when speaker boehner, overnight, suddenly, threw his bill on the floor because i think he recognized, this is a broad-based, middle-class, independent voter issue that people really, really care about. so, you know, i actually do think there's going to be some

stew of people that are finally going to come to the, a la some of the other manufactured crises that we've had over the last 18 months. but long-term, as you point out, a one-year fix hardly solves the student loan, higher education affordability crisis. which exists in his country. and that's really one of those long-term issues that your prior guests were talking about that really should be front and center in this election in 2012. i'm not sure it will. but it is a profoundly important issue for this country. >> yeah, and i take hope just in that regardless of the election, there's so much shared best practices coming out from so many folks on how to enhance learning and the cost of learning is falling so fast that regardless of whatever the government does, i do feel that the capacity for people to adopt these new learning prak tigss and cultures is exploding. which may be one of our best bets. >> is that unreasonable? >> not at all. i can point to my son who finished a semester early in four years at georgetown, which,

you know, kids are going to community colleges to get transferrable credits. much more affordable. again, they're being at least much more, i think, savvy in terms of the decision about where they're going to go, what they're going to study. that, again, shows a good, smart response from people and families all across the country. but frankly, you know, they can't do it alone. the private student loan market is a nightmare in terms of -- i mean, as bad as this stafford doubling in rates, the private loan market is far worse. and far less consumer or student protections in it. and that's really where we need public policymakers to get serious about recognizing this is probably the most important national pry or if i. i know that sounds kind of hysterical but in the long-term there's just no question that the payback to a country's economic growth is the largest of all. >> yeah. no, listen, it's hard to dispute it. the hyperbole sometimes is accurate. joe courtney, out of connecticut. thank you, congressman. appreciate your time today.

i do want to turn our attention to the issue of the or upgs in our government, and it has come down to the actual private shareholders of this country. the money managers, if you will. the fund managers. the pension managers, who are coming to the to get secret, corporate money out of our political system. this week two of our nation's largest companies, many of them rather vilified, like bank of america, specifically. also 3m, going to give shareholders a referendum, the opportunity to vote, if you will, on the supreme court citizens united decision. the shareholders will vote at their annual meeting to decide on proposals requesting that corporate funds simply are not used, shareholder money is not used for any political election for a campaign. think of it as shareholders united, saying if you want our money to run your business, that's fine. but if you want to use our money to pay off politicians, get on the bus. let's bring in our mega panel. rob cox who wrote about this for the daily beast, sam, basically

on the beat, as it were. this is an idea that i've always liked. where does it stand in the market? >> i think it's ironic that it's actually going to be up to corporate democracy to save democracy. that's sort of the point here. and i'm not sure that shareholders will think the same way citizens do. i mean they're not going to go out there and necessarily vote on -- they're going to vote on their own self-interest which is what will this do for my company? but actually there is an argument, there's a very good argument for why you should actually vote for your company -- >> so i'm a shareholder of whatever it is, and you're work for the proxy company and you're pitching me. you're saying, okay, ratigan i want you to vote in favor of this. what's the pitch to shareholders? >> i'll say this. i'll give you an example. target two years ago put $150,000 into a sort of pac-like organization just after the citizens united deal. and that organization basically supported a pretty far right republican candidate who was very anti-gay, created a big

problem. in fact, there was a huge boycott online, social media. >> target got a backlash. >> for $150,000 that they blew, they got either, you know, basically lost some sales, or nothing. so basically it was no good for business. >> thoughts? >> it's about aligning interests, i think there as you talk about in your book. i think this is fantastic news. americans know they're about to get worst presidential election that money can buy. they're complaining on every level. >> look at how popular -- >> the supreme court, which has got the lowest approval ratings in 25 years, congress which is as popular as north koreans. >> we prefer the north koreans at this point. shareholders jumping on this bandwagon might be able to make a difference. it's taking point with americans as a whole. >> that's -- >> i don't think there's -- >> the answer is not the vote as much as it is the move to try and hold this vote. so that it spreads this narrative of just how much corporate money is destroying our politics. >> i would also go beyond that, though, to say, one of my most

