tell us about your growth strategy both for italy or europe. what is a reasonable expectation for resuming economic growth if italy. once the fiscal con sal dags takes place, the reforms begin to take effect. what could we look for as a growth target for italy over the coming medium term, and can you give us any estimates of the extent to which the reforms you are now putting in place might generate that growth, any quantitative estimates or even guesses on what kind of payoff from your policies? and then at the european level in your fascinating interview that was in the "wall street journal" yesterday, you talked, as you did some today, about the need for europe as a whole to adopt structural reform including germany. elaborate a little bit thereto, what specifics do you have in mind? what are the priorities? and what could be the payoff in terms of resumption of european growth within the next two or three years? >> yes. the prospect for growth in it y italy, first of all, growth in italy will be necessary not only for the sake of growth and

be aware and i think everybody in this room is aware but not everybody in this country or in italy or in europe is aware of the fact that this has not been a crisis of the euro. the euro has continued to display very, very remarkable stability, solidity. it has not incurred on any of the two situations in which a currency shows its weakness in terms of the domestic purchasing power and in terms of external -- in term of exchange rates. so i think it is a really remarkable that although there has been and partly there still is a banking and financial and fiscal crisis in many states of the euro zone, the euro has not been affected. i think this says a lot about the structure, institutional and policy resilience of this very, very junior currency in terms of the global arena. now just in the last few hours, we understand that substantial progress has been achieved in greece in order to overcome the worst moments of the crisis. and the relevant bodies will decide on this. let me just step back for a moment. the greece case was, of course, the most severe and extreme and limit case than one might h

or not, can affect us. first of all, the immediate concern is in the greek economy collapsed, that could bring about the collapse of other wobbling european economy such as italy, spain or plans and if europely, that, according to economists like richard parker of harvard could have a major effect on the united states. >> to the degree it continues it slow european growth and raise fears of instability in european, europe remains a weaker business and trade partner for the united states and therefore slows american recovery. >>jonathan: he has been an advisor to members of the greek government for 2 1/2 years and says the international community is being way too slow to act. >>shepard: 30 minutes ago washington state became the sixth state in the union to legalize gay marriage. the governor signed the measure this morning after both the statehouse and the state senator approved it. the law will take effect on june 7th. actually, it is the 7th state to pass the law. opponents view to let voters overturn this. and the new jersey state senate has voted in favor of a similar bill with a 24-16 vote that happens today. they did that in the face of governor christie, a republican's proposal to ve

everybody should be aware, and i think everybody is aware, but not everybody in this country or in italy or in europebeen a crisis of the euro. the ural has continued to display -- the hero has continued to display solidity -- euro has continued to display solidity. it has not shown weakness in terms of domestic purchasing power and in terms of external -- exchange rates. i think it is a really remarkable things. . there still is a banking and financial and fiscal crisis in many states of the eurozone. the bureau has not -- euro has not weakened. this tells us a lot about the resilience of this very very junior currency in terms of the global arena. now, just in the last few hours, we understand that substantial progress has been achieved in greece in order to overcome the worst moments of the crisis. and i do not want to pre-judge anything about what the euro group and the relevant bodies will decide on this, but let me just step back for a moment. the greece case was the most severe and extreme and limited case than one might have imagined for the eurozone. although we can easily point to the fact

crisis and i think everybody in this room is aware but not everybody in this country or in italy or in europe is aware of the fact that this has not been a crisis of the euro. of the euro has continued to display very remarkable stability and it has not incurred in many of the situations in which the currency shows its weakness in terms of domestic purchasing power and in terms of external come in terms of exchange rates. so i think it is a really remarkable that although there has been and partly there still is a banking and financial and fiscal crisis in many states of the year rose zone it has not been affected and this tells a lot about the structure of the institution and the policy of this very jr currency in terms of the global arena. now, just in the last few hours we understand that substantial progress has been achieved increase in order to overcome the worst moments of the crisis, and i don't want to prejudge anything about what the group and the relevant bodies and we decide on, but let me just step back for a moment, the increase case was of course the most severe and extreme and

europe for life-saving surgery. >> i should not have had to fly to italy or germany or china or wherever to get a surgery like this done. >> his family spent set -- spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help him get the surgery. his mother traveled with him. >> america is considered the greatest country in the world, but we have to come to their country to get help for chris. >> tonight at 11:00 p.m., why he could not get the surgery here even though the technology comes from right here in the u.s. >> and now, your 11 insta- weather plus forecast with chief meteorologist tom tasselmyer. >> instead of seeing high temperatures in the low 70's, high temperatures today in the mid to upper 50's. it is cooling off a little bit, and as a matter of fact, the highs today occurred before dawn. and the low is the current temperature in baltimore. it's getting colder. by 11:00 p.m., we should have some new numbers on this almanac. there was a trace of precipitation at the airport. the heaviest of the rain passing south off the coast. a little bit of cloud cover in the northern counties and into pennsylvania. as high press

