you're on with joseph stiglitz. guest: i don't know how you can't say that the government wasn't responsible for this meltdown. they encouraged loans, and they did everything to make fair life and easy, not easy but fair for everyone. when they did that, they promoted no money down home loans for people who had no money, and that is what caused fannie mae and freddie mac. they forced the banks in large part to do this. i'm not saying the banks are responsible, but your world of the precious government and how great and righteous they are whoas me away. i would rather have a free market operating and the wealth it produces over time than a spiteful government controlled program that you're mentioning, and sure, every 40 years real estate hiccups and people go crazy in it. i don't know how you ever get around that, but the point is that the glassman bill and repeal of it by clinton was the problem of this thing created by a democrat who deregulated the financial markets and caused the likes of big banks like what cove

>> joseph stiglitz? guest: one of my concerns in the past is we have not focused adequately on sustainibility ethey are in in the sense of environmental sustainibility or social sustainibility. we haven't looked at these broader issues. one of the problems is that some of the things that are scaresest in our society we treat as good. air, having an atmosphere that works, avoiding global warming. we get to pollute without having to pay the consequences of that. and if you are able to use something that is scares without paying for it, you're going to get bad decisions. you're not going to get sustainibility. the same thing is going on in the context of the growing inequalities in our society. as our inequalities grow, it's going to be hard to maintain the social fabric in our society. one of the things that concerns me is the way we have gone about this bailout of the banks . it has the potential of increasing inequality. think of what we could have done with the hundreds of billions of dollars that we po

former world bank chief communist joseph stiglitz explains that when the economic climate is over, the stigma of american capitalism will be diminished. ron fair child talks about his group's efforts to improve summer learning. "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> now, president obama and german chancellor merkel. among the topics they discussed were the situation in iran, guantanamo bay detainees and other things. they spoke for about 35 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and the chancellor of the federal republic of germany. >> it is my pleasure to welcome chancellor merkel to the white house. we had a very productsive discussion in the oval office, and our meeting will continue this afternoon. chancellor merkel's meeting is the latest chapter in the large partnership of our two countries. the service of our men and women in uniform who stood together in a long cold war and together in afghanistan, the innovation of our entrepreneurs who helped sustain our economies and the bonds of frensship and trust between our people, whi

joseph stiglitz, you can read it in the july issue of vanity. thank you, very much, sir for being on the program. >> thank you. host: we're going to take a short break and when we come back we're going to talk about efforts to keep student learning going throughout the summer with ron fair child. we'll be right back. >> this week saw the release of more than 150 hours of secret audio recordings from the nixon white house from early 1973 on agreement to end the vietnam war. >> we are not to have any advance information, the message is not to be for me, i'll fair to the whole state department. >> more tapes released this afternoon on c-span radio. this weekend book tv features books on the economy. tips today how to deal with the economic crisis from pat robertson, and cnbc commentator barry on whose to plame for the recession and why president regulate rn believed destroying nuclear weapons would bring an end to the soviet union and talking about his two years in pakistan, he sits down with ralph peters. that's nicolas smith. the entire book tv s