weather? if your nation was just a few feet above sea level, you would be really worried. we'll talk with a former president of just such a nation. and why am i wiggling my finger in a mirror here? to try to understand the wonders of the human brain. come along for an amazing tour. first, here's my take. the attacks and counterattacks in this presidential campaign are, i suppose, inevitable. but let's be honest. they're largely untrue or irrelevant. whatever the paperwork shows, mitt romney was not running bain capital after february, 1999. and even if he had been, outsourcing jobs to lower companies' costs and thus ensure its survival is not sleazy, it's how you run a business efficiently. is president obama suggesting that we put up tariff barriers to prevent outsourcing in the future? on the other side, romney's recent claim accusing the president of shoveling government grants to his political supporters is so twisted that it earned him the "washington post" fact-checkers' highest score for distortion -- four pinocchios. and his recent refrain that obama's views are foreign -- [ applause ] >> get it -- is, frankly, disgraceful. below all this mudslinging lies a real divide. obama has been making the case that the u.s. economy needs investment in infrastructure, education, training, basic science, and technologies of the future. those investments in the president's telling have been the key drivers of american growth and have allowed people to build businesses, create jobs, and invent the future. romney views that america needs tax and regulatory relief. the country is overburdened by government mandates, taxes, rules that make it difficult for businesses to function, grow, and prosper. he want to cut taxes for all, reduce regulations, streamline government. all this in his telling will unleash america's entrepreneurial energy. both views have merit, and would make for a great campaign if the country had a sustained discussion around these ideas. then the election would produce a mandate to move in one of these directions. now i think obama has the stronger case. we do need a tax and regulatory structure that creates strong incentives for private businesses to flourish. the thing is, we already have one. the world economic forum's 2011/2012 global competitiveness report ranks the united states number five in the world and number one among large economies. whether compared with our own past of, say, 30 years ago, or with other countries around the world, the united states has become more business-friendly, not less over the last 30 years. america is worse off than it was 30 years ago in infrastructure, education, research. the country spends much less as a percent of gdp on infrastructure, research, development, education, and training than it did in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. we spend half as much on r&d as we did in 1960. we're falling behind fast. in 2001, the world economic forum ranked u.s. infrastructure second in the world. in the latest report, we're 24th. in the 1970s, america led the world in the number of college graduates. as of 2009, we were 14th among the countries tracked by the oecd. in other words, the great shift in the u.s. economy over the past 30 years has not been an increase in taxes and regulation but, rather, a decline in investment, in human and physical capital. president obama has real facts on his side which makes it somewhat depressing that his campaign has focused on half truths. let's get started. steve ratner was one of the founders of the quadrangle group, a private equity firm that once managed $6 billion in assets. more recently, he was the obama administration's car czar, tasked with fixing the u.s. auto industry in the wake of the financial crisis. so he's somewhat a defender of private equity and somewhat a defender of president obama. a unique position to be in these days. i wanted to ask him about the realities of private equity. welcome back, steve. >> thanks for having me, fareed. >> so first let's just talk about private equity because there are people who say that the attacks on him are legitimate because private equity is quite different from just being engaged in business. jacob wiseburg has a piece and says, look, this is money made through financial engineering, these company, private equity companies, often buy a company, then load it up with a lot of debt. use that debt to pay themselves fees, maybe the company then does well, maybe it doesn't. but they enrich themselves regardless of whether the company they bought does well. is that fair? >> so like so many things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between. there are some very commendable aspects of private equity. i think private equity has made a serious major contribution to sharpening up management in this country by going in and saying we just care about the bottom line. we want this company to be run efficiently. we don't care about your corporate jets are going to go, all this kind of stuff. and i think they've had a real impact. that's the good side of private equity. on the other side, yes, there is a fair amount of financial engineering involved. sometimes private equity guys do what you alluded to which is they put so much debt on so they can take money back out and realize return on their investment, and then sometimes later -- not every time, of course, the company goes bankrupt. and they end up, the private equity guys, end up end in money. employees lose their jobs. the investors lose their money. but private equity by and large is a perfectly legitimate business