Let it be voted on. Now,ly qualify, i am a registered republican. I have been registered as an independent. I have voted for two democratic president s. But we must all remember, we are americans first, party last. Have a good day. From randall, washington, d. C. , is up next. Hello. Caller hello . Youre on. Caller randall in d. C. . Yes, youre on. Caller okay. I simply want to say people are forgetting, they voted for gridlock, the republicans did. They voted republicans in twice. They initially voted them into the house so they would they botched the republic argument about all the power rested in one party. So, to counter obama, and im sure a little of it had some race factor in it, they voted in gridlock. Nothing is said about it because they thought the republicans would do even more when they voted them into the senate. And, like i said, the other factor is race. People working class people who are democrats, republicans, black or white, should all be working together against cla
Well. And also if you could at the end of the event can you hear me . [inaudible] is it on now . Is this okay . [inaudible] if you can also fold up your tears at the end of the evening and put them against a nearby shelf, that would be very helpful. Okay. Is this better . [inaudible] okay. Also on your way out be sure to grab a schedule that has our events. Politics and prose is hosting a lot of wonderful events in partnership with us boys and poets. Be sure to check it out. Now to introduce our guest author tonight George Friedman is a political scientist, author and ceo of the private Intelligence Corporation that he founded in 1996. Yes written many books and his most recent include two dark times bestsellers. The first one is the next decade and the next forecast. He has been invited to speak at many military and government organizations and as well he appears as an international a Affairs Expert for such magazines as fortune, newsweek and others just to name a few. George is here
Economic data. We have the Business Climate index falling to 108. 5 points in the month of may. That is versus a reuters consensus photograph for 108. 3. So slightly higher than expected. Its still a drop for the month of april. Thats when we saw 108. 6. A bit of a move in the euro hitting the days high. Lets look at the other data coming out, thats 103 in the month of may versus a consensus photograph of 103. 1. Thats shy of forecasts but the headline index is better than expected. We did have the index earlier this week some what disappointing. The pmi leveling off. Is this a sign of germany cooling off or seasonal factors in play . Overnight the German Finance Ministry came out and said were still expecting growth to pick up for the remainder of the year and they still have more than 1. 5 . Lets get to annetta who is live. Thank it away. Well thank you very much. Of course growth and unemployment and inflation are the big topics here and im joined by the chief economist at icd. Was
Remarks and thank you for being with with us. There will be a conversation here at a conversation here at the table and we will open that up as long as time allows. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the introduction and for inviting me i am very honored. I can only address a few of the problems you just mentioned because i am only the finance minister. It was quite successful after all. You might think that our decisionmaking processes are complicated and you might think that your policies will lead to little or no growth. I can simply tell you that once the economy is growing again and every country is expected to grow but i want to raise a more fundamental question. How can advanced economies achieve growth . For the past quartercentury there was a credit boom in 1997 and after that it came back in 2007. At the beginning of each of these cycles people thought we were entering a new era of prosperity. It became clear long ago that the instrument no longer works the way it u
I tried to mention shortly, normally i speak longer but i would prefer to save time for questionandanswer is we have one of the major problem of all economies to increase. There are gross expectations for coming here. And they have given the recommendation not to increase our expenses but to reduce our taxation. We will spend in our government anything available for increasing infrastructure. If i increase Infrastructure Investment germany will be better. We have federal government, we have state level that we have to keep in mind and we need to deliver more. I think we have a balanced way to increase investment. It has become better in 2005. She has very much relied on strengthening the part of federal budget increasing federal budget for research and education. No government, never has increased the budget for research and education. Even in this year and you know germany very well education is a great responsibility. But federal spending for states to raise money for education has n