On GPS Sunday: Assessing the U.S. economy and second term presidencies
Watch "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN
On GPS this Sunday: A panel of leading historians offer their take on the state of the U.S. economy, second term presidencies and more.
“I think there are no historical analogies more perilous than comparing a Munich or a Nixon in China, from which we have generations of perspective, to a deal that is days old,” says Nancy Gibbs, managing editor of TIME. “You know, this could prove to be a turning point, as obviously the president would like to argue that it's a long overdue reset of a relationship. But it all could also fall apart.”
Then, a referendum to cap CEO pay to 12-times the salary of a firm's lowest-paid employee: What in the world is going on in Switzerland?
And, why kids in South Korea and Finland are getting a better education than their counterparts in the United States.
And the Last Look: the commercial that has millions of Indians and Pakistanis misty-eyed.
@fareedzakaria on Twitter
Economy? Don't even worry about it ! We can simply toss it in with all the other issues like, out of control debt, the spending gap , approving the 2014 budget, the fiscal cliff, tapering, sequestering, taxes, devaluation of the US$, offshoring of jobs, etc., and just kick it as far down the road as possible.
Seems to be the MO for our 113th Congress, doesn't it?
I was going to suggest that maybe we should off-shore their jobs too, but then realized THAT actually happened a long time ago. BUT THEY'RE STILL GETTING PAID!
Lol. No kidding.
And all on our dime, the thieves.
Whats happening in Switzerland to exec's pay. Maybe it is something that we should look at here to dampen the economic class outcry
Capping a CEO's salary at 12-times that of the firm's lowest-paid employee will quickly destroy affected businesses. The best executives will do something else and continue to thrive. If a lowest-paid employee resigns, somebody else will be glad to take his job, and nobody will know the difference.
Often, egalitarianism is the foundation of great laughter, and that brings joy to the world.
If your correct in believing that corporations hire the best executives then how is it that we are in serious economic trouble?
Is the job of a corporation's CEO to see that the corporation makes money for investors, or is the job of a CEO to fix a nation's economy?
I say it's to make money.
The relationship between/amongst government, it's people, and it's corporations cannot be anything but one of interdependence. And making this all work to any degree of success, even with all the right checks and balances in place and without any outside interference, still presents endless challenges all on its own. But if successful, such a nation will likely prosper. Historically and for good reason most countries usually opted to do much of their initially trade with their nearby and friendly neighbours. But because of the cheap cost of transportation and the rush for globalization and free trade, much has changed in places and not always in everyone's favour. In fact, for some countries the end result has clearly disrupted this necessary interdependency to the point that its government becomes obligated to militarily defend other nations while it cannot even generate enough revenue from its' own tax base to fund such defence given that so many of its corporations have off-shored their labour force elsewhere. Such a situation could easily become prone to wide scale deception and corruption by government in order to keep itself from actual collapse. But mathematically it must eventually fail and in all likelihood leaving the country in turmoil.
I hope to see most Republicans in the House replaced by Democrats the next time they need to be reelected.
What's odd about my view is that I'm still registered as a Republican although I voted for Obama twice, and just today in this forum I got boos for expressing hawkish and conservative opinions. Today's Republicans are doing something that is really wrong.
Heck, I even love Ayn Rand and use Objectivism every day.
What's fun about Ayn Rand is towards the end of her life she availed herself to the exact programs she so viciously eschewed and spoke against.
Would love to see some of the rabid factions voted out.
@banasy, I knew that about Ayn Rand. Most folks who like her know it.
I once asked a wealthy minister why, as a Republican, he was steering some parishioners toward programs that I would avoid. He said, "because the program is there."
And for those who desperately need it, they should be available; "Atlas Shrugged" will not fill a hungry child's stomach.
When the child grows up and gets away from the parents who cannot feed him, understanding that book will feed him and, if he chooses, his parents too.
Now 2 of my comments were removed -they do not match the CNN PROPAGANDA. If this goes through the Thought Police censors at CNN I will write more . If not , I will move on.
My first comment was to Joey who seems to support the propaganda. The opposite opinion was just too much for CNN.
@rightospeak, Hello. Please stay.
Aren't I clear? Sometimes my positions do not fully support either side of debates here.
I'd like to know where you disagreed with me on this thread.
The Thouight Police at CNN removed my comment Joey, again .
Heard of J A P A N ?
8 times , Joey. These ignoramuses keep blocking our discussion.
Every time I mention facts of J P N , my comments vanish because they contradict the b.s. that CNN is trying to put out on the subject. It makes Mr. Z look like a fool, so they keep removing my comments with extra energy. But as you use noticed I used tricks to get my message across.
The JERKS at CNN removed my comment for the 5 th time .
I will write the same comments elsewhere and tell them what you have been doing.
Jerks.
PROPAGANDA
Fareed Zakaria–When on earth is someone in the media going to confront the Republican’s waiving and flailing of arms over the ACA: “Is all of this noise and disinformation, not because you think the ACA won’t work–but rather because you are PETRIFIED that it will”?
Indeed, why is the entire Republican agenda, today, not being brought into greater scrutiny? [and you need to be celebrated for high lighting income inequality, today].