exercise. what it is not is a practice of creating jobs. where i -- part companies with governor romney is where he starts to claim credit for creating all these jobs. that's not what private equity does. private equity makes money. makes profits in a very -- a legal and usually responsible way. but it's not a job creation machine. it doesn't qualify you to be the job creator and chief. >> what about the outsourcing because it does seem to me that over the last 20 years one -- i don't want to say trick, but one simple mechanism that companies have used, companies like general election but also private equity firms when they go in, is to say what part of this business could be done in china, in india, in the philippines, at a fraction of the cost? let's shut down the plant in kentucky, let's move it to china. and that critique, which is at the heart of the issue about bain capital from the point of view of the obama campaign, seems to be one that resonates. is it fair? >> yes. it's fair in the sense that every company in america or for that matter every part of the world, they're tasked with looking at their cost and always saying to themselves, is there a way to lower our costs? everybody knows we're living in a global world, and companies have to produce efficiently to compete. if you don't have the lowest costs, you will simply fail in the marketplace. so i'm sure bain's being very good at what they did, spent a lot of time saying how can we do this more cheaply. if it means call centers in india or manufacturing in china, so be it. and that, again, was their job. >> you know the world of private equity inside out. you also understand issues relating to sec document probably better than most. what do you think happened? why is it when mitt romney left the bain capital to manage the olympics, bain kept filing sec documents for several years, three years, with him listed as sole stockholder, chairman, chief executive and president? >> we don't know. one of the problems here is governor romney has created a level of opacity around his affairs that has led everyone to assume the worst. and which i think, frankly, is just politically stupid because what else can you think when he doesn't tell you actually what happened? one hypothesis that i hear in private equity circles that resonates with me as a possibility is, first, when he left to go to the olympic, he didn't know how long he was going for, a week, a month, x years, didn't know whether it would be an 18-hour day, a six-hour day. he left kind of instantaneously. there was no succession planning that seemed to be in place at bain. so there was no clear idea who was going to succeed him. and so they couldn't really file something else until they figured out who was going to succeed him. and that apparently -- not unusual that that took some time. and so it sort of drifted along. they just kept filing what they were filing before because they didn't have anything else to file. and that's where it -- it stood. >> what about the tax returns? is there something there that should worry americans? >> taxes are as much art as science. and i think what americans will find is that he pushed the envelope to the edge. he did stuff that simple, ordinary american won't be able to relate. to the $100 million ira. $100 million in trusts for his kids in which he will not only pay no estate taxes but through a complicated mechanism is able to put more and more into the trusts as the years goi on. i think it's going to make americans recoil, and i think that's why he's not seeing the returns. >> do you understand why you'd need a swiss bank picture? >> i understand the nature of offshore vehicle and why much of this occurs offshore. it has to do, like all this, with taxes. not so much taxes for romney in some cases anyway, but taxes for his investors with a collateral benefit for him. yeah, there are, again -- if you say to your tax people, as he seem to have done, i want every trick in the book, i want to push this to the edge, i will tell you that as a private equity guy i'm familiar with many of the things he did. and i know many people who have done many of the thing he did. i do not know anyone who did everytng that he did. some of what he did, like the ira, i've asked fellow private equity guys -- none of us had even known this was a possible trick, if you will. so he's pushed the envelope all the way to the edge to his benefit. and i think americans would find that very distasteful. >> and that stayed -- the ira that's currently valued at $100 million. >> $100 million. also some money offshore he's also deferring taxes on until he brings it home. every year the government is giving him an interest-free loan on all these deferred taxes at the expense of the federal budget in effect. >> and to the extent that this does rise to a larger issue as the "washington post" writes, that the reason it's -- in his opinion -- it's worth talking about is that it's -- shows that people like mitt romney and you have access to advice, mechanisms, strategies, to build wealth that really ordinary americans don't have access to. and that when you couple that with his agenda which is to cut taxes further for those people, it -- it gets to the heart of this idea that there are two americas, one for the very, very, very rich and one for everyonele. >> i think that's precisely the point. i must say i'm ashamed of myself in a sense for not seeing this as clearly in the years when i was a private equity guy, frankly having access to some of these tax management, shall we say, mechanisms. but when you step back and look at