Obama on iraq, afghanistan, iran, all the issues of substance. So ill ask him to explain. Also, the u. S. Economy, how much will it grow in 2014 . 2 . 3 . 4 . Wall street is wondering, upon dids are up s ars are pontifica. And negotiations with iran are two collscholars tell ust neuroscience is actually illuminate the issues. Somebody in france actually went a step further. But first heres my take. President obama gave a much anticipated teach on friday outlining reforms on the American Governments surveillance activities. Before i give you my reaction to the speech, i want to give you some context. Many American Companies are routinely the victims of Cyber Attacks from all over the world. For example, the National Nuclear security was a by contrast, the entire United Kingdom suffered 44 million Cyber Attacks in the entire year of 2011. Some of these are efforts to spy on america, enter into communications systems, telecome systems, steal secrets. Others are trying to disrupt normal life or kill civilians. Last year the head of the fbi testified that Cyber Attacks from foreign sources has surpassed terrorism as the single this debate about american policy cannot take place in a vacuum, there are countries out there and groups of militants and terrorists and they are actively using kpaefr signer tools they have to tap into phone systems, emails, bank records, power Plant Operations systems, Nuclear Facilities and more. President obama has taken on a worthy test, to see if american intelligence has got on out of control. As it deals with these threats and challenges, his speech suggests that no, the nsa is not a rogue outfit. But two facts need to be kept in mind, first that the United States has unique capabilities in this area and second that after 9 11, the American Government went too far in its efforts to search for a and Counter Terrorist threats. So hes proposed a series of reforms that strike me as a good balance between security and liberty. Hes preserved the basic structure of american intelligence gathering while putting in more checks and safeguards. One case where he may have gone too far is in limiting americas ability to spy on foreign leaders. Its a good idea for the United States to protect civil liberties, institute checks and balances and have periodic reviews of the whole system. But lets also keep in mind that i havent heard much about the chinese intelligence reforms proposals and i wont expect we will be hearing much from him or president putin or any other foreign leaders. Intelligence is the worlds second oldest profession for a reason, everyone does it. Lets get started. Robert gates worked for eight president s, his last job of course was secretary of defense. Starting under president george w. Bush in 2006, and ending under president obama in 2011. Hes just published his memoirs, simply called duty. An unusual and controversial move when one of the president s he served is still in office. And he criticizes that president or so many say. We will get to all of that, but i wanted to start off on the substance of the key decisions made on his watch. Iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria, iran. Youll note that secretary gates is in a neck brace, if youre wondering if its whiplash from his critics, its not, he tripped and broke a vertebrae. So fred kaplan calls this memoir a primarial scream. Do you think it was a primal scream . No, but one of the reasons i wrote the book was to describe, i mean everyone in the country sort of knows at a certain level about paralysis and polarization in washington and i wanted to make it real, in terms of how you deal with that on a day daytoday basis, when youre running the Defense Department and trying to fight two wars and to show that no matter how frustrated and how angry i got, by suppressing all of that i actually was able to get a lot of things done in a town where very few are. Youve gotten a lot of attention for the comments youve made about president obama with regard to after stang, basically that the present seemed like in the middle of the war, his heart wasnt in it. I want to start you with the substance. What i was most struck by, was the fact that the president start from 2009 on ward, he had to make big decisions, he also had to make decisions about whether or not to have a timetable, things like dwluchth. You say you agreed with every one of the president s decisions . Thats exactly right. And i continue to support those decisions, such as the strategic agreement with the Afghan Government that would support the United States and our allies there. I never had any quarrel with the president s decisions and in fact i was very impressed with how he would set aside the opposition, largely for political reasons of the Vice President a and virtually all of his civilian advisors in the white house to make a decision that he knew would be politically unpopular in the Democratic Party base. It seemed like your fundamental kind of inclination and approach is one that would regard this as a place not to overdo the military foot print or to overdo the commitments, i read you on syria, on iran and all of those places, you steam to be much more comfortable with what i take is the president s caution about getting too involved militarily in these places . Youre right and as is i think well known is i was opposed to the situation in libya. Can we just finish the wars we already before we go looking for another one . But if iraq and afghanistan have taught us anything, first of all, that our assumptions are usually wrong, and the first and most important of those asu assumptions is that war will be shomplt and second, we dont have enough humility about our inability to predict unforeseen consequences. So my argument against going into syria militarily was that it is an act of war to take down their air defenses, establish a no fly zone or humanitarian zone. Russia is a close ally of syrias, lebanon hangs in the balance. And we were putting gasoline on a very complex fire and we had no idea what the second, third