frustrating things in doing this job the past few years is a sense of ineffectiveness, relative to the big issues, trade, taxes, banking, et cetera, et cetera. i think the more we're seeing these mick crow examples where individual, well organized groups, whether it's going to be people in their own community in a village with mayor's office or whether it's with shareholders in a corporation, are engaging in a reform movement that they can actually control. >> and following the occupy success on may day where we had 30,000 people down the street from here, they're going to be involved in an action with this bank of america shareholder -- >> with the shareholder meeting. >> indeed. >> soian way, if nothing else, we've got a cultural dynamic at work. thank you, robin. >> my pleasure. >> i don't know how to solve these things, i'll be honest with you. >> no, that's a good one. >> that's a good one. >> coming up, catching whitey bulger. talking about trying to solve a problem. this guy, he had it all worked out. number one on the fbi's most wanted list. 16 years on the run or so you'd like to believe.

he was living it up in santa monica last i knew. that was until our specialists helped take the man down and expose the fbi that was helping him in the process. can you believe that? what kind of country is this? retired massachusetts state cop tom foley gives us the inside dirt next. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about the personal attention tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you and your money deserve. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, that means taking a close look at you tdd# 1-800-345-2550 as well as your portfolio. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 we ask the right questions, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 then we actually listen to the answers tdd# 1-800-345-2550 before giving you practical ideas you can act on. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck online, on the phone, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 or come in and pull up a chair.

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well, i want you to imagine yourself spending the better part of your life chasing a world famous, well-known gangster, known murderer, he's a full-on criminal in every sense of the word. only to find that the very government that, in theory is trying to catch the man, is also helping to hide the man from you. well, another government in the same country. this is the untold story of the

hunt for whitey bulger. boston's most notorious criminal. our special today chased the mob boss for years, locking up his associates, and even ultimately a member of the fbi, along the way, because as he found out not only was the fbi using whitey as an informant, the fbi was actively helping whitey escape arrest. joining us now, tom foley, former head of the massachusetts state police who was awarded the united states attorney general's award for exceptional service, and he is co-author of the new book about his story, "most wanted: pursuing whitey bulger, the murderous mob chief the fbi secretly protected." how far into this did you figure out that the fbi was working against you and not for you? >> well, there was rumors about the fbi's involvement over the years with bulger. but we weren't really sure until we decided to target him is your o ourselves. as soon as we did that, what

started happening, some of our investigation started being promised, also. so we realized at that point that, you know, it was true what was being alleged, that he did have a relationship with the fbi. >> it sounds like a bit like a script to "the departed" doesn't it? you don't know who to trust in this whole circle. what would have been the fbi's motives in protecting whitey bulger? >> well, i think what happened was, the emphasis started being put on number of informants that you have, and the quality of those informants. instead of actually getting the job done, and out there solving crimes. and so, the level of bulger in boston and the impact on organized crime in boston, in massachusetts, was almost like a badge of honor for them when they had them as informants over the years. in actuality what they should have been doing is investigating them. >> you're saying there was a cultural failure in a sense? >> absolutely. it was more or less a -- we have the two top guys in the irish

mob that are informants and it was more or less something that they were proud of. >> so there were cultural failures with the fbi then. what about now? have they learnt lessons from their mistakes? >> i think that has a lot to do with why i wrote the book. over the 20 years that we investigated them, not a lot has been -- not a lot has changed over those years. the informant policy was changed, but in actuality the informants are still operating as informants in a similar manner. the other aspect of this investigation is the government was wrong in what they were doing. the victims' families filed suit against the government, and even know multiple federal court justices said that, yeah, the government was wrong, they still actively appealed the rulings by the judges and put the victims' families through hell all over again. >> how much was the community in which whitey bulger sort of operated in, how much did that protect him? >> quite a bit early on.

