now, this story, rip van winkle, became the most popular irving's many stories hear it for think 18th century americans appreciated the notion that the world had been transformed in a very short period of time. superficially, the leadership seemed disdained. george washington replaced george the third on a sign outside the tavern. but beneath the surface, everything was changed and that's a quote from the story. in a few short decades, america underwent, i think, a fantastic transformation. in politics, and society, and the culture. and i think most people wanted what had happened and who they were at the end of this. in the decades following the revolution. before the revolution, america had been a collection of desperate british colonies composed of some 2 million subjects, huddled along the atlantic coast, 3000 miles from the summit of civilization. european outpost of this peak was cultural focus is still london, the metropolitan center of the empire. the 1815, following the second war with great britain which is also referred to as the war of independence, the these big significa

go ahead, irv. >> will you repeat that? do you think we can make serious inroads without putting a price on carbon and mr. cody suggested the way to do that, tax our electric bills. >> my suggestion was that we put an up-front fee to fund, if there's any energy efficiency project, there is an up-front investment that yields far greater return down the road in energy cost savings. the suggestion was that we include an up-front fee on energy to fund the up-front investment to realize the savings down the road and ultimately the cost savings. a fee to the energy users. people using the energy. >> i want to -- tom, go ahead. >> tom, following up on that point. several years ago there was a plan developed under the efficiency trying to coincide and talk about a holistic approach with state regulators. prioritizing efficiency, yet out of that there is not any kind of natural movement that i am aware of. epa is doing things on that and i'm not seeing much at the state level in terms of the holistic approach or national charge or s

whether it once was, i think it is still the case as irving kristol wrote in 1980 there basically is no such thing as long capitalist economic theory. if only in the sense what we think of is the discipline of economics as an extension of adam smith's work and as a way of thinking about how economic man functions and a system that begins by denying economic man is a different system and in the case of socialism is fundamentally a morally different system. it's not a different set of economic theories so much. but again i can't speak to the prevalence of the few in the academy. >> free-lance correspondent. in the introduction, the bioethics is mentioned as one of the fields studied. i have two questions. s to stem cell research, the bush policy and obama policy are quite different. could you comment on both of them? and then in your judgment and your opinion what is the proper stem cell research to be? and second is to the agent orange. the treatment of the american vietnam veterans and a vietnamese people -- [inaudible] treatment. t want to comment on that? thank you. >> on the first

whether it once was, i think it is still the case as irving kristol wrote in 1980 there basically is no such thing as long capitalist economic theory. if only in the sense what we think of is the discipline of economics as an extension of adam smith's work and as a way of thinking about how economic man functions and a system that begins by denying economic man is a different system and in the case of socialism is fundamentally a morally different system. it's not a different set of economic theories so much. but again i can't speak to the prevalence of the few in the academy. >> free-lance correspondent. in the introduction, the bioethics is mentioned as one of the fields studied. i have two questions. s to stem cell research, the bush policy and obama policy are quite different. could you comment on both of them? and then in your judgment and your opinion what is the proper stem cell research to be? and second is to the agent orange. the treatment of the american vietnam veterans and a vietnamese people -- [inaudible] treatment. t want to comment on that? thank you. >> on the first

whether it once was -- i think it's still the case as irving crystal wrote in 1980.at there basically is no such thing as noncapitalisic theory. if only in the sense that what we think of as the discipline of economics is an extension of adam smith's work. and is a way of thinking about how economic man functions. and a system that begins by denying economic man is just a different system. and in the case of socialism, it's fundamentally a morally different system. it's not a different set of economic theories so much. but again i can't speak to the prevalence of the view in the academy. yeah. >> i'm a freelance correspondent. in the introduction the bioethic is mentioned as one of your field of study. i may elect to ask two questions. as to stem cell research, the bush policy and obama policy are quite different. could you comment on both of them. and then in your judgment and opinion, what's the proper stem cell research out to be. and the second is to the age agent orange, the treatment of the american vietnam veterans and the vietnamese people -- the treatment. y

peggy noonan, robert carol, nell irving painter. a terrific conversation. i thought it was important to bring it to you again now as we look back at the president's first year. also on the show, a battle you may never have heard of. you will want to learn all about it. many say it encapsulated many of the problems that america faces in the war at large. the best military report, military expert in the country, tom bricks, joins me to tell you about it. while much of the focus of the nation and the show is on the hotspots around the world, what about the rest of the world? we will talk with the famous international writer and scholar of singapore to get a very different perspective on the world. let's get started. >>> all day long on cable, news talk shows, we hear about how president obama's doing. on fox, some say he's a socialist trying tune doctrine eight our children even as he mortgages their future. on msnbc, the lonely hero fighting to give help to the sick and employ the jobless and end racism in our time. and here on cnn, i'm on cnn, i wanted to se