For instance, in your interview with James Baker on April 5, 2009, you asked Baker his opinion on Obama’s Stimulus strategy to turn the economy around and Baker said “absolutely the right thing to do. When we had a big crash in the market, a big downturn, when I was Treasury secretary back in 1987, we threw liquidity at the problem. And you have to throw liquidity at these problems”.
There is a larger message in here…Supply Side [the Republican One and Only program to this day] has a shelf-life of 7 years before the economy goes into meltdown [1987 & 2008]—we cannot siphon America’s wealth away from the consuming middle [and give it to the 1%] without sending our economy into free-fall—in addition to the resulting income inequality you discussed today.
Finally, I am curious about something—do you know of any studies/polls on how widespread is the BELIEF [how many on your staff believe this]:
“The market can provide anybody wanting a job, with a job”.
This may appear to be trivial, or irrelevant—but it is bedrock in the Republican agenda—and this belief drives all of their policies and laws for job creation.
Further, it appears to be a belief held by the leaders in the OECD, with a resulting 10% plus unemployment in the Eurozone, and 25% in Greece and Spain, common. I believe, however, all of these leaders, including the U.S., are genuinely concerned with joblessness in their countries.
The problem with this pervasive belief—it isn’t true, and hasn’t been true since the mid-1970’s, with resulting high and pervasive unemployment in most of the OECD countries since. This, of course, is a subject by itself—but it should be part of the scrutiny of the Republican agenda, today, and expanded upon in: FULL EMPLOYMENT IS A PRO-MARKET CONCEPT, on Amazon/Kindle
Jim Green, Democrat candidate for Congress, 2000
http://www.amazon.com/James-L.-Jim-Green/e/B001KHZIMM/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
One needs to mention the problem of monopoly and overproduction. The world is full of goods and no place to dump them.
I wish , Mr. Green ,that you would mention things like off shored jobs, open borders, dumping of Chinese products on the USA, endless wars that made our treasury empty ( both Democrats and Republicans ) instead of demonizing Republicans. I am not defending them because I see no difference between their circus act and that of your party. When will you start working for the American people ?
Regarding "Smartest Kids..."
Almost invested in this book but decided to read a few reviews first...thank god! Please have Mr. Zakaria's fact checkers read Amazon's editorial comments on books before inviting author's on the program. K Corn wrote a very positive, nice review; that was answered by H Kirkpatrick with a very in-depth criticism of Ms. Ripley's entire hypothesis...which was based on faulty reading of studies and her superficial examination of the educational systems in question. Among the "facts" that were evidently omitted from Ripley's book is that high school in Finland is not compulsory, starts and ends at an older age and has differentiated instruction for students wishing to study vocations. Would the US have higher test scores if only the top 40% of students took the test? Hmm...such a difficult question. It would have been great if someone at CNN had asked a few remedial questions before touting this book for your viewers. I will still read this book...but will borrow from the library rather than rewarding it's author. Sincerely, a teacher in public education, USA.
Comment of positive review: http://www.amazon.com/review/RGFJVGNTRPN4A/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1451654421&nodeID=283155&store=books#wasThisHelpful
Ms. Ripley has a very busy imagination,Dan, and has no clue about what she is writing about . She just spins her fantasies and expects naive people to read her trash because she "KNOWS ". Sheer nonsense !
If your correct in believing that the corporations hire the best executives then how is that we are such serious economic trouble?
He is not correct , he is just getting paid to do PROPAGANDA, jim.
I answered you whereas this same question appears above.
I did nor write "whereas."
I wrote "where."
This absurd phone tried to correct me.
I did not mean you , Joey. I tried to inform you that capping makes good economic sense as shown in J P N contrary to your assumptions , but the T P kept removing my comments.
I would liked to have seen this broadcast, but like many times before, CNN chose to pre empt the original or repeat broadcast of GPS with "breaking news" which was nothing of the kind and could have waited another hour until "newsroom." Especially since nothing substantive is yet known about the cause of the train crash in question. I've just sent protests to CNN. This was my only chance to see the program, and I recorded it, thinking that was insurance. I don't do podcasts and object to paying, anyway, for something my expensive cable is supposed to provide. If anyone else, agrees with me, PLEASE CONTACT CNN.
I noticed those 'breaking news" and figured they tried to stick their nose in Mr. Z programs because he had really important people on and they were simply envious of his success. They are probably busy with comment manipulation to make him look bad. He who has millions rules-just follow the money.
The USA is experiencing a painful correction in its market of workers.
Eventually, that part of our problem will resolve itself.
We have other serious problems.
How Joey ? Please enlighten us because I can not see that from where I am sitting.
I'm going to ring in here and agree we both of you. We have a serious problem with no immediate or good solution. The economy has hit it's zenith and is on the down curve side with the only resolution being to kick the can down the road. And in addition to that, there are plenty of other serious problems too. I'm just glad we don't have WWIII on our hands and hope it will never come to it.
Some USA problems will have to run their course, as cancer does.
Wages for work requiirling relatively little skill will settle in their proper place in the world market: we cannot travel back in time and kill the Wright brothers.
inability to read and write will grow, because we praise that inability and even try to learn from it.
That's enough for this morning's espresso.