because there was actually -- he was more operating under the mantle that he was out there. we knew that wasn't true, but eventually when we started pulling the bodies out of the ground, then people started realizing that he wasn't a guy just living turkeys on thanksgiving. >> there's even a history of very effective, very celebrity-type criminals playing that robin hood. pablo escobar in colombia was the great benefactor of colombia until he started burning everything in colombia to the ground. how critical for something like -- for the fbi, is it that the criminal have the -- how much is his celebrity helped the fbi actually corrupt the fbi? >> over the years, i mean, we found out that his value to the fbi was actually minimal. he was not really giving a lot of information to them. in actuality, they were protecting him and allowing him to more or less do what he wanted to do out there. including murder.

and you cannot have informants out there killing people. that's not the way it works. they should have been targets instead of informants. >> how much was the fact that his brother was -- was i think was speaker of the house at one point -- >> senate president. >> senate president. how much did that create at least an aura around him? did that affect it in any way? >> it did. i don't think people realized. it was kind of like a folk story a little bit, where he had the brother probably in the most powerful position in the government of massachusetts and he had the other brother as probably the most powerful mob boss in the area at the time. and they both played off that. they played off those reputations. and when it was necessary for one to use the other, that's what they did. >> so bring us to the conclusion. this system is installed. the culture's installed. it's going for, you know, work in two decades. where were -- how did it crack and take us to the end. >> i think this is the first time all of the various

incidents and the compromised cases have been put together, and it shows a pattern here that i think has to change. and it hasn't changed yet after -- that's the frustration that we've experienced of 20 years of an investigation, everything that was uncovered, things still have not changed. recently, late august there was another fbi informant his name was rossetty, operating similar to what whitey did, and he's alleged to be murderer and drug dealer. >> so what you would do? if your biggest premise, which is we have a problem right now in this country, where the fbi is as inclined to manage their investigations, to manage for informants, as they are to solve crime. and what you're saying is listen, you got to solve crime first and manage informants second, and when you're managing informants first and solving crime second then the whole things haywire which is basically what you're saying. >> exactly. >> what do you do, how do we -- obviously we want to increase

awareness of this. which probably there's not enough awareness about it. >> right. >> as we increase awareness, beyond that, what else would you have had happen? >> we had a culture -- there needs to be a culture change in the fbi where the priority is on solving crime, not about image. and i think a lot of that stems from the hoover era and it's carried on to this day, where within that department, there's -- there is that culture, and that culture of arrogance that has to change. it's still operating in that regard, and unfortunately, with the case of whitey bulger is going to happen again because those changes haven't been made. >> the last thing i'm left to note while we're here is how'd you catch him? >> well, actually, it was the fbi's putting him out nationally on looking for catherine greig that advertised on how he was caught. >> so awareness. >> we built the case against him. we went out and had the indictments put together. the actual, physical arrest was done by the fbi.

>> which is an interesting irony. >> well, there was a lot of media pressure. we could talk for hours about it in boston. it was called in, the fbi actually to the fact that what are you doing here and how come you're not out there looking for him? the investigators that did the case, that built the case, weren't even allowed actually to participate in the fugitive investigation. the fbi controlled that totally. >> well, you bring to us a meaningful point of awareness, beyond the obviously the intrigue in the theater and one mobster in american history. which is the need to be more aware of what culture. i mean that's really -- and we don't have time, because it's a tv show, we're all sitting here, but we were just saying how the cultural infection, you can see it in the educational system, it comes out, the manifestations vary from everywhere. but it's interesting that i don't know if our problem is money and rules so much as it is culture these days. >> i think so. >> tom foley, the book "most

wanted: pursuing whitey bulger, the murderous mob chief the fbi secretly protected." there's a culture we could change. thanks to the mega panel. officer, thank you very much. coming up the superheroes of the weekend's box office. we're a little early for this thing... want to hop in the back and get weird? no. no. ♪