and fourth consequences of our actions would be. And unless you have a clear idea of what your military is supposed to accomplish, and how long it will take, i think you need to be very, very cautious about introducing military force. And again on iran, it seems like youre pretty cautious about the idea of military intervention. Well, particularly in the Bush Administration. Because i felt that we still had time to make the economic pressures work. And again, we were already in two wars, our militaries were stretched very thin, our military was exhausted. And so the idea of acting precipitously to go after the iranians or to enable the israelis to go after them, where we didnt know the consequences but could well lead to a major regional war. I felt it was too risky. Let me ask you something about the book as i read it and your views. I look at all of those positions and it steams on the substance, you were very sympatico with president obama. On the substance, from what i can tell from reading what you say about the Bush Administration, you were much more unhappy, it seems to me pretty clear, you were skeptical about the iraq war, you were certainly skeptical and you write that about the freedom agenda, the idea of spreading democracy around the world. You seemed skeptical about the way afghanistan was handled in the years before you got there. And these are major, major issues. And yet, it feels to me like almost culturally youre more comfortable in the Bush White House than the obama. Is this the case just you might have agreed on obama, but just that word on the white house aides and biden, it just irritated you . I really dont think its that. I think in part, it was the time i served each of those president s. I served president bush in the last two years of his presidency. He had had a hard run for 5 1 2 years, since 9 11. He had learned a lot of lessons, he was a weiss wiser, more matu more seasoned president that i encountered. Neither he nor his Vice President would everybody run for office again. So it was a much less political environment. On the other hand, i served in the first 2 1 2 years of the Obama Administration, where a president was going to run for reelection, that was clear, and both the secretary of state and his Vice President had potential ambitionless themselves. So there was a focus on domestic politics in the debates in the Obama Administration that i didnt encounter in the Bush Administration, but i will say, had i been in the Bush Administration during the first 2 1 2 years, my suspicious is it would have been very similar. Well be back more with secretary gets, was writing the book dishonorable . I didnt set out to vilify anybody in that book and i dont think i did. And what will he say about Vice President biden whom he criticizes if biden called him le at 25th and hoffman. And the little room above the strip mall off roble avenue. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment [ blows whistle ] then spend your time chasing your point b. The war of 1812. [ bell rings ] you get to point b, and sometimes things change. But your journey is not done. Capella university is the most direct path to whats next, because our competencybased curriculum gives you what you need to move forward to your point c. Capella university. Start your journey at capella. Edu. Im back with with robert gates. Should he have even written this book at all . Listen in. Ive got to ask you about some of the criticism. John mccain says you shouldnt have written this book now. You should have waited. One of the president s aides said this was a dishonorable act. Even the wall street journals Foreign Affairs columnist said bob gates has a reputation for keeping his mouth shut. Maybe he should have paid attention to it this time. What do you say to people who say this was incredible discrete and dishonorable to do it in the middle of a president s term while the foreign policies that you were involved in are still playing themselves out . First of all, all the conversations i report are on issues like afghanistan and iraq where the policies are already set and the decisions have been made, and our course has been established. Second, i think a close look at the book would validate that nearly all of those conversations, in fact, present the president s both president s in a positive light of being tough minded, much pushing back, of asking hard questions, of doing exactly what American People would hope a president would do whenever the use of military force is involved. I didnt set out to vilify anybody in this book. And i dont think i did. But i think you have to read the whole book and not just quotes that are taken out of context. And i would just say i mean, the other piece of this is theres a whole genre of books out there that are written about insider conversations in the white house, quoting the president from private conversations, quoting private meetings and meetings in the situation room and so on, all done from the shelter of on background and leaked by people in the white house. What i wanted to try to convey to the book is dedicated to the men and women of the armed forces and what i wanted to what i wanted to say to the people in uniform and their families, the america that sent them to war is that these are tough issues. And i wanted to show the leaders of the country wrestling with these issues and the passion that they were discussed. I also think that, you know, this is a town washington is a town where everybody says its paralyzed. I also wanted to show how you can actually make things work in washington and finally a lot of the issues weve been talking about, how to deal with china, how to deal with russia, how to deal with allies like saudi arabia. I have worked for eight president s. I have the experience of working for eight president s and i think i have something to offer that debate. That debate is not going to wait until 2017. What do you think is the lesson. You know, president s sometimes write a letter to their successors. If you were to have set