the term, brics, was invented by jim o'neill of goldman sachs. he told me that back in 2001, when he coined the term, his prediction did not have much impact. >> it was only in 2004 when a multinational started to say -- hang on, this could be big for business if the entire thing took off. the big store was not paid attention to for a couple of years. >> but they are paying attention now. bric's a share of the global economy has jumped to 19% this year. jim o'neill predicts they will announce -- account for one- quarter of the world's economy in a year's time. some question russia and whether they might outgrow it. >> russia might be, at some point in the future, because of the others, but people are ignoring the simple fact that russia is 2.5 times bigger than anywhere else. >> he says that the biggest issue for the world economy is where china goes next year and whether it faces growth based on the new world consumer. >> a couple of other business stories making headlines around the world, the credit worthiness of the world's biggest banks are

one of those experts are jim o'neil, goldman sachs asset manager. he's coined the terms like bric.l has been taking the european central bank should be taking a completely different tact. >> you're talking of a huge issue here. i am rather surprised by the ecb yet again. the ecb is, i believe, played its own strange role in presiding over this growing crisis in italy. the ecb has to stop buying substantial amounts of italian bonds to get yields down. the markets can't cope whitley blowing up in the same way greece did. >> after the experience of italy and greece, portugal and ireland, there's calls for greater fiscal union, particularly from germany right now. is this going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back in a sense on the euro? >> well, you know, i often think that the german authorities and some key policymakers behind the scenes have almost been trying to orchestrate this crisis, because the idea you've suggested is what the leading german thinkers actually argued all along back in '97, '98. you couldn't have a stable persistent -- without an eu political union to s

tip o'neil would deal with reagan, jim baker would slip up to the capitol and get to tip's office. here's what we have planned for next week. >> how do you fix that one, though? >> we have to put pressure on them. a good example of organization, and i repeated this a lot recently, however you feel about the tea party and what it stands for, they got angry, they got organized, they got to washington and they stayed on message. therefore, they were having a real impact, especially on the republican side. to get organized and to have impact, you've got to find common cause in your own group. it's not enough to retreat to main street and say i give up on those people on washington. >> the book is terrific. i think it's for everybody. i was wondering who should read that book. i can't think of one generation it wouldn't hit right. >> that's the whole idea. i'm trying to generate, if you will, conversations across generational lines. my mother was a great influence on me. she is in this book. she is now 93. not at a great place in her life at this point because of her health. she came to