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>> ow! >> what is it? >> ow. >> jelly fish sting. oh, it hurts. it hurts. >> well, most people think of jelly fish, and they think ow! our next guest thinks, ah! as a cal tech biophysicist, john debeery set out to unlock the mystery behind the jelly fish and discovered that by replicating their propulsion systems that submarines and other aquatic vehicles could be up to 30 more energy efficient and that perhaps just the tip of the iceberg, if you will. the u.s. navy has even taken note and is developing underwater crafts based on the professor's project. he joins us today. what do you know that we don't, professor? >> well, dylan, as you know, innovation is the buzz word these days and at cal tech we're leveraging the millions of years of innovation that jellyfish have achieved to produce technologies in the energy sector, health care and also national defense. >> if you were so how much do

you know, in other words how much of what you're doing is a concept and how much of what you're doing can you actually demonstrate in some sort of meaningful way? >> so when we began most of this was on paper and in computer models. but with funding from the navy, for example, over the past five years we've actually demonstrated in the water that we can develop underwater vehicles that use 30% less energy than the current technology. >> at scale? i mean, how big of a prototype have you done? >> these are 4 foot long underwater vehicles. these are at the scale that we imagine using them. autonomous underwater vehicles so that we can put them in the water and instead of putting sailors' lives at risk we would have autonomous drones that would function instead. >> and then, in your fantasy land, knowing where you are right now, knowing what you've discovered at this point, what do you believe is the possible destination for the deriffation of the science beyond an immediate military deployment to energy resource management for propulsion, period? >> that's right. so energy more broadly speaking,

it turns out that an application in wind energy has been very promising. so as you know here in the united states, there's a strong push for wind energy, but one of the primary constraints right now is the cost. and what we've been able to demonstrate is that by taking a bioinspired approach, by looking at how fish school in the ocean, we can actually reduce the cost of wind energy by using what are called vertical axis wind dur biens. they kind of look like the egg beater in your kitchen sticking up on a vertical axis and spinning around. so we've been working with a local start-up company to demonstrate in the field this more cost effective approach for wind energy. >> if you were to look at your fantasy in the laboratory and inventory where you are, an inventory of where you believe it may be possible for science to go with your help, along with everybody else, working with you, how much of what we can't do yet are we not able to do because we don't know how, we don't have the technology, and how much of what we're not able to do yet is simply because we haven't organized ourselves and

funded the necessary projects to execute it? >> great question, dylan. i think as far as energy goes, we actually have the technology today to implement this bioinspired strategy in the field. it really does come down to resources. as you know, unlike facebook or google, which you could start in your basement in principle, these energy projects are very capital intensive. we've been fortunate to have support from places like the gordon and betty moore foundation to finance our wind energy research. and we're currently looking for -- forward to a d.e.o., department of energy application to demonstrate this at large scale producing mega watts of power as opposed to a few tens of kilowatts we're doing currently. >> what are the next six months for you? >> as far as this wind energy project goes, it's basically proving out the technology in the field. there's some skepticism when you say that you're going to use turbines that are a tenth of the size of the current ones, but are more efficient and actually cost less. so what we're trying to do is to develop the know-how and the data set in the field to prove

that this is a reality. >> anecdotally, i get to meet a lot of problem solvers like yourself, and pretty much every industry. it's a privilege of the job, as long as, you know, we're able to continue with these types of conversations, and what really strikes me is that every solution tends to cost a lot less and give you a lot more. how much, whether it's in health care, whether it's in education, whether it's in energy resource management, whether it's in reducing shooting violence in inner cities, the common thread of the new problem solvers like yourself is it tends to cost a lot less and give you a lot more. do you think that our -- how much do you think we grasp that as a country, as a government, as a nation that the new paradigm is not cut or spend, it is spend less, get more? >> well, i think part of the challenge in getting to that new paradigm is people letting go of the old solutions. and so, in this case, for example, we're really thinking outside of the box. that instead of asking what was done five years ago, and how we