the whole picture, what you see are two americas. one where mitt romney can do all these things not because he has good advice, but because the nature of his business allows him to have $100 million ira. just because you're rich, you don't necessarily have it. but the nature of his business allowed it. real estate guys, oil and gas guys, certain industries lend themselves to tax management, as i said before. that's very effective. others don't. but the result is two americas. you can find plenty of rich guys out there paying 35% of their income in taxes without even the -- even though they have great advice because they don't have the right income, they're not in the right business. but the point is there are two americas. and i think that is not where this country should be. >> steve rattner, pleasure to have you on. >> thanks for having me. up next, what is going to happen next in europe? don't forget, there's a big crisis there, as well. some historical perspective from the great historian, neil ferguson. 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>> it's hard to do. one reason it hasn't happened yet is because this is much harder than leaving an exchange rate mechanism, what the europeans used to have, or sold standard, what we had up until the 1930s. because it's not just about the bank notes and the coins, those would have to be changed. much more importantly it's about what's in the banks because most money is, in fact, in bank accounts rather than in people's pockets or under their beds. exactly. what you would be talking about would be an announcement presumably on a sunday night along the lines of news just in, those euros that you have in your bank from tomorrow will be dragma, a teething problem because the atms won't work for a few days while we get that into place. don't panic, there's going to be a bank holiday until, let's say, thursday. now just think what that would do. not only in greece where there would be pandemonium, there would be pandemonium throughout europe because if one country leaves -- and this is an argument which i've heard again and again traveling through europe over the past few months. if one country leaves, the question is, who's next? so for one country to leave wouldn't just be hugely disruptive to its banking system, it would be disruptive to the entire european banking system. >> so if it were to happen, presumably the argument would be again mechanically all those bank accounts where you have euros have been digitally converted to dragmas, but your bank note will have to be restamped or something like that. in the old -- when the currency collapsed, they had people come in with the old hapsburg money and would stamp on it, this is romanian money, whatever it was. >> that is exactly what happened at the end of the first world war when the monetary union fell apart. we've come a long way. much less money is in the form of bank notes. much more is in bank accounts. it's not just about converting the notes and coins. that's doable, though it's clunky and difficult. the big problem is what you do with outstanding debts. if you owe somebody money, does it suddenly go from being a euro debt into being a dragma debt and at what rate? everything hinges on it being a weak currency. the idea would be to help the greeks out of a hole with a devaluation. from the point of view of anybody who owes money in euros inside greece, this would be christmas early because the debt would be worth a whole lot less. from the other point of view, the creditors' point of view, it's disaster. it's not just disruptive in terms of payments, it's hugely sdrip disruptive in terms of creditors and debtors. we haven't got to the cross border debt. the money that the greeks owe to others, that would stay in euros or become dragmas? it's a can of worms crossed with pandora's box at this point. >> i've rarely heard you mix metaphors before. so it must be serious. >> it really does. >> now let's talk about the part that seems really scary which is the spillover. so the problem is that this happens in greece. all of a sudden people say, wait a minute, maybe not all euros are created equal, and i'm just going to be safe. i'm going to put my money in the one country that isn't going to default. and that's germany. is that what you -- is that your fear? >> we've already seen tendencies of this kind. i was in barcelona just a few weeks ago. everybody from the taxi driver who picked me up at the airport to my editor was asking me, should i move my money out of a spanish bank and into a german bank. that's an option. not easy to do. it involves a certain amount of hassle, but it's doable. that's the nature of a monetary union. the moment people fear that tomorrow the euros are going to be pasetas in the spanish case, they start to think, well, i would rather have something that will be a deutsche mark the day after tomorrow if this whole thing is going down. what we started to see last month was people moving money out of spanish banks and into german banks. it wasn't a fully fledged bank run. some people called it a bank jog because it didn't reach epidemic proportions and there weren't loans in the street. but the fact that that could happen is, i think, one reason why this hasn't yet taken place. it wasn't so much that the germans relented and said, oh, okay, we'll cut the greeks one more break. it was more that it was explained to the german government, look, if you kick the greeks out or get them to kick themselves out. there's going to be a contagion effect that could come to spain and ultimately affect france, too. that