there is no such thing as as europe except on a map these are their individual countries and i think all these individual countries themselves of consolidated germany and italy or are really many little individual countries that have been consolidated into into nation states that was a mistake too but to compound the mistake by having a regional government that would control all of europe just a terrible thing taking away people's freedoms making the poor or making the government however in the government special interest the banks military industrial complex pharma medical complex all the big interest groups they of course do better but the average people get stepped on well and do more broadly we've seen the last plunder other countries we've seen in western countries use financial terms. loyal to force for example privatization so we've seen it more in developing countries than in the developing world now that the west is where all of that debt is and we see western nations indebted are we seeing the last turn that model onto itself boy that wouldn't be great i mean sell of the national parks and be a great thing sell off federal government in the united sta

europe, the three biggest countries, the united kingdom, france and italy. portugal and switzerland are small countries. when you went over, did you see a decrease in drug use? increase or decrease? >> a decrease. first of all, yes, portugal is a smaller country than britain. if you break britain up into smaller units and tackle it in a city by city, there is no reason why you shouldn't get the same results as in portugal. what portugal was ten years ago they had a massive drug problem. heroin was rampant and they decided to move drugs from the department of -- from the home office to the health department. and they said to the health department, you are now in charge. nobody will be sent to prison in portugal. not one person has been sent to prison for taking drugs in the last ten years in prison. and they then -- you know, have taken heroin. they set up places where people can get clean needles throughout portugal. they have helped people who have heroin problems get off heroin. the amount of people taking heroin has dropped by 50%. >> federal counselor, you're a politician. the message that goes out if you decriminalize, even to a country like switzerland is pretty s

so all they're doing is they're using sellotape or plaster on a festering wound which is greece today ireland portugal italy and so on so this is what europe is doing it is creating a very severe medical issue by means of course we are in a little bit of ice cream ok and what about the greek people there you are in athens that the measures agreed upon. further cuts of fifteen thousand jobs learn the minimum wage obviously pensions being affected can you give us an illustration of what sacrifices greeks are really having to make to remain in the eurozone from your point of book point of view being forced to remain in the euro zone. now that these sacrifices are being made for them to stay that you can stay in the euro zone very easily while while be faltering you don't have to get out of the eurozone if you default but what is happening here is that greeks are being threatened less they keep borrowing money from germany from france from the i.m.f. from the e.c.b. we know that the keep repaying of the northern european and greek banks then they're going to be through another years of the. this is of course an empty threat the tragedies of ou

europe. if there are more financial problems in countries like italy or spain, expect to see a sell-off againwall street. >>> and new at 6:00, the stockton city council is just a few hours away from taking its first crucial step to avoid bankruptcy. city leaders say stockton is on the verge of becoming the nation's largest city to file chapter 9. hoping to avoid that, tonight the council is set to vote whether to allow mediators to negotiate with creditors. also on the table, taking millions of dollars away from special programs, suspending paid vacation and sick leave, and missing payments on outstanding debts. >>> after a major change to the plan for bringing the america's cup sailing races to san francisco, many are talking as if it's now a done deal. but there's supporters, right? tonight a closer look at why even the man who brought a lawsuit against the event says the america's cup will take place on san francisco bay. mayor ed lee cancelled his scheduled tour of piers 30-32 on monday only to announce though age waterfront docks were no longer included in the america's cup business plan

or is it just fun and safe together? the figures show that the netherlands, cycling in the netherlands is the safest transport mode in europe. if you compare to it, for example, italy, which is very dangerous for cyclists. we do fairly well. the explanation is, to my opinion, in the fact that we call safety by numbers. the more you get, the safer it is. and i'll show you the next slide to prove that. this is the bike share in the u. where the netherlands is extreme left and the u.k. is extreme right. and third is italy, for example. denmark is second next to the netherlands. if you compare that with safety numbers, you see that in the netherlands, where we cycle a lot, not too many people on bikes got killed and it's just the other way around in it italy and the u.k. where people do not cycle but get killed if they cycle. and somebody can come up with the arguments that we have a lot of good bicycle infrastructure in the netherlands. that's true, but in england they are building a lot of bicycle infrastructure as well, but they do not get the people on the bikes, so for them that go it's still very dangerous. it's not only infrastructure, it's mindset, it's safety

