one i remember the occasion of albert einstein's death. he had this magnificent cartoon.he showed the earth and the memorial tablet albert einstein lived here. >> you're absolutely right. >> that was a beautiful cartoon. >> herb had a range of things. he had one with the apollo shot. it's beautiful. a hand is reaching up in the globe in the stars. and he did that kind of thing regularly. so it wasn't just a political cartoon on politicians of the moment. >> then there was one cartoon that i heard spoken of but i was told it was so explosive and the "post" would never publish it. this was after eisenhower had his heart attack. and the story goes that -- i read a description of the cartoon. it showed nixon and eisenhower at the bottom of a long flight of stairs leading to the second inaugural platform and nixon turns to him and says i race you to the top. is that a true story? >> if it is, i don't know it. i never come across that before. and never heard it from tonight and i thought i knew a lot about herb. there was one time -- only once in all of his time at the "washing

there were a lot of people smarter than albert einstein in terms of their learning and knowledge. there is max blanka kuhl all working on this problem. einstein was a third class patent club working at the swiss patent office. but in his spare time he realized that the speed of light is always constant but as you try to keep up with the speed of light, slows down for you. it was an amazing leap of imagination and active creativity that was done by a patent clerk and not by a professional scientist. in fact it took another five years before he even got a job as an academic scientist because that is how long it took the scientific community to figure out the sleep of a imagination. and so whether it is henry kissinger or hillary clinton or bill clinton were benjamin franklin or ronald reagan, i have always tried as a journalist to look at what made somebody stand out. why did they have a special characteristic that made them different from the people around them. as barbara said i got inspired by the first real writer i ever knew, walter percy and i hope his books are still here beca

albert einstein is very famous for having made this statement. he's famous for a lot of things, of course. one of them is making this statement. the atom has changed everything, expect our way of thinking. in my view, he has it exactly wrong. atom has changed everything but our way of thinking. they have had a very limited substantive impact, and they have a tremendous influence on our agonies, obsessions, inspiring desperate rhetoric extravagant theorizing, and in that aspect, i don't think they've been important. and my favorite quote is from dwight eisenhower. he said we are piling up because we do not know what else stood to provide for our security. in other words, he basically didn't think that russians were very likely to do anything that would involve the world war iii type thing. he went along with the massive increases of expenditures. they continue to spend. the -- someone has calculated that during the cold war, the united states alone spent enough money on nuclear weapons and the ways to deliver them to purchase everything in the cou

aspen institute, a think tank in washington and has written biographies of two creative geniuses: albert einsteinand benjamin franklin. >> you see at the founding of our republic you've seen that great industrial revolution where people were inventing the telephone, the telegraph, the light bulb and everything else, the phone owegraph. you've seen the push that came because of the internet and the digital revolution. now we're looking for what is going to be the engine or the driver of the new creativity. >> reporter: the challenge for the u.s. now, how to keep up that momentum. >> you can kind of feel it in our society that there's no new burst of innovation or imagination happening. >> reporter: is it an attitudinal thing? are we too greedy? >> i think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering. they decided to go to wall street with the great derivatives and hedge fund. didn't really help our economy and i think may have hurt the economy. >> reporter: they were creative. >> they were very creative. when the fpk se

threaten not to fly to them in order to send a strong message, adding "you do not have to be albert einstein to realize that flights from foreign countries pose a greater danger." cincinnati, good morning. gregg, republican line. the role of the fed in financial markets. go ahead. good morning. caller: i wanted to make a couple of comments. regulation in the financial sector and in the united states is well known. typically the problem is some kind of oversight, even the attempted bomber on christmas and the national security problems we have had for the last few years. regulation that is required or needed to be overlooked -- needed could be overlooked. thank you. host: the vice chairman of the fed spoke at the conference in atlanta. in "the financial times" they reported, "the fed has been working internally for months on how, when the time comes, they would put an end to the exceptionally loose monetary policy adopted since 2008. that exit strategy is delicate for economic reasons, not least the $100 billion in excess reserves formed by the fed's massive increase to the size of its balanc

albert einstein once against without changing our patterns of thoughts we will not be able to solve ourterns of thought to current patterns of thought. so we can solve the problems we can create with our current patterns of thoughts. mr. chairman, you should be commented for having this hearing today to talk about weep passenger rail. your leadership demonstrates the change is in washington, d.c., and it is right here in this committee. passenger rail is the future of moving americans and now is the time to make that investment. we need to restore hope and performance in our transportation system. our fellow citizens are counting on us to get it done. thank you. >> thank you all very much for your excellent testimony. i'm going to start -- i think what we'll do is allow 6 minutes for each person. and i would ask governor rendell a question, and that is -- president obama has made high-speed rail a priority. he started with $8 billion in the recovery act. the president also proposed a billion dollars for each of the next five years for high-speed rail. now, what sources of funding might

threaten not to fly to them in order to send a strong message, adding "you do not have to be albert einstein to realize that flights from foreign countries pose a greater danger." cincinnati, good morning. gregg, republican line. the role of the fed in financial markets. go ahead. good morning. caller: i wanted to make a couple of comments. regulation in the financial sector and in the united states is well known. typically the problem is some kind of oversight, even the attempted bomber on christmas and the national security problems we have had for the last few years. regulation that is required or needed to be overlooked -- needed could be overlooked. thank you. host: the vice chairman of the fed spoke at the conference in atlanta. in "the financial times" they reported, "the fed has been working internally for months on how, when the time comes, they would put an end to the exceptionally loose monetary policy adopted since 2008. that exit strategy is delicate for economic reasons, not least the $100 billion in excess reserves formed by the fed's massive increase to the size of its balanc