before columbus thought the world was flat is a mate that actually was largely created by washington irving in the 19th century, wrote a biography of columbus and played it up because he was a good fiction writer as well. people new the world was round and knew the world was round for centuries, even millennia and imagined that the earth was a sphere, unmoving at the center of the cosmos and it was at the center of a whole collection of concentric spheres, each of whip had a celestial body attached to it and so there was a sphere of the moon and a sphere of the sun and all the planets and outside, there was one sphere that held the stores and they rotated around the world in their own way and that created the motions that you see in the heavens when you look up. it is -- it wasn't a bad way of explaining how everything appeared to move, if you assumed the earth just sat still. and that is what we're looking at here, you have the earth at the center and then a lot of the different spheres of the elements and the planets, going out. you see this kind of diagram all the time, in medieval texts

columbus thought the world was flat it is a myth that actually was largely created by washington irving in the 19th century. he wrote a biography of columbus and really sort of play that up because he was a good fiction writer as well. people knit the world was round and had known the world was round for centuries and even millennia. they imagine the earth was a sphere and moving at the center of the cosmos and it was at the center of the whole collection of concentric spheres, each of which had a celestial body attached to it so there was a sphere of the men, there was a sphere of the sun, there was a sphere of the planets and outside there was once feared that held all of the stars. thale rotated around the earth in their own way and that created the motions that you see in they have and when you look up. it wasn't a bad way of explaining that everything appeared to move if you assume that the earth just sat still. and that is what we are looking at here. you have got there that the center and a lot of the difference years of the elements and then the plan that's going out. you see th

they are in irving. -- under irving. in the effort to reduce opium production in afghanistan, we are hampered by u.s. agricultural interests but will not let us promote the production of cotton. i am getting down to it now. two things we have got to address in order to simplify this -- i think we have got to solve this in a regional way. some opportunities are a rising. interestingly, our efforts to establish villages six through whose pakistan are creating new relationships that could be for the development in the region. i will go back to my original point of humility. as time goes on, i am less confident in my ability to provide policy descriptions. i can only say the ones we are trying to carry out now are far too costly to succeed in the time we have available. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you for inviting me. i want to start with a disclaimer. i completely agree with frank. the more i learned from personal experience and the attempt to study afghanistan, the less i know, so with that in mind, i hope you

go ahead, irv. >> will you repeat that?do you think we can make serious inroads without putting a price on carbon and mr. cody suggested the way to do that, tax our electric bills. >> my suggestion was that we put an up-front fee to fund, if there's any energy efficiency project, there is an up-front investment that yields far greater return down the road in energy cost savings. the suggestion was that we include an up-front fee on energy to fund the up-front investment to realize the savings down the road and ultimately the cost savings. a fee to the energy users. people using the energy. >> i want to -- tom, go ahead. >> tom, following up on that point. several years ago there was a plan developed under the efficiency trying to coincide and talk about a holistic approach with state regulators. prioritizing efficiency, yet out of that there is not any kind of natural movement that i am aware of. epa is doing things on that and i'm not seeing much at the state level in terms of the holistic approach or national charge or sy

wilson, the scholar writing in a memorial essay honoring irving crystal i "the wall street journal" a few months ago says that it's the law of unintended consequences. that's what causes the failure of such comprehensive legislative schemes. explains wilson, "launch a big project and you almost surely discover that you created many things you didn't intend to create." wilson also writes that neo conservativism as crystal originally conceived of it in the 1960's was not an organized ideology or even necessarily conservative, but -- quote -- "a way of thinking about politics rather than a set of principles and rules. it would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics ," james q. wilson says. the skepticism of chambra and wilson and crystal toward grand legislative policy schemes helps to explain how the law of unintended consequences has made being a member of the so-called party of no a more responsible choice than being a member of the so-called party of yes, we can, if these three recent comprehensive bills on health care, climate change and immigration are the only choi

now they've reneged on the benefits and irving else. we've got to stop it, it's crazy. we've got to bring common sense to this whole process. that's why we've got to have a constitutional balanced budget amendment. as my colleague mentioned, we're one vote short, 94, we've got to go back in that effort. it defies logic why we don't do that the other thing, i came here and i want to be the best i can bipartisan. the kems -- democrats talked about pay-go. that's a joke. pay-go, it sounded good, you know, better than nothing, i thought, but we had our largest deficit ever, a $1.4 trillion pay-go. now we want to have a commission and talk about that on a bipartisan basis. again, they're -- they won't get it done. i have absolutely no confidence that that's going to get done. we need a constitutional balanced budget amendment that simply says if you take in $3 trillion, that's what we took in my first year in congress, you don't spend more than that. $3 trillion. as we said, 49 of 50 governors can't spend more than they take in. the state of florida, our budget was $72 trill

irving fisher in 1933 was the first economist to emphasize the potential connections between violent financial crises which lead to the sales of falling asset prices with general declines in aggregate demand in price levels. a healthy well-capitalized banking system and smoothly functioning capital markets are important line of defense against deflationary stocks. i believe the fed should and does use its powers to ensure the financial system will remain resilient if financial conditions change rapidly. governor's warning was clear. deflation is a potential danger which could ignite a financial crisis. the policy descriptions seems equally clear. keep interest rates low and liquidity flows high and lean against deflationary pressure. keeping interest rates low for a protracted period. the fed was remarkably unconcerned about the possibility of igniting the financial crisis by inflating the housing price level which ironically led to the same result, a violent financial crisis and sale of assets. housing prices sword and risktaking escalated investors pressed on as if it was a short.