out a couple of things to worry about or to be focused on, for the, not just the secretary of defense but going forward, what are the thingsa worry you in the way that eisenhower wrote about. First of all, i would say that the one piece of advice that i would give either to a secretary of defense or to a president , a new secretary or president , is that absent an immediate threat to the United States, the use of military force should be a last resort not a first option. We need to be much more careful. I wrote in my first book that the dirty little secret in washington was that the biggest dubs wore uniforms. And thats because they have seen the face of war and they have been thrown into conflicts only to have Political Support evaporate behind them. And so being very cautious about the use of force, i think, is incredibly important. Right now the biggest threat to our National Security, as far as im concerned, is the paralysis in washington and the uncertainty with respect to the defense programs, uncertainty about what kinds of military capabilities were going to need for the future, where our record in predicting where we will use military force next is perfect over the last 40 years. Weve never once gotten it right. Reporter do you think we have to plan for china as a Strategic Military adversary . Well, i think our military plans for everything. I think that china is not a military adversary at this point. I think that the way the chinese and american leaders deal with each other in the years to come will determine whether or not that becomes the case. But i do think that our presence in asia is very important. Just as our presence in the middle east is important as a deterrent. Can you envision a scenario where israeli or u. S. Military action against iran ends well . Has the desired effect . Ends well jumps from the action to some period of time beyond that. I think that if there is a military action against iran, iran will not just absorb it or retaliate in a cursory sort of way, with a few rockets launched into israel and maybe a few hezbollah rockets launched into the northern part of israel. I think iran will retaliate and moreover, i would say, that that would make it inevitable, that iran will become a nuclear state. They will not become head on to us, but will find ways, i think, to inflict real damage, whether its against Oil Facilities in the gulf, potentially sinking some of our warships, whether its terrorism in the region, potentially here at home. But i think theyll react. If Vice President biden were to call you about this memoir, given what you said about him you said he has been wrong with every Major National security issue for the last four decades, what would you say . The interesting thing is that biden and i actually agreed on virtually every part of obamas National Security and Foreign Policy except for afghanistan. And in the book, i acknowledge i should have worked harder to bridge the differences between us on afghanistan, and i fault myself for that. What would you say to i would say, well, joe, this is the world both you and i know. Bob gates, pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Lots more ahead on the show. If youre wondering why iranians act the way they do on the world stage, i have a guest who says the answer is in the human brain. And he would know. He is a neuroscientist. Up next, what in the world . Why japans declining population may actually be a good thing. Youll be surprised by some data. [ male announcer ] away. [ laughing ]. Is the crackle of the campfire. It can be a million years old. Cool. Or a few weeks young. [ laughs ] away beckons from orions belt. Away. Is a place thats closer than you think. Find your away. For a dealer and the rv thats right for you, visit gorving. Com. Now for our what in the world segment. I was struck by some startling data this week. 2013, japan population soared to the largest natural decline in that countrys history. Its a trend thats getting worse. By 2060, japan predicts its population will have fallen by a third. 40 of japanese will be retirees. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Imagine a United States where half the population were over 65. Health care costs would explode. New scientists claiming japans aging population could actually be good news. How on earth is that possible . After all, china relaxed its onechild policy last month precisely so it could avoid the fate of japan. And that fate, if you go by conventional wisdom, seems to be slowing growth and leading to unsustainable debt. Why . Our entire system is based on having enough Young Workers to pay for pensions and government services. Well, according to the new scientists, perhaps weve been looking at the wrong data. Consider growth. The number we tend to focus on the most. Look at the performance of a selection of rich countries in the last decade. Japans economy expanded by just 0. 8 a year on average. France was faster. The United States and britain grew at twice japans space. Now look at growth per capita, growth per person. This number gets less attention. The table is inverted. The u. S. And france is near the bottom but japan is at the top. This is because individual incomes are actually rising while the population is declining. It would follow that people are actually better off, not bad for a country everyone seems to have written off. Lets look at some other indicators. According to the demographer japan is the healthiest country in the world. Given that the average life span is 83 years, the highest in the world, you would expect Health Care Costs to dominate. Remember, japan has universal health care. Again, you would be wrong. Japan spends only 8 of its gdp on health care, half the percent the United States spends. Now look at education. In the very near future, for every japanese new born, japan will also have a centenarian, a man or woman who is 100 years old. The low percentage of children also means fewer school students, less money spent on education. And, remember, japan has a Strong