i think is the reason why this monetary union is still hanging together. because the cost of dismantling it is incrediblyhigh. >> president obama is watching all this, and clearly the single-most important factor in the last three months in terms of the weakening of the u.s. economy must be the slowdown in europe, the fears that come out of europe. are they going to abate, or in the next four to five months as we approach the u.s. election, are we going to see more of the same, indeed perhaps a little bit more crisis? >> well, luckily europeans take very long summer holidays. and not much is going to happen that will be newsworthy, i suspect, between now and labor day. on the other hand, the uncertainty will linger on during the dog days of summer. and let's not forget the fiscal cliff that the united states is heading toward regardless of the european crisis. the macro economic outlook is not great for president obama. it's very hard to believe that anything is going to happen in europe that's going to improve matters before november, and that's why of course he's beating up on mitt romney's career in private equity in the desperate hope of distracting american voters from the reality that the u.s. economy is slowing down and, indeed, the world economy is slowing down. >> niall ferguson, as always, a pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. >> and we will be back. announc] e-trade was founded on the simple belief that bringing you better technology helps make you a better investor. with our revolutionary e-trade 360 dashboard you see exactly where your money is and what it's doing live. our e-trade pro platform offers powerful functionality that's still so usable you'll actually use it. and our mobile apps are the ultimate in wherever whenever investing. no matter what kind of investor you are, you'll find the technology to help you become a better one at e-trade. by what's getting done. measure commitment the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp's made a five hundred million dollar commitment to support scientists studying the environment. and the gulf is open for business - the beaches are beautiful, the seafood is delicious. last year, many areas even reported record tourism seasons. the progress continues... but that doesn't mean our job is done. we're still committed to seeing this through. it's hard to see opportunity in today's challenging environment. unless you have the right perspective. bny mellon wealth management has the vision and experience to look beyond the obvious. we'll uncover opportunities, find hidden risk, and make success a reality. bny mellon wealth management why does my mouth feel dryer than i remember it to be? 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>> the best the unions were able to do was to offer what they thought was a major concession, allowing newly hired public safety workers to retire with 90% of their salary at the age of 55 instead of 50 which had been the earlier deal. that won't work in a chapter 9 bankruptcy. an independent judge brings all parties to a table where an agreement has to be reached. no matter how painful. and we need some of those painful decisions. not just at the federal level but at local and state levels, as well. at its heart, the bankruptcies you keep hearing about these days are not about taxes being too low or spending on city services being too high. they're about pensions. california's pension-related costs rose 20-fold in the decade since 1999. this frightening trend is true almost everywhere in america. and it is simply not sustainable. a recent pew research survey found that the gap between state assets and their obligations for public sector retirement benefits is $1.38 trillion. it rose by 9% in 2010 alone. and it will likely keep rising until these obligations are renegotiated. the truth is, america is sacrificing its future to pay for its past. to keep up with burgeoning pensions, states and cities are slashing services. it's also feeding into the unemployment problem. state and local governments have 445,000 fewer workers today than in 2011. even if you exclude teachers from that number, we have 231,000 fewer workers. for decades now, local governments have doled out patronage by increasing pension benefits. these costs impact the budget only years later when the officials who had given them have safely retired themselves. we're now having to reckon with those choices. i'm not saying bankruptcies are a good thing, but they are a mechanism that allows us to admit an emergency and renegotiate the deals that are, well, bankrupting the country. up next, the man who was ousted this year from the presidency of asia's smallest country. a fascinating story. the us bank wealth management advisor can help you. every step of the way. from big steps, to little steps. since 1863 we've helped guide our clients, so they can take the steps to help grow, preserve, and pass along their wealth. so their footsteps can help the next generation find their own path. all of us serving you. us bank last season was the gulf's best tourism season in years. in florida we had more suntans... in alabama we had more beautiful blooms... in mississippi we had more good times... in louisiana we had more fun on the water. last season we broke all kinds of records on the gulf. this year we are out to do even better... and now is a great time to start. our beatches are even more relaxing... the fishing's great. so pick your favorite spot on the gulf... and come on down. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. washington. "fareed zakaria gps" will be back in 90 seconds. first, an update on the investigation into the colorado shootings. we want to go to cnn's jim spellman, outside the apartment building of suspect james holmes. jim, first, have they cleared all of the explosives from that apartment? >> reporter: yeah. after nearly two days, they have, candy. take a look at this. you see a broken window on the third floor. this is not the unit where james holmes lived. he lived back on the third floor farther. they did this to several of the windows in this building as they tried to figure out a way to get in. there was a trip wire on the door to the apartment described by police as designed to kill the first person who went through. and holmes had set up, police say, a timer to play loud techno music, perhaps hoping that somebody would make a noise complaint, police would come, open the door, and be hurt. there was not only ieds inside the apartment but incendiary devices that would have caused fire. now that they've removed that stuff, they can continue processing this for evidence as they build their criminal case against jail holmmes holmes. candy? >> we know that president obama is going to visit there this afternoon. what can you tell us about that trip? >> reporter: yeah, he'll land later this afternoon, candy. plans on meeting with families of victims and some of the wounded. he'll also meet with local politicians, leaders here. he's not going to stay, however, for a vigil that's later in the evening. that's going to be a great chance for the community to all come together. the president's not going to attend that. >> jim spellman, thank you very much for that. "reliable sources" is at the top of the hour. now back to "fareed zakaria gps." cairo's tahrir square was the iconic epicenter of the arab spring. for weeks, demonstrator in asia have been gathering in what is known as republican square in the maldives. that tiny island nation is also perhaps the most vulnerable country in the world to climate change since it sits just a few feet above sea level. the country has been in turmoil since february when its president resigned, but that man, muhammad nasheed, says he did not resign, he was ousted. i spoke with him when he was in new york recently. you came to worldwide attention at the copenhagen conference because you really tried to get them to do something about climate change. some people argue that your speech in copenhagen was crucial to actually getting some kind of agreement. why did you feel so strongly on the issue? >> climate change is a real issue that is happening. it's not something in the future. we are just 1.5 meters poof sea level. even a slight change in sea levels have a huge impact on the maldives. the predicted rises in sea level is going to be disastrous for us, and we just won't be there. the maldives has been in the middle of the indian ocean for the last 5,000 years. we have history that goes back 2,000 years, and the -- as a country, as a civilization for a very, very long time. and we just can't disappear. we must be around and -- we have to do whatever it takes to see that there are solutions to the issue of climate change. >> one of the strategies people urge sometimes is to say, look, you're trying to get a -- essentially unworkable strategy. you're asking all the countries in the world, china and india, to agree to reducing the carbon emissions which essentially often means limiting growth. they're not going to do it. there's too much poverty in those countries. they want to grow. so it's a worthy cause. but it's just not going to happen. what do you say? >> we are also asking for -- they're not simply asking countries to limit and cut down on development. the 350 million indians who need electricity, we're not asking, for instance, developing country not to provide them with electricity. we're asking them to invest in renewable sources, and that is available. and the maldives for what it is has come up with an investment plan -- rather, a carbon-neutral plan. we think that this is financially viable, and this is technologically feasible. we are asking people to go for green investments and more green jobs. we feel that this possible technology is obsolete, it's been around for too long. if you want to be the leaders of tomorrow, it you have to embrace the future. >> so tell me about what's going on in your country outside of global warming. you were ousted in what was effectively a coup, correct? >> yes. we had our first multiparty elections in 2008. when i was able to -- we were fortunate to have been elected at that time. we beat the dictatorship that has been running in the country for 30 years, president gaune was president for 30 years. we had our first multiparty elections. then 3 1/2 years into the democric coup, the president with the help of the military and the police and the islamiceralcals have been able to come back -- islamic radicals have been able to come back. they staged a coup and are going back to business as usual. he's back in the maldives, children in the cabinet. his associates, cronies and friends are -- have been in power. also, when we fought the elections, we first -- the islamic radicals, they were -- they contested the elections. and we were able to beat them in the presidential elections. now after the coup, they have three positions in the cabinet. they are calling the shots in the military, and they are busy giving all the sermons to the military. >> what are the prospects of something changing and the democracy being restored in the maldives? >> we are working very hard. the people of the maldives are out on the streets demonstrating every day. and this has been going on for the last four months now. we hope that bigger democracies both in india and the united states would come around to the idea that democracy must be restored in the maldives. the people of the maldives must be governed by elected rumors, not a government formed through brute force and the dictatorship. >> that was muhammad nasheed from the maldives. up next, a neat trick we tried on set. it taught me some important secrets about the human brain. don't miss this. ♪ atmix of energies.ve the world needs a broader that's why we're supplying natural gas to generate cleaner electricity... that has around 50% fewer co2 emissions than coal. and it's also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol - a biofuel made from renewable sugarcane. >>a minute, mom! let's broaden th world's energy mix. let's go. who are these guys? oh, that's just my buds. bacon, donuts. -my taste buds. -[ taste buds ] waffles. how about we try this new kind of fiber one cereal? 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[ all screaming ] watch the elbows ladies. the human brain has deciphered some of the mysteries of the universe. one of the few remaining mysteries of science is the brain itself. how does it work? vs rameshedren has been named among "time" magazine's most influential people in the world. he is a psychology and neurosciences professor at the university of california at san diego and is the author most recently of "the telltale brain: a neuroscientist's quest for what makes us human." welcome. >> thank you very much, fareed. >> what is the brain? >> well, it's astonishing if you think about it. it's obviously an organ like any other organ. but here's this three-pound mass of flesh consistency of tofu, inside the walls of your cranium that you can hold in the palm of your hand. a lump of jelly. yet it can contemplate the vastness of space, contemplate the meaning of infinity, think about love, charity, pity, ask disquieting questions about god and the meaning of existence, interpret the higgs bowson, from recently, and interpreted who am i, who's doing the thinking, who's doing the asking of these questions. >> one of the things you say in your book is that the way we learn about the brain, how it functions, is -- when it doesn't function, by studying damaged brain brains. the brain seems so delicate, is it possible to go in and fix it? >> not yet, but that's the idea. first you need to understand the functions and structure of an organ before you can attempt to fix dysfunction. for example, one of the things we've been looking at is phantom limb and phantom pain. if an arm is amputated, what you find is the person continues to vividly feel the presence of that phantom arm, phantom limb. known for dozens of years. we've seen that a brain changes in these patients after losing the arm. for example, when the arm is lost, when you touch the patient's face, he feels the sensation not only on his face but also in the missing phantom arm. why would a patient with a phantom arm feel a phantom in the face? medical mystery of sorts. the answer lies in brain anatomy. >> and we did an experiment to show how these things can actually help heal some of the pain. so professor, tel me what exactly i'm supposed to do here. >> well, this is a demonstration of the mirror box technique, mirror visual technique for treating phantom pain, stroke, chronic pain and intact limb. usually it comes in a big cardboard box, wooden box. i'm going to demonstrate using it propped on the table. let's pretend for the sake of argument you're the patient. your left arm is a phantom. i want you to put -- >> amputated left arm, it doesn't exist. but i still feel as though i have a left arm. >> that's correct. and it's painful and cramped and in an awkward position. i want you to put your -- if i may, your right hand here. >> yeah. >> the left -- left arm, the phantom arm on the left side of the mirror hidden from view. a phantom, you wouldn't see it anyway. when you look inside -- look inside the mirror, you get the impression that the phantom has been resurrected by the mirror. >> okay. >> wiggle your fingers -- >> yeah. >> do anything different with the two fingers, two hands, you get this odd feeling of -- >> yes, if i push my left arm down and right arm up, it feels disorienting. >> that's correct, yeah. this is because of the visual sense dominating or sensation of touch. and if you do this -- if you have a phantom limb on the left side, you have a real limb so it's disorienting. if you have a phantom lymph, it's clenched like that, say, and you clench your right hand, it looks like you're mimicking the posture and the felt position and posture of the phantom limb, right? >> yeah. >> looking as if you visually resurrected it. now from the clenched position, you're not able to unclench the phantom, and the nail's digging in the palm. open your right hand fingers -- pretend your opening your phantom fingers. you're seeing the phantom opening its fingers. and instantly the phantom spasm is released and the phantom opens itself and the pain goes away. we've done clinical trials and found that it works. and helped many patients. >> you're almost psychologically -- through a psychological process make the physical pain disappear. >> that's correct. but it's not psychological in the sense that you're going to -- it's not psychological, you need the visual feedback kicking in. a real perceptual process, mechanism happening in the brain. you can't use image related -- >> it's fascinating. at the least this is going to be a great party trick. >> people love it at parties actually. >> this technique is used often in -- in healing patnt with amputations and things like that? >> what happens is you -- you are missing an arm, the missing arm, the phantom, is clenched in an awkward position, often painful. the phantom limb is paralyzed. sounds like an oxymoron, but it's paralyzed and clenched and painful. you put a mirror, look as you did, look at the normal hand,ies are reblthed the phantomficialy. you animate the phantom, it looks like it's moving and feels like it's moving, too, for the first time in years or decades. then this relieves the phantom cramp, phantom pain. the astonishing thing is we've been using results of real pain and real arm. not just phantoms. that's absolutely amazing. >> but does that mean that pain is essentially psycho estimatic? that -- that even what seems like searing physical pain is something in the mind that you can -- >> absolutely. >> you can trick the mind to stop -- stop feeling pain? >> absolutely. that's correct. there's an astonishing degree of back-and-forth interaction between the receptors and periphery, skin and bones and flesh. and your brain centers, processing pain signals. this is not recognized widely before. >> professor, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you very much. and we will be back. ♪ questions. like, if you could save hundreds on car insurance by making one simple call, why wouldn't you make that call? see, the only thing i can think of is that you can't get any... bars. ah, that's better. it's a beautiful view. i wonder if i can see mt. rushmore from here. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. i don't have to use gas. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. drive around town all the time doing errands and never ever have to fill up gas in the city. i very rarely put gas in my chevy volt. last time i was at a gas station was about...i would say... two months ago. the last time i went to the gas station must have been about three months ago. i go to the gas station such a small amount that i forget how to put gas in my car. ♪ then don't get nickle and dimed by high cost investments and annoying account fees. at e-trade, our free easy-to-use online tools and experienced retirement specialists can help you build a personalized plan. and with our no annual fee iras and a wide range of low cost investments, you can execute the plan you want at a low cost. so meet with us, or go to etrade.com for a great retirement plan with low cost investments. ♪ for a great retirement plan with low cost investments. brave knights! as you can clearly see from this attractive graph that our sales have increased by... sorry, my liege. honestly. our sales have increased by 20%. what is this mystical device i see before me? it's an ultrabook. he signed the purchase order. with an ultrabook, everything else seems old fashioned. introducing the ultra sleek, ultra responsive ultrabook. a whole new class of computers powered by intel. it'll cause cavities, bad breath. patients will try and deal with it by drinking water. water will work for a few seconds but if you're not drinking it, it's going to get dry again. i recommend biotene. all the biotene products like the oral rinse...the sprays have enzymes in them. the whole formulation just works very well. it leaves the mouth feeling fresh. if i'm happy with the results and my patients are happy with the results, i don't need to look any farther. gold will be in abundance in london in coming weeks, not just at the tower of london where the queen's jewels are kept but also at the olympic venues. that brings me to my question of the week -- how much has the price of gold risen since the 2008 olympics in beijing? a, 25%? b, 58%? c, 90%? d, 150%? stay tuned, and we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/fareed for more of the "gps challenge." also remember, if you miss a show or one of our specials, go to itunes.com/fareed, and you can buy it. this week's book of the week is "the sense of an ending" by julian barnes. it's a story of an elderly man reflecting on his life. it's a short but very deep novel. beautifully written, full of insights and wisdom. a short book that makes a big impact. it won the mann-booker prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the world. now for the "last look." take a look at this video. it reportedly shows a veritae stampede for chickens in iran. you see chicken prices have skyrocketed there in recent months. and because of scenes like this, the iranian people may have just had their last look at image of chickens. the nation's police chief recently asked broadcasters to stop showing image of chicken because such images might inspire the poor to take knives and fight the rich. now since we have a free press and no chicken price problems here, with no further adieu, my favorite images. how can we start anywhere but the "chicken dance"? ♪ >> then there is, of course, the san diego chicken. ♪ >> little jerry, kramer's chicken on "seinfeld" -- >> is that your chicken making all that noise? >> oh, jerry loves the morning. >> one of my kids' favorite movies, "chicken run" -- ♪ >> no chicken escapes from tweedy's farm! >> we've got to get out of here. >> you see, the sky won't fall if we show a little chicken. >> the sky is falling! the sky is falling! >> the correct answer to you on "gps challenge" question was c. since the beijing olympics, gold prices are up an astonishing 90%. you might think that
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