can incrementally improve on that, we're saying let's start from scratch. in the case of wind energy, let's take a completely different route, inspired by the motion of these fish in this case. and i think it's a solution that was there for the taking, if we were only willing to open our minds a little bit and look for more creative solutions. and so -- >> and you talk about opening your minds. we talk a lot here about how you're either awake and asking questions or you're asleep looking for a fight. how much do you feel that we are seeing more people more awake, more aware, asking more questions? are you optimistic that the type of experimentation that you've been able to deliver is something we can cultivate in abundance? >> i am very optimistic. i think, you know, teaching at cal tech and seeing the types of students that are coming up in the pipeline, i'm very encouraged by the future of innovation in this country. i think it's important, though, that we don't take that for granted and be supportive. earlier on your show you were discussing the pell grant situation. i was a pell grant recipient myself. so it's programs like that that

are really vital to continuing that pipeline of innovation here in the u.s. >> no question about it. listen, congratulations on what you've discovered. with your experiment so far. and all the best with your continued efforts. i hope you are able to achieve the necessary resources, which i know is the number one issue with a lot of these things. it's just development resources for the idea. so i hope that continues to flow for you. certainly you have the credentials to do it. thank you, professor. coming up here, the vice president, biden, who's our favorite around here, because the man just tells it how it is, even if it doesn't mean to, his straight talk on gay marriage making headlines. kelly govern's got a news flash from her perspective. and half that chris with more on that unguarded moment and what it could mean for the 2012 race. "hardball" at 5:00. [ male announcer ] what's in your energy drink?

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i am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties and quite frankly i don't see much of a distinction beyond that. >> that, of course, the vice president of the united states. also a man known as joe biden, just tells it how it is. happens to be the same guy. this weekend, this duality, his vice presidency and a man who tells it how it is, got him into some trouble. supporting gay marriage. but the president, everybody was like, what about the president? has he done it? kelly has a point of view on all this. >> hey, dylan. this weekend vice president joe biden became the most high

profile member of the obama administration to voice his support for same-sex marriage. there are plenty in the lgbt rights movement who cheered the vice president's so-called evolution on the issue but others simply responded by asking, when will the president evolve, too? president obama has done more for gay and lesbian americans than any president in history. not only has he appointed more openly gay elected officials than any other president he called on the department of health and human services to order hospitals to permit visitation and decision making rights for gay and lesbian couples. one of the primary concerns of lgbt couples unable to marry. he signed the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and ordered the justice department not to defend the defense of marriage act. his administration even fought for gays and lesbians in other countries. i would be hard pressed to rattle off an equally long list of accomplishments the president has enacted on other minority group, including black americans. yet he takes endless criticism from activists for not embracing the word marriage publicly. he supports civil unions meaning his position is in line with half of americans. what's troubling about the criticism he has endured is that

it indicates that president obama is being held to a different tougher standard than other leaders. for instance, it was his democratic predecessor bill clinton who signed "don't ask, don't tell," and the defense of marriage act measures. obama had helped dismantle in his first term. and yet hillary clinton enjoyed wider support among gays and lesbians during the 2008 primary. the suspicion that then-candidate obama faced amongst some gay voters appears to have carried over into his presidency. the suspicion i'm referring to is the distrust that some members of the gay community have towards african-americans. black americans were infamously blamed for the passage of prop 8 california. only 12uddies eventually showed that it wasn't black voters that were responsible for the passage of proposition 8 but religious voters in general. the myth that all black people are homophobic existed before prop 8 and has lingered since despite high profile examples to the contrary, from congressman rangel and ref and al sharpton, and martin luther king's widow

coretta there are plenty who have demonstrated support for lgbt rights. president obama is now one of them. is there room for him to evolve? absolutely. but he's not the only one who has room to improve when it comes to tolerance. his critics can also learn a thing or two about tolerance and patience. lesson number one, can start with asking themselves the question, are you holding the president to a tougher standard because deep down inside you don't really trust him? and if the answer to that question is yes, perhaps the next question you should ask yourself is why. dylan? >> all right. thank you very much keli. we don't have enough time to get into it. but it's an interesting hypothesis. i think that, you know, the standard is always changing all the time. you know, we all know the story. i'm dylan ratigan, "hardball" is up right now. bomb plot foiled. let's play "hardball."