come from any set of events which global investors interpret to mean that europe will not stand behind the sovereign debt of italy or spain or ireland oregon po portugal. the real issue is italy. spain would follow closely. so -- and i think a disorderly default in greece has the largest community of communicating that particular set of negative news. the eurozone continues to resist the most fundamental principle of a monetary union. the basic principle is that the full facing credit of the whole must stand behind the full facing credit of each part. that's why we have never had a default of a u.s. state in the united states. the united states is the first modern monetary union. and it was established on that principle. that is the first bank of the united states assumed all the debts. the revolutionary war debts and the debts from the confederation of every state. and it was a hard deal to make and they made the deal. and from that point forward it was clear that the full faith and credit of the united states stood behind the full faith and credit of every state. >> it's pretty clear things like the euro bond and

or the concerns over italy and spain off table. that has left grooets as the sole immediate problem that's out there, not that there aren't huge and massive long-term problems for europe. if greece can get solved and needs to get solved with european money and there seems to be sufficient amounts of it out there of course with a massive private sector haircut, which means they agree to reduce the value of the amount of the bonds they own and take a hit on the value, then that can go a long way towards helping out the u.s. economy and helping out the european and global economy. bernanke believes europe is at or close to being in recession. he did say u.s. banks have reduced their exposure to be banks. he did offer don't fool yourself. if there's a major financial shock in europe, it's going to be felt on these shores in a meaningful way. >> the comments of steve liesman. he writes for cnbc.com. first two points. angela merkel saying there is no way around greece and that xwrooes is in a very complicated situation that quote from the reporting of bloomberg news. the elections scheduled for early april in greece and citigroup raising the possibility that greece will be

italy or spain. those are huge economies. the failure of their sovereign debt would bring down the banking system in europe. democratic caller in pennsylvania. hello, jerome. guest: i would like to say -- caller: i would like to say thank you to the cable companies for c-span. i would like to ask mr. shapiro who is being held accountable for these mistakes that were made? host: the mistakes in europe? >> -- caller: no, but the mistakes in this country. guest: the fact is that almost no one has been held accountable. we do not have a good system for creating accountability in these kinds of crises. most of what was done by the banks which failed and consequently required taxpayer bailout, was not legal. there was nothing illegal about it. it was risky and reckless. regulators were reckless in allowing it to happen, but it was not illegal. that makes it hard to hold anyone accountable. i think that, as i said, the terms of the bailout imposed a certain amount of accountability, and that was not done. we could have said to the banks that we were bailing out that you must use these funds, or some part of these

italy and other place. >> still huge. what's gonna happen in europe, you can get out by either defaulting on debt, devalue your currency or deflate your wages. europe's going the path of deflating their wages and that is going to be a big ajursz.period, doesn't mean there aren't opportunities there, but consumption will slow and very similar to what we saw out of asia probably in the 1998 to 2000 period where asia was very slow growth. >> you said would you put money to work in some of the depressed names in europe? >> thing to do in europe but got to be linked into exporting, take advantage of government downsi downsizing, you clearly want to play on the corporate sector where you think the valuations are reasonable. >> real quick on china, global slow down, people say china was the engine of the global store ray long time it is slowing down, still talking 8% growth, still talking about 11% to 8%. >> well, generally everything is slowing down, let's start globally as a premise. what i would say, we think china will be about 40% of global growth this year, asia about 60% and you got to stick to the consumption side of the

europe by all the talk of moving some sort of fiscal compact. so all that's been pretty positive. but the thing we still await is how does italy actually grow or not grow over the next year or two. this is a long game, not something that ends today. they show their debt back on a sustainable path. >> have we separated to some degree the banking system from eurozone debt, and have we separated to some degree italy from whatever happens eventually with greece? >> i don't think we've separated the banks because as the sovereigns go the banks will go. so i think those two -- >> as part of the ltro? >> it helps the banks -- it allows the banks liquidity, more confidence with the banks but i don't think you can separate the sovereigns. they all go bust the banks won't be sitting there all fine. you can't get rid of those two. italy to some degree has decoupled from greece. portugal is probably more in the spotlight but notwithstanding that italy needs to raise so much money and there's such fragility i think we'll be talking about it all the time. >> not this week but next week. okay. thanks so much for joining us. ceo of swordfish. >>> our next gue

or two countries. we talk about this occurring in the whole of the periphery, in italy as well. i think europe is really going to be pretty much with us. you are going to see real disappointments at there. and i would agree with olivier , you have the links through the trade side, you have links to the financial markets side. what will occur is that the risk aversion comes back and american banks get impacted. europe might be in decline, but still accounts for 1/3 of the global economy. its banking system is huge. in short, i am not an optimist. >> where do you come out? >> i am not quite as realistic as desmond, but i don't fantasize to the same degree as the german finance ministry does, for example. i am very concerned, of course, about the situation in europe. if i was to point to the single data element that worries me the most, it is the fact that four of the five countries in the deeper struggle, italy, spain, greece, and portugal continue to have a very large current account deficit in the middle of a projected recession and, in the case of greece, an absolutely disastrous wanone. they