School system and is a world leader in research and development. How does tokyo manage this . Is it a welfare state . Again, the answer is no. According to a group of 34 rich nations the average japanese worker faced a tax burden of about 31 , 4 Percentage Points lower than the groups average. A few other hidden benefits for japan. Declining population means there is more space and land for every japanese citizen. Remember, japan is a tiny country that packs in 127 million people. Fewer people could well translate into a Higher Quality of life as well. These are fascinating points to consider. Many other countries may soon encounter some of japans problems. China could grow old before it becomes rich. Europes rich nations have fertility rates that are too low to replenish the population. If it werent for immigration, americas population would start leveling off as well. But remember the United States gains more than a Million Immigrants legally every year. Japan and europe on the other hand have stricter immigration laws and are less welcoming to immigrants. I dont think dwindling population is actually all good at all as the article suggests. Young people need energy, risk taking, hard work, and, of course, tax revenues. Tokyo needs to raise its retirement age and encourage immigration. But the essay does show that japan has many hidden benefits in its demographic predicament. Maybe thats why theres been no revolts since they have undergone 20 years of stagnation and maybe there are lessons for other countries as well. Up next, will america grow as fast in 2014 as everyone hopes . Does it even matter . I have two very smart guests up next on the crucial question of gdp growth. You start at point a and spend your time working hard to get to point b. And b could be here. Or even here. But for you, b is not the end. Capella university will help take you further, because our competencybased curriculum is designed for your profession, to move you forward to where you want to be. Your point c. Capella university. Start your journey at capella. Edu. Became big business overnight . Like, really big. Then expanded . Or their new product tanked . Or not . What if they embrace new technology instead . Imagine a companys future with the future of trading. Company profile. A Research Tool on thinkorswim. From td ameritrade. Hello, everyone, im life at the cnn headquarters in atlanta. There are new security concerns over a threat at the sochi olympic games. Cnn has obtained a tach that claims responsibility of the terror attack at the volgograd. Congressman mike rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says hes concerned about russias cooperation on security while main senator angus king who sits on the select committee for intelligence was more blunt, he said he wouldnt even go to the olympics game. Also allegation of misuse of sandy relief none, the mayor of hoboken says that the Governors Office threatened to withhold relief funds for hoboken unless she backed a project. Hobokens city Planning Board had we jeblgted it. Well have the very latest on both of these top stories and more coming up at 2 00 eastern time rig. The incoming fed chair says shes hopeful that u. S. Gross domestic janet yellen said she is hopeful Gross Domestic Product or gdp could grow 3 or more in 2014. The chicago fed chair envisions 2. 75 growth. The World Bank Expects 2. 8 growth this year. We talk about gdp growth a lot on this show. Does it really matter . Is gdp growth actually necessary . What does it mean . Lets ask my next two guests. The Harvard Business review and author of betterness economics for humans. And zachary c and the author of the leading indicators which will be out in book stores february 11th so you can preorder it now. He is the head of global strategy at investment. Lets first start with the growth numbers. Lots of people worry that the west is in for what some call secular stagnation, that there just isnt going to be much growth. You look back over the last 20, 25 years, look at japan, the u. S. And europe, there hasnt been much growth except for the brief exception of the 90s. The thing about u. S. Growth is i think theres been an uncupable between what those numbers tell you and what the effects are systemically. A factory that employs 5,000 people, puts out a certain number of cars or stuff and adds to gdp growth. Today there may be a slight manufacturing revival in the United States. But that same factory is going to have 500 people and may add more to output but will add less to jobs. Weve create this had number that is a proxy for everything and increasingly its a proxy for only one thing, which is output as defined for stuff we have produced. Does that mean we all still look at gdp growth as a mark of how an economy is doing . Isnt that fair if you look at just to put it in very simple terms, china dpru at 10 the last three decades. Theyre doing pretty darn well. India did not grow quite as fast. Bangladesh grew even slower. You can go through that list and over time, particularly compound, it seems like it makes a difference. Yeah. I think that gdp does have some value to it. But i also think that it may have it may be at the point where its outliving its usefulness. As zachary points out, it just measures the volume of stuff. It doesnt look at the quality of our lives, which is presumably what we want. From an economy, to benefit us in real terms, not just to deliver us more stuff. And the real question for us is what do we want from our economy and how do we begin measuring it . When we talk about growth, many people think that growth is a godgiven thing and refers to some kind of natural phenomenon in the world. But it doesnt. Growth is a manmade creation. And gdp is a newer creation than, for example, the automobile. The automobile was created 100 years ago. Gdp was only created 75, 80 years ago. Reporter it captures a reality. Sure. That countries have produced more goods in output than consume more do tend to get richer. Yep. Than historically, they were healthier than they live longer, they thats exactly right. For an industrial economy, gdp may capture a valuable truth. For an economy that is kind of moving past an industrial set of conditions, gdp may be in need of a serious what would be youve written this book about leading indicators like gdp. If its not capturing, to your mind, the essence of what advanced industrial economies should be looking to, what is the what number should we be in fact, its actually quite good, i think, at measuring 1950s level industrial nation states, which is why its probably more meaningful for china at its moment in economic evolution. Than it is for the United States or western europe or japan. The temptation is always, particularly an american temptation. If the number doesnt work, lets just invent another number that will work better. And theres been a lot of attempts to come up with measuring national good. Butan came one a Gross National happiness index. Sarkozy was commissioned to come up what do we replace it with . Any one number in multitiered systems of which the u. S. Economy is absolutely is going to be wrong. But you say what you remind me of, the point you were making, Robert Kennedy once made a very famous speech where he talked about the limitations of gdp and what it could measure and what it couldnt measure. It measures neither our or our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning. Neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile. In a really stirring kind of way. That was 40 years ago. The fascinating thing is that the world has moved on since rfk gave that speech. In countries like canada and australia, theyve developed very sophisticated sets of indicators to look at the prosperity of those economies, about the wellbeing of people within those countries, which is a little bit achbl analogous to what zachary is talking about. We dont have to look at a single number that, when its averaged, leaves out a human reality. You know the old joke about the economist. He had his feet in the fridge and his head in the oven and on average he was feeling fine. The irony of the joke for me is that it doesnt tell you anything about the economists life. Was he happy, was he married, was he successful . Was he satisfied . Thats the kind of stuff we really need to delve into. To do that, were going to need to develop a range of indicators, not just the volume of stuff, but the real quality of peoples lives. The idea of growth isnt just about the growth of economists but our growth as human beings. And those countries have done much better than the United States in crafting the existence when things like the longterm future of the societies, which may or may not be gdp too many governments in the world have such a tethered referendum as to whether they can say to a populous, weve increased this number. Its a pleasure to have both of you on, its fascinating. Up next, how to negotiate with iran. Were not going to talk about Foreign Policy. Were going to talk about psychology and neuroscience. How it might explain washingtons most vexing Foreign Policy problem. Or how ornate the halls are. It doesnt matter if there are granite statues, or big mahogany desks. When working with an investment firm, whats really important is whether the people behind the desks actually stand behind what they say. Introducing the schwab accountability guarantee. If youre not happy with one of our participating Investment Advisory services, well refund your program fee from the previous quarter. Its no guarantee against loss and other fees and expenses may still apply. Chuck vo standing by your word, thats what matters the most. Over the pizza place on Chestnut Street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreling down i95. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment if your denture moves, it can irritate your gums. Try fixodent plus gum care. It helps stop denture movement and prevents gum irritation. Fixodent. And forget it. If youre wondering whether washington dont look at policy or history, looks at psychology and look at the human brain. They have some surprising and simple insights that explain how and why the iranians act the way they do. Welcome. So the first thing i have got to ask you is, people are going to listen to this and say, wait a minute, the iranians are not rational, theyre crazy molars, whatever they want. And you have pedigree to talk about this, because you always have been very tough on this regime, but yet you think, you say in the article, theres no orientalism of the brain, that iranians are not so different that we cant study them by looking at neuroskincience . Certainly what were trying to do here is not replace idealogy or nationalism or g geopolitics as a way to understand Irans Nuclear ambitions, but to understand what irans motivations are, what is quite remarkable, if you listen to iran s rhetoric over the last two decades, rejecting global double standards has been an incredibly powerful motivation. And what i have found in tehran, is this is not just the regime, but ordinary people. And you argue that neuroscience tells us why this issue of rejecting unfairness is so important. We can see that people are prepared to pay a high cost to reject unfairness. So i can illustrate this with an example. Imagine im given 10 and i can decide how to split that with you, so i may then decide to make a 91 split. Im going to say im going to get 9 and youre going to get 1. So if you cared only about yourself, then you would say, well, ill take the 1. But what people actually do is, if youre offered less than about 25 , people reject that about half the time. The famous experiment with the cmonkeys, there are these to among i c monkeys, theyre each asked to give a stone to the person outside the cage and theyre each given a cucumber in return. And one of the monkeys is given a grape, which i think in the monkey world is more valuable. When you give the money con a grape, the other one now refuses to accept the cucumber and actually throws the cucumber back because it wants the grape. The iranians look and say other countries are allowed to have civilian Nuclear Programs, are allowed to exist, why should which accept some lower standards . Six countries have several thousand Nuclear Weapons, they look at countries like india and pakistan, which never signed they pointed out double standard. And of course they point to israel and they say, you know, israel has well over 100 Nuclear Weapons and were pursuing this Nuclear Program so why the double standard. This is something thats really been fundamental to the iranian regime. What were trying to do here is not kind of justify irans of j motivations. You say this issue of unfairness leads to the next point where each side think they are justified and virtuous in the issue they are taking. So you can have two people who both feel what they are doing is entirely fair and these two people can be to one another. This can lead to the type of tragedy that the german philosopher hagel described where you have two people, both of whom feel what they are doing is entirely right and just thats mutually incompatible and leads to a tragic outcome. Then the third piece of this is the when do you make a conciliatory gesture, a concession. One of the things i remember from graduate school and international relations, you probably remember this as well, kareem, theres a lot of good data that shows when you have negotiations between nations, they tend to be of this quality, which is when the other side makes a concession, you assume he was forced into it. That circumstances compelled it. When you make a concession its out of the goodness of your heart. Useful to make an observation about the evolution of iranian soechlt three decades ago when the revolution happened if there was a unifying philosophy among masses it was antiimperialism. Today i would argue its globalization. We dont want to resist the outside way, we want to embrace the outside world. Hassan rouhani is that popular will not resistance but reintegration. This is whats really driving irans desire to try to reemerge from isolation. As much the pressure of sanctions but certainly sanctions played a role bringing iran to the negotiating table. For the iranian people who are really i would say driving the regime in this direction, its much more wanting to be part of the outside world rather than to resist it. What conclusion do you draw as United States and iran head into negotiations again. Very interesting. Henry kissinger said before he went to meet with mao, all experts say mao would never change. For a long time, including myself, have been saying the Supreme Leader is very rigid. I think weve seen over the last six, seven months, some unexpected progress in iran negotiations. I think we have to continue to try to test this to see if its possible to reach some type of new relationship with iran or not possible. But we wont know until we test that. Thank you both. This is fascinating. Up next, are you fed up with the bull from your government . So was somebody in france and he made a big stink. I will explain it. You have to watch this. [ blows whistle ] then spend your time chasing your point b. The war of 1812. [ bell rings ] you get to point b, and sometimes things change. But your journey is not done. Capella university is the most direct path to whats next, because our competencybased curriculum gives you what you need to move forward to your point c. Capella university. Start your journey at capella. Edu. Try align. Its the number one ge recommended probiotic that helps maintain digestive balance. Stay in the groove with align. The 2014 index of economics free tom was released this week. It brings me to my question of the week. What is the only country to have recorded a loss of Economic Freedom every year for the last seven years. A, france b china, c agrees, d United States. Stay tuned and well tell you the answer. Dp for more insight follow us on fake. Go to fareed zakaria. The book, former ceo of Procter Gamble in india has become a leading intellectual. Hes written a spirited book about how to get his country going again. This is the most interesting book on india ive read in a while. For the last look. Here in the United StatesCongress Approval ratings are near the lowest in history. Nearly half those polled in the uk said they were angry of politicians. A spanish Political Party headquarters. Protesters in ukraine continue to call for the government to go. It would seem the whole world is tired of government. Perhaps the most expressive protest came from paris. Despite french reputation for snooty and uninterested citizens protests there have always been big and creative. Furniture barricades during 19th century rebellions in Les Miserables come to mind. In more recent decades, farmers protested falling grain prices with tractors blocking the streets and by burning hey on the champselysees. This weeks protest may be hard to forget as well. A man dumped a large pile of steaming manure outside the National Assembly protesting the policies of president hollande and his government. While these protests are creative, they can be too creative and too effective. The government in france often surrenders. After all, who would want to be confronted every day with a pile of, well, you know what. The correct answer is d, the United States. While 114 countries took teps to increase Economic Freedom last year, the u. S. Has dropped out of the top ten most economically free countries. It is now at number 12. According to the report this is largely due to regulation of health care, finance and energy. Its worth noting this is a report from the conservative heritage foundation. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. Ill see you next week. Hello, everyone. Im fredricka whitfield. Two big stories. New terror concerns for everyone heading to the sochi olympic games. Weeks before they begin, cnn obtained an ominous video from terrorists at the heart of the concern. Back in this country, another allegation against governor Chris